Wayne Cornish followed in his dad’s footsteps, and the rodeo world was a better place because of it.
Born February 2, 1935 in Waukomis, Okla.,, the son of Cecil and Juanita Cornish, Wayne grew up doing the same thing his dad did. His dad had a variety of famous specialty acts, and after high school, Wayne joined him, criss-crossing the country with the Cornish animal acts, and working as a barrelman as well.
He was part of his dad’s acts, but made his first rodeo money when he was five. At Ponca City, Okla., barrel men and bullfighters Hoyt Heifner and John Lindsay put him on a Brahma bull calf. Wayne rode him all the way across the arena, lost his boots, but didn’t fall off the calf. And he won his first rodeo check with that ride, after Heifner and Lindsay gathered money to pay him for his effort.
At age thirteen, Wayne began clowning. He put on a “dude” suit and rode into the arena on a donkey, carrying a suitcase. Someone behind the scenes would shoot a gun, the suitcase would open, and live chickens would fall out.
Wayne graduated from high school in 1954, but barely. He had missed several days of school while on the rodeo circuit, and the school board threatened to dismiss him. Wayne’s dad told the principal his son had learned more in those few days he was gone than he did in school.
After high school, Wayne hit the road with his dad. Together, they had a variety of acts, mostly involving animals. Cecil had started in 1935 or ’36 with his trick horse Smoky, which would become his most famous act. But the family had a lot more up their sleeves. There was Danger, the Brahma bull who jumped over a car, and six golden liberty horses. They had a bull that pulled a cart, and a roman team that Wayne rode called the Golden Eagles. Wayne had a pig he put in a suitcase and called the “Handy Dandy Garbage Disposal,” and a skunk whose act was called Mr. Stinkbottom. He had a roman team named Susie and Sally, sisters, who he called the Flying White Clouds. They did figure eights, jumped through hoops of fire, and re-enacted the Days of Ben Hur. Wayne, like his dad, had an affinity for training animals, and Juanita made their flashy costumes.
He kept up his specialty acts, mostly his roman riding, but because of his early friendship with Heifner and Lindsay, he preferred to be a barrel man and clown.
Together, Wayne and his dad traveled across the nation and Canada, working big rodeos and small ones alike. One of his favorite stories is that he drove a load of bucking horses and his barrelman equipment to a rodeo in northern Canada. He was supposed to leave the truck and horses and meet his dad at the North Platte, Neb. rodeo, but he had no way to get there. He called his dad and asked him to pick him up in Calgary. He told his dad, laughing, “did you ever try hitchhiking with a barrel?”
Being a barrelman came with the usual broken bones, and Wayne had his share. He broke his neck in Carlsbad, N.M., in 1962, when a bull stuck his horn in the barrel. The bull threw him into the air, and even though his neck hurt, he went on and rode his roman team that same night. After the injury continued to ache, he decided to have it checked out.
Another time, he broke a shoulder in Crockett, Texas, when a bull did the same thing. And he suffered so many broken ribs, he learned to bandage them himself.
Wayne would work as a barrelman at the same rodeos where his dad and he entertained. He got his Rodeo Cowboys Association card in 1953. About twenty years later, after the Evanston, Wyo. rodeo, Cecil had had enough. He came home and decided to retire. Wayne quit then, too. His roman team was old, and having to train a new team would be time consuming.
That was in 1971, and he began driving. He hauled horses for Hull and Smith out of Ashland, Neb., one of the nation’s largest horse haulers. He hauled livestock for A.J. Foyt, Dale Robertson, and race horse breeder Walter Merrick. He hauled horses for Dee Raper, and hauled cattle. Driving was something he enjoyed, and even though he can’t drive now, he can still tell his wife Jackie what roads to take, and when to turn.
And, in typical rodeo style, Wayne has lots of stories to tell. He traveled with Slim Pickens, who told him he was glad God gave him such an ugly face so he didn’t have to paint it up like Wayne did. And once, at a rodeo in Independence, Mo., the hometown of Harry Truman, he came home and told his wife he’d have to shoot his dog, because Margaret Truman, who was in the stands watching the rodeo, had stepped on its tail and the dog had yelped, “Ike, Ike, Ike” (the nickname for Dwight Eisenhower.)
He and Jackie, who were high school sweethearts, went their separate ways after school but were reunited and married in 1995. They each brought three daughters to the marriage: Donna Kay, Shawna and Jacquetta from Wayne, and Jackie’s Kelly Ann, Kimberly and Karen. Two of the six girls have passed: Donna Kay and Kelly Ann.
Two years ago, Wayne suffered an aneurysm that nearly killed him. It has affected his eyesight and speech, but he is able to get around. Jackie serves as his eyes and voice, and is happy to do it, because she’s glad he’s still alive.
Wayne is proud to have worked for some of the best rodeo producers in the business: Beutler Bros., Harry Knight, Todd Rodeo, Jim Shoulders, Gerald Roberts, Casey Tibbs and Associates, Beutler & Son, Ralph Collier, Neal Gay, Lawrence Winfrey, Harry Nelson, Reg Kesler, Tommy Steiner, and Summit Rodeo, among others.
And he’s glad to have worked with some big names: Slim Pickens, Gene Autry, Marty Robbins, Rex Allen, Roy Rogers, Michael Landon, Jack Lord, and Edgar Buchanan.
If he could, Wayne would still be on the rodeo trail. “He’d still be rodeoing if he possibly could,” Jackie said. “That was his life. He just loved it.”
And he’s still living the memories.
Story also available in our March 2015 issue.
