PRORODEO Sports News - August 5, 2026

PRCA Bareback Riding World Champion DEAN THOMPSON CANCER FREE

Bareback rider Dean Thompson reacts after getting his back number at the 2025 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. PRCA photo by Lara St. Jacques

CANCER FREE By Ted Harbin, Special to PRORODEO Sports News

O n the week he rang the bell at a cancer center in Salt Lake City, Dean Thompson entered a rodeo – the Farm-City Pro Rodeo in Hermiston, Ore., where he is sched uled to compete on Aug. 15. Though doctors indicated there’s still a 10 percent chance his Burkitt’s Lymphoma could return, Thompson rang the bell Thursday, July 16, to tell all he is now cancer free. It’s been a battle that began with his diagnosis in early April, included many stays in Salt Lake City and featured drives back to the Altamont, Utah, home he

shares with his wife, Chezney. “It’s crazy to think about the stuff you take for granted that you miss,” said Thompson, the 2024 PRCA World Champion Bareback Rider and three-time Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifier. “It’s incredible the attitude I have every time I get nervous about something that I didn’t expect to be nervous about. Like, just the other day, I was going to go to this roping pretty much in my backyard, and I was kind of nervous. I mean, I haven’t roped for a long time. “Then you reflect on it, and it’s like,

holy cow, I’ve got another shot at life, then all that nervousness goes away.” It’s that shot he has craved for three months. Gallons of poison have filled his bloodstream in the form of medicine. Chemotherapy is a neces sary evil, and it did its job in ridding his body of the disease. That’s why he rang the bell. “A lot of times people will wait for a couple of years because there’s a chance it will come back in that time,” Thompson said. “Luckily the cancer I have, it’s a very low chance. From the very beginning, they said that this is

August 5, 2026 PRORODEO SPORTS NEWS DIGITAL MAGAZINE 15