PRORODEO Sports News - August 5, 2026

PRCA Bareback Riding World Champion DEAN THOMPSON CANCER FREE

not a cancer you live with. This is a cancer that you cure, or you die from, because it’s just super aggressive, so you have to cure it.” While it’s just the way he’s lived his life since that April day when doctors told him about it, Burkitt’s Lympho ma is a cancer he HAD. “As of right now, zero results showed up on my PET scan, so there’s less than a 10-percent chance that it will return,” he said. “Usually with people who have this cancer, once they are cured, it never comes back. To hear that it’s a 90-percent chance that you’re on your way, that’s incred ible in cancer terms.” It’s been a wild ride for the 24-year old cowboy. He earned his first NFR qualification in 2023, then played his cards just right the next December in Las Vegas to take home the PRCA World Championship. He returned again this past December, and his season was unfolding nicely when he was in a bareback riding wreck at the Cave Creek (Ariz.) Rodeo Days. That hang-up may have saved his life. He stopped by the hospital in Park City, Utah, and underwent some tests. Scans revealed a mass in his neck, and a new game was on. “There’s no way you can do all that by yourself,” Thompson said. “I’m so lucky because I had my wife, and she was basically like my babysitter. She really took care of me. What it all came down to is as soon as I got my diagnosis and we knew what the cancer was and what it was all about,

I was like, ‘I’m going to beat this,’ and she was right there with me.” It wasn’t easy. The drugs took his energy and tested hers. Fatigue set in, but they continued the grind together. Friends and loved ones helped. His parents, Chris and Kristie, watched the youngest of three sons go through the fight of his life. Emotions ranged

from day to day. For the longest time, that PRO RODEO gold buckle was Thompson’s

motivator. The bell then took its place. “All sorts of peo ple have terrible things happen to them that they didn’t ask for,” Thompson said.

“Now, you’ve just gotta get through it.”

16 PRORODEO SPORTS NEWS DIGITAL MAGAZINE August 5, 2026