PRORODEO Sports News - August 8, 2025

TIME CAPSULE

ProRodeo Hall of Famer Wick Peth, known as PRCA’s first pure bullfighter, was an inovator. Wick Peth

By PRCA STAFF

Bullfighter Wick Peth is all smiles in this undated photo. Peth had a 37-year career as a bullfighter, ending in 1985. PRCA file photo

M elvin “Wick” Peth, the original bullfighter and the man credited with changing the job from part-time clown to full-time protector, passed away Dec. 27, 2019. He was 89. The imprint he left on the rodeo world will never be forgotten. Peth was the first real specialist, a pure bullfighter and the first to earn a living that way. His 37-year career ended in 1985, six years after he was part of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in Colorado Springs, Colo. Peth worked the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo eight times - 1961-64, 1966, 1969, 1975 and 1979. He also was chosen as an alternate in 1972-74. “I find that I can get play out of most any bull,” Peth said in a press release when he was 49 and still fighting bulls. “They’re all mean and anxious to put up a fight if they get half a chance. I run at them from an angle rather that head-on so they can tell which way I’m going, and they’ll nearly always charge me.”

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