College Rodeo: From Show to Sport

Preface

xiii Preface Seldom does a college sport exist for more than eighty years without having a book written about it, but college rodeo has. The extent of available information for research consisted of brief references in college yearbooks,rodeo history books, and museums. The National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association’s (NIRA) home page on the Internet had a limited amount of background information . For this reason, erroneous information, which slowed research, had found its way into obituaries,college rodeo programs,awards ceremonies,and biographies.A need was evident for a documented,detailed history of college rodeo supplemented with the records of national champions and the schools that won them. Most schools did not have an accurate record of their own championsbecausethenationalrecordswereincompleteandhadseveralearlyday errors. Also, a list of the persons who were at the organizational meetings was needed to give credit to those who actually helped start the NIRA. Prior to starting my seventeen years of research on the history of college rodeo, I spent an initiation period of about eight years. When I was hired to teach English at New Mexico Junior College (NMJC), it was a young, robust institution in an oil-rich county one hundred miles long and forty miles wide, with most of the county being ranch country. Under the strong leadership of John Sheppard, vice president for instruction, NMJC provided the environment for creative ideas and supported them with wise direction and encouragement . So that NMJC could have a rodeo program, the ranchers and area rodeo groups built an arena and gave it to the college.I replaced the English instructor and rodeo club sponsor,so I was asked to do both,also.Since they assured me that there was no one else available, I, after making calls to recruit help, agreed to do it. The fall of , when I became the rodeo club sponsor, attorney and NMJC board member Ray Potter, who twenty years later became my p r e f a c e xiv brother-in-law, directed the idea of moving the NMJC rodeo program into the athletic department so that it could be funded, resulting in my acquiring the title of rodeo coach. While I was a rodeo coach and an English instructor at New Mexico Junior College,NIRA commissioner Tim Corfield initiated me into the field of writing rodeo articles, illustrated with photos, for the national college rodeo newspaper as well as for other national magazines, such as Western Horseman. Tim recommended me to Randy Witte,Western Horseman publisher,who offered me writing opportunities and enthusiastically promoted the NIRA alumni association and the writing of this book.After I presented several papers on college rodeo to the Texas Folklore Society (TFS), Dr. Francis Abernethy, TFS secretary and editor, asked me to write the entry on rodeo for The New Handbook of Texas, an encyclopedia. The research and writing for this book about college rodeo started when I becametheexecutivedirectoroftheLeaCountyCowboyHallofFame(LCCHF) and Western Heritage Center on the NMJC campus at Hobbs, New Mexico. When the interim college president, R. N. Tydings, remarked to me after a coaches’ meeting to plan a $ million addition to the gym that he didn’t see anything in the plans for rodeo, I presented a proposal to him to showcase some of the world champions from Lea County—approximately fifty-seven championships had been won at that time. President Tydings called county rancher Tuffy Cooper, whose talks to my Southwest literature classes about the fact that the county had spawned so many rodeo world champions had led to my proposal to President Tydings. After the three of us talked, the LCCHF resulted, with a thirteen-member talented, visionary board of directors from area ranches, especially inspired by rancher Daisy Clayton, seven hundred charter members,an annual induction dinner,and five thousand square feet of space to fill. As the executive director with museum displays to create, I called on Museum of New Mexico curators for advice,and they welcomed me for a week to learnsomebasics.Then,Istartedresearchonranchersandcountyrodeochampions .While doing research on a former college cowgirl who said that she had won an NIRA all-around championship (she had), I found that the NIRA had limited records on early-day NIRA cowgirls.In fact,the cowgirl national champions were not listed in the national records prior to .During the first few years,the nomadic national office,run by college students,winnowed the files p r e...