“Casper ain’t prettified or gussied up. It’s a working stiff town. Cowboys and oil workers. Beer and guns. But it’s also a tolerant place that welcomes anyone who shares an affinity for open land and a do-as-you-please way of life.”
- Men’s Journal magazine, April 2010
We’ve come to know a number of folks who live the western life in the Casper vicinity. One of our favorite’s Jhett Johnson. The pro rodeo team roping heeler is back on the family ranch west of Casper after a winter rodeo season that saw him gather up about $11,000 and sustain a position well within striking distance of the coveted Top 15.
We ran into Jhett a couple of weeks ago in Casper where he had to pick up some medicine for a sick calf. He hadn’t heard about the recognition in the current issue of Men’s Journal magazine that if you want to be a cowboy, Casper is the best place in the U.S. to do it. I read Jhett the quote that opens this story and here’s how he reacted:
Jhett 3-31-2010Project 1-MPEG-4
Jhett Johnson on the family ranch and many other rodeo and ranch scenes are compiled in a new Wyoming DVD “Rodeo Road” we have produced for free distribution to those who have interests in such matters. And if you are reading this blog, we take it you do. Just drop a line to: info@visitwyo.gov and put Rodeo Road DVD in the subject line (be sure to include your mailing address) or call us toll-free at: 800.225.5996
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Houston Wrap-Up
The battleship that is Rodeo Houston has come to dock for 2010 and leaves in its wake a Wyoming bred champ in the bareback riding who climbs to the top of the world standings after cashing the $50,000 Shoot-Out Round paycheck. Ryan Gray has many relatives in the “Cowboy State” and in nearby Colorado. Ryan lives in Washington but he’s got Wyoming credentials that include growing up in both Cheyenne and Laramie. He’s a college graduate and a Christian athlete that almost always has a smile on his face even when fighting through the physical pain all pro bareback riders have to endure. The pay-per-view broadcast of Rodeo Houston allowed us to capture the action at the finals over the weekend. Here are Gray’s two rides Saturday and part of his arena interview in front of 70,000 rodeo fans:
Ryan
Team Wyoming bull riders Bobby Welsh and Seth Glause got to the finals in Houston and while they were sprung early, the young men from Gillette and Rock Springs respectively pocketed healthy enough amounts of cash to hold down spots in the Top 30. Welsh made a beautiful wild card round ride of 85 to make the Saturday finals and adopted a new piece of headgear replacing his hat with a helmet:
Bobby Houston recut
Welsh said he wore a helmet for a few rides in high school and knew he could adapt to one easily. He has, adding: “I didn’t even realize I had one on.” Congratulations to Bobby and Sunni as they await their fourth in the fall.
Wheatland’s Tyler Willis finished second in the Houston XTreme Bulls competition and that money sent the traveling partner of Seth Glause to the #19 spot of the current world standings.
A Wyoming horse carried one of pro rodeo’s most respected champs to a second win in Houston. Rod Hay, who is 40 and won Houston for the first time in 1989, topped the 2010 Houston bronc riding on a Burch Rodeo Co. (Rozet, WY) horse called Lunatic Fringe:
lunatic
And we simply can’t put Houston in the record books without making note of another outstanding showing for Meeteetse, Wyoming bullfighter Dusty Tuckness. He never ceases to amaze with his displays of courage in the face of battle. Here is just one example from the two-and-a-half weeks of Houston’s bruising affair:
dusty
Ryan
Team Wyoming bull riders Bobby Welsh and Seth Glause got to the finals in Houston and while they were sprung early, the young men from Gillette and Rock Springs respectively pocketed healthy enough amounts of cash to hold down spots in the Top 30. Welsh made a beautiful wild card round ride of 85 to make the Saturday finals and adopted a new piece of headgear replacing his hat with a helmet:
Bobby Houston recut
Welsh said he wore a helmet for a few rides in high school and knew he could adapt to one easily. He has, adding: “I didn’t even realize I had one on.” Congratulations to Bobby and Sunni as they await their fourth in the fall.
Wheatland’s Tyler Willis finished second in the Houston XTreme Bulls competition and that money sent the traveling partner of Seth Glause to the #19 spot of the current world standings.
A Wyoming horse carried one of pro rodeo’s most respected champs to a second win in Houston. Rod Hay, who is 40 and won Houston for the first time in 1989, topped the 2010 Houston bronc riding on a Burch Rodeo Co. (Rozet, WY) horse called Lunatic Fringe:
lunatic
And we simply can’t put Houston in the record books without making note of another outstanding showing for Meeteetse, Wyoming bullfighter Dusty Tuckness. He never ceases to amaze with his displays of courage in the face of battle. Here is just one example from the two-and-a-half weeks of Houston’s bruising affair:
dusty
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
RodeoHouston Update
Gillette, Wyoming bull rider Bobby Welsh has won a round and placed in another at the huge Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo. His best outing was on a bull called “Big D” – a son of the famous bucking bull, Durango. Bobby stuck to his seat for a round-winning score of 88:
Total Houston money pocketed by Welsh so far nets at $4,750. There is a quite the pot o’ gold at the end of the RodeoHouston rainbow. A check for $50,000 is awarded each event winner once the field is narrowed to four by the finals, March 21.
Kelly Timberman, the 2004 world champion bareback rider, is in the money at RodeoHouston. The Mills, WY man who recently got hitched at a ceremony in Cheyenne, spurred a score of 81.5 last night to win $1,000. Here’s a look at his outing:
Kelly is second in his grouping at Houston and totals 160.5 on two rides. He’ll likely be headed to the semi-finals representing Wyoming in the bareback competition while Bobby Welsh will make the semis with his two scores for a total of 169.5 in bull riding.
Total Houston money pocketed by Welsh so far nets at $4,750. There is a quite the pot o’ gold at the end of the RodeoHouston rainbow. A check for $50,000 is awarded each event winner once the field is narrowed to four by the finals, March 21.
Kelly Timberman, the 2004 world champion bareback rider, is in the money at RodeoHouston. The Mills, WY man who recently got hitched at a ceremony in Cheyenne, spurred a score of 81.5 last night to win $1,000. Here’s a look at his outing:
Kelly is second in his grouping at Houston and totals 160.5 on two rides. He’ll likely be headed to the semi-finals representing Wyoming in the bareback competition while Bobby Welsh will make the semis with his two scores for a total of 169.5 in bull riding.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
A Good Ride
Tom Parker went to high school rodeos in Wyoming with Chris LeDoux. Parker hailed from Lander and Chris competed out of Cheyenne. Tom was later called to military service and chose college afterward. Now he is the highly-regarded rodeo coach at Casper College. Among his charges in the last decade has been Chris’ son, Beau. “Chris would come out whenever he wasn’t on the road. He was very helpful,” said Parker. Family was everything to Chris LeDoux.
But in those early days all that mattered was riding bareback horses. He had a vast reservoir of “try.” He listened to the older riders and adapted his occasionally out-of-control style accordingly. Chris’ power was in his persistence…and guts. And you could see it all in his face. “I did everything I could to match that trademark grimace,” artist Mike Thomas told me this week. The Buffalo, Wyoming sculptor’s “Good Ride Cowboy” is being created in a bigger-than-life bronze statue that is now in the hands of the capable Hall family and their valued employees at Caleco (kah-LEE-ko) Foundry in Cody.
Our capable cameraman and editor, Mike McCrimmon, joined me at Caleco last Thursday evening to catch up on the LeDoux bronze progress. Let us share our findings with you here:
We’ll be visiting with Mike Thomas in his Buffalo studio in the near future and will return with an update in short order.
On this day we remember with sadness the loss of Chris LeDoux five years ago. There is anticipation too. Seeing that statue unveiled in Kaycee on land Chris and Peggy own will be very, very special. One of their boys used a pair of Chris’ boots to create prints in the still wet cement of the walk that leads to the statue. The prints fade and finally disappear at the statue base. He is still with us. Just listen to the wind.
But in those early days all that mattered was riding bareback horses. He had a vast reservoir of “try.” He listened to the older riders and adapted his occasionally out-of-control style accordingly. Chris’ power was in his persistence…and guts. And you could see it all in his face. “I did everything I could to match that trademark grimace,” artist Mike Thomas told me this week. The Buffalo, Wyoming sculptor’s “Good Ride Cowboy” is being created in a bigger-than-life bronze statue that is now in the hands of the capable Hall family and their valued employees at Caleco (kah-LEE-ko) Foundry in Cody.
Our capable cameraman and editor, Mike McCrimmon, joined me at Caleco last Thursday evening to catch up on the LeDoux bronze progress. Let us share our findings with you here:
We’ll be visiting with Mike Thomas in his Buffalo studio in the near future and will return with an update in short order.
On this day we remember with sadness the loss of Chris LeDoux five years ago. There is anticipation too. Seeing that statue unveiled in Kaycee on land Chris and Peggy own will be very, very special. One of their boys used a pair of Chris’ boots to create prints in the still wet cement of the walk that leads to the statue. The prints fade and finally disappear at the statue base. He is still with us. Just listen to the wind.
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Legacy of LeDoux
By Chuck Coon
Tomorrow will mark the fifth anniversary of Chris LeDoux’ passing. He represented the face, and spirit, of Wyoming to many thousands of people across our land and on many foreign soils. “His music helped me make it through my tour in Desert Storm in 91-92,” writes Craig Young in a Facebook entry. The social media outlet was originated as a tribute to Ledoux by Scott Sterrett of Wild Bunch Productions in Casper six months ago.
There are now more than 20,800 fans on the Chris Ledoux Tribute Rodeo Facebook site sharing personal memories of LeDoux. A man and his wife measure their driving trips by how many Chris LeDoux CDs they will listen to along the route. A married couple writes that their first date was a Chris LeDoux concert. One young man was buying a box set of LeDoux music in Nashville when the clerk told him of Chris’ death that day. “I broke down and cried in the Ernest Tubb Record Shop,” he writes.
Sterrett tells us that Garth Brooks has signed on to the Facebook site devoted to Chris LeDoux’s memory. I can tell you Garth did not hide his tears standing in the LeDoux kitchen near Kaycee, Wyoming where family and friends were gathered for a private memorial five years ago.
We spoke with Chris a few times. He was always willing to help a good cause whether promoting the move of the College National Finals Rodeo to Casper or offering his home country as a setting for public service announcements marking the Wyoming Centennial in 1990. He may have come to Wyoming from Texas, but Chris LeDoux was Wyoming through and through.
A cold day in 1965 offered a shivery Cheyenne welcome to the LeDoux clan. “I think it was ten below the first day we got here,” recalled Chris. “It was a little hard to get used to. But spring came and it was wonderful.” And there was a very large rodeo arena just a half-mile down the road from the family residence.
Chris LeDoux had already won a buckle at a rodeo in Texas and now he was within spittin’ distance of the chutes where all of the greatest champions in the world had competed. By 1968 LeDoux entered Cheyenne Frontier Days and the next year he placed in the bareback riding on a horse called “Chicken Fry.” He came back to the ready area and heard “Good Ride Chris” from several of his rodeo heroes. “I didn’t think they even knew my name. It was kind of like I was born right there in Cheyenne,” remembered LeDoux.
Five years later Chris came into the Cheyenne Sunday Finals ahead by ten points and felt that champion’s buckle within reach. It was not to be. Joe Alexander (The Great) spurred a bareback riding record score of 93 that day – a mark that would stay atop the pro rodeo record books for decades. LeDoux was nudged out by one point.
It was a blow for Chris LeDoux but he moved on and would rise to the world championship in bareback riding in 1976. He had fallen in love with a Wyoming girl and he was writing lyrics to match his guitar picking ever since his Mom, Bonnie, had bought him a Harmony guitar at Jay’s Music Store in Cheyenne.
People would come from long distances to buy tapes of Chris LeDoux’s music on sale under the grandstands at the Cheyenne rodeo. After those “worn-out tapes” made a line in a Garth Brooks song, Chris LeDoux with his band Western Underground would become hugely successful. Their appearances at the Cheyenne Frontier Days night shows in the 1990s were raucous, rowdy, and loud affairs. No one sat down for long except when Chris settled a little to sing a few of his favorites. Ed Bruce wrote a song that was a staple of LeDoux’ live shows for rodeo crowds in the West. We are pleased and grateful to offer you it – in its entirety – here:
While we miss him and wish he was still up there giving everything for the brand, we have Chris’ music and soon we’ll have a wonderful town park in Kaycee built on two lots the LeDoux family had purchased in the heart of the tiny downtown.
Sculptor D. Michael Thomas of Buffalo, WY is going to be on hand for a bronze dedication, June 19. Western Underground will perform after the bronze is unveiled. There aren’t many motel rooms in Kaycee so if you are planning to attend look at staying in Casper or Buffalo. You can sure check Kaycee but those rooms will be taken very soon.
The event will be laid back and informal. We’ll visit with one another and reminisce. Emcee Bob Price of KTWO Radio in Casper is scheduled to keep us informed leading up to the showing of Thomas’ bronze “Good Ride Cowboy.” It’s Chris in the midst of his world championship ride with a guitar as a base. The size is life-and-a-half. Our video man Mike McCrimmon and I got a look at progress last week at the Caleco Foundry in Cody. We’ll give you an update here tomorrow.
When I die you can bury me beneath these western skies.
Thanks Pard.
Tomorrow will mark the fifth anniversary of Chris LeDoux’ passing. He represented the face, and spirit, of Wyoming to many thousands of people across our land and on many foreign soils. “His music helped me make it through my tour in Desert Storm in 91-92,” writes Craig Young in a Facebook entry. The social media outlet was originated as a tribute to Ledoux by Scott Sterrett of Wild Bunch Productions in Casper six months ago.
There are now more than 20,800 fans on the Chris Ledoux Tribute Rodeo Facebook site sharing personal memories of LeDoux. A man and his wife measure their driving trips by how many Chris LeDoux CDs they will listen to along the route. A married couple writes that their first date was a Chris LeDoux concert. One young man was buying a box set of LeDoux music in Nashville when the clerk told him of Chris’ death that day. “I broke down and cried in the Ernest Tubb Record Shop,” he writes.
Sterrett tells us that Garth Brooks has signed on to the Facebook site devoted to Chris LeDoux’s memory. I can tell you Garth did not hide his tears standing in the LeDoux kitchen near Kaycee, Wyoming where family and friends were gathered for a private memorial five years ago.
We spoke with Chris a few times. He was always willing to help a good cause whether promoting the move of the College National Finals Rodeo to Casper or offering his home country as a setting for public service announcements marking the Wyoming Centennial in 1990. He may have come to Wyoming from Texas, but Chris LeDoux was Wyoming through and through.
A cold day in 1965 offered a shivery Cheyenne welcome to the LeDoux clan. “I think it was ten below the first day we got here,” recalled Chris. “It was a little hard to get used to. But spring came and it was wonderful.” And there was a very large rodeo arena just a half-mile down the road from the family residence.
Chris LeDoux had already won a buckle at a rodeo in Texas and now he was within spittin’ distance of the chutes where all of the greatest champions in the world had competed. By 1968 LeDoux entered Cheyenne Frontier Days and the next year he placed in the bareback riding on a horse called “Chicken Fry.” He came back to the ready area and heard “Good Ride Chris” from several of his rodeo heroes. “I didn’t think they even knew my name. It was kind of like I was born right there in Cheyenne,” remembered LeDoux.
Five years later Chris came into the Cheyenne Sunday Finals ahead by ten points and felt that champion’s buckle within reach. It was not to be. Joe Alexander (The Great) spurred a bareback riding record score of 93 that day – a mark that would stay atop the pro rodeo record books for decades. LeDoux was nudged out by one point.
It was a blow for Chris LeDoux but he moved on and would rise to the world championship in bareback riding in 1976. He had fallen in love with a Wyoming girl and he was writing lyrics to match his guitar picking ever since his Mom, Bonnie, had bought him a Harmony guitar at Jay’s Music Store in Cheyenne.
People would come from long distances to buy tapes of Chris LeDoux’s music on sale under the grandstands at the Cheyenne rodeo. After those “worn-out tapes” made a line in a Garth Brooks song, Chris LeDoux with his band Western Underground would become hugely successful. Their appearances at the Cheyenne Frontier Days night shows in the 1990s were raucous, rowdy, and loud affairs. No one sat down for long except when Chris settled a little to sing a few of his favorites. Ed Bruce wrote a song that was a staple of LeDoux’ live shows for rodeo crowds in the West. We are pleased and grateful to offer you it – in its entirety – here:
While we miss him and wish he was still up there giving everything for the brand, we have Chris’ music and soon we’ll have a wonderful town park in Kaycee built on two lots the LeDoux family had purchased in the heart of the tiny downtown.
Sculptor D. Michael Thomas of Buffalo, WY is going to be on hand for a bronze dedication, June 19. Western Underground will perform after the bronze is unveiled. There aren’t many motel rooms in Kaycee so if you are planning to attend look at staying in Casper or Buffalo. You can sure check Kaycee but those rooms will be taken very soon.
The event will be laid back and informal. We’ll visit with one another and reminisce. Emcee Bob Price of KTWO Radio in Casper is scheduled to keep us informed leading up to the showing of Thomas’ bronze “Good Ride Cowboy.” It’s Chris in the midst of his world championship ride with a guitar as a base. The size is life-and-a-half. Our video man Mike McCrimmon and I got a look at progress last week at the Caleco Foundry in Cody. We’ll give you an update here tomorrow. When I die you can bury me beneath these western skies.
Yippie Yi!
Thanks Pard.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Miller Tackles Tucson
A wet last of February day at the Tucson rodeo ended by floating a nice and dry champion’s paycheck to Lance Creek, Wyoming steer wrestler Jason Miller. He wasn’t even going to compete in the Arizona affair this year because of the rain and potential for a thick, soupy arena that can, and has, fostered injuries to bulldoggers and their horses. Miller’s three runs totaled out at 20.5 seconds – good enough to win the average and a Tucson champion’s buckle. We spoke with the 2007 world champion today about his rainy run on Sunday:
Miller rode a good horse owned by fellow Wyoming steer wrestler Les Shepperson of Midwest who isn’t able to enter some of the big winter rodeos in Texas because of a serious injury last year in Houston that prevents Les from qualifying in 2010.
Miller’s earnings will move Jason well into the Top Ten of the current world standings heading into the long and laborious RodeoHouston which covers three weeks of March.
Miller rode a good horse owned by fellow Wyoming steer wrestler Les Shepperson of Midwest who isn’t able to enter some of the big winter rodeos in Texas because of a serious injury last year in Houston that prevents Les from qualifying in 2010.
Miller’s earnings will move Jason well into the Top Ten of the current world standings heading into the long and laborious RodeoHouston which covers three weeks of March.
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