Bareback Riding • Inducted 1998 Marvin Garrett told his fourth grade teacher he wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up. To prove it, he began riding steers when he was 12. However, his mother altered the course of history when she said he couldn’t be a bull rider (at...
Bareback Riding • Inducted 1995 Born May 21, 1948, in Caldwell, Kan., Jack Ward began his career as a bull rider by winning the 1969 National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association Championship. He qualified for his first NFR in bareback riding in 1972 and went on to make 11 appearances at rodeo’s world...
Bareback Riding • Inducted 1994 James Charles Trujillo, born May 10, 1948, began his rodeo career at age 6 in his hometown of Prescott, Ariz. His early prowess resulted in the bareback riding championship of the Arizona Junior Rodeo Association, participation on the Arizona State University rodeo team and the 1968...
Bareback Riding • Inducted 1993 Bruce Ford’s trademark riding style of feet high up for greater leg extension, with his riding arm absorbing the horse’s movement, separated Ford from other bareback contestants. During his career, he shattered or tied every bareback riding record: all-time bareback earnings; most NFR bareback qualifications (18);...
Bareback Riding • Inducted 1979 Sonny Tureman won the world bareback riding championship only once, but three-time world champion Jack Buschbom said, “Take my word for it, he’s (Tureman) the greatest bareback bronc rider in the world, and I know a few.” An Oregon horse breaker, Tureman won the rookie saddle...
Bareback Riding • Inducted 1979 As the inventor of the hard-handhold now used on virtually all bareback riggings, Jim Houston of Omaha, Neb., was one of the innovators of the laid-back, wild spurring style of bareback riding and won two world championships in the event. Houston, who was born Feb. 25,...
Bareback Riding • Inducted 1979 The single world championship won by John Hawkins is one of the most deserved in rodeo history. In steady pursuit of the title, he was runner-up for three consecutive seasons, once missing the crown by only $18. A broken thigh, later mended with a steel rod,...
Bareback Riding • Inducted 1979 Jack Buschbom, born Oct. 6, 1927, in State Center, Iowa, survived two serious accidents with horses before he ever started in ProRodeo. The son of a stock contractor and former rodeo contestant, Buschbom began competing at age 17 as a bull rider. Three years later, he...
Bareback Riding • Inducted 1979 Joe Alexander dominated bareback riding like no other cowboy has to date. His five consecutive world titles and two regular season championships in the 1970s remain a PRCA record. Alexander, born Nov. 4, 1943, in Jackson Hole, Wyo., was a natural athlete. Ranch-raised near Cora in...
Bareback Riding • Inducted 1979 Courage and determination helped earn Eddy Akridge his fourth world bareback riding championship. The cowboy, born Jan. 8, 1929, in Pampa, Texas, had rolled to three consecutive world titles in the early 1950s before suffering a potentially career-ending knee injury. Ignoring his doctors’ advice to quit...
