Steer Roping • Inducted 1979 Jim Bob Altizer started his rodeo career at a young age and won numerous junior rodeo titles before embarking on his stellar professional career. Regarded as one of rodeo’s greatest steer ropers, Altizer also excelled in tie-down roping, winning a world title in that event at...
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...
All-Around • Inducted 1979 Winner of 10 world championships in nine years, Everett Bowman’s dynamic leadership made him one of the great rodeo contributors to the advancement of professional rodeo. Bowman, born July 12, 1899, in Hope, N.M., won his titles during a career that spanned more than 20 years. Bowman...
Livestock • Inducted 2023 Born in 1994 on the 600-acre Zinser ranch in Clare, Michigan, #408 Nightjacket would become a premiere bucking horse in the PRCA. His dam, #108 Nightline, was raised on the same ranch. His sire, #14 Big Timber, was a purchase and came to the ranch without lineage. For...
Saddle Bronc Rider • Inducted 2023 Ranching has been part of the Wright family for over 150 years. As the oldest son of Bill and Evelyn Wright, Cody was taught the importance of hard work and dedication to achieve your goals. He has certainly achieved them. Wright started competing in rodeo after...
Rodeo Committee • Inducted 2023 In 1935, eight local farmers and businessmen conceived the idea for the St. Paul Rodeo. The eight originators were Bill Smith, Ray Manegre, John McKillip, Carl Smith, Jim Gooding, Ralph Butts, Maurice Smith, and Ed Unger. It is safe to say that when the founding directors...
Notable • Inducted 2023 Fay Ann Horton Leach led the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA-now WPRA) as a founding member, competitor, and board member. One of the 38 women who met in San Angelo, Texas, on February 28, 1948, to form the very first professional sports association created solely for women by...
Notable • Inducted 2023 As a young boy, Brian D. (Butch) Knowles spent his summers at his family’s remote Eastern Oregon Drewsey ranch. It was there that the fire was lit and the dream of being a Cowboy began while listening to a live radio broadcast of the Snake River Stampede....
WPRA Barrel Racer • Inducted 2023 Sherry (Combs) Johnson completed the family trifecta in 2023 when she joined the hallowed halls alongside her world champion horse Star Plaudit “Red,” who earned induction in 2017 and her sister Florence Youree, who was inducted as part of the Class of 2019 in the...
