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...
