All-Around • Inducted 1979 Clay Carr won five world titles while competing in roughstock and timed events. His versatility came from working on the family-owned Gill Ranches in California. A cowboy born to the saddle and rope, Carr was a natural athlete who competed in saddle bronc riding, steer roping, steer...
Team Roping • Inducted 1979 The son of a working cowboy and ranch foreman, Leo Camarillo knew what discipline and hard work were all about when he embarked on his professional rodeo career. His upbringing helped him win four world team roping titles and a world all-around championship in the 1970s...
Steer Wrestling • Inducted 1979 One of only three men to have won four or more steer wrestling world titles, James Bynum of Waxahachie, Texas, pursued world titles if the weather wasn’t just right. “Big Jim,” like his father before him, farmed cotton south of Dallas. When it was hot and...
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...
Tie-Down Roping • Inducted 1979 Orphaned at age 19 during the Depression, Clyde Burk held his family of two brothers and two sisters together. Born June 13, 1913, in Comanche, Okla., Burk made himself into a tie-down roper and went on to win four world championships. An outstanding horseman, Burk trained...
Bull Riding • Inducted 1979 Known as Freckles, Warren G. Brown won the world bull riding title in 1962 at the age of 41, making him the oldest man in ProRodeo history to win a riding-event championship title. World War II interrupted Brown’s rodeo career. A member of the OSS, he...
Stock Contractor • Inducted 1979 Lynn Beutler of Elk City, Okla., was an integral part of professional rodeo for 40 years, becoming one of the sport’s most widely known stock contractors in the family rodeo company known as Beutler Brothers. The company, started in 1929 with Lynn, Jake and Elra Beutler,...
Rodeo Notable • Inducted 1979 Behind every good man is a good woman and this was the case with Josie Bennett. Josie’s husband, Hugh, was a world champion steer wrestler and roper and served as the Cowboys’ Turtle Association’s first secretary/treasurer. Josie, born July 10, 1903, in Graham County, Ariz., devoted...
Steer Wrestling • Inducted 1979 Hugh Bennett influenced the sport of rodeo in and out of the arena. Bennett, born Sept. 19, 1905, in Knox City, Texas, won the steer wrestling world title in 1932 and the steer roping title in 1938. He became the first secretary/treasurer of the Cowboys’ Turtle...
Stock Contractor • Inducted 1979 Sports fans knew Gene Autry as the owner of the California (now Anaheim) Angels baseball team and the former Western movie and singing star who once played semi-pro baseball. But few are aware of his longtime involvement in professional rodeo. In 1942 Autry, at the height...
