PRORODEO Sports News - August 8, 2025

TIME CAPSULE

Peth had no interest in being funny for rodeo audienc es, although that was part of the job when he quit riding bulls and concentrated on saving bull riders. “I was about as funny as a funeral in the rain,” he was fond of saying. Born April 15, 1930, in Mount Vernon, Wash., to parents John and Florence Peth, of Bow, Wash., Wick resided his entire life on their family farm and cattle ranch near Edison, where he and his brothers acquired a tough work ethic. During his early rodeo travels, Wick met Dorothy Han berg, of Bremerton, Wash. They married in 1951 and made their new home on the farm where they raised their children. He kept his lifetime habit of helping on the farm as much as possible. Peth worked with his father and brothers as John Peth & Sons Inc. for decades. As their interest in rodeos in creased through the 1940s, Wick found bull riding to be his favorite event. That fueled his ambition to become a bullfighter. He soon became renowned nationwide as a pioneer in professional rodeo bullfighting, working and perform ing in the U.S. and Canada. Peck was featured in LIFE magazine in 1963. He didn’t smoke or drink, worked hard to stay in shape, and was serious about his job of protecting cowboys in the arena. Stocky and strong at 5-foot-6 and 170 pounds, Peth played harder than some cowboys fought and was frequently wrestling or roughhousing. He was unmis takable in the arena – he wore no makeup, dressed in a gray wig, red tights, track shoes and loose-fitting, cutoff jeans he called his “skirt.” The outfit was designed to give him maximum mobility for the quick movements which made him famous. He also had a knack for turning back bulls and saving hung-up or fallen bull riders. His courage and exper tise were appreciated by the cowboys, including fellow

ProRodeo Hall of Famer, the late Larry Mahan, the two-time bull riding champion and six-time all-around world champion. “I felt during that time, or even possibly in this time, that Wick was probably one of the greatest athletes rodeo has ever known,” Mahan told ProRodeo Sports News in 1998.

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