Rodeo Life

Category: Rodeo LIFE Cover Feature

  • Back When They Bucked with Phil “Hatch” Hatcher

    Back When They Bucked with Phil “Hatch” Hatcher

    story by Judy Goodspeed

    “Going down a cotton row with a hoe or pulling a sack gave me the desire to do better. My dad was disabled from a stroke, but back then there was no such thing as a monthly check. The only solution was all ten of us kids worked, and worked hard, but none as hard as our mother. She worked in the field, managed a large garden, canned, cooked, washed by hand, patched our clothes, and kept a clean house. Even though our clothes were patched they were clean and she would always say, ‘Now you kids act as good as you look.’
    “My parents Robert (Bob) Hatcher and Flora Tuel Hatcher were both sixteen when they married in 1920. They began married life on an eighty-acre farm sharecropping for Dad’s father. I was born in 1934, the seventh child at that time, three more came later.
    “There wasn’t much time for anything but work, but occasionally when we’d get a break we would ride the workhorses.” Phil loved horses and desperately wanted a saddle horse.
    “One of our neighbors had horses and did a little trading. I was about fifteen when I ambled over to his place to see what he had. I only had twenty-five dollars in my pocket but was willing to part with it for a horse. He had a three-year-old sorrel gelding he wanted sixty-five dollars for. We worked out a deal and I paid twenty-five down and pulled enough cotton to pay the rest. That little sorrel made a mighty fine horse.”
    The little town of Randlett, Oklahoma had a roping arena and Phil became a frequent visitor. He tried his hand at bronc riding and didn’t do very well, tried bull riding and held on for eight seconds.
    “I rode the bull but only because he just ran down the arena. Me and one other boy were the only qualifiers so I won second. I decided right then that I didn’t want to ride any more bulls.”
    In 1951 Phil and one of his older brothers joined the wheat harvest. They had worked through Oklahoma and made it into Kansas when it came a big rain. It would be days before the ground dried out enough to get back in the fields.
    “Our boss asked if we’d like to go to Cheyenne to the rodeo. That was a turning point in my life. I wanted to be in the arena and made up my mind to become a cowboy.”
    Phil began to try bull dogging along with calf roping. He really preferred bull dogging and sought out guys who knew something about the event. He was still working at every job he could find which was mainly farming. His dad had died and his mother and three youngest siblings were living in a house a friend had loaned them. Phil helped her as much as he could.
    It was about this time that he began dating Norma Bruce. Norma was also from Randlett and they had attended school together, but really didn’t know each other very well. Phil had dropped out of school after the first couple of weeks in the ninth grade. Norma was in the tenth grade when she dropped out of school. They were married in 1954. Phil bought a travel trailer and they started going down the rodeo trail. Years later after they were in one place long enough they returned to school and got their GED.
    “I was still farming but making a few rodeos. Problem was I was riding a green horse, but he wasn’t any more green than me. Finally, Aubrey Rankin started schooling me and that helped a bunch. Aubrey bought a good doggin’ horse from Fuzzy Garner. I rode him some but still wasn’t doing much good. It was hard making a living and having money for entry fees. By this time I had taken the plunge and gotten my RCA card.”
    Buster Morgan approached Phil and asked him to ride in a quadrille he had organized for the Woodward Rodeo. Phil told him the only way he’d go to Woodward was if he could enter the bull dogging and he didn’t have money for the entry fee. Buster entered him and suggested that Phil ask Lynn Beutler for a job with his rodeo company. Phil was hired to work on the feed crew making ten dollars a day. It wasn’t long before he was also making five dollars a day on the stripping crew. That job involved removing riggin’ from broncs. Then he started grooming the saddle horses and made five more dollars a day.
    “This was the perfect place for me. I loved the work, could park my trailer on the rodeo grounds and be close to Norma. The only problem was the three-week layover between Tucson, Arizona Rodeo and the Phoenix, Arizona Rodeo. We moved to Burkburnett, Texas and I farmed for three weeks. Norma was pregnant so I decided to stay close to home until the baby was born.”
    After Wayne arrived Phil and Norma hit the rodeo trail again. Phil still worked for Beutler Brothers, but had moved up to supervisor over the feeding crew. Slim Whaley was another cowboy who worked for Beutler Brothers. One of his duties was to buy the saddle horses used in the show and work as a pickup man during the bareback and saddle bronc events. A pickup man also works the bull riding. His job primarily is to get bulls out of the arena as quickly as possible. There is always a chance for something to go wrong so a good horse is essential. Phil was honored when Lynn Beutler asked him if he would fill in for Slim while he recovered from an injury.
    “One thing that helped me decide to take the job was I knew Slim had good, dependable horses. The biggest danger for a pickup man was having to rope a mean bull and drag him out of the arena. For a short time, if the gate man isn’t quick enough, you are in a tight place with a big mad animal.”
    Everything was going well for Phil and Norma. He was winning or placing in most of the rodeos he entered, mostly in the steer wrestling but often in the calf roping also. He and Norma decided they would like to buy a place and maybe run some cattle, so they started putting money aside when they could.
    “We had saved a thousand dollars when I found a horse that I thought I had to have. Without telling Norma I paid six hundred dollars for the horse. Needless to say she was not happy. I think at that time in my life if I’d had to choose between rodeo and my family I’d have picked rodeo. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do that.”
    In 1961, Wayne started to school in Burkburnett, Texas. Phil moved the travel trailer to a friend’s yard and that’s where Norma and Wayne lived until summer. Once school was out the family hit the road together.
    Phil qualified for the National Finals in 1962. He was winning and doing well so he decided to quit working for Beutler Brothers and rodeo full time. He was broke by the end of the year, so he went back to Lynn and asked for his job back. Lynn made an exception in Phil’s case because he didn’t usually hire back workers who quit, but he hired Phil.
    “Lynn saved my bacon.”
    Harry Vold approached Phil and asked him to work for him. Phil explained that he would work for him when he wasn’t working rodeos for Lynn if it was okay with Lynn.
    “I needed as much work as possible and I really liked Harry. I stayed busy making twenty-three or more rodeos a year. To this day I think of Harry Vold as Mr. Rodeo. He started at the bottom and worked his way up and is a super nice guy.”
    Norma and Phil finally started looking for a place to buy. While visiting Jim and Deloris Smith they found forty acres near Okemah, Oklahoma. We looked the place over and decided that it would serve our purpose. So Phil borrowed five thousand dollars and bought a house and forty acres.
    “Being in debt bothered me, but the old man I bought the place from tried to reassure me. ‘He said you’re young and healthy. You’ll have that note paid off in no time.’”


    Phil got Norma and Wayne settled and headed to Tucson. After the rodeo, he returned home to wait the three weeks until Phoenix. He loaded up his horse, hooked up his travel trailer and got about to Chandler, Oklahoma when an eighteen-wheeler pulled out in front of him. Phil couldn’t avoid hitting him. His pickup was totaled, his horse killed, and the travel trailer destroyed. Now, he was really in debt, but he picked up and went on.
    As it turned out he won the bull dogging at Guymon, Oklahoma, the all around at El Paso, Texas and split the average at Denver with Bill Linderman.
    “Now that was one of the highlights of my rodeo life. Bill was my idol and one of the nicest guys I knew. I went home with enough money to pay off my debt. That’s another thing I loved about rodeo, it afforded an old poor boy the opportunity to get ahead.”
    In 1972 at Nampa, Idaho, Phil was running some fresh steers to see if they were going to do for the rodeo. The horse he was using was young but had never offered to buck.
    “It was a crazy deal. I started to get down on my steer but changed my mind before sliding out of the saddle. When I collected myself to get back seated I must have hit the horse in the flank with a spur. He had never bucked but that didn’t mean he couldn’t. He started pitching and instead of bailing out I tried to ride him. I wound up with a broken, torn up knee.
    “I was an upset man. We had no income and I was going to be laid up for a spell. Just when I thought all was lost Norma announced she was going to work at the Wrangler Blue Bell factory in Okemah. Later she began working in the treasurer’s office at the Okemah County Courthouse. We survived.”
    Phil was disabled for sixteen months and the doctor said he would probably never jump another steer. Twenty-three months after his accident he won second at Hinton, Oklahoma. He continued to rodeo but stayed close to home until time for Cheyenne rolled around. He had to go, but this time he flew instead of driving.
    “It’s every dogger’s dream to win Cheyenne and I came close in 1974. My last steer dog fell on me and knocked me out of the running.”
    In his rodeo career Phil entered won the all around at Colorado Springs twice, the bull doggin’ at Albuquerque, New Mexico, Nampa, Idaho, Little Rock, Arkansas, Kansas City, Kansas, Plainview, Texas and the all around at Weiser, Idaho. He made the National Finals in 1962 in the steer wrestling, worked at the Finals as a pickup man in 66, 68, and 70, and was a timed event judge at the Finals in 73, and 75. He retired from rodeo in 1975.
    “With Norma’s help I had bought up some more land and leased some so we were running mama cows and doing okay. Wayne had graduated high school and been accepted at West Point. I did some cattle buying for people, hauled cattle, took care of cattle for area ranchers, shod horses and broke colts. In 1986 I decided to sell my mama cows and buy yearlings, that is still what I’m doing now.”
    Wayne didn’t go back to West Point after his first year even though he enjoyed attending there. He decided to marry his long-time sweetheart and attend Oklahoma State University for a degree in Horticulture. He and his wife have three children.
    “Norma passed away in 2008. I miss her everyday. She put up with a lot, but we were both raised in good Christian homes so divorce wasn’t even considered. She was a good woman and I give her credit for doing most of Wayne’s raising.
    “I didn’t leave as big a footprint as some of my contemporaries, but no one worked any harder or loved rodeo any more than I did. I never turned my stock out even if the weather was awful, or I was out of the money. There was no quit in me.”

  • Back When They Bucked with Dick Hermann

    Back When They Bucked with Dick Hermann

    Dick Hermann served his country well. The former saddle bronc rider and pickup man was in the U.S. Navy for 25 years, five years in active duty, mostly in Vietnam, and twenty years in the Reserve. After he was Seaman Hermann, he became a cowboy.
    Dick’s story starts as a farm kid, one of seven children born to Roy and Alta Hermann, in 1948 near Lesterville, S.D., southwest of Sioux Falls. For his twelfth Christmas, his dad gave him a set of harnesses, and Dick hitched up Corky and Princess, two of the saddle horses around the place. “They just looked at each other,” Dick laughed. His grandpa tied them together so they couldn’t split apart, and Dick trained them as a team. He remembers pulling his sisters on a toboggan on the lake near the house, behind the team. “I’d cut the corners a little sharp, and roll the girls out” of the toboggan. “They’d laugh till somebody got hurt and then it wasn’t fun anymore.”
    There were plenty of chores to do on a dairy farm, and Dick couldn’t participate in after-school sports. When he was a junior, he quit school. “I wasn’t much of a school guy,” he remembered. He did odd jobs, and youthful energy started getting him into trouble. A friend suggested they join the military. “We were going to get into trouble if we didn’t.”
    He joined the Navy in 1966, because the Marine and Army recruiter weren’t around. “The only guy there was the Navy recruiter,” Dick said. “I said, if I don’t have to milk cows, I’ll join the Navy.” Uncle Sam sent him to Vietnam for three years, and he returned to the States in 1970.
    After getting home, he went with a friend to a rodeo, where he got on a bareback horse and broke his arm. But the experience was worth it. It was a rush, and the rodeo bug bit him. He needed a place where he could work and get on as many bucking horses as possible. Someone recommended he talk to stock contractor Erv Korkow in Blunt, S.D., so he did. “I said I’d try it for a while, and I ended up staying for 30 years,” he joked.
    For the first couple years, Erv wouldn’t let him get on bucking horses. He worked, making $75 a week, plus board, which was good money, better than he had made in the military.
    Then he found out about the nightly rodeo held in Cody, Wyo., for six weeks during the summer. He quit work and went to Cody, where he met up with world champion saddle bronc rider Bill Smith and his nephews Jack Wipplinger and Tom Wipplinger from Red Lodge, Mont. Smith coached them in the finer points of riding saddle broncs, and Dick’s rodeo competition career began. He competed in Cody and area rodeos, becoming a member of the Rodeo Cowboys Association (the predecessor to the PRCA) in 1972 (his permit year) and often slipping off with his buddies to the Canada rodeos.
    But every fall, he’d be back to the Korkow Ranch. At that time, Erv didn’t have any fall rodeos, but he had a trucking company, so Dick hauled cattle all winter. And every spring, after helping with the rodeo school Erv put on at the ranch, he’d be off to rodeo again.
    Erv and his wife LaFola were like second parents to Dick. He “treated me good,” Dick said. “He treated me like one of his boys. He’d chew on you once in a while, but that happens to everybody. He was a good man.”
    And Erv always took Dick back on the labor crew each fall. “I’d go back to the ranch, and Jim (Erv’s son) would tell him, ‘Dick’s back in the bunkhouse’ and I’d pick up where I left off.”
    In the 1980’s, Dick started working as a pickup man. He was in Dallas, at a Steiner rodeo, on the labor list. Tommy and Bobby Steiner wanted to know if Dick would come to Austin, to work for them, and in Austin was where he first picked up.  The Steiners were bucking horses at the ranch when the pickup man didn’t show up. Would Dick pick up? He agreed to, even though he never had before.
    That fall, at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City, Erv talked Dick into returning to South Dakota the next year, to pick up for Korkow Rodeo Co.
    As time went on, he purchased a semi-tractor and used Erv’s trailer to haul a load of bucking horses and bulls to rodeos, plus ride broncs and pick up, all at the same event. In addition to working for Korkow Rodeo, he also picked up for Jim and Steve Sutton.
    Dick credits Jim Korkow with teaching him the finer points of picking up. “He was good,” Dick said of Jim. Picking up “is all about timing, being at the right place at the right time. By watching other people, I learned. And I had different people point out different things, which I appreciated.”
    In 1986, he broke his arm in June, and his leg a month later. Lying around, the realization hit him: what would he do for finances if he was seriously hurt? “I realized I had to do something different.” He decided to go into the Naval Reserve, serving one weekend a month and two weeks a year.
    Dick served until 2006. In 2002, he decided to quit as a pickup man. He knew he was to be deployed in 2003, to Iraq. He and forty others were sent to train in Italy for two weeks with the Marine Corps. After the training, the group was sent home, which disappointed Dick. “Gol dang, I wanted to go.”
    Since his retirement in 2006, he enjoys his home in St. Onge, S.D. in the summers and in Phoenix in the winters. He has a team of Belgians that he uses to pull wagons in the parades for the rodeos in Deadwood and Belle Fourche, S.D.


    In Vietnam, Dick was one of a four-man crew on the PBR river gun boats: patrol river boats. They were little gun boats, as Dick explains, 28 feet long, and ten feet wide, with a forward gunner, driver, an M60 gunner, and a 50 caliber gunner. The job of the PBR in Vietnam was to search and destroy. Dick was on many PBR patrols with the Navy SEALS, the Green Beret, and the Army, and two of those missions nearly killed him.
    Twice his life was in peril on the patrol river boats. On June 21, 1968, the boat he was in was completely destroyed, killing two of the men. He and one of his original crew, plus two new members, were assigned a new PBR, and two days later, the new boat was damaged to where Dick got blown over the side of the boat. It was 3 am, so dark a person couldn’t see the jungle tree line. When he came to the water’s surface, another boat ran over him, causing serious injury. The secret to surviving was staying in the middle of the river; the enemy was on the beach. Dick treaded water for so long his legs cramped up. He was the only survivor of the four in that incident. He nearly lost his life, but he can joke about it now. “I drank half of that dirty old river. It took me all these years of drinking beer to get rid of it,” he laughed. Out of the four men who were part of Dick’s original boat crew, he was the only survivor.
    For his bravery, he received the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and the Navy Commendation Medal, with Combat V and the Gold Star. At one time, his days in Vietnam troubled him at night. But the dreams have subsided. “The nightmares ain’t nearly as often as they used to be.”
    Rodeo has provided him with a lifetime of recollections. “I got a saddle bag full of memories and friends that all of the money in the world can’t buy,” he said. He loved riding saddle broncs, and watching bucking horses. “When I got tapped out on one, it was like poetry in slow motion. You’re so engrained in what you’re doing, you don’t even hear the whistle. There’s nothing better than watching a good horse that bucks.”

  • ProFile: Tatum Schafer

    ProFile: Tatum Schafer

    by Holly Wilson

    After a freak accident, high school junior Tatum Schafer had to overcome many obstacles to get back in the saddle.
    Tatum Schafer, a resident of San Tan Valley and member of the Arizona High School Rodeo Association, has been an avid horseback rider her entire life. An all-around cowgirl, Tatum competes in barrel racing, pole-bending, breakaway roping, goat-tying and cutting.
    Her father has team roped for the past 30 years, and rodeo is all she’s ever known.
    However, after a freak accident on October 27, 2015, Tatum would have to call upon her passion to survive.
    “When we got to the hospital, they told us it wasn’t good. It wasn’t what we expected at all,” Kerri said, “The paramedics had told my husband at that time that it was a pretty serious head wound, one of the most serious they’d ever seen.”
    This was caused by blunt force trauma when Tatum was ejected from the running board of her friend’s truck. The fall fractured the hardest part of her skull, and left with her with a hematoma, a skull fracture on her forehead and a skull fracture on her left temporal.
    “She had ruptured her ear canal, and her head and hair were completely covered in blood. That’s probably the only thing that saved her life,” Kerri said, “With a laceration in her ear canal, it released the pressure on her brain and allowed it to relieve itself.”
    Tatum was lucky to have survived the first 48 hours. And even then, it was a miracle that she survived the first 72.
    As a result of the accident, Tatum lost her hearing in her right ear, lost her taste and sense of smell, dislocated her ear, suffers from an unbalanced equilibrium, lives with chronic headaches and has trouble with short-term memory loss.
    “She was told that she’d never be able to ride again,” Kerri said, “She had a neurosurgeon, and we worked with that team.”
    They agreed to let Tatum ride again, but only if she wore a helmet. She underwent a conditioning program, just like any other athlete, and in March of this year she began competing again.
    “It’s the only passion she’s ever had. Everything else was taken away from her,” Kerri said.
    Tatum has overcome many obstacles in the last year, but doesn’t let them get the best of her.
    “At times it has been frustrating, but my friends and family that I have standing by my side have been giving me confidence and pushing me to keep trying when I felt like quitting,” Tatum said, “There were many challenges [when I started riding again], but the hardest obstacle was learning to compensate for my loss of balance. It involves many long practices and determination to strive to continuously do better.”
    Although she has made progress, Tatum still deals with anxiety and chronic headaches as a result of the brain damage. On top of that, Kerri explained that Tatum blacks out during times of high brain activity.  “At State Finals in June, because of the anxiety and brain stimulation, she kept passing out and blacking out,” Kerri said, “She does not remember one run at State Finals. The last thing she remembers in breakaway is backing into the box. She doesn’t remember any of it.”
    Yet, through every hard time, Tatum has had a large support system behind her every step of the way.
    “My mom has been the most supportive through my recovery and I could not thank her enough,” Tatum said, “She has sat in every waiting room, every doctor’s appointment, been there for me through all the good and bad news, and most of all supported me and helped me accomplish all my goals.”
    “I could also not be more thankful for the support that the rest of my family has given, especially my sister, Hailey, for pushing me to get back to where I was and helping me in every way possible,” Tatum said, “The love and support from all the families in the Arizona High School Rodeo Association has been incredible and I couldn’t have done it without all these people standing behind me and pushing me to be the best I can be.”
    The support that Tatum receives has enabled her to dream big.
    “My rodeo goals are to make it to High School Nationals [for] a 6th time in multiple events and be the best I can be in and out of the arena,” Tatum said, “My main goal is to get back to where I was before my accident and continuously be more successful.”
    Kerri describes her daughter as passionate and determined to make her life better, despite her circumstances.
    “She’s a fighter. She’s passionate about making her life better, making a difference and making it better for her. She wants to show anybody that, if you have a life-threatening injury, you can turn it around,” Kerri said, “She shouldn’t have made it through what she did, but she has a passion and determination for life. I’m not sure if I would use passionate or a living miracle, because that’s what she is.”

  • On the Trail with Dave Dahl

    On the Trail with Dave Dahl

    Dave Dahl can spot one of his saddles from a mile away. When the bronc saddle maker from Ft. Pierre, S.D. watches pro rodeo, he can see the saddles he’s made aboard the bucking horses in the saddle bronc riding.

    And the list of cowboys using his saddles sounds like a “who’s who” of great saddle bronc riders: 2016 world champion Zeke Thurston, world champions Taos Muncy (2007 and 2011), Jeff Willert (2005), Glen O’Neill (2002), and Cody DeMoss, Jake Watson, CoBurn Bradshaw, Chuck Schmidt, Clay Elliott, Wade Sundell, Cort Scheer, Kyle Whitaker, Jeremy Meeks, Shade Etbauer, and more.

    The 72 year old cowboy grew up on a farm near Keene, North Dakota, next to an Indian reservation, “where there were cowboys,” he remembers. He and his friends used to go to the reservation, round up horses, and ride them. “We didn’t know what the horses were like,” he said. “We just ran in a bunch of them. There were a few chutes, and we practiced. We had some wild times,” he chuckled.  After graduating from high school in 1962, he went to the oil fields. But he knew he didn’t want to spend his life there, so he went to college in Madison, S.D.

    Eastern South Dakota wasn’t for him, either. “It was too much ‘east river’ for me, and I liked the Black Hills.” He made a phone call to Black Hills State University in Spearfish, S.D., and a few months later, he was there, on the rodeo team riding saddle broncs. As a member of the men’s team, he won the 1967 National Inter-Collegiate Rodeo Association year-end saddle bronc riding title, qualifying for the College National Finals Rodeo four times and competing there twice.

    After graduating with a teaching degree, he taught a year at Pine Ridge, S.D., a year at a country school near Fruitdale, S.D., and a year in Eagle Butte.

    He was doing construction work in Ft. Pierre, when he and a rodeo buddy, Dick Jones, ran across each other. Jones was making saddles, and Dave wanted to make his brother one. Dick helped him, and that was the beginning of Dave’s saddle career. Dick had made some saddles, and he gave instruction to Dave. “He knew a little bit, and I didn’t know much,” Dave recalled. “He showed me, and one thing led to another.” The two began a partnership in a saddle shop in Ft. Pierre.

    Dave, being a saddle bronc rider (he won the 1968 SDRA title and had a Rodeo Cowboys Association card), made bronc saddles. His saddles are different from other brands, and the cowboys who ride them, love them.

    Dahl’s bronc saddles differ from other makers in several ways, including the swells and the cantle. The swells are set higher so that a cowboy’s feet can set high in the neck of the horse, but not too high. The seat is a bit deeper, and the cantle is higher. Where a cowboy’s hips are is crucial. Chuck Schmidt, a saddle bronc rider from Keldron, S.D. and a three-time Wrangler NFR qualifer, has ridden a Dahl saddle since he started pro rodeo. “As in any sport, your hips are your power, and bronc riding is the same,” he said.
    “You almost have to sit back on your butt a little, not just sitting there straight up, like you’re going to rope. You want to set back, (to reduce) the force the horse will use to throw you forward. You counteract it it by sitting back.”

    The gullet on the saddle is also set narrower, so the saddle can sit higher up on the withers. “Beings it’s not a roping saddle, you can set your swells higher by bringing the bars in, thus allowing the cowboy to spur better,” Schmidt said.  “If the swells are set too low and too wide, it’s harder to reach your feet up into the neck. When you narrow the swells and set them up higher, your legs are closer to the horse’s neck, creating better spur contact when you ride.”

     

    Dahl’s saddles make riding broncs easier, Schmidt said. “Dave designed a saddle to take away half of your work as a bronc rider, the way it sets a horse and the way it sets the cowboy. It sets it up a little more natural, the way everything moves. There are minimal things to get in your way.”

    For some cowboys, switching to a Dahl saddle made them a better rider. It happened for Zeke Thurston, who won last year’s world title. The Big Valley, Alberta cowboy wasn’t riding well last spring. He decided to give Dahl a phone call. Dahl had a new saddle to him within five days, and Thurston took it to the Guymon, Okla. rodeo. “It took me a few rodeos to get it dialed in,” he said. “Once I broke it in, my spring skyrocketed. There were probably four weekends in a row where I won $12,000 or more.” He credits the saddle with giving him better spur outs and better upper body control.

    Jake Watson, Hudson’s Hope, BC., finished the 2016 season in fifth place in the world, and also uses a Dahl saddle. “The way the swells and cantle are shaped, the structure of them, they have a lot of forgiveness in them,” he said. “If you lift on your reins, you can turn loose and the saddle will do its job and keep ahold of you.” The different shaping of the swells and cantle make a difference. “Say you’re getting bucked off, and you’re still trying to spur, more often than not, you’ll end up back in the saddle and regain your position in the seat, which is definitely what you want.”

    Watson has used a Dahl saddle since June of last year, and it has made a difference for him. “It changed my career, honestly,’ from the very first horse I got on,” he said. “I was having hell. I had won $2,000 that season (up till June), and from the end of June till September I ended up winning $20,000. Itw as a big turning point in my bronc riding.”

    Dahl works out of his shop, the Diamond D Western Wear and Saddle Shop, on the main street of Ft. Pierre. He sells clothing, boots, hats, tack, and ropes, and does his leather work in the back of the shop.

    And when most people are retired and drinking coffee all day, Dahl is working. He’s turning out about a saddle a week, working on number 1657 in mid-January. He puts in long days, clocking in about 8:30 am and working till 6:30 or 7 pm, six days a week, “depending on how bad I want to finish something.” The good work ethic comes from the motivation to succeed. “I guess I made up my mind that I wanted to be the best at what I’m doing. When you see the good results of the cowboys, it’s a big incentive.” And making saddles supplements the store’s income. “I’m fortunate that I can make a good living in my workshop when things are quiet in the store. That makes it nice.”

    As cowboys call him to order saddles, he chats with them, finding out how they’re doing, what rodeos they’ve been to, and how they’re riding. He checks the internet nearly every day, to see the standings, and watches rodeos on the Wrangler Netowrk. He can pick his saddles out every time. “Everybody’s saddle looks a little bit different,” he said. “I have distinct little straps, little buckles. Most everybody has a buckle through the skirt (of the saddle), but my buckle is on the little piece that goes around the front of the swells.”

    Dahl ships saddles to Australia and now the second generation of cowboys are using them. And the “old-timers” – retired bronc riders –refer young guys to him. National Finals average winner Rod Warren “sends boys to me,” Dahl said.
    Six cowboys at the 2016 Wrangler NFR rode on Dahl saddles: Thurston, Schmidt, CoBurn Bradshaw, Cody DeMoss and Clay Elliott. And the list extends beyond the NFR. Wade Sundell rode one to win the $1 million at the American Rodeo last year. Cort Scheer won the Elite Rodeo Association title, Thurston won $100,000 at the 2016 Calgary Stampede; Jeremy Meeks won last year’s Indian National Finals Rodeo on one; Clay Elliott was on a Dahl saddle for his Canadian National Finals win, and eight-time Linderman winner Kyle Whitaker uses one.

    Retirement is not on Dahl’s radar. “I have  a lot of work to do,” he said. The man who supplies the d-rings for Dahl’s saddles is 95 years old, and still going. “I”ll have to work a while to catch up to him.”
    And saddle bronc riders hope he keeps working.

  • On the Trail with Brenten Hall and Jake Clay

    On the Trail with Brenten Hall and Jake Clay

    Brenten Hall and Jake Clay may as well be brothers. They both come from rodeo families and they’ve grown up together as best friends. Both handy with a rope, it only made sense that the two 17-year-old cowboys should team up together in their professional rodeo careers. And if this year in the International Professional Rodeo Association is any indication, it was a smart move.
    Both Brenten and Jake will be heading to the International Finals Rodeo this January in Oklahoma City to compete as two of the youngest in the field of competitors from the U.S., Canada and Australia.

    Growing up in Oklahoma, Brenten and Jake met around the age of 7 and were quickly rodeoing together.  “I don’t ever remember not roping or being around it. When I was little I went to rodeos with my mom and dad. It is just something that I do, I don’t see myself doing something different,” Jake describes of rodeo. His entrance into the IPRA was natural too. Both his father Dwayne and mother Julana are multi-time IFR qualifiers, his dad as a header in the team roping and his mom as a barrel racer. She won Rookie of the Year back in 1986 and continued on from there. Brenten’s mom LeAnna ran barrels and team roped, like Jake’s parents, his father Bob was also a multi-time IFR qualifier and team roping director for IPRA. Bob passed his love of roping on and coached Brenten to where he is today. Sadly, Bob passed away in 2015 from pancreatic cancer. Now they rope in his honor.

    Brenten and Jake grew up doing junior rodeos locally and have both gone into high school rodeo, but have quickly made a name for themselves as professional competitors too. This is Jake’s second year in the IPRA and Brenten’s rookie year. They have focused on preparation and practicing while they have done home school through high school.

    “We’re both homeschooled so it made it a lot easier. We couldn’t have done this if we couldn’t home school. We’d have had too many absent days, but you can kind of get ahead and prepare for what’s happening and take off for the weekend and not have to worry about it,” Brenten describes. He adds that his season had a slow start. “It’s been real fun. There were some very hard times. I went through some stuff I couldn’t figure anything out, I was having a hard time, I was missing, but the worst part about it is I felt like was letting my partners down, because I don’t do very good with that stuff,” he admits.

    Then things turned around for the team. “I wasn’t doing very good then come about Pawnee rodeo it just kind of worked. I won 1st and third there and that shot me in 17th or 18th in the world, and then I got to where I thought, ‘you know, I’ve got to go, I’ve got to try to make it [to IFR] since I went this far, closer than I was, not there, but closer than I was,” Brenten says.
    He and Jake make a good team for organizing a pro-rodeo career. “Pro-rodeoing has been fun, a lot of ups and downs. Entering, I still have zero clues whatsoever, I think I entered one rodeo,” Brenten says and adds of Jake, “he’s done every entering job, I just kind of tell him where I think we should go and then he does it whichever way it’s supposed to be done,” he laughs.

     

    Jake chimes in humorously that he also does all of the driving, to which Brenten replies, he looks after the animals. In reality, they get along well. “Neither one of us demands anything very often. Neither one of us are really that organized whatsoever. It takes us a good two hours to figure out how we want to go [to rodeos] just two a weekend but [our] moms take care of us,” Brenten laughs. Jokes aside, both acknowledge the great support they get from their families and sponsors. Brenten would like to thank his sponsors, Classic Ropes and Horselic, and Jake would like to thank Mid-States Industrial Sales and Tulsa Stockyards.

    The fact that Brenten and Jake are both laidback, works great for their team dynamic. They can hardly recall ever fighting, maybe twice, they agree. And the sport of team roping is unique they realize, because, as Jake explains, “It makes you want to try harder because you know your partner is trying just as hard, and if you mess up you let not only yourself, but him down too.”

    The boys split their days between school work and practicing. Jake also trains horses with his dad, and Brenten’s family has cattle and owns the local feed store in their town of Jay, in northeastern Oklahoma. Jake lives closer to the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma in the town of Sapulpa. It’s about an hour and 45 minutes-drive between their towns, but they practice together when they can, when they’re not on the road competing, which isn’t a lot now days. They’re usually gone every weekend to a rodeo.

    Both Jake and Brenten credit their horses for helping them get where they are. Jake mostly rides a 10-year-old sorrel gelding he’s competed on for the past four years, and is special because his dad trained the horse. And Brenten’s main horse is a paint he actually bought off of Jake a couple of years ago.

    Another component to success for the boys is a positive mindset. “[You’ve] just got to be humble in everything, because you could win one day and then not win for three weeks or however long,” Jake says and cites his favorite quote, ‘if you want to be the best, you’ve got to do things other people aren’t willing to do.”  As for Brenten, he thinks of the saying, ‘if you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, you’ll be successful.’ “I think that’s something you should live by if you try to win,” he says and adds another motto, “for a successful Plan A is not have a Plan B’ so keep after that plan A, practicing a lot, keep your head down, keep going for it.”

    Those mottos are clearly working for both Brenten and Jake. Beyond qualifying for the IFR, Brenten split the $100,000 win at the USTRC in October in Oklahoma City, “it was exciting, I wouldn’t know any other way to put it. I’m still kind of bumfuzzled over it,” Brenten says of that win. “I needed something, some kind of money so I could keep going and maybe get another horse, and it ended up coming through, and it helped,” he says but adds, “That money sure is good, but winning, the success, is what makes you happy.”
    And in December, the team saw even more success. Together, Jake and Brenten roped to a first place finish and a $150,000 paycheck at the World Series of Team Roping #15 Finale.

     

    Impressive accomplishments for two teenage high school kids.
    Both boys will be soon looking to colleges and college rodeo, as well as continued success, but for January, all the focus is on the International Finals Rodeo, Jan. 13-15, 2017 in Oklahoma City.

  • Back When They Bucked with Glen Bird

    Back When They Bucked with Glen Bird

    Because of his high school ag teacher, Glen Bird began riding bulls.
    The Weatherford, Texas man began his rodeo career at the behest of Mr. William T. Woody, ag teacher at Peaster (Texas) High School, a career that would end up with six International Pro Rodeo Association (IPRA) titles and the high respect of his fellow cowboys. As a child, Glen attended rodeos with his granddad, who loved them, especially the bull riding.
    He rode calves on the family ranch then continued the sport when he was in high school.
    Mr. Woody had competed as a bull rider at Sul Ross University in Alpine, Texas, and he saw potential in his student. Because Glen couldn’t drive, Mr. Woody would enter him in the FFA rodeos held across the state and drive him there. And because many of the FFA rodeos hired professional stock contractors, the bulls were extra rank and the high school kids turned them out, not wanting to get on them. “Mr. Woody knew all them stock contractors,” Glen remembers, “and he’d tell them stock contractors, ‘Look, these bulls are turned out and this boy I brought with me will get on them.’” So Glen ended up getting on five or six bulls at each rodeo. He may not have got them rode, but he was willing to get on them.
    He remembers one time at a rodeo in Gainesville, Texas, where Adrin Parker was the stock contractor. He had a bull, No. 36, that nobody wanted. Every performance, No. 36 was turned out and Glen got on him. “He slung me all over that arena. I was so beat up and bruised up by the time I got on the bull I had drawed, Mr. Woody kept ice on me all day.” Two years later, he got his revenge on No. 36; he rode him for a third place finish.
    In 1964, after high school graduation, he hit the rodeo road. He was already competing on the weekends, but now he hit the trail hard. He had gotten his IPRA card a few years prior, and, along with Hal Pilgrim, went to rodeos everywhere. “We’d try to go to a rodeo every day,” he said. It wasn’t hard. With bull buckouts at Mansfield, Texas two nights a week and a rodeo on Saturday nights, and rodeos in Simonton every weekend, there was always somewhere to ride.
    And Glen and his buddies didn’t limit themselves to Texas. It was common for them to be up at a rodeo on a Saturday afternoon in Texas or Oklahoma or Arkansas, then jump in the car and make a Sunday matinee performance in California. The car was full, too. By this time, Glen and friends Red Doffin (a bull rider) and Ronnie William (a bareback rider) were in the vehicle, along with Bernie Johnson, Glen’s brother Arnold Bird, and Hulen Missildine. “They would go anywhere I entered us,” Glen said. “I always had a full car, and we’d go non-stop.”
    In his glory days, Glen and his buddies were competing in anywhere from 150 to 200 rodeos a year. “The thing about it is, we loved it,” he said. “If you can’t travel, you’re not going to ever rodeo. Every day, when we’d wake up, we’d more than likely be in another state, meeting new people. It was unbelievable.” And his riding was unbelievable, too. According to Ronnie Williams, Glen’s style was impeccable. “I think he was one of the greatest bull riders there ever was,” Ronnie said. “He had a perfect style and form, he rode so perfect, that he made it look effortless. And his percentage of winning first place was unbelievable. It seemed like every time he’d nod his head, he was winning first.”
    In the early days of his rodeo, Glen rode bareback horses. He didn’t like to, but for a while, he did. And his friend Ronnie knew it, and occasionally set him up for a joke. “That dang Ronnie would enter me in the bareback riding, and I’d get there (to the rodeo) and find out I was entered. But he didn’t enter me in a whole bunch of them, because I was entering him in the bull riding, and he didn’t like that.”
    Glen won the IPRA’s bull riding title four times: 1966-67-68 and 1970, and the all-around in 1968 and 1970. The International Finals Rodeo began in 1970, so prior to that, whoever had the most money won at the end of the year was the champion.
    Ronnie won eight IPRA bareback titles, and thought his buddy was the best in the business. “I don’t think anybody ever rode with the style he rode with, and was dominant in the IPRA all those years. It was a privilege for me to get to rodeo with him.”
    Another traveling partner, Red Doffin, thought the world of Glen. “He had lots and lots of class,” Red remembered. “You talk about a bull rider that looked pretty on bulls. He just turned his toes out and rode them with style, rode them perfect. That’s the way he rode.” Glen was hard to throw off, as well. “He had good form,” Red said, “and when they throwed him off, they throwed him off on the top of his head because he tried as hard as he could try.”


    Glen never suffered from a lot of injuries. He broke a leg during his first – and only – semester of college, affixing a spur in the cast so he could continue to ride. He also broke a bone in his left hand, his riding hand that took six months to heal. The broken leg and possibly returning to riding bulls too soon has affected his walking today. That’s not being tough, he insisted, in riding with a cast, “all that was, was stupidity. If I had not have done that, I would be walking so much better today.”
    In 1972, he got on the last bull he’d ever ride. His legs were bothering him so badly he took the locks out of his spurs and rode with loose rowels. “I couldn’t stand the pressure it was putting on my legs,” he said. “After a while, anything you do that you burn at it like that, it makes the longevity of it short. It finally caught up with me.”
    By this time he had a wife, Judy, and two children, Jennifer (White) and Jason. He got a job with Miller Brewing Co. in Ft. Worth, working there for 33 years. He also started a Limousin cow herd, selling the bulls at the Texas Limousin Association’s annual sale for years. He started his herd from some heifers and a bull that his aunt and uncle had in Oklahoma. He ended up with a herd of 35 purebreds and did very well with the breeding program. Both of his kids showed the cattle, his daughter winning Limousin Heifer of the Year.
    When he quit riding bulls, Glen had to quit going to rodeos, for fear he’d get the bug again and hit the road. “I didn’t watch a rodeo on TV for ten years or so,” he said. “I wasn’t going to be able to quit them if I kept around them.” Then one day his friend Sam Roberts called, asking if he’d watched a bull riding on TV. “I can’t, Sam,” he said. “I’ll want to get to riding again.” Sam shot that idea down. “Hell, you ain’t going to do that, you’re too old,” he said. “And I thought, by gosh, he’s right, and now I don’t miss one.”
    Inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboys Hall of Fame in 2010, Glen remembers with great fondness his rodeo days. “I had more fun than the law allows. I thought I was a millionaire. I enjoyed every bit of it. I don’t regret any part of it,” he said. “If I ever got the chance to live it over again, I would.”
    And Mr. Woody, the ag teacher? They still stay in touch, even though Glen nearly got kicked out of his class the first day of school. Glen walked into the classroom with his hat on, pants stuffed into his boots, and put his feet on the table. Mr. Woody jumped up with a two-by-four in his hands and said, “We’re going to find out who runs this class right now. You or me? I’m going to ask you to take your feet off the desk and your hat off.” “I looked at that two-by-four,” Glen chuckled, “and I sure didn’t want no part of that.”
    Glen and Judy spend their time now “doing whatever we want to,” said Judy, who spent most of her years at home, working a couple different jobs along the way. “We’ve been married for 48 years and we have learned that it’s about being a companion to each other and doing for each other all the time. We go to church all the time and have a lot of friends to spend time with.” They also have two granddaughters, Skylar and Taylor.

  • Roper Review: Shane Brown

    Roper Review: Shane Brown

    Most ropers only dream of winning the kind of money paid at the World Series of Team Roping finale in Las Vegas. Those dreams recently came true for Shane Brown, Robstown, TX, and his partner, J. R. Wood, Sinton, TX. The duo won the #13 on December 6th, splitting $254,000. The team previously won the #12 roping at the World Series roping in Sinton, TX earlier this year. Brown and Wood both had their numbers raised, to a #8 heeler and #5E header, respectively, forcing the pair into the #13 Finale. The duo came from sixth high call to win the roping with a 29.65 aggregate time on four head.
    Shane, and older brother Scot, grew up in a farming and ranching family and were riding before they were walking. They started roping young and team roped and roped calves through school. Growing up, Shane won a couple of TYRA state championships in calf roping. In 1997 he was the Texas High School rodeo team roping champion header. In college Shane eventually dropped calf roping and focused solely on team roping.
    After high school Shane pursued an education at Texas A&M where he earned his degree in Animal Science and a Masters in Agri-Business. After graduation, Shane was a commodities broker for five years and is now a Vice President and the Robstown branch manager for Texas Farm Credit.
    Shane is married to his lovely wife, Ravyn, and the couple has two daughters, Bailey, 8; and Blakely, 5.
    “I met my wife in college,” says Brown. “We both grew up in rodeo. Once we married, she slowed down to raise our girls. Now she’s a stay at home mom and far busier than I am.”
    Brown admits to being fiercely competitive. This trait benefits his other hobby and passion – golf where he carries a #3 handicap. Being competitive and handling pressure runs in this family. Two years ago, his brother Scot, won the #11 at the World Series finale.
    Undoubtedly family comes first for Brown, “We do a lot as a family. Right now my girls are active in gymnastics and volleyball. I haven’t been roping as much lately. Basically just enough to qualify for the World Series finale.”
    COWBOY Q&A
    How much do you practice?
    Once or twice a week. But in preparing for the WSTR Finals, we would practice several times a week.
    Do you make your own horses?
    Typically yes. My dad raised the horse I rode in Vegas, and I broke and trained him.
    Who were your roping (rodeo) heroes?
    Phil Lyne. I grew up roping with him and rodeoed with his daughters. My dad was an extremely good roper and gave it up so we could rope.
    Who do you respect most in the world?
    My family.
    Who has been the biggest influence in your life?
    My parents, my wife, and God.
    If you had a day off what would you like to do?
    A perfect day would be playing golf in the morning. Then hanging out with my family and roping in the afternoon.
    Favorite movie?
    Lonesome Dove.
    What’s the last thing you read?
    Emails.
    How would you describe yourself in three words?
    Driven, family-oriented, competitive.
    What makes you happy?
    Being with family and friends.
    What makes you angry?
    Laziness.
    If you were given 1 million dollars, how would you spend it?
    Buy some acreage that my family and I could enjoy.
    What is your worst quality – your best?
    My worst is lack of patience for people who don’t try. My best is lots of patience for people who try hard.

  • Roper Review: Courtney Small

    Roper Review: Courtney Small

    Everyone who enters the USTRC Finals has dreams of clean runs and big paychecks. Unfortunately, only a handful of ropers realize those dreams. One such dream come true was Courtney Small, and header, Lari Dee Guy, who came from third high call to win the Cruel Girl Roping. The pair posted a time of 37.25 on four head to win the roping and split $16,000 in cash plus prizes.
    “Actually I prefer being third high call. From there the goal is to make a nice run and put pressure on the top two teams,” says Small.
    Courtney, 24, started roping when she was just eight. She and her dad started roping at the same time. Eventually her brothers, Zac and Blair, rope as well.
    “We would rope almost every night,” explains Courtney. “That’s where my addiction to roping started.”
    Small is grateful to her parents for giving them the opportunity to rope and pursue their passion.
    “My dad blessed us with the chance to rope every day during the summer. He wanted us to succeed in whatever we wanted to do,” says Small. “Every day we would start out roping the dummy, then saddle our horses and rope the mechanical dummy. That was our routine from about ten to fifteen years old. We were consumed by it.”
    Courtney admits to a life long passion for horses and roping. When she was about thirteen, the family built an indoor arena where they roped and also had a church.
    “The arena has been a huge blessing. God has used our arena to bless the lives of many people; and given young people a place to come and rope.  We still rope in our arena every day and I’m very thankful for it.”
    The Blair kids were homeschooled and well educated using the accredited Christian based A Beka Academy. To see how her education measured up, Courtney attended public school during her sophomore year and found it very easy.
    After high school Courtney attended Tarleton University in Stephenville, Texas before transferring to and graduating from Oklahoma State University. Currently she is working with her father at the family cattle embryo laboratory near Welch, Oklahoma. She will soon pursue a Masters in Animal Science, a degree that will be helpful as they expand their business.
    “There are some new things we want to do,” says Courtney. “I so enjoy working with my family. I also have lots of time to rope, which is a huge plus.”
    “I am very grateful and give the glory to God. Without Him, none of these blessings would be in my life. I have to thank my parents and am so blessed to have them. I realize not many people get the opportunity to do what I do. I also want to thank my sponsor, Classic Ropes.”

    COWBOY Q&A
    How much do you practice?
    About five days a week.
    Do you make your own horses?
    Yes. My brothers and I have made every horse we own.
    Who were your roping heroes?
    I always looked up to my dad because he got me started. He had won quite a bit and was my idol.
    Who do you respect most in the world?
    My father.
    Who has been the biggest influence in your life?
    My father.
    If you had a day off what would you like to do?
    Rope.
    Favorite movie?
    The new Magnificent Seven was very good.
    What’s the last thing you read?
    A textbook of some sort.
    How would you describe yourself in three words?
    Leader, dedicated, shy.
    What makes you happy?
    When I win.
    What makes you angry?
    When I miss.
    If you were given 1 million dollars, how would you spend it?
    I would set quite a bit back and probably build a horse barn on my property.
    What is your best quality – your worst?
    Best quality is independent thinking. Worst quality is procrastinating.
    Where do you see yourself in ten years?
    Hopefully more involved in our lab with the expansion, and enjoying the growth of business.

  • Back When They Bucked with Dilton and Pat Emerson

    Back When They Bucked with Dilton and Pat Emerson

    Dilton and Pat Emerson of Bossier City, Louisiana, know the value of a horse shoe. Keeping equine athletes of all disciplines shod has sustained the husband and wife for many years, and their bootprints through rodeo history are accompanied by their ingenuity. This includes inventing a now widely-used anvil and starting their own horseshoe supply business – one of the largest in the country. They also support the rodeo industry with their time, serving on the boards of several rodeo organizations, and most recently, helping organize the Gold Card Reunion in Las Vegas during the WNFR. “The reunion originated last year, and we had about 150 gold card members come,” says Dilton, chairman of the reunion board and a gold card member himself. Shawn Davis, manager of the PRCA and one of Dilton’s longtime rodeo friends, recently asked Dilton to help organize the reunion. Open to all PRCA gold card members, the reunion takes place this year in the Thomas & Mack Center on December 8th. “We have someone in charge of getting interviews during the reunion for the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, and there will be slideshows and storytelling,” Dilton describes.
    His own rodeo career with the PRCA – known at the time as the RCA – began in 1954, the year he married Pat. The couple – both born in 1936 – were raised one town over from each other, Dilton in Taylor, Arkansas, and Pat in Bradley, Arkansas. Horses were Pat and her family’s means of transportation, but Dilton didn’t own a good horse until he was in his 40s. Instead, he competed in all three roughstock events and steer wrestling. “His family thought he was totally crazy and doomed from day one,” Pat recalls with a laugh. Yet Dilton paid all his expenses and made friends with competitors like Shawn Davis, Tom Nesmith, who put Dilton on his horse Old Brown, and Neal Gay. “Neal took a liking to me when I was a kid and helped me out, and I worked for stock contractor Tommy Steiner. I got on everything he turned out,” says Dilton. “Steiner had a bronc saddle in his tack room that became mine, and I had a bareback riggin’ of my own.” His bronc saddle is now on display in the Lynn Hickey American Rodeo Gallery of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City,  its cinch tightened on a bronc sculpture rearing from the chutes.


    Near the time Dilton’s RCA career began, Pat tried her hand at riding bareback horses in the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA). “I hadn’t thought about competing, but I had an older sister that rode roughstock. I was staying with her one summer and she took me to rodeos,” says Pat. “There weren’t more than six or seven bareback riders, but enough to have a rodeo. I messed with it for two or three years, and did exhibitions in saddle bronc riding the summer of ‘55. But once I started raising our three kids, I quit.”
    Dilton was rodeoing with Pat’s brother when the couple met. While their children – Peaches, Joe, and Ross – were young, Pat worked as a secretary for several steel firms and Dilton rodeoed full time. When he eased off the gas pedal in the mid 1960s to start shoeing horses on racetracks, Pat was a mutuel teller, cashing tickets for the bidders. They travelled with their children to Detroit, Chicago, Omaha, Nebraska, and the Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, Louisiana, where they eventually settled. “We never had a horse trailer when we rodeoed or worked on the racetracks, we rented apartments,” says Pat. “We worked together for three or four years before starting our horseshoe supply business. Everything Dilton has done, he’s taught himself.”
    “When I started shoeing horses, it was at an all-time low for farriers,” Dilton recalls. “A big horseshoe company went out of business in 1965, and people were predicting that it was the end of the horse era. Back then, they didn’t have playdays or horse shows. Horses were mainly used on ranches for working cattle, and the ranchers did their own shoeing.” Yet the Emersons still saw a need for horseshoeing, though they never intentionally set out to start a business. “Dilton always had a good supply of stock that he shod with, which a lot of horseshoers didn’t, so they’d buy or borrow from him. He got a distributorship specifically for thoroughbred racing shoes, and then we were able to get distributorships for bigger companies.” Within ten years, Emerson Horseshoe Supply was one of the larger horseshoe suppliers in the business. The anvil Dilton designed in the mid 1990s also set them apart. “There’s a lot of nickel in the anvil, which gives it good bounce-back,” he explains. The Emerson Anvil is preferred for many horseshoeing contests and even knife makers, and is shipped across the country and even as far as England. Their anvil is in use in the bladesmithing TV show Forged in Fire, and Dilton designed a commemorative 25th anniversary anvil for the 2004  World Championship Blacksmiths’ Competition, held during the Calgary Stampede.
    Emerson Horseshoe Supply has been distributing horseshoes and farrier supplies for 35 years, the shop right next door to the Emerson’s house. “It works well for waiting on customers after hours. Before cell phones and ordering ahead of time, I’d be up at six in the morning selling horseshoes,” says Pat, who runs the store. “Grandma is really amazing – she can tell you about all the shoes, their differences, and the prices,” says Seth Emerson, their grandson. He’s worked in the store since he was old enough to stock shelves, and only recently left to become an auditor for the state and continue his rodeo career, tie-down roping in the PRCA. “My grandparents have done so much for me, and it was very rewarding for me to work with them. My grandpa started team roping in his 60s, and I’ve always roped at their place. I’ve been good friends with Shane Hanchey since high school, so he’s stayed there. I also used to hold a big jackpot there and guys like Cody Ohl and Marty Yates would come and Grandma would cook for them. Grandpa’s always been there when I rope, even if it’s cold, and then he pulls the truck up next to the arena to watch.” The Emersons also have three granddaughters, Cassie, a breakaway roper, Stewart, an aspiring actress in New York City, and Kirby, a junior in college at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
    Prior to team roping, Dilton took up chuckwagon racing, living just a few hours from the National Championship Chuckwagon Races in Clinton, Arkansas. Dilton and his team, racing under Emerson Horseshoe Supply, won the classic division in 1997 racing thoroughbreds. He built his own wagon, weighing approximately 1,000 pounds, but his interest moved to team roping around 2000. He currently heels in the USTRC and local team roping associations. “I practice three times a week, but I generally go to Stephenville (Texas) so I can rope with Rickey Green,” says Dilton.
    Pat enjoys snow skiing, and is planning a skiing trip with her granddaughters and grandson’s girlfriend in February. She’s also active in her church, and one of 50 rodeo wives that make up H.A.N.D.S. (Helping Another Needy Diva Survive). The organization, started by Sharon Shoulders and Donna McSpadden, sends anything from money, food, cards, or even personal visits to rodeo families going through hard times. “We were in Oklahoma City recently for Rodeo Hall of Fame inductions, and we also go up to Colorado Springs for the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame, and then Las Vegas in December,” says Pat. “We’re both very active and very social. We’ve been blessed with good health, good friends, and good family!”

  • On the Trail with the Clown Family

    On the Trail with the Clown Family

    The Harrison family is affectionately known across the rodeo world as the “Clown Family.”

    John and Carla Harrison and their four children: Addy, Caz, Billie, who passed away in October of 2014, and Charlee, are regulars at rodeos across the nation.

    John, the grandson of world champion bull rider Freckles Brown, grew up in Soper, Oklahoma. When he saw Leon and Vicki Adams at his hometown rodeo at the age of six, he was hooked. “I knew then it looked like fun,” he said, “hanging upside down on a horse. I decided I wanted to do it.” His dad, Wiley Harrison, knew how to trick rope. He taught John in the family living room. “We tore up everything,” John remembers. “I broke lamps, hit the ceiling, knocked the lights out, knocked plaster off the wall. Mom was always cussing us.”

    His first real audience was for 4-H talent show when he was fourteen. “I won the talent show and that threw gas on the fire.”

    John had seen roman riding done at a rodeo, and decided he wanted to do that as well. He and his dad found a team broke for a wagon, but they “dang near killed me,” he said. “They were mean and kicked, and Dad realized I was going to get hurt.” They located a roman team owned by Vickie Tyer, who had sold them to Cotton Rosser, who was looking to sell them. John sold a few head of cows and over spring break, he and his dad loaded up for California to get them. They paid $10,000 for the team, what his dad considered a large sum. “My dad, a rancher, had never paid that much for horses, and he about croaked,” John laughed.

    John spent two and three hours a day practicing his trick riding and roman riding, learning from trick riders like J.W. Stoker, Karen Vold and others.

    It was in 1999 that he got his PRCA card. That year, he booked a dozen rodeos for Johnny Walters, doing the roman riding while Penny Walton and Kelly Brock were trick riding. He booked the next two years for Bob Barnes, roman riding, trick riding and trick roping. After that, his career blossomed. In 2002, he went to California and worked for Cotton Rosser and the Flying U Rodeo Co. The next year, he worked for Steve Gander’s World’s Toughest Rodeo tour based out of Iowa.

    At this point, John wasn’t clowning rodeos yet, but he wanted to. A buddy in Wahoo, Neb., was putting on a bull riding and asked him to clown it. “Man, I’ll be terrible,” John told him. He borrowed a barrel from Gizmo McCracken, and “that’s what lit the fire,” he said. After a lot of performances and experience, clowning became fun and he became adept at it.

    John gives credit to another clown, Keith Isley, for helping him get started. Keith had a trick riding act that he gave John permission to do. “Keith jumpstarted my career,” he said. “That’s truly the reason I am where I am in my career, due to that act.”

    It was in Iowa that he met the California girl who would become his wife. Carla was interning with the World’s Toughest Rodeo, doing publicity and working closely with John on appearances and interviews. “I had a crush on her,” John said. “We were both too shy to let each other know it.” After her internship ended, she and John stayed in touch. Carla, who grew up on a cattle ranch near Salinas with a dad who ranch rodeoed, talked to John every night. When he called her, asking her to go with him to the PRCA Awards Banquet where he was nominated for Specialty Act of the Year in 2004, she realized she had an “overwhelming love” for him. They married in 2006.

     

    They are on the road together, along with the kids, as much as possible. “We’re together constantly,” Carla said. “We did everything together, but now that the kids are in school, I stay home while he takes off.”

    The Harrisons have diversified beyond rodeo contract work. They own rental properties in Hugo and Soper, Okla. “I’ve always been an entrepreneur,” John said. And he and Carla realize how the rodeo business works. “We talked about retirement in rodeo, and there is none. (Rentals) are something we could do and be gone.” They also own a liquor store in Hugo.

    Each fall since 2007, they’ve produced a Wild West show at the Oklahoma State Fair in Oklahoma City. They aim for top-notch entertainment with good performers. Performers including Vickie Adams, Blake Goode, Vince Bruce, the Riata Ranch Cowgirls, Melissa Navarre, Jerry Wayne Olson, and others have worked the show. John used to trick rope but found it easier to be producer. They are in the same location for eleven days, a switch from being at a new rodeo each week. “It’s a nice break from rodeo after the summer,” John said.

    John and Carla were hit with a tremendous blow in October of 2014 when their seventeen month old daughter, Billie, died of kidney failure. It was all sudden. Carla had been in California with her mother, who was going through cancer treatment. She had just flown home, and John had left for a rodeo, when Billie was life-flighted to a hospital in Texas. She died on October 17. Their faith and their rodeo family got them through the difficult time. “You use that term, rodeo family, loosely,” John said. “When we lost Billie, the way the rodeo community came together, it truly touches you in a way that is unexplainable.” Carla’s mom died four months later. “I spent many hours on the phone, crying with my mom,” Carla said, before she passed away. “I asked her, please, when you get to heaven, hug and hold Billie.” It was tough, Carla said, but she is grateful for others. “I want people to know how thankful I am for the love of others, how everyone poured into our lives. Our family, our friends and our rodeo family came in and surrounded us and uplifted us. I can’t tell you how that lifted us.”

    Carla’s main job is wife and mother, but she also is an auctioneer. As a child, she discovered her dad’s old auction books and put herself to sleep, practicing. The family lived thirty miles from where they ran cattle, so on the way to and from cattle, he would help her with the tongue twisters and the speed.

    She has sold cattle and farm equipment and still does junior livestock auctions, but her niche is benefits, especially the high-end auctions. She flies to California frequently, sometimes selling as few as a dozen items, but all very high-end. If John is free, he goes with her. “People assume he’s the auctioneer, and I get up, and they’re caught off-guard,” she laughs. Auctioneering is much like rodeo. “I want people to have fun, but you have to control the tempo of what’s going on.”

    The couple’s children are Addison, age eight, Cazwell, six, and Charlee, who is thirteen months old. Addy is in third grade and learning to trick ride. Caz, a first grader, has a natural sense of humor, and Charlee, their “newest angel on the ground,” was born in November of 2015.

    The “Clown Family” moniker came from announcer Jerry Todd. The kids frequently dress in John’s trademark yellow shirts with red fringe, and John loved to rub his red nose on Addy’s cheeks after a performance. Jerry picked her up and said, “oh, look at the little clown baby.” Carla started using the name on Facebook, in a tongue-in-cheek manner. But it’s grown. Last year in Las Vegas during the National Finals, people she had never met recognized them. “I love it, and welcome it,” she said.

    They may be a rodeo family, but Carla jokes that she spends more time in vehicles than anywhere else. “I always tell John, we rodeo, but I feel like we really truly drive for a living. I’m always driving.” When they first married, John was reluctant to let her drive, even though she’d grown up driving trailers. He finally relented, in the middle of North Dakota, at night, when no one else was around. Now she drives most of the time, she joked. “So my alligator mouth has overloaded my little hiney. He went from never letting me drive to now, we get twenty miles down the road and he’s miraculously tired,” she laughed.

    Throughout his career, John has been the PRCA Comedy Act of the Year in 2012, 2014-2015, the Coors Man in the Can in 2014, and has been nominated for either the Comedy Act, the Dress Act, or the Coors Man in the Can awards every year since 2008. This year, he has been selected to work the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo as barrelman.

    Through their troubles and blessings, John and Carla hang on to their faith, crediting it with getting them through the passing of their daughter. “Without it, I don’t know how John or I could have gotten through.” They look at the positive in everything. “I try to find blessings along the way, even in the worst of times. I think it’s the only way to keep going.”

  • Roper Review: Butchie Levell

    Roper Review: Butchie Levell

    Butchie Levell, Senior Team Roping Header Champion – Lazy HH Photography

    Butchie Levell (Butch Levell III) has gone to a lot of USTRC ropings in order to be tied for first with Keith Elkins from Clinton, Louisiana, in the Scholarship Standings.  If he holds onto that lead until the end of the Finals, he will win $10,000 in scholarships.
    The 18-year-old form Omaha, Nebraska, has been roping since he was 10, and is now a #6+ header and #6 heeler. “I like heading better, that’s been my strong point. Heeling is a little tough, but heading has been easy going for me.” His family, dad, Butch, mom, Pam, and older sister, Jennifer, were not into horses at all. “We have two houses on our property,” he explained. “The people that rented the house had horses and roped and I decided one day I wanted to be a cowboy and it started from there.” He started with the neighbors, and then got in with Jeff Straight, JD Yates, and Jay Wadams. “They helped him the most,” he said. Butchie started showing horses in the AQHA at the same time he was learning to rope and this year he stayed the summer in Colorado at JD Yates house, roping in the Colorado Junior Rodeo Association, and winning their year end Senior Team Roping saddle with his partner, Colton Reed.
    This is his first year out of high school and he decided to stay home a year to rope, work for his dad, and take care of 50 head of cattle that he has accumulated over the years. “They are old roping heifers that I kept as momma cows and now I rope their calves.”  He keeps them on leased pasture and at his place.
    Butchie is headed to his fifth USTRC Finals. “It’s awesome  being down there for a week, hanging out with friends, and going up against the best in the world and lots of money,” he said. He will haul four of his six horses to Oklahoma to enter everything from the open prelims to the #10; he’s entered mostly as a header, but is roping as a heeler as well.
    His dad, Butch, owns a recycling business, Lakeside Auto Recyclers, and his mom is a stay-at-home mom. When he’s not roping or working with his herd, Butchie helps his dad with the company. His plans are to attend college and get an Ag Business degree and make his way to the NFR someday. “I rope until my arm gets tired and I don’t want to stop,” he said. “I rope until 8 or 9 every night.” He knows that’s what it’s going to take to get to the NFR. “My goal is to work hard every day and push to get better.”

    ____________________

    The USTRC launched the scholarship program this year. “We had talked about this for a long time,” said Kirk Bray, USTRC President. “With putting $100,000 up and making it available for any age, up to 24, potentially a kid that’s 13 or 14 can start building a scholarship bank with us.” The USTRC Scholarship Program will award $100,000 in scholarship funds annually. Sixty (60) scholarships will be awarded to the top point earners during the 2016 season (November 1, 2015 thru October 31, 2016). “They had to opt in to the program because we wanted to make sure they are serious about going to college. It’s a pretty strict program, but we want to award the kids that go to college and get good grades. It’s a way to give back.”

  • ProFile: Troy Heinert

    ProFile: Troy Heinert

    Troy Heinert takes care of cowboys and constituents. In rodeo, the Mission, S.D. man works as a pickup man, and in the world of politics, he is a senator in the South Dakota State Legislature.
    He grew up on the family ranch west of Mission, the son of Margo and the late Harold Heinert. When he was twelve, his dad died, and his mom moved the family to Pierre.
    In high school, Troy team roped and rode bareback horses, and continued the bareback riding while in college at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, S.D., and at Sinte Gleska University in Rosebud. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and taught school at Rosebud Elementary for ten years, all the while competing in the PRCA and at Indian rodeos.
    Troy’s dad Harold and stock contractor Jim Korkow were best of friends, and when Harold passed away, Jim said, “you’re my boy now,” Troy said. “He never treated me any different than he treated TJ (Jim’s son.) If TJ got a twenty (dollar bill), I got a twenty.”
    It was through Jim that Troy began picking up. He started with 4-H and high school rodeos, working through the summers for Korkow Rodeo. After he quit riding barebacks twelve years ago, he picked up more steadily.
    He works many of the Korkow Rodeos, along with rodeos for Stace Smith, Three Hills Rodeo, and Wilson Rodeo. He’s been selected to pick up the Indian National Finals Rodeo five times, and was chosen this year to work the Badlands Circuit Finals Rodeo in Minot, N.D. this month.
    He loves picking up. “It’s as close as you can get to a bucking horse without having to get on them anymore. It’s fun, especially when you know the horses and you can put yourself in a position to help the guys make good rides, and help that horse buck, and see a match-up click.”
    He loves spending time with the bucking horses. “To be around them, to sort, feed, truck them, learn their personalities. They learn your voice, and if a horse is throwing a fit in the chute I can ride up to it and start talking to it, and you can see them pay attention and stand up.”
    Four years ago, Heinert ran as a Democrat in the 26th District, for the S.D. State House of Representatives. He won, served a two year term, then ran for state senator in 2014. He won that election, and is running again this fall, unopposed.
    He feels he has met a lot of his goals as a representative for his district, which is predominantly Native American. He is a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe, and it is important for him “to be a voice for Native Americans and cowboys,” he said. “My district has three reservations in its boundaries, and we don’t have many opportunities for a voice. I have a lot of people depending on me to be that voice, and I’ve been able to do that, and to get people to understand some of the issues we see on the reservation, to see why things are the way they are, and what they can do to help.”
    As a senator, he is able to show people unfamiliar with Native Americans and reservations what it’s like. “I think, even in South Dakota, there’s a lot of people who just don’t know what our healthcare system is like, what our education system is like, what poverty looks like, and the different relationships the tribes have with state and federal governments.”
    He is very proud that he was able to pass an Achievement Schools Grant program, which allows public schools to apply and create a cultural school for Native American kids in the district. “That’s the first time it’s happened in South Dakota,” he said.
    Being a cowboy in politics is also an advantage. “There are some farmers and ranchers in the legislature, but when it comes to ag issues, even something in transportation and trucking, it helps to have that background knowledge of what it means to load a truck and go down the road.”
    Heinert is the Senate Assistant Minority Leader; fellow cowboy Billie Sutton, a former saddle bronc rider, is Senate Minority Leader and has been a part of South Dakota politics for the last six years. Heinert credits Sutton with helping him get his feet under him in politics. “I had a great mentor in Billie. He had been there a while, and he knew the ins and outs, and that gave me a head start.”
    He is married to Gena; they have three children: sons TJ, who is 22, and Harold, who is ten, and a daughter, Jordan, who is 21.