Back When They Bucked Archives

Back When They Bucked

Back When They Bucked with Lydia Moore

Lydia Moore was raised in a rodeo family in Missouri. Her parents, Hazel and Percy worked for many rodeo and wild west show companies traveling the country with her older sister, Maudie, and younger sister, Percyna in tow. Maudie was a trick rider and roper and Percyna had a goat…

Back When They Bucked with Lee & Dixie Wheaton

Lee and Dixie Wheaton have five PRCA gold cards within their family. Lee, a former multiple-event contestant, and his wife Dixie, a barrel racer, each have one. Their daughter Deena Wheaton, has hers, and Dixie’s dad, 1939 world champion steer roper Dick Truitt, had his gold card. Lee and Dixie’s…

Back When They Bucked with Terry Peek

Terry Peek craved riding bulls. And although he never made a living at it, it was his hobby, his lifestyle, and where he made many friends. The Bandera, Texas cowboy was born in 1945 in Paris, Texas, the son of Joe Bailey and Robbie Lee Peek. When he was seventeen…

Back When They Bucked with Jerome Robinson

courtesy of the family For Jerome Robinson, being born in Ogallala, Nebraska (the self proclainmed “cowboy capital of Nebraska”), might have been an omen as he was destined to spend his entire life dreaming about, and then acting out the life of a cowboy... Specifically, a rodeo cowboy. A three-year-old…

Back When They Bucked with Ronnie Bowman

Ronnie Bowman was part of the pro rodeo bull riding scene in the 1960s and 70s. The Durant, Okla. cowboy qualified for the National Finals Rodeo four years, never going to more than 55 or 60 rodeos each year, and rarely going far from home to compete. He was born…

Back When They Bucked with Franklin Manke

The Edgemont, S.D. cowboy was the 1952 National High School Rodeo Bareback Riding champion, and it wasn’t until fellow South Dakotan Shane O’Connell won it in 2013, that the drought was over. Manke not only competed in the bareback riding, but also as a steer wrestler, cow cutter, wild cow…

Back When They Bucked with Argene Clanton

Argene Clanton laughs, and life laughs with him. The cowboy, an Okie, former calf roper, café and truck stop owner, veteran, rodeo committee member and daddy of three girls, loves a good joke. And at the age of 94 years young, he’s still laughing. He was born in 1924 to…

Back When They Bucked with The Ludwig Twins: Wilma Hybarger & Wanda Cagliari

The Ludwig Twins - Wilma and Wanda – made their mark, and their living, in the horse and rodeo world. Wilma Ludwig Hybarger and Wanda Ludwig Cagliari were born in Auburn, California in 1935, the daughters of Everett and Edith Ludwig. They were raised on a dairy farm, bottling and…

Back When They Bucked with Carolynn Seay Vietor

Front porch sittin’ will have to wait at the Rocking Chair Ranch, in Philipsburg, Montana, because Carolynn and her husband Willy Vietor are far too busy in the rodeo world to occupy rocking chairs. Carolynn, former Miss Rodeo America 1966, has spent a lifetime promoting and competing in professional rodeo…

Back When They Bucked with John Harris

From the time he was a baby, all John Farris ever wanted to do was be a cowboy. And he spent his life doing it. The Addington, Oklahoma man was born in 1928 in Iowa Park, Texas, the son of B.A. and Eva Farris. When the neighbor’s cows got out…

Back When They Bucked with Marilyn Freimark

Marilyn Freimark knows her family’s genes run thick with the blue-jean lifestyle of rodeo and horses, but it was her own love of horses that put the passion back in her family tree—and Marilyn herself into rodeo history as the first Miss Rodeo America. Born in 1935, Marilyn was raised…

Back When They Bucked with Smokey Davis

At 85 years old, Joe F. “Smokey” Davis is a Texas cowboy legend. Born August 25, 1933, in Crosby, Texas (35 miles northeast of Houston), Joe came into the world in the Great Depression. “Dad was a cattleman and a rice farmer; I was born right in the middle of…