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Pat Litton was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her dad was an ex-farmer that worked for the state and had a garbage route. “He later went into construction with his dump trucks and helped build airports during the war,” explained the 88-year-old from Gillette, Wyo. “We traveled all over. I went to 17 high schools. I got to know a lot of people and do a lot of things.” She had one brother and one sister – they both passed from cancer.
She went to college at Black Hills Teachers College for two summers and became a teacher. “I started teaching at 17, right out of high school. Teachers were hard to find. I taught in the Inya Cara school on the HK Divide, above Moorcroft.” She had 10 students in all 8 grades, including one that was the same age as she was. “I can remember when I went out to teach – it was quite a walk up the hill to school and I never went to town because I didn’t drive.” The opportunity developed her love for teaching and kids. “We had a great time together, we could use our imaginations.”
She has gone to the WNFR every year since 1974, when it was still in Oklahoma City. “I would go down with the high school association and secretary the rules committee meetings.”

She met her husband, Bob Isenberger, at the corner drug store in Gillette where she was working. “He worked for the Moore family, and came in and there was a glow around his head,” she remembers. “It just hit me like a ton of bricks.” He was at a dance she was at and they danced. “The school I taught was a skip and jump from the ranch he was working on and we started going together.” They were married within four months. The couple settled at Nine Mile Ranch and lived in that sheep wagon that first year. She and her husband lambed 3,000 ewes and Pat loved it. “The guys couldn’t get me out of the lambing pen.” Bob rode saddle broncs and bareback horses and competed in bull riding. “They used to say about him that none of the neighbors’ calves were safe – he was either riding or roping them.” The couple took a summer off and rodeoed. Pat had every intention to start barrel racing and team roping. “I would get so nervous that my feet would shake out of the stirrups, but I was pretty fleet footed and I entered the cow milking race because I could run. I was an ok ranch horse back rider, but not a rodeo horse back rider. I love horses and love to ride.”
After the summer, Bob took a ranching job and Pat continued to time local rodeos. Mike was born in 1954 and, Lee, was born in 1956. Mike was killed in a trucking accident on his 20th birthday, August 2, 1974. “Lee and I had just taken off to secretary a steer roping in Thermopolis.” She had checked into her hotel room and got the phone call.
Pat got involved through Bob with the Wyoming High School Rodeo Association; he was serving on the Board. Pat was recording times and word got out. Bob was roping calves and team roping and they spent every weekend rodeoing; the boys started with the high school rodeo. Pat ended up getting involved with the Fair Board in Gillette and ended up timing through that as well. Both boys were involved in 4H and Pat was a 50 year 4H leader. “I just liked working with kids. They are the most honest individuals.”
The couple also produced the Little Cowpokes rodeo at their house, an event for kids age four through junior high. “We did that for 13 years, and quit doing that after Bob was killed.” Bob went to Douglas to get a part for a water pump in January of 1974. He waited for the bus to come in with the part and he was 12 miles out of Douglas and in a white out. He was off the road and over corrected and rolled the pickup and was killed. “The boys were terrified; they were both in high school. If it hadn’t been for rodeo, I don’t know how I would have survived. There was always something I had to do – it was my salvation. I have a love affair with rodeo and the people involved with it.”

Pat became the National Director for Wyoming High School rodeo in 1975 and was instrumental in developing the point system. “Before the point system, you had to win the state finals in order to get to the Nationals. Some kids didn’t do good at the Finals and so couldn’t make it to Nationals. Scott Redington and I worked on it – the system was set up so that it was consistent too. When I think about how many hours it took us to put it together. There had been others that had tried to come up with something, but we had to come up with something that was consistent and fair to every state. That was the hardest thing. We made the presentation to the National Board.”
Pat met Gene Litton, who was serving as the secretary/treasurer for the National High School Rodeo Association. “I wouldn’t let myself get serious about him,” she remembers, but the couple ended up getting married on February 15, 1980 and had 30 years together before he passed away.
“We were responsible for the first computerized rodeo,” said Pat. “Gene was secretary treasurer for the National High School and we had started computerizing, and he came to Wyoming to visit us when we had our state finals because of the good reports on our team. We built the National High School office at our ranch in 1980,” she said.
Pat was the first member of the National High School Rodeo Association Foundation – her number is #1. “The Foundation gives scholarships every year and our goal was to have every senior that applies for a scholarship gets one and I think they did that last year.”

She has moved to a retirement home in Gillette. “I hope that I have accomplished everything that God wanted me to accomplish and that in some small way have touched a lot of lives. I guess I had so much help throughout my life from so many people and I hope that I never said anything that was harmful about anybody. All that I’ve wanted in my life was respect – and being liked.” The Governor dedicated one day a year as Pat Litton Day. “I think about all the things I was able to do and am glad to have been able to do it.”
Pat claims her biggest accomplishment is being a wife and mother. “I hope I’ve been a good role model to all the kids that I worked with and that I have instilled some spark in the lives of the youth of America.”

story by Merrill A. Ellis

Logan Adams grew up in a rural Texas community. Actually, he was born on his grandparent’s Carpenter Ranch which is nestled outside of the Texas Hill Country town of Medina. His other grandparent’s ranch on the Adams side of the family was just down the road. The Texas raised cowboy had a passion for riding, roping, and the western way of life. He attributes this to his numerous uncles who taught him these skills while tending to the ranches. Even though he learned these abilities at a very young age, he never participated in a rodeo during his youth.
He was always a competitive athlete. While in high school he enjoyed participating in every sport offered. He even was a Texas state qualifier in discus, an all district football player and captain of his football team.
“The entire community followed us to our football games. The joke was the last one out of Medina should turn out the lights,” Logan stated with a smile.
Football was his passion. After being recruited by the Sul Ross State University Lobo Football team he continued to excel in sports. One of his friends at SRSU was the famed, Dan Blocker, who enjoyed an illustrious career on the TV show, Bonanza.
After a year of football at Sul Ross, the football coach decided to take a job at Southwest Texas College in San Marcos. He asked Logan to be a part of that football team and he did. While at Southwest Texas College, he began to dabble in the sport of rodeo.
“The coach told me I had to quit football or quit rodeo due to eligibility reasons. So, I decided to pursue rodeo,” stated Logan.
In a matter of fact, while on his first date with his late wife, Mabel, he won the steer wrestling at a rodeo in San Marcos. He had met her through his first cousin, Betty Ann Carpenter. She and Mabel were suite mates at Baylor University.
“Yep, Betty Ann grabbed my winnings and took it upon herself to make sure we all had a good time that night,” Logan stated with a smirk.
The rodeo world has a unique way of luring young men and women into its sport. And it did just that to Logan.
Being raised in Bandera County he had numerous Rodeo Cowboy Association (RCA) World Champions to idolize and ask questions about their roping expertise.
The late Ray Wharton, 1956 RCA World Champion Calf Roper, was Logan’s selected mentor.
“He got me started by encouraging me to rope and really practice with determination. He thought I had some potential and he pushed me to go ahead,” stated Logan.

He continued, “He allowed me to practice on his horses which was a great benefit for a young roper.”
In 1956, Adams was issued a permit by the RCA. He decided that he was ready to compete against the “big boys” of the organization and he entered his first pro rodeo in Kerrville, Texas.
He stated, “One of the biggest moments of my roping career was winning the first RCA rodeo I went to in Kerrville. It was just down the road from my hometown and I had a lot of family and friends there to watch.”
It was not until 1960 after a successful ranching career that he decided to pursue his dream of rodeo.
“I quickly filled my permit at Independence, Missouri. I choose rodeos where I could participate and manage my ranching operation.”
Logan won or placed at almost every major RCA rodeo in the United States roping calves.
In the 60’s, he and his wife, Mabel were featured in the Fort Worth Star Telegram as a unique rodeo couple. Mabel, a city raised girl, was participating in the ranch rodeo barrel race and Logan was roping calves. The two were also showcased in the Houston Post during the Houston Fat Stock Show and Rodeo. This was Mabel’s hometown.
Logan was a skilled match roper. He won 10 out of 12 matches. In 1966, he was recruited by Elizabeth Hopson, to ride her stallion, Montes Joker in the Appaloosa Sweepstakes 10 head calf roping. He won the competition two years in a row.
In 1970, he purchased John Clay Cattle Company, a major livestock marketing firm in the United States.  He has made a life long commitment to the cattle industry.  Weekly he gave the market report to Perry Kallison’s farm and ranch radio show in San Antonio. Kallison was one of the founders of the San Antonio Livestock Show and Rodeo. Logan also maintained his childhood roots in Medina, Texas where he engaged in an active ranching lifestyle.
He has been involved with the Rodeo World in various capacities most of life.  He has judged Miss Rodeo Texas, served on the Bell County PRCA Rodeo Committee, produced the Texas Circuit PRCA Steer Roping Finals and produced the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) Southern Region Finals.
There have been many good calf roping horses purchased throughout the years from Logan that have helped other ropers excel. He always had a knack for taking a horse to the next level in the competitive calf roping arena.
“I quit roping off of a horse at the age of 80. I just decided it was time,” he stated. “This was very difficult time for me because it is something that I have enjoyed doing most of my life.”
Logan and his wife, Mabel were married 60 years before she passed away in June of 2016. As a former deacon of a First Baptist Church, he now spends his Sundays worshiping at 3C Cowboy Fellowship in Salado, Texas.
“I have always been a prayerful man. I know that with God we will get through the storms and he will give us strength,” explained Adams.
One of his greatest passions during his career has been teaching numerous cowboys and cowgirls to rope.  This also carried through to his own three children, Merrill A. Ellis, John Logan and Jimmy, who each had roping careers of their own.
Some of those cowboys he helped included the following: Richard Thompson (deceased)-Texas High School Rodeo Association Champion and National High School Rodeo Champion, Johnny Kirk Edmondson-American Junior Rodeo Association Champion, College National Finals Champion. two times PRCA Texas Circuit Champion, Billy Albin, College National Finals Rodeo Champion, and Roy Angermiller-NIRA Southwest Region Steer Wrestling Champion, PRCA Texas Circuit Steer Roping Champion and Calf Roping Qualifier, and eight times NFR Steer Roping Qualifier.
Logan Adams is pleased to be a Gold Card holder in the PRCA. In 2011, he was inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame. During his induction speech he stated, “All I ever wanted to be was a cowboy and I am proud to say I am.”

Merrill A. Ellis is the daughter of Logan Adams. She is a graduate of Eastern New Mexico University where she earned a master’s degree in communications and education.She currently serves on the board of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association Alumni.

Today’s cowgirls don’t know the debt they owe Betty Sims Solt. The New Mexico cowgirl was on the front lines, working to make opportunities for girls and women in rodeo.

At a college rodeo, Solt won the girls’ all-around title, and received a ten dollar watch for her efforts, while the boys’ all-around won a saddle and a scholarship. “I was disappointed when things like that happened,” she said.
She spent much of her high school and college days, and the years afterwards, working for equal opportunities for the young women in rodeo.
Betty was born in 1935, the youngest of six children and the only daughter of George E. and Wahlecia Dell Blackwell Sims. George was a bronc rider who put his kids to work on the ranch south of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, and whose kids loved to rodeo.
Betty was riding by the time she was five, and in high school, competed in the barrel racing, breakaway roping, and the cutting. At the time, breakaway was not a standard high school rodeo event. She competed in amateur rodeos across the state as well, causing the principal to question if she was interested in school. One day, in high school, she was summoned to his office. He had stern words for her: Did she intend to rodeo, or graduate from high school? Her answer: “Sir, I am going to try and do both.” And she did, graduating as class valedictorian. But that wasn’t the end of it. She talked him into buying calves, so during the last class period of the day, which was for athletics, the students could practice roping at the arena on the outskirts of town.
In college at New Mexico A&M (now New Mexico State), she did the barrel racing, goat tying, and flag race, and again, occasionally, the breakaway; it wasn’t a standard event for women yet.

In high school, she also competed in a girls’ event that no longer exists today: the boot and cigar race. The girls put their boots in a big pile in the arena. They went to the far end then, on a signal, ran to the pile, dug out their boots, put them on, and ran back to their horses, tied up in the arena. After mounting, they rode to the other end, where they were to light a cigar and keep it lit as they rode back to the starting point. In 1951, she won the Santa Rosa boot and cigar race and her first buckle.
She got help and advice from her brothers and dad for the 1951 race. As he drove her to school each day, she’d practice lighting her dad’s cigar, even though “I hated that cigar,” she said. After struggling to light it during races, her brother Tom had an idea: he taped together four matches, and “when he struck those matches, I got that cigar lit in a hurry.” She also had a strategy for the pile of boots: she stood back and as the girls threw the boots back, she’d see hers coming and grab them as they flew by.
She and her brothers, all rodeo contestants, were instrumental in starting the first Santa Rosa High School rodeo, with the inaugural event in 1951. One of the prizes for competitors that first year was yearling calves donated by local ranchers.
Betty set records in high school rodeo, winning the breakaway roping at the 1953 New Mexico High School State Rodeo, and setting a state record in the event the next year, which held for several years.

In college, she went on to excel, winning two world barrel racing championships in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (1957 and 1958) and fourteen barrel racing titles. She served on the board of directors for girls events in the NIRA, served as a delegate to the NIRA convention in Colorado Springs, and was tapped to serve as vice-president of the American Junior Rodeo Association (1953-1955), which was put together by Al Davis. She also competed in the Southwest Rodeo Association, which included competitions in New Mexico, Colorado and Texas, winning a barrel racing title in 1958.
Through her high school and college years, she was one of the people who fought to make breakaway roping a standard event, and to even out prize money. It didn’t bother her to voice her opinion. “When I saw what was happening, I knew I was going to work (to make it right.) Some of the others kept quiet and went along, but I didn’t want to do that.” She acknowledges that she wasn’t the only person working to make girls’ rodeo better. “I wasn’t the only one, but I was the most outspoken one,” she chuckled. In 1953, the National High School Rodeo Association crowned its first champion; the NIRA had their first champion sixteen years later.
After graduating in 1958 with a degree in animal husbandry, she hoped to go back to the Sims ranch. But drought had forced her parents to sell it. She was offered a job in agriculture research back East, but she didn’t want to leave the West. So she returned to college to become a school teacher.
One of her best and most favorite horses was a sorrel stallion named Sonny. He belonged to a friend of her father’s, and was used by the friend’s son for the barrel racing. When the son advanced past barrel racing, the father told Betty she could borrow the horse, on one condition: “if you can win, you can take this horse. If you can’t win, you can’t have him.” She won on him, never knocking down a barrel at college rodeos. He was also a dream horse for the flag race, too. If she missed a flag, he would circle again so she could get it. Another exceptional horse she rode was Spooks, her sister-in-law’s horse. Spooks was an all-around horse and she won on him in many events, including barrels, goats, and the cutting.
Betty taught for 33 years, most of them in Roswell, and many of them as a reading teacher. She always tried to work rodeo and the western way of life into her subject matter. “I included ranch life and the history of rodeo in school,” she said. For speeches and demonstrations, she would have students show how to saddle a horse or milk a cow, and sometimes they came to school dressed up like cowboys or cowgirls. She enjoyed her students. “We had a lot of fun.”
Betty continued to rodeo till 1960. Her last rodeo was in the barrel racing at the Smoky Bear Stampede in Capitan, N.M., which she won.
In her adult life, she got involved in cowboy poetry, publishing two poetry books with her brother, and starting the movement in Roswell, chairing the Roswell event for several years. She recited her poetry at gatherings across the nation.
She volunteered as a 4-H leader, was a member of the International Reading Association, and is a charter member of the Berrendo Cattlewomen of Roswell. She was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1990.

She, along with Evelyn Bruce Kingsbery and Sylvia Mahoney, founded the NIRA Alumni in 1992, to help rodeo alumni reconnect and not lose touch with each other.
Betty has retired from teaching and many of her volunteer roles. Her daughter Georgia Solt Perry, lives with her, and Betty enjoys her grandchildren: Georgia’s son Ethan and daughter Genna.
She looks back fondly on her rodeo life. Some of the best parts of her life were being with family, on the ranch and in rodeo, meeting new people and competing. “I just loved the excitement of rodeo.”

Laces tied snug, tennis shoe cowgirl Pat North Ommert made hundreds of laps around as many arenas throughout the United States from the 1940s to the 1960s, dazzling crowds with her signature one-foot stand and vivid smile. The trick rider, jockey, and stunt double from California traveled and performed extensively, including 56 performances at the Madison Square Garden Rodeo in New York, and riding in Powder Puff Derbies at the Caliente Racetrack in Tijuana, Mexico. Yet her favorite place is still the back of a horse, and her accomplishments, whether astride or beside her equine friends, recently earned her an induction into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.
Pat was nominated 18 years ago for the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame before her induction in October of 2016. “I know many of the former inductees, so I was very honored,” she says. In 1999, Pat and her husband, Dr. Willard Ommert, received the California Professional Horsemen’s Association Lifetime Achievement Award for their devotion and contributions to the horse world. Pat is also active in preserving horse trails and the equestrian lifestyle in Southern California, where she grew up and continues to live today.
Born in 1929, Pat was the second daughter of Bob and Vera North. A savvy businessman, Bob started Bob North Hardware Store in Bell, California, during the Great Depression, and the store flourished. The North’s home in Bell was eight miles away from the Los Angeles Union Stock Yards, and the vacant lots around Bell and the Los Angeles riverbed offered plenty of riding opportunities. The North family, including Pat’s sister, Laura, shared a love of horses. Vera, Pat’s mother, came to love horses after being sent to the Mohave Desert in 1912 with her younger sister. They boarded with a family to avoid the polio epidemic in Los Angeles and rode a horse to school. Vera later learned to train trick horses from a circus trainer stabled in Bell. She entered the show business, and even performed in the Hawaiian Islands with the E.K. Fernandez Wild West Show in 1934.
Pat’s sister, who had an act with their mother, was married in 1943 and retired from show business. Pat was 14 at the time and performed the Patsy North and Her Trick Horse Rex act through World War II. Her own trick riding career started when she was 16, and she performed in rodeos and fairs around California. She still holds gold card number 1890 with the PRCA. “The trick riding was easy,” says Pat, who trained her own Roman riding and jumping team of horses. “I was an athlete. During World War II, my family moved to some acreage and we raised calves and did all our own work. My Roman riding was the most fun, and I think more spectacular. The hippodrome is one of the easiest tricks, but to do it with grace is something else. The one-foot stand was really my specialty. I consider myself a tennis shoe cowgirl because I had boots, but it was usually tennis shoes for trick riding and even working the trick horse.” Rex, who was half Morgan, was Pat’s left hand horse in the Roman riding, and Juan Monroe, a registered American Saddlebred, was the outside horse. Pat competed in many of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Rodeo Roman races, and even did several publicity shots for the rodeo.
When one of the North’s horses was sick in the 1940s, the regular vet sent his new associate, Dr. Willard Ommert, to make the farm call. Dr. Will and Pat took an instant liking to each other, and they were married in 1947. “Will was my best fan and loved what I did,” says Pat. “Like my dad, he never had a problem with me performing or being in show business. It didn’t make much money in the early days, but it did take care of the horse costs, and it was always fun.”
Pat’s dad had passed away in 1951 from a heart attack, and after Pat and Dr. Will were married, Vera greatly encouraged Pat to continue her show career. Starting in 1951, Pat performed at the Salinas Rodeo with 14 or 15 other trick riders on her horse Shortcake, working her way into bigger rodeos. “Edith Happy and I worked many California rodeos together. She was a beautiful, long-torso lady who did the most beautiful stand ever,” says Pat, who performed at Salinas for 11 years. “I’m delighted that California Rodeo Salinas is using Edith’s hippodrome stand for their poster this year.”
The year 1953 took Pat to New York City and Boston for several weeks, and Dr. Will used some of his vacation time to travel with her and watch several performances. Everett Colborn from Dublin, Texas, co-owned the World Championship Rodeo Company and produced both the Madison Square Garden Rodeo and Boston Garden Rodeo. Colborn’s own rodeo in Dublin became the Pre-Madison Square Garden Rodeo. Following the Texas performance, the entire production, joined by Pat and her husband, boarded the 24 car train for New York, stopping to perform in Fort Madison, Iowa, on the way. Many rodeo and western movie figures including Tad Lucas, Jim Shoulders, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and The Lone Ranger performed in Colborn’s rodeos. Pat rode Quadrille and the trick riders did publicity work for the rodeo. “That was really fun. The head of publishing for Madison Square Garden owned a white convertible, and five of us trick riders were seen around town. We were always in our western outfits,” says Pat. “We had lunch at the 21 Club, saw the premier opening of a movie, visited the Bellevue Hospital, and had a parade. We also had a rodeo parade in Boston. I rode my Roman team and my husband rode in the parade with me. After the parade, they had a Cowgirl Special thoroughbred race in Rockingham Park in New Hampshire, which I won.”
By this time, Pat and Dr. Will’s first daughter, Annie, was three, and her sister, Janie, was born in 1954. In the 1950s, Pat acquired her Screen Actor Guild card and worked in several motion pictures as a stunt double and driver. One of her friends, showman Monte Montana, needed six women for a horse catch scene in “A Star is Born”, starring Judy Garland and James Mason. Pat was one of the six, along with her mentor, Polly Burson, Faye Blessing, Shirley and Sharon Lucas, and Louise Montana. “The last movie I worked was ‘Cimmaron’, and I was in Tucson for two weeks. They needed girls to ride and drive wagons for the Oklahoma land rush scenes. We made money on those shows, but it was a hurry-up-and-wait business. I had kids and horses at home waiting on me, and I thought of how I could use that time to be home riding!”
In the 1950s, Pat also raced horses, even while on tour with the Bob Estes Wild West Show in 1957 in Mexico City. She retired from show business in 1962, and by then, her daughters were showing in the hunt seat division. Pat also showed hunters and jumpers for a time, and when she wasn’t taking Annie and Janie to horse shows, she was traveling and working with Dr. Will. Originally in the cavalry, he was transferred to the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps after the cavalry was dismounted. He worked with Dr. Bob Miller as the official veterinarians of the NFR from 1962- 1964 when it was hosted by Los Angeles, and his renown as a veterinarian was international. He advanced equine medicine in a number of ways, performing the first equine arthroscopic surgery, and even fitting a horse for contact lenses. “Will was the chief veterinary officer for the 1984 Olympics, and he was the vet for a lot of the California horse shows. I was in the horse show world with him,” says Pat. In 1969, the couple moved to Temecula, California, where Dr. Will built the state-of-the-art Los Caballos Veterinary Hospital, the first privately owned equine clinic and surgery in California. Pat managed the neighboring Los Caballos Farm, a facility for resting and retired horses, and they also raised several colts. Pat leased the ranch out several years after Dr. Will’s passing in 2004, and continues to make her home in Temecula.
Now 87, Pat rides daily, boarding her horse a short distance away. She has four granddaughters and five great-grandsons, all of whom learned to ride from Pat. “I feel that it’s so important for kids to learn about the good earth and see livestock. I love seeing kids who know how to sit on a horse and ride,” says Pat, who supports the Pacific Crest Trail. She’s a member of Saddle Sore-Ority, along with the Rancho California Horsemen’s Association since 1970. “I feel so lucky to have been able to experience several different phases of the rodeo world. I feel I had the best of all of it.”

All Bill Smith ever wanted to do was ride bucking horses, and be like his heroes, the Linderman boys.
Smith, a three-time world champion saddle bronc rider, got to fulfill both of his childhood dreams.
The cowboy was born in 1941 in Red Lodge, Montana, and grew up north of Red Lodge in the little coal mining town of Bear Creek. There wasn’t much to do in Bear Creek. “All there was, for anybody to do,” Bill recalls, “was go to school and go to the rodeo on the Fourth of July. The Lindermans were the thing back then, and they were my heroes. All I ever wanted to do, ever since I could remember, was learn to ride bucking horses. It wasn’t about winning, it was to have a chance to ride bucking horses.”
And he did. The family had horses, and he’d ride anything he could catch. Back then, everybody had two or three head and they weren’t penned up; they ran out in the hills together. Bill and his longtime childhood friend, Chuck Swanson, would pen them and ride them all. “We’d ride the two- and three-year-olds, and we’d get bucked off and drug around.” But it didn’t matter. They were cowboys.
As young boys, they’d work on the local ranches, doing whatever they could, just to be cowboys. And they’d ride anything possible. “I spoiled lots of horses,” Bill mused. “Everything I rode, I tried to get them to buck with me.”

When he was a senior in high school, the Smith family: Glenn and Edna and their seven children, moved to Cody, Wyo. It was perfect for a bucking-horse-crazy boy. With the nightly rodeo, Bill started going, “taking his spills,” and refining his bronc riding abilities. In 1961, he bought his Rodeo Cowboys Association card (the forerunner of the PRCA), and that year, won the amateur bronc riding at the Cheyenne Frontier Days. “That was the first money I ever really had.”
From there, he was ready to hit the rodeo road full time. Starting in 1961, he rode saddle broncs across the nation, competing at every big rodeo in the U.S. and Canada and lots of little ones. He won numerous events, and some of them more than once: Houston, San Antonio, Denver, Cheyenne, Nampa, Ida.; Cody, Prescott, Greeley, Colo.; Las Vegas, Dallas, Omaha, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Memphis, Tenn.; St. Paul, Ore. and more.
He loved to be on the road, and was gone most of the year. But home was still Cody, and his nickname reflected that. He was known as “Cody” Bill Smith. “They latched that on to me,” and he liked it.
Smith made the National Finals Rodeo for the first time in 1965, and then every year except one till 1978: thirteen out of fourteen years. Saddle bronc riding wasn’t necessarily easy for him at first. “I wasn’t an instant success. It took me a while to learn. I was never a natural at it.”
His childhood friend, Chuck Swanson, had moved to Cody with the Smiths. Chuck also rode saddle broncs, and was exceptionally good, Bill remembers. But Chuck didn’t hunger to be on the rodeo road like Bill did. “He was a natural, but he didn’t have the bug quite as much as me. He wanted to be a cowboy on a ranch. I didn’t have time for that. There weren’t enough bucking horses for me.”
Bill estimates he competed at about seventy rodeos a year, with his favorites being the ones with multiple rounds. Back in the day, most rodeos would be more than one round, and cowboys would stay several days in one location. He liked Ft. Worth, which was five rounds, San Antonio, which was six, and Houston and Omaha, which each had several rounds.
Bill’s childhood dream of competing alongside his heroes, Bill and Bud Linderman, came to fruition early in his career. He was entered in the Filer, Idaho rodeo, as was Bill Linderman, and it was four rounds. Smith broke his leg on the first horse, but got on the next three. “I didn’t go far,” he said of riding with a broken leg, “but I got on them. I wasn’t about to let my hero see that I was crippled. I’d buck off after three jumps, but I got on.”
He especially remembers some special horses. His favorite and one that stood out far above the rest was the big palomino horse Descent, owned by Beutler Bros. Bill drew him nine times, riding him five and getting bucked off four. “He was the greatest horse I’ve seen to this day. He could jump higher and kick higher than any horse I ever saw.” If a cowboy drew Descent, there was a good chance he’d win the rodeo, and that was true for Bill. He won Nampa on him twice and got bucked off there once. He won Tulsa on him and placed at the NFR on him.
Other horses stick out in Bill’s mind. Trade Winds, owned by Big Bend Rodeo Co. bucked Bill off once and he covered him once. Trails End, a horse owned by Oral Zumwalt, bucked him off twice. On Harry Knight’s Sage Hen, he was the high mark at the NFR, and she carried him to his first big win in 1964 in Dallas. She bucked him off several times, too. “I wasn’t above being bucked off,” he laughs. “I could hit the ground with the best of them.”
Smith missed the NFR in 1976 due to back surgery, and two years later, decided to call it quits. He was invited to a big match bronc riding at Ft. Worth, called the Copenhagen Skoal Match Ride. It paid a huge amount and included bull riding, tie-down roping, and barrel racing, all invitational. He won it, and decided to retire. “I thought, this is a good time to quit.” So he did. He was 38 years old, and “I was starting to slow down. I was still winning, but I didn’t want to keep going till I couldn’t ride anymore.”
After retirement, he and his wife Carole moved to North Platte, Neb. in the summers where he produced the nightly rodeo. He put on 72 performances each summer, seven nights a week, from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It was good, he said, to get him started on life outside rodeo. “That helped me bridge the gap.”
Then he and Carole bought a place in Thermopolis, Wyo. and moved there. They have a semi-annual quarter horse sale, the third Saturday of May and the second Saturday in September. The sale started in 1983, and this May, they will host their fiftieth sale, with 58 geldings, ten yearlings and a dozen started two-year-olds. They are picky about their horses. He buys the geldings, and he, Carole, and Carole’s nephew Reid O’Rourke ride them. The horses are guaranteed, and they take great pride in having good horseflesh.

Rodeo was a good way to make a living, the best, in Bill’s eyes. “They were the best days of my life, right there, rodeoing. When you can rodeo, ride broncs, and win enough to pay your way, there’s absolutely nothing better. You gotta starve to death for a while, but once you get going, you don’t have a boss, and you can tell anybody in the world to kiss your butt and it won’t bother what you win, if you can ride.”
He holds a deep inclination for horses. “Horses are my life, from the biggest Clydesdale to the littlest Shetland pony. I love them all.”
Rodeo may have changed, but he loves the horses. “The horses still buck. That’s the thing that doesn’t change. Horses still buck.”
“I’ve had a great life, a fairy tale life, actually. A little kid from the coal mines, doing nothing but what I wanted to do my whole life.”

Larry Trenary was “hungry” to rope, and it showed. The Arthur, Nebraska cowboy spent the best days of his life, roping with his sons, Bret and Troy.
He was born in 1939, the son of Elza and Erma Trenary, both teachers, who lived five and a half miles north of the tiny Nebraska Sandhills town. He grew up in a sod house, and when his parents bought the ranch where he and his wife Sonja live, they moved there.
A ranch kid, when his family moved to Lincoln, he “hated every minute of it.” The Trenarys spent vacations and summers on the ranch, and Larry spent time with his uncle Lawrence Shaw at Sutherland, Nebraska. Uncle Lawrence was a cowboy who knew how to rope. Larry knew how to rope from growing up on the ranch, but Lawrence smoothed out the rough spots on his skills, and provided a horse Larry could ride.
He graduated from Northeast High School in Lincoln in 1957, and that summer, went to the Nebraska State High School Finals Rodeo in the calf roping, steer wrestling, bareback riding and cutting. He won the all-around and represented Nebraska in the calf roping and cutting at the National High School Finals.
Then a move to California would add to his rodeo repertoire. Larry spent a year in college in Visalia, Calif., and met two fellows: Manuel Macedo, and Bob Wiley. Manuel got him started team roping, heeling for him at amateur rodeos (team roping wasn’t new in California but it was not common in Nebraska). Wiley, who was from Porterville, Calif., roped and tied calves with Larry all night long. In the old dairy barn owned by Manuel’s parents, with the lights on, “we’d tie calves till three or four in the morning, till we got tired,” Larry remembered. “We were learning to be faster all the time, and consistent.”

After a year in California, Larry was back to Arthur, where he had been dating a local girl, Sonja Mickelson. The two tied the knot in 1959, and lived in California for a short time before making their home on his parents’ ranch north of town, where they still live today.
They ranched, but Larry’s parents weren’t rich and didn’t have a lot of land or cattle to give their son. So he supplemented his income with rodeo. He became a member of the Nebraska State Rodeo Association (NSRA) the same year he got married. He also belonged to the Mid-States Rodeo Association (M-SRA).
Larry dominated his events in the NSRA and the Mid-States. He won the NSRA calf-roping title in 1961 and 1963-64, and the heeling title in 1961, 1972, 1978-79, and 1982-83. In 1984, he won the heading title. In 1961 alone, he won the all-around, calf roping and team roping titles and was reserve champion in the steer wrestling. He also won numerous titles in the Mid-States.
Larry competed in the PRCA as well, roping at Denver, Ft. Worth, Cheyenne, Chicago, Pendleton, and other venues, and at USTRC ropings. But he didn’t want to be gone from home that much, so he returned to the NSRA and Mid-States, plus ropings and rodeos in Nebraska and surrounding states. When he turned forty, he joined the Old Timers Rodeo Association (now the National Senior Pro Rodeo) and the Living Legends Rodeo Association. In 1991, he and Tony Tonozzi won the world in the USTRC’s senior division.
His most memorable calf roping horse was possibly the best calf horse ever in the state, he thinks. Old Black “was as ugly as could be,” Larry said. Old Black supposedly came from the wild horse herds in Montana, and was brought to Nebraska by a horse trader. Uncle Lawrence traded two bucket calves for the horse and he and Larry trained him. Old Black was never truly tamed. “He was so wild, he would kick you. You could never trim his tail and hardly trim his feet. He was just an outlaw, but he was a terrific calf horse.”
Larry and Sonja have two sons, Bret, who was born in 1960, and Troy, born three years later. Roping with his boys was his joy. “When my boys got old enough (to rope), that was the finest time in my whole life.” The three were serious students of the sport. They practiced hard, setting up a video camera and watching their runs, to see where they lost time and how to make it up. “We really worked at it, because it was our livelihood.”
The three Trenarys roped everywhere. If there was a good roping, they were there. They competed across Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, anywhere there were steers and a chute. They put on roping schools as well, teaching kids the fundamentals of the sport.
When Troy was seventeen years old, he was hit in the head while playing high school football. The injury put him in a coma for fifteen days. He had been an excellent heeler, Larry said, and three friends came and stayed for days, trying to help Troy rope again, but the use of his right arm was gone. Their son is still alive, and able to lead a normal life, and for that, Sonja and Larry are grateful.
After Troy got hurt, Bret switched from heading to heeling, so Larry, who heeled, lost his partner. He tried five or six different headers, but things weren’t the same. In his last years of roping, he found a good partner: his friend Marvin Mueller.
Bret’s team roping career flourished. He roped professionally for years, qualifying for the National Finals Rodeo in 1987, heading for Allen Bach.
Not growing up with a silver spoon in his mouth was an advantage, Larry feels. “I didn’t have the money to do things, and I had only one really good horse, and gosh, not very good vehicles. I was purt near broke, but kept going because of my roping.” He feels that money isn’t always the answer. To be a good roper, “I think you have to have the ability to stay on track, and the will to win. Money won’t do it. I know so many kids that their folks have a lot of money, and they want to be a great calf roper or team roper. But most of the guys who are really, really good have had to go without things in their life. You can’t give it to them. It just doesn’t work that way. They don’t seem to have enough guts to stay with something that long.
“You gotta be hungry for it, almost like you need the next dollar to eat on. That forces you to try not to make a mistake, because if you make a mistake, you’re not going to win.”
He and his boys were that way, he says. “We were like a basketball team. We trained here at home, and everywhere we went, we watched the good guys. And on the way home, we’d talk about the good guys, and what they’d done that made them so great. We just learned from them.”
The best days of his life were spending time with his boys. “It was everything,” he remembers. “We were learning together. We’d argue and fight, but it would all come out to be the best.”
Larry roped his last calf at the Arthur rodeo in the late 1970s, on Old Black. He quit team roping at the age of seventy, after having been an NSRA member for over fifty years. His roping was as good as ever, but his knees hurt. Two years ago, Larry was inducted into the Nebraska Sandhills Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Larry and Sonja take great pleasure in their grandchildren, Jhett and Mercedes, the son and daughter of Bret and Dede, who live in Salida, Colo. Mercedes, a former college breakaway roper and goat tyer is teaching school in Oklahoma. Jhett, who team ropes with his dad, is a student at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas. “They’re the delight of our life,” Sonja said.

They sold their cow/calf herd a few years ago and now background calves, which Larry enjoys. “It’s not work to him,” Sonja said. “He just loves what he’s doing. We just keep a-going.” Troy lives with his parents and helps out with the cattle work.
The couple enjoyed their rodeo years, and life now, too. “It’s a wonderful life, what we’ve done,” she said. “It’s been a great life. We’ve been up and down the road. I wouldn’t change it for anything, and I know Larry and the boys wouldn’t, either. “We love what we do.”