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Versatile cowboy : Duane Howard a success in, out of arena
BY KRISTEN M. WHITE - July 2,2008
 Duane Howard will tell you that he doesn’t deserve his upcoming induction into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. But the people who know him nominated him and elected him into the Class of 2008 believe otherwise.
Howard will be inducted in the notables category, having worked and served in ProRodeo in a variety of ways: first as a young competitor, later as a pickup man and also as a professional judge. The 74-year-old was not only an all-around cowboy in the arena, but out of it as well.
“I’m just simply amazed,” he said. “I still don’t think I deserve to be in there with all those champions. I never won a championship, and my career was quite short. I’m very humbled that I’m going to be inducted in there with all those great people.”
Howard said there was “no illustrious start” to his career as a cowboy. Growing up in North Dakota, he went to some of the Indian rodeos and watched the cowboys compete. His family home was on a ranch, so he was involved with horses from an early age.
“I just always wanted to be a cowboy,” he said. “I’d see an action picture in a catalog of somebody doing something with rodeo, and just wanted to be a cowboy. As a kid I rode some calves – well, I got on; I didn’t ride too many, to be honest with you – and I wanted to be a bareback rider, but that didn’t last too long.”
Howard continued riding bareback horses into his professional days, but also found that he could ride saddle bronc horses. He eventually discovered that bull riding was perhaps his best event. There was “no big leap or anything” into the professional ranks; he just purchased his card in 1953 and started going to rodeos.
He placed in the money at some of the country’s biggest rodeos including Cheyenne, Wyo., Denver, Madison Square Garden and Pendleton, Ore. Then, in 1955, he finished the year as the reserve world champion in bull riding. He repeated the feat in 1957, the same year he finished as reserve world champion in the all-around competition behind fellow Hall of Famer Jim Shoulders, and was reserve world champion in bull riding for a third time in 1960.
Howard qualified for the first National Finals Rodeo in 1959 and was the bull riding average winner there in 1960, but his competitive career ended soon after because of injury. He was bucked off a horse and hit his head on the ground, suffering serious head trauma. He was “very fortunate” to survive and recover, though he never fully regained his riding ability.
Photo by DeVere: Duane Howard won the bull riding average at the 1960 National Finals Rodeo and was a three-time reserve world champion before later working as a pickup man and rodeo judge.
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So, Howard turned to the next stage of his PRCA career. He was one of ProRodeo’s first professional judges, from 1982-94, and worked at the National Finals Rodeo 11 times. He also served on the PRCA Board of Directors and as a pick-up man.
“I had a pretty good handle on the judging, but when you’re a judge, you’re a very discussed person. You can never really satisfy anybody,” Howard said. “I had a lot of respect for the contestants. I understood where they were coming from when they thought things were wrong. But, it wasn’t going to make me back down. The rules are the rules.”
Eventually, Howard tired of the on-the-go rodeo life and slowed down, returning home to his wife and three daughters. Now he and his wife live in Sheyenne, N.D., where he has four young horses.
“I work cattle once in a while, and I get to be on horseback, which is what I really like,” he said. “I can’t complain.”
Howard doesn’t have much involvement in rodeo these days, but he looks back at his ProRodeo days with pride.
“Rodeo has given me everything I ever had,” he said. “I wasn’t a huge money winner, but we put our (home) together. And all the people I got to see, in all aspects, civilian and rodeo – the gas station attendants, the waitresses, everyone – and all the different parts of the country ... rodeo was the cause of it. I have nothing but admiration for the world of rodeo.”
And now, the world of rodeo will show its admiration for Howard, honoring him with induction into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.
All-around excellence: Paul Tierney honored to be Hall of Famer
BY KRISTEN M. WHITE, July 3, 2008
PRCA file photo: Paul Tierney’s career included a tie-down roping world title in 1979 and the all-around gold buckle in 1980.
| Tom Ferguson probably knows Paul Tierney’s name well. He should, because Tierney is the man who unseated Ferguson in 1980, ending his six-year streak of all-around world championships.
Tierney, one of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame’s Class of 2008 inductees, made his first big splash in rodeo the year before, winning the tie-down roping world championship in 1979. Also a steer wrestler, he finished runner-up to Ferguson in the all-around standings that year before returning the next to finish at the top.
“It’s one of those deals where (the Hall of Fame induction) is like a little cherry on top of everything,” Tierney said.
He’s a poster child for the ideas that hard work and belief in yourself will take you places. Some of his family had dabbled in rodeo, but he decided as a teenager that he’d really commit to the sport. He won the Nebraska high school all-around title, and then went to college on a rodeo scholarship.
“It just kind of snowballed from there,” he said. “I kind of had aspirations of going to the NFR some day, and then when you see the NFR is possible, you start thinking about a world championship.”
Simply, Tierney set goals for himself. And then he set about accomplishing them.
When he graduated from college, he purchased his ProRodeo card, but “just kind of played with” rodeo for a couple of years. Finally, in his third year, he told himself he either had to get on with “what was real in life” or give rodeo a serious try, so he saved some money to go to the winter rodeos and then hit the road.
“I canned some money so that I didn’t stress out about getting to the winter rodeos,” he said. “Then I went to Denver and Fort Worth and won $10,000, then won in El Paso, Phoenix, Houston … shoot, I came home with more money than I’d ever seen.
“It’s a confidence boost. It ups your belief that you can do something like this. That first winter, I learned that I could do it. It was a leap of faith, and that’s what it’s all about.”
PRCA file photo: Paul Tierney enjoys a relaxed moment with former Oakland Raiders quarterback Kenny Stabler.
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In 1978, Tierney dislocated his wrist. Although he had a tough season, he still qualified for the NFR in tie-down roping and finished as the runner-up to the world title. He returned the following season with the belief that he could do it – and proved that he could, winning the tie-down roping world title.
“I had a couple of guys say to me that I would be able to win the world, and I had that belief and vision. And I won the world by only $100 (over Ferguson),” he said. “I wanted to win the all-around, so I just believed I was going to win it the next year and I set myself up to do it.
“Just believing in yourself, accomplishing some things, that ups your confidence level and pretty soon you take ownership of what you want to possess. Then you sacrifice just about anything to accomplish that dream you have.”
Tierney did exactly that. Not only did he win the all-around championship in 1980, but he also became the second cowboy to ever surpass $100,000 in earnings during a single season, finishing the year with $105,568.
He finished among the top 10 all-around cowboys seven times in his career. He qualified for the NFR in tie-down roping nine times, from 1977-82 and 1984-86, and five times in steer wrestling in 1977, 1979-81 and 1984.
In 1988, he suffered a back injury that required surgery. Afterward, he “just never really got back into it.” He said 10 years had been a good career and he was ready to devote more time to his family and other interests.
Tierney’s sons, Jess and Paul David, are competing in the PRCA, and so Tierney gets plenty of practice roping with them.
“I rope just as much as I always did,” he said.
It’s at this juncture of his life that he says he can truly appreciate his induction into the Hall of Fame.
“You can appreciate what other people feel about the feats you achieved,” he said. “To be chosen, from your peers, it’s a great honor.”
Cowboy of character : Ever-popular Bobby Hurley orchestrated Hall of Fame career
BY JIM BAINBRIDGE, July 3, 2008
PRCA file photo: Team roper Bobby Hurley, shown here roping with Dennis Gatz, won world titles in 1993 and 1995. |
Allen Bach is thrilled that his former team roping partner, Bobby Hurley, is being inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame – and not just because he believes him to be “one of the best headers ever,” a guy who competed on the highest level for 18 years and won “everything there was to win.”
As much as Bach admired all that – even benefited from it – he believes that to talk only about Hurley’s two world championships and other career benchmarks is to miss the point. To Bach, Bobby Hurley is a hero, a designation he reserves for Lane Frost and maybe 10 others among the thousands of people he has met.
“Bobby is a quality person,” Bach said, “a guy who makes you a little bit better person for knowing him. He’s always had the greatest combination of competitive spirit and the love of fun. He’s easy-going, always laughing and kidding around, but was always ready to take care of business.
“This is a guy who has never done anyone any harm, was never changed by success, stepped out of his career at the right time to raise his kids and has always done things the right way. If you could put all those things together, he might be the greatest of all time.”
He will get no argument on any of that from Dennis Gatz, who lived and trained with Hurley for several years in Central California and competed alongside him in four straight National Finals Rodeos (1989-92).
“They don’t come any better than Bobby Hurley,” Gatz said. “He’s one of my closest friends. He’s just very positive and full of fun; we used to call him ‘The Giggler.’ He’s probably the reason I still rope competitively. I went down a different road for several years and before I came back, I called Bobby to talk it through. He is just a great, great friend.”
This open-heartedness and zest for living came from his parents, Bobby Sr. and Mary Jo, Hurley says. They both supported him in everything he did (“I think my dad missed one of my seventh-grade basketball games”) and they both epitomized the values of hard work, perseverance and quiet strength. Mary Jo Hurley suffered from rheumatoid arthritis all of her adult life, and Bobby cannot remember her once wincing or complaining about the considerable pain.
The other important life lesson Hurley would pick up from being raised on the Hurley BH Ranch in Clarksville, Ark., was an understanding of top-flight quarter horses and horsemanship.
Bobby Hurley Sr. raised some of the best horses in the country, and Dale Meeks trained them to become champions. The primary beneficiary of this horse factory was Bobby Jr., who always had great horses under him on the rodeo trail.
Yellow Bar Smug (Bar Smug) was the 1990 PRCA/American Quarter Horse Association Head Horse of the Year and Tres Spiffy Dude (Spiff) won the award in 1994; both came off the Hurley family ranch. Hurley qualified for 12 consecutive NFRs and 15 all together, primarily on those two horses and another named Dunny.
Hurley won his first gold buckle in 1993 when he and Bach won an unprecedented five consecutive rounds to close out the National Finals Rodeo.
“I still consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career,” said Bach, a four-time world champion. “It was beyond my wildest dreams. Maybe when I was a kid roping a bale of hay at the ranch, I would pretend I could do something like that, but who could imagine actually winning five straight rounds at the NFR?”
“That’s the biggest stage rodeo has to offer,” Hurley said, “and to win five rounds in a row there is amazing. It is one thing to win five rodeos in a row, but to do it at NFR makes it a little more special. It will be a tough (record) to beat, because you are roping against the 15 best. Things have to work just right, and you have to be lucky, too. It is probably the greatest highlight of my career. I can’t argue with Allen on that one.”
Hurley won that world championship alone that year because PRCA rules then designated only one winner, based on whoever had the most prize money at year’s end, header or heeler.
That rule changed in 1995, and Hurley and Bach came back to win the world championship together that year, albeit with a little drama along the way.
The competition went down to the final night in Las Vegas with Matt Tyler and Kermit Maass both having a chance to push past Hurley for the header championship. The Hurley/Bach pairing drew the worst steer in the pen, a smallish black steer with a proclivity for ducking his head down between his front legs as he ran.
“When I threw my loop,” Hurley said, “I couldn’t even see his horns. I knew he had them. I saw them when he left the chute, and I figured they had to be down there somewhere. When my loop didn’t come out the other side, I figured it hooked on something. I don’t know how it all worked.”
“It was amazing,” Bach said. “He just ran up on him and got his rope on the horns like the steer had never ducked. A friend of ours, Mark Arnold, bought the steer and that next winter Daniel Green practiced on that steer and missed him all five times. Daniel said to me later, ‘I have no idea how your partner roped that thing.’”
Hurley says now that the way in which he won his two world championships was storybook, the kind of stuff one dreams about as a kid. He and Bach needed a time of better than 5.0 seconds in the last round of the 1993 NFR for Hurley to get the world title, and they were 4.5. And then he needed a miracle shot on that head-ducking scamp in 1995 to earn gold buckle number two.
“It turned out to be two pretty special moments,” Hurley said. “Going into the Hall is another one.”
Photo by Dan Hubbell: Longtime PRCA judge Buddy Lytle was widely known for his expertise, objectivity and consistency; secretaries and timers also appreciated his intense concentration and precision movements.
| Lifetime achievement: Buddy Lytle helped write judges’ handbook
BY ANNE CHRISTENSEN, July 3, 2008
This much we know about the childhood of rodeo judge Buddy Lytle (1941-2002): his momma raised him on dumplings and love outside Sterling, Okla., where he took to roping his neighbor’s cattle. He started rodeoing in his teens, then interrupted a rather successful rookie year to enlist in the military in early 1963.
In 1964, Lytle got home from the Army, and that’s where his first traveling partner, Zane Tibbets, picks up the tale, just like he picked up Lytle. “I said, ‘I’m going up north to some rodeos. Do you want to go?’ He said, ‘I would like to, but I don’t have a card.’ I said I’d send the money in. He said, ‘I don’t have a horse.’ I said, ‘You can ride my horse.’ The first three rodeos we went to, we both placed at. We thought we’d never see a poor day again.”
Lytle rodeoed for years, mostly in tie-down roping and steer wrestling, before finding his true calling. He was competing in West Monroe, La., in 1966 when chute boss John Farris asked him to fill in for a missing judge. “Buddy was the most qualified one there,” Farris said. “He had roped and bulldogged, and he studied the riding events when he was living with us. He excelled in judging, even that first night.”
It was an auspicious beginning to a long career – Lytle went on to judge about 25 rodeos a year, including most of the major ones and 24 National Finals Rodeos.
Fellow judge Steve Knowles, who nominated him for the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, said Lytle’s years as a competitor shaped his priorities as a judge.
“When Buddy came up as a contestant, you had to pay your dues before you could win. Names mattered,” Knowles said. “Buddy wanted everybody to have a fair opportunity whether it was their first or hundredth rodeo, and no matter where they came from. Everybody had the same opportunity in the arena if Buddy was officiating.”
He was equally nonjudgmental outside the arena, Knowles said. “Buddy knew what it took to put on a rodeo, and he knew how important everyone’s job was, no matter how small. He treated those people with the same amount of respect that he treated the guy who owned the company.”
Lytle’s evenhandedness extended to livestock, says his widow, Sue. “He was the most honest person I’ve ever encountered. He only looked at the cowboy and the animal; he never listened to their names. He said that reputation doesn’t matter, because everyone and every animal can have a good day or a bad day.”
As a timer and rodeo secretary, she appreciated his “sharp” flag. “He didn’t drag; he had a quick flag but he didn’t jump the gun,” Sue said. “And he could visualize so quickly what he just saw.”
Lytle – who died April 10, 2002, at age 61 – didn’t wait for the rodeo to start before getting to work, Knowles noted. “Buddy paid attention to all the prerodeo details. He made sure the cattle were sound and ready to go and the right cattle were there, so you didn’t have a breakdown. Buddy would solve that kind of problem before it happened.”
When the PRCA started its judging evaluation program in 2000, Lytle was among the first field representatives hired, said Tommy Keith, then assistant supervisor of PRCA Pro Officials. “Buddy had already been instrumental in putting together the judging handbook. (Officials supervisor) Jack Hannum relied on him for rule interpretation and updating. Buddy made sure that if something happened out there in the field, it wouldn’t be interpreted one way at one rodeo and differently at another rodeo.”
Part of Lytle’s field rep job was assisting Hannum with judging seminars, a role he wasn’t comfortable with initially. “I’m just not smart enough,” he told Sue, who suggested that they practice together before he faced a class of 12-15 judges. “Pretend they are all me,” she told him. “They’re not going to judge you for speaking. You’ve got more knowledge.”
“He said, ‘I do not.’ I said, ‘You wrote the book!’ Since then, judges have told me that they learned more in his classes because Buddy talked on their level.”
As wife and partner in their cattle operation in Byhalia, Miss., Sue saw sides of Lytle that others might not have noticed, like his perfectionism – “You didn’t want to build a barn with him!” – and his tendency toward dishevelment. “He wasn’t a neat person,” she recalled. “His clothes were always clean when he left home, but he could get dirty just standing in the middle of a room.”
And there was his toughness. Not long after they were married in 1978, while Lytle was flagging at the Fort Worth (Texas) rodeo, “The back cinch broke and the horse bucked. Buddy left his arm in the air so the boy would get the time, and so he went down at the same time as the horse,” Sue said. He broke five ribs and cracked another 17. “Then he flagged three more rodeos in a row.”
Lytle ate, slept, and breathed the sport, said Sue. “Any time he came away from a rodeo, he wanted to know that he did the best job he could. He’d ride the tractor 10-12 hours a day and be continually thinking how to improve this or that for the rodeo or the judges. We’d go to bed and he’d be talking about it. When we got up, he’d be talking about it. Rodeo was his life for 40-some years.”
Top horseman : Pioneer in bucking horse breeding "Feek" Tooke joins ProRodeo Hall of Fame
BY JOHNNA ESPINOZA, July 3, 2008
One of the most important things to know about Chandler “Feek” Tooke, according to his son, Ernest, is that he was a horseman. The Montanan loved horses immensely, and he had a special way with them, even the feisty ones.
“Most guys would have been whipped before they got started (with some horses), but dad could get along with them,” Ernest said.
Tooke’s connection with bucking horses lasted until his death following an appearance at the 1968 National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City, Okla.
Tooke’s 59 years were full because of his love for rodeo and family. He was of Irish descent, one of six brothers, a storyteller, husband, father of four, rancher and stock contractor.
ProRodeo Hall of Fame announcer Clem McSpadden presents Feek Tooke with an award at the 1968 National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City, Okla.
| Stories about Tooke and his famous bucking horses could fill a book, but his contribution to ProRodeo is fairly straightforward. He is considered a pioneer in bucking horse breeding. He bred and raised great bucking horses, and his horses have made a significant, lasting and perhaps unequaled contribution to professional rodeo.
Stock contractor Ike Sankey has tracked the bloodlines of bucking horse sire Custer, whom he purchased from stock contractor Harry Vold. Custer was the son of the Tooke horse General Custer.
“One year at the NFR, I counted up relations of (Custer’s) sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, and there were more than 60 horses there that were closely related to that horse,” Sankey said.
Bucking horse offspring of Tooke stallions Prince, Timberline and Gray Wolf, along with legendary 1,800-pound General Custer, are spread throughout the United States and Canada.
Those bloodlines and Tooke’s bucking horse knowledge will be recognized when the stock contractor is posthumously inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame on July 12. He will be represented by family and friends, including great-grandson Toby Chandler Tooke of Billings, Mont., who, along with Ernest and others, nominated Tooke.
Tooke, the pride of Ekalaka, a small town in southeastern Montana near the North Dakota border, will join the names of other ProRodeo legends – some of whom he inspired.
“He fascinated the daylights out of me,” said ProRodeo Hall of Fame announcer Clem McSpadden. “I had such a deep, deep respect for him. (His induction) will be the closure of something that to me is long, long overdue. I’m not being critical. There are just so many people who are deserving who are not known. It will mean a great deal to me, and he deserves it.”
Extended family members still share the 25,000-acre Tooke Ranch about 150 miles west of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, where Tooke ran about 150 horses at a time; in total, the family probably raised about 1,500 head. The Tooke Brothers’ stock contracting company, started in 1931, was passed to Ernest in 1954.
Tooke, who was born in 1909 in Redfield, S.D., will be inducted one year before the 100th anniversary of his birth. The 2008 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo will mark 40 years since Tooke’s death following a heart attack at the 1968 NFR. He was so proud to receive a top saddle bronc horse plaque that he probably ignored symptoms of his ill health and collapsed outside of the arena.
Tooke accepted an award for Sheep Mountain, a bucking horse he had bred and raised, that fateful night. McSpadden presented Tooke the 1967 Saddle Bronc Horse of the NFR plaque to Tooke in the arena.
Ernest Tooke wrote about his father’s death in a 1982 article.
“Many people are of the opinion that if dad could have had his choice of a time and place, this would have been the way he wanted it; he was on horseback, he was at the world’s biggest rodeo, and he had just received one of the most prestigious awards in professional rodeo for a horse he had raised. This was his greatest moment of glory.”
Tooke’s accomplishments date back to the 1930s and 1940s. Along with numerous bucking horse awards, Tooke is credited with the idea of having cowboys ride bucking horses at bucking horse sales and also was among early innovators of matched bronc riding events.
Breeding and raising outstanding bucking horses was Tooke’s greatest passion.
In the 1930s, he noticed how another rancher had used a draft horse – a Shire stud – for breeding with the hope of raising durable horses who could better withstand the Powder River Breaks, a mountain range in southeastern Montana. Tooke took that idea a little further and in 1936 decided to breed Shire studs to Arabian and Thoroughbred mares. The idea, as Ernest described it, was to combine the size and power of a draft horse with the stamina and agility of the other breeds. Tooke’s eye for fine horses and his breeding program produced outstanding animal athletes including Sheep Mountain and Major Reno, and descendents of Tooke horses such as the award-winning Bobby Joe Skoal (Harry Vold Rodeo Company), Copenhagen Comotion (Beutler and Gaylord) and Skoal’s Spring Fling (Big Bend Rodeo Company).
Ernest, 71, and Tooke’s widow, Thelma, who has celebrated her 90th birthday, will not be able to make it to Colorado Springs, Colo., for the ceremonies due to health reasons. However, other members of the family will be on hand to celebrate Tooke’s horse sense.
The name “Feek” isn’t Irish for horse sense. It was a childhood nickname. An aunt gave Tooke the nickname “Felix” because she didn’t like his given name, Chandler. Tooke’s brother, Fay, couldn’t say Felix, and instead said “Feek.”
Call him Feek or Chandler – his name and his legacy in rodeo will officially be in the ProRodeo Hall of Fame this month.
“(In breeding bucking horses), nobody has been close to him, and nobody ever will,” McSpadden said.
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38-year partnership : Leon & Vicki Adams, contract personnel team honored for entertainment
BY ANNE CHRISTENSON, July 2, 2008
He was born to an Oklahoma farmer who couldn’t get him to stop bulldogging the milk cows and Roman riding the workhorses. She was born to a Native American all-around cowboy and horsewoman, and started trick riding at Indian rodeos at age 12.
At that age, he thought he was rich when he got paid $15 for Roman riding at a rodeo – but two years later, he prudently turned down a contract from a passing Wild West circus to finish high school. In her teens, she helped her dad run cattle and owned the Northwest Indian barrel racing crown three straight years.
Their paths crossed just once during those years, when Vicki was 13. “The first time I saw the great Leon Adams was at the Yakima Fair, dressed like Batman with his son (Winford) as Robin. I was sure interested in that Batman. It must have been those tights,” she said, chuckling. “He was daring, and man, he could ride; he could fly. The horses would hardly stand up, they were going through the hoops so fast. It spurred me to find people to help me advance.”
And advance she did. Connecting with famed trick riders Dick and Connie Griffith at the Ellensburg (Wash.) Rodeo Fairgrounds, she later trained at their Lancaster, Calif., school until going pro at 17.
 From the time Leon and Vicki met at a 1969 RCA convention, neither geographical distance nor a 20-year age difference could keep them apart. They married in 1970 and began working together on their acts, their cattle operation in Stuart, Okla., and parenting. They retired from rodeo in 2005 (Leon) and 2006 (Vicki) after three selections each as PRCA Specialty Act of the Year – once each separately and twice together.
Daughter Kerri, 35, had a front-row seat from which to observe their partnership. “They’ve always had the same goal: to be the best with their animals,” she said. “It wasn’t just his thing and she did it to make him happy – they melded together. They both did exactly what they wanted all the time, and made it work for them.”
Her father concurs. “We’ve been inseparable for 38 years,” said Leon, 78. “Neither one of us has ever had a dinner-bucket job. All this other stuff – we just happened to make a living at it.”
“All this other stuff” includes training a horse to jump through a fire hoop right up to the top of a pickup cab to present an American flag, getting horses to dance in place and training several to walk on their hind legs.
“All this other stuff” includes going from a backbend to a stand and landing back in the saddle on a speeding horse, training NFR-level steer wrestling horses like Bandit and Boone, Roman riding a tandem team of six horses catapulting over hurdles, and training 40-50 horses at once for movies and Wild West shows.
 Photos courtesy of Leon and Vicki Adams: During his specialty act career, Leon Adams trained 12 Brahma bulls to perform. |
And “all this other stuff” includes working with Brahma bulls. Leon has trained Brahmas to jump over a Cadillac convertible, through fire hoops and for Roman riding, which he’s done since 1955.
So, how do you train a cantankerous 2,000-pound bull? “They can be temperamental,” Leon acknowledged. “But they’re unique in the way their minds work. They are by nature a very sensitive animal.” They’re harder to ride than horses, he said, because they run at a lunge, are more agile and less distinct in their movements and have looser hide – and, of course, the horns.
The crowd always rewarded their efforts and style, said John Harrison, who nominated the Adamses for the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. “Leon never loses a smile. He is messing with a 2,000-pound animal going through a flaming hoop, and he’s smiling,” he said. “And Vicki is one of the best show-women in the industry, with her ability to reach and grab the crowd, her poise and elegance, her eye contact while she’s performing.”
Leon’s performance philosophy is disarmingly simple: take risks. “I tried to do a lot of hard things, because if you’re not on the borderline, you’re not really entertaining. If the fans love it, I love to do it,” he said. “I pushed the horses to their limits and pushed myself to the limit too.”
But Leon doesn’t ask for anything he won’t give, says former son-in-law Blake Goode, who learned to ride bulls from Leon and still helps out at the Adamses’ ranch. “Leon is the hardest-working man I’ve ever been around, and he understands animals,” Goode said. “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.”
Leon still works dawn to dusk at his ranch, says Goode. But Leon attributes the Adamses’ 1993 Conservation Ranch of the Year award to rodeo money. “I brought a lot of money back from rodeoing, and I put it on weed control, sowing different grasses, making good wetlands. If I had one week to live, I’d have the bulldozer out working to make this land better for the next generation,” he said.
Sound like a man ready for his retirement curtain call? Not from ranching, but reluctantly, from rodeo. “Vicki wanted to quit while she was still doing well,” says Leon. “I didn’t want to quit until I just couldn’t do it any more.”
They will both be remembered as consummate entertainers, said Harrison. “They have really set a standard for our industry. They are part of rodeo’s entertainment value. When people leave, they are talking the next day at the coffee shop about Leon and Vicki.”
 Class consistency: Tom Reeves joins friends in Hall of Fame after storied career
BY NEAL REID, July 3, 2008
The year was 1985, and a 20-year-old saddle bronc rider strolled through the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo., with a pair of buddies, dreaming of one day seeing his name among the legends enshrined there. Fast-forward 23 years, and that dream has become a reality for Tom Reeves.
Reeves, the 2001 World Champion, will officially take his place in the ProRodeo Hall of Fame on July 12, putting the cap on a long and storied career. All he did in that career was earn more than $1.7 million and set a then-PRCA record for National Finals Rodeo qualifications by a saddle bronc rider with 18. He was a fixture in Las Vegas every year from 1985-2002, and his record has since been surpassed by five-time World Champion Billy Etbauer and equaled by Rod Hay, but now Reeves will forever be a fixture in the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.
“I was pretty excited,” Reeves said of receiving the news about his selection. “I thought I may get in one day, but I thought I’d be dead and gone. You’d never want to ask to be put in there or assume you were going to be put in there because you just don’t know.”
Little did the young Reeves know in 1985 that his dream would come true. He made that ProRodeo Hall of Fame visit with traveling partners C.R. Kemple, who would go on to four NFR appearances, and Clint Corey, who won the 1991 bareback riding world title and qualified for 18 NFRs of his own.
Corey was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2004 and will welcome Reeves into the elite club with open arms.
PRCA ProRodeo file photo by Bob Click: Saddle bronc rider Tom Reeves qualified for 18 straight National Finals Rodeos, winning the world title in 2001. He has since become one of the mentors in the sport. |
“It’s really neat for both of us to be in there,” Corey said of the Hall. “Tom and I started rodeoing together way back when, even though we were in different events. Tom and I were rolling into rodeos, showing up 30 minutes before they started, and I’d win the bareback and he’d win the broncs and we’d jump in the car and head to the next one. That was just the way things were rolling for us. We couldn’t do any wrong.
“It was pretty neat the way our whole careers wound up, with both of us qualifying 18 times for the National Finals, both winning the world title, both winning the (NFR) average. We had very similar careers and basically started together.”
The induction will, no doubt, be a bittersweet affair for Reeves, who lost his father, Dean, in an all-terrain vehicle accident on May 25. It is an understatement to say that it will be an emotional day for the 43-year-old South Dakota-born cowboy.
“I’ve thought about that a bunch,” Reeves said. “I’m going to have somebody else speak for me. My mother and a bunch of my family are going to be there, and my dad had made plans to go. It’s going to be a really positive day. Dad, he would have had a blast.”
Reeves found out about his selection in April, so he was able to share the news with his father. It was an experience he will treasure forever.
“He was pretty excited,” Reeves said. “He thought it was pretty neat, and we visited quite a while about it. I’m excited about it, but my dad was even more excited because rodeo is a way of life for us. My dad was the ultimate cowboy.”
The elder Reeves’ son wasn’t too bad himself. Not only did he notch the 18 NFR qualifications, he had a handful of top-five finishes in addition to his world title. Reeves had to wait nearly 20 years for that title, but was fighting for it against a Who’s Who list of the best saddle bronc riders of all time. From Billy, Dan and Robert Etbauer, to Lewis Feild, Clint Johnson and Dan Mortensen, Reeves had his hands full.
“I came up in a really tough era of bronc riders. You didn’t take turns. You had to beat those guys. It gave me some longevity for sure, because those guys are the real deal.”
Reeves’ toughness and desire were two of the keys to his success.
“He was just so dedicated and focused on what he wanted,” Corey said. “If you told him he had a really rank horse, he took it as, ‘All right! What a challenge.’ If you told him he was going to buck off, it just made him stronger and he wasn’t scared. He could ride anything, and he was focused and worked hard at it. He was an awesome bronc rider and did everything correctly.”
In recent years, Reeves has transitioned into a leadership role for others. He was chosen as captain of Team USA in the 2002 Olympic Command Performance Rodeo and took over as the rodeo coach at Ranger (Texas) College in 2005 following his retirement. He led Ranger to the 2007 collegiate men’s title and received the 2007 ProRodeo Hall of Fame Mentoring Award.
He has said many times that his great joy now comes from seeing his pupils, cowboys like all-around star Steven Dent, succeed in the professional ranks.
He credits his own mentors, from his father and John McBeth to Brad Gjermundson and Feild, for helping mold him into a winner. They taught him many things, including the importance of positive role models for up-and-coming cowboys.
“Those guys were my heroes,” Reeves said.
Now, he’s the hero … that, and a ProRodeo Hall of Famer.
Hidden gem : 1959 Bucking Horse of the Year Trails End was previously a packhorse
BY JOHNNA ESPINOZA, July 3, 2008
Trails End, pictured with then owner Oral Zumwalt, was voted Bucking Horse of the Year in 1959.
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He was destined by birth and circumstance to be a workhorse, but he became a rodeo star. This is the story of Trails End.
A sheepherder, wanting a saddle horse, sent him away to become a packhorse because he could not be broke to ride. The horse refused a saddle or an adult, but he let a young boy sit on his back.
Montana stock contractor Oral Zumwalt discovered the gelding in 1958. He paid $125 and a rodeo ticket for the horse who became a powerful bucker when the spotlight was on him, but was easy-going and affectionate after the whistle blew.
The horse lacked prestigious bloodlines, but rose to the sport’s highest stage. He was suited for the rodeo arena, not hauling a load, and once he got the chance to buck, he made the most of it.
The story of the famed saddle bronc and bareback riding horse Trails End should be told, according to Teresa King of Coulee City, Wash., who nominated him for the ProRodeo Hall of Fame as a tribute to the horse and to her father-in-law Bud King, one of the former owners of Big Bend Rodeo Company.
“Trails touched a lot of people’s lives – from Big Bend Rodeo Company families, to the cowboys who competed on him, to the rodeo fans who cheered him on,” she said.
Trails End was owned by Zumwalt, of Missoula, Mont., from 1958 until Zumwalt’s death in 1964. Big Bend Rodeo Company partners Bud King, Ed Ring and Bill Hutsell purchased the horse in 1964 for $4,400, which was reportedly the highest price paid at the time for a bucking horse in the Rodeo Cowboys Association (RCA).
Bud King of Odessa, Wash., later became the sole owner of Big Bend Rodeo Company and owned Trails End until the horse’s death on Feb. 11, 1980, at the age of 28.
Trails End was selected RCA Bucking Horse of the Year in 1959. In total, Trails End earned 11 trips to the National Finals Rodeo from 1959 to 1971. He was named best saddle bronc at the NFR in 1960 and 1961.
“In great horses and in great people, it’s the desire to do it, and he was a real athlete, that horse,” said Shawn Davis, three-time world champion saddle bronc rider and general manager of the Wrangler NFR.
Photo courtesy of the King family: Trails End was admired by many in rodeo, including Big Bend Rodeo Company families and the Bud King family, who were among his owners.
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Trails End was admired by many, but was especially close to Zumwalt, Bud King and caretaker George Williams, who looked after the horse in Oklahoma in the last four years of his life.
Trails End will be inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame on July 12, where he will be represented by Bud and Geraldine King. It will be a proud moment for those familiar with the legendary horse who made bucking an art form.
“He would get in the air, and it was like a painted picture. He spent that much time in the air,” said Davis, who rode the horse in his prime bucking years and again later in his career.
Trails End’s appeal goes beyond his magnificent ability. The twists and turns on his way to greatness drew Teresa King to his story. During a Washington winter, she came to know Trails End through photographs, letters and scrapbooks.
“My father-in-law gave me the old rodeo photo albums, and I started going through them and organizing each animal by name,” she said. “Trails’ story just kept coming back to me again and again.”
The horse who became Trails End was born in the Bitterroot Valley in Montana on the Walter Sutley Ranch and was originally named Dexter, after the Dexter packsaddle. Sutley gave the horse to sheepherder Selman Eldridge of Victor, Mont., because Dexter could not be broke to ride.
Eldridge also could not turn Dexter into a saddle horse, so he sent the horse to the Pierre family, who lived in Arlee, Mont., on the Flathead Indian Reservation. The family used Dexter to haul Christmas trees and for other tasks. One fall, Dexter got away with a pack on his back and was not caught until the spring, according to King. He would carry the scars on his back from wearing the pack the rest of his life. He never again submitted to being packed and would buck when ridden.
Dexter later went back to Eldridge’s place, where he was spotted by a father and son who told Eldridge he should sell the horse to Zumwalt as a bucking horse.
Reaching the National Finals Rodeo seemed impossible for a descendent of a stud range horse, but Zumwalt unearthed the precious gem. The tremendous skill and power of the chunky sorrel resulted in “the end of the trail” for many cowboys, so Zumwalt changed the horse’s name to Trails End, and a professional bucking career was born.
Trails End took to rodeo like a fish to water, as if he was making up for lost time. He began his rodeo career in 1958, and in 1959 the Zumwalt Rodeo Company standout, then 8 years old, was selected as the Bucking Horse of the Year.
Some of the sport’s top cowboys matched skills with Trails End, including six-time World Champion Saddle Bronc Rider Casey Tibbs and six-time World Champion All-Around Cowboy Larry Mahan.
Cowboys remember Trails End fondly and vividly nearly 30 years later.
“He was awfully fast,” said former RCA saddle bronc rider Wes Mapston of Arlee, Mont. “He was so snappy. If you got out of time with him, he had you.”
Trails End was featured in numerous magazines during his pro career, including Life magazine in 1960.
Trails End was retired from rodeo competition in 1973. However, he made an appearance at the 1976 National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City, Okla. The champion bucking horse, led around the arena by Williams, received a standing ovation, and looked right at home in the spotlight.
“Everyone was grinning from ear to ear,” Williams said in an interview about that night. “It was the highlight of the performance.”
Lightning quick : Two-time steer roping world champ Shaun Burchett lived fast-paced life
BY NEAL REID, July 3, 2008
Shaun Burchett only had one gear: fast. In the rodeo arena, his speed was an asset, helping make him one of the best steer ropers of the late 1980s. He won back-to-back world titles in 1987 and 1988 after runner-up finishes in 1985 and 1986 and qualified for nine National Finals Steer Ropings (NFSR) from 1983-91.
PRCA file photo: Shaun Burchett accomplished many things in his 28 years, including a pair of steer roping world titles in 1987 and 1988.
| Those achievements propelled Burchett into star status, and they have now earned him a spot in the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. Burchett was killed Jan. 26, 1992, at the age of 28 in an automobile accident, and he will be inducted posthumously July 12.
His selection was a welcome surprise for his father, Randy, a PRCA Gold Card member.
“Oh man, it just tickled me,” Burchett said. “It made the dreams for the rest of my life come true. It’s quite an honor for any parent to have a child be inducted into any kind of sports hall of fame. It’s quite an honor for me, for sure, and I wasn’t expecting it.”
Shaun Burchett’s near misses in the arena in 1985 and 1986 – to 2007 ProRodeo Hall of Famer Jim Davis – were mirrored by a pair of near misses on the highway. He was seriously injured in 1989 when a truck he was driving was hit by a train. Burchett suffered a ruptured spleen, torn kidney and multiple cuts and contusions. He also suffered a concussion in a May 15, 1981, auto accident, so it seemed his fatal crash may have been destiny.
“Everything the boy did was fast,” Randy Burchett said. “He drove fast, he roped fast, and he wanted to do everything too quick. He had driven a million miles, and one morning it just happened. He had talked to me about 7:30 that morning and asked me to go feed his horses for him, and at 7:42 he was DOA. You don’t ever get over it. It gets better, but you just don’t ever get over it.”
Randy said that Shaun would be thrilled by his Hall of Fame selection.
“It would just be like winning the last go-round at the biggest rodeo,” Randy Burchett said. “I don’t know what he’d say. He would be tickled to death about it. He’ll be in there with a lot of his old buddies. It will be a special day for me. It’s something that every parent in the world would dream for their child.
“I thought he deserved it, and I’m very proud that the PRCA and the ProRodeo Hall of Fame thought so too. It makes old dad think it was all worth it. He put out most of the work. I was just a tutor.”
Randy Burchett began teaching Shaun how to rope at age 5, but the cards were stacked against the youngster from the start.
“Nothing came naturally for him,” Randy Burchett said. “To start with, he was left-handed, and I told him if he was going to rope steers, he was going to have to change hands. Roping was the only thing he did right-handed, but he conquered it pretty well.”
With the help of his father, as well as ProRodeo Hall of Famers Sonny Davis, Olin Young and Shoat Webster, the younger Burchett made quick progress through hard work and practice. The Burchetts would practice every day that weather allowed at their Pryor, Okla., home, and the practice paid off.
“Champions are made in the practice pen, not in the arena,” Randy Burchett said. “I tried to teach him how to practice right. You don’t go to the practice pen to have fun, you go there to perfect yourself. He would drive himself to do better every time, and that’s why he never minded practicing.”
Shaun won the PRCA Steer Roping Rookie of the Year in 1981 at the age of 17 while still in high school, and the sky was the limit for him after hitting the road full time. When he won his first world title in 1987, Burchett was the only steer roper to break the nine-second mark, doing it twice that year. He also won Prairie Circuit steer roping titles in 1986 and 1991, the Prairie Circuit all-around title in 1985 and was the runner-up to the world title in 1991.
His accomplishments speak for themselves, but his peers also routinely say great things about the talented roper.
“He was probably one of the five best (steer ropers) there ever was,” said Mel Potter, a former PRCA contestant and stock contractor who traveled with Burchett. “He was probably the fastest one there ever was. This kid was phenomenal. He never went for anything but first. He was quicker than lightning roping. His wit was quicker than lightning and you never knew where in the heck he was going to strike. He had to be one of my best friends of all time and I think we were probably about 30 years different in age.”
One of his mentors agrees and is excited about his Hall of Fame selection.
“I think it’s really nice,” Young said of Burchett’s honor. “He was worthy of it. He was quick and had fast hands. His dad was a good hand and a very good teacher. If he hadn’t gotten killed, he’d have probably been a champion some more times. He did things quick and fast. I was proud for him. He was a good hand and a good boy.”
Burchett’s widow, LaRae, and his 16-year-old daughter, Kelsi, who was just 3 months old at the time of his death, will join Randy and Shaun’s mother, Janet, in the crowd on induction day. Smiles will be mixed with tears as Randy makes the acceptance speech on his son’s behalf, but the family will know he is finally where he deserves to be.
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