Contract Personnel • Inducted 2003 Like many contract performers, Cecil Cornish began his rodeo career riding bucking horses and roping. However, his special ability to train animals and his aptitude for entertaining soon led him to what would be a lifetime of performing as a rodeo specialty act. Born, Sept. 28,...
Stock Contractor • Inducted 2003 Mike Cervi, the largest rodeo producer in the country, was always a deal-maker and entrepreneur. As an elementary schoolboy, he sold flavored toothpicks and Christmas trees, hauled ashes and rode racehorses. Born Sept. 9, 1936, in Denver, Cervi became fascinated by rodeo clowns and, by 14,...
Bareback Riding • Inducted 2002 Clyde Vamvoras wanted to be a cowboy from an early age. Legend has it he skipped out on a job scaring blackbirds with a shotgun to ride bulls in a nearby field, and that he used his hard earned paper route money paying a nearby rancher...
Contract Personnel • Inducted 2002 Jay Sisler didn’t plan a career in rodeo. Born Feb. 20, 1926, in Gem County, Idaho, he was breaking horses for a living with the help of two cattle dogs – Stub and Shorty – when the promoter of a rodeo offered him $10 to perform...
Tie-Down Roping • Inducted 2002 Jake McClure always dreamed of becoming a successful rodeo roper. At age 2, he carried around a clothesline, and by 5, he was successfully roping cats, dogs, chickens, goats and other kids. His father, set on his youngest son acquiring a good education, believed young Jake...
Bull Riding • Inducted 2002 Gary Leffew, the rodeo guru of positive thinking (psycho-cybernetics) born Sept. 23, 1944, in Santa Maria, Calif., was no ordinary bull rider. Instead of climbing on a bull, he could have just as easily ridden off into the sunset on a Harley. One day, he accepted...
Contract Personnel • Inducted 2002 Quail Dobbs always wanted to be a cowboy. When he was required to write a school paper on an admirable person, he chose rodeo icon Jim Shoulders while everyone else in the class selected a movie star. Dobbs, born Aug. 27, 1941, in Albany, Texas, began...
Contract Personnel • Inducted 2002 Born Oct. 16, 1925, in Boston, Edith Happy Connelly first traveled West in 1934 and for a number of years alternated spending two years with her father in Boston and two years with her mother in California. Both coasts offered the opportunity for her to pursue...
All-Around • Inducted 2000 Joe Beaver grew up dreaming of being a professional rodeo cowboy. Beaver, born Oct. 13, 1965, in Victoria, Texas, began his roping career at the age of 5, roping goats from the back of a Shetland pony in his family’s practice pen. By 15, Beaver was making...
Saddle Bronc Riding • Inducted 2001 Guy Weeks of Fort Worth, Texas, the son of a rodeo roper, was born on Jan. 3, 1932, to a family whose existence revolved around horses. He learned to ride by the time he could walk and was roping when he was just 4 years...
