Back When They Bucked Archives

Back When They Bucked

Back When They Bucked with Buddy Cockrell

Buddy Cockrell got to do a wide variety of things throughout his life. The Texas-born cowboy competed in high school and college rodeo, played college and professional football, owned ranches in Australia and Brazil and a gold mine in Costa Rica. He was born in 1934 and raised by his…

Back When They Bucked with Madonna Eskew Pumphrey

If anybody was born with the Wild West in their blood, it was Madonna Eskew Pumphrey. The Ardmore, Okla. cowgirl was the third generation of her family to entertain in the western style. She was born August 24, 1941, the granddaughter of Colonel Jim Eskew, a famous Wild West show…

Back When They Bucked with Joleen Hurst Steiner

story by Gail Woerner Joleen Hurst Steiner is a petite ‘tells it like she see’s it’ cowgirl who was born in Woodward, Oklahoma in 1952. She grew up in Fort Supply, Oklahoma, which she said was “in the middle of nowhere”. She had two sisters and a brother. Joleen was…

Back When They Bucked with Scott Tucker

Deep in Scott Tucker’s soul there were seeds of rodeo that drove the Jacksonville, Florida boy towards his destiny, and roots were developed that have entwined family, rodeo, and future generations of cowboys and cowgirls forever. Scott was born in 1946, an only child to his parents, Lucille and Holmes…

Back When They Bucked with Dr. Donald Mitchell

Donald was born in a farmhouse west of Mountain View, Oklahoma, in 1939, 35 miles south of where he lives now. He grew up on a family farm, milking cows, and helping his father (Donald) with crops – the least favorite being cotton. “I hated cotton. I used to pull…

Back When They Bucked with Elaine Kramer

It all started at the Metro Theater in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. That’s where Elaine Kramer saw the horses and maneuvers that would make her famous, to which she would dedicate the next twenty years of her life. The Wisconsin woman was born in 1935 and grew up the middle…

Back When They Bucked with Ken Stanton

It was while riding his dad’s milk cows that Ken Stanton got the inspiration to be a rodeo cowboy. The Weiser, Idaho man spent over two decades in pro rodeo, competing in both the bareback riding and the bull riding, and qualifying nine consecutive years for the National Finals Rodeo,…

Back When They Bucked with Rollie Gibbs

Rollie Gibbs has played several different roles in the sport he loves. He was a bull rider and bulldogger, competing for thirty-plus years, served as chairman of the Helldorado Days Rodeo in Las Vegas, president of the Wilderness Circuit, president and advisor for the Nevada High School Rodeo Association, and…

Back When They Bucked with Howard Haythorn

Horses have been part of Howard Haythorn’s life since he was a kid. Actually, they run through the genes of his family. Haythorn, a National Finals Steer Roping contestant, grew up on the back of them, rode them for rodeo, and raised and trained them. The Maxwell, Neb. cowboy was…

Back When They Bucked with Audrey Griffin

Audrey Griffin grew up in the silver-screened atmosphere of Santa Monica, California, but she was destined for the dusty and daring show business of the arena. Her father, Ray O’Brien, was the head of the property department for MGM Studios, and her mother, Hazel O’Brien, was a hairdresser to the…

Back When They Bucked with Tom Miller

From competing in college rodeo, to the PRCA, to becoming a judge and a coach, Tom Miller has left his mark on the rodeo world. Excelling in both ends of the arena, Tom led a rodeo team at Black Hills State University that dominated the National Intercollegiate in the 1970s,…

Back When They Bucked with Butch Stewart

Butch Stewart spurred his first bronc in the IPRA — known then as the IRA — in 1966 as a senior in high school. It was the start of a long and wide-ranging career in the association, from winning World Champion Bareback Rider in 1973, to working as an IPRA…