PRORODEO Sports News - February 21, 2025

FEATURE

COWBOY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD STEPHENVILLE, TEXAS, IS HOME TO MORE PRORODEO COWBOYS THAN ANYWHERE

By Tracy Renck

T

here’s no question Stephenville, Texas and PRCA cowboys have a history.

serving as President of that organiza tion in the early 1960s before moving on to Tarleton State University in Stephenville where he was part of the national championship team of 1967, and to timed-event competition at the PRCA level. With his wife, Delia, he moved to Stephenville in 1970 and built the first indoor arena in the area. “I've lived here since 1970 and back then, you could tell that it was

In the 1970s, Stephenville wasn’t littered with cowboys but that slowly changed thanks to late PRCA stock contractor Terry Walls. Walls sent many top animals to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo over the last three decades as owner of Terry Walls Rodeo Company and Pro Ro deo Inc. Walls was a champion tie-down rop er and steer wrestler in the American Junior Rodeo Association as well as

And it is storied one. In Erath County, where Stephenville is located, is where ProRodeo Hall of Famer Everett Colborn and his World Championship Rodeo Company held rodeos from 1937-57.

going to be a groundswell of cowboys,” Delia said. “My husband and I built the first indoor arena here, and we built it as a practice facility for Tar leton because they didn't have a covered place to practice. Then all of a sudden, the roughstock guys wanted us to add roughstock, and we only knew about timed events, but we learned. And we started having rodeos. We wound up having some thing nearly every night out there at that building. “We even had cuttings. We had quarter horse shows. So, there were all varieties of people coming to Stephenville, to that arena, and they began to fall in love with

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