PRORODEO Sports News - February 21, 2025

Stephenville.” By the 1980s, and ‘90s, Stephenville kept attracting PRCA’s biggest stars – stars like nine-time PRCA World Champion Ty Murray. “I was raised in Arizona, and I came to Texas to go to college, and I went to Odessa (Texas) College, and I had some opportunities to go to some different colleges around the coun try, but I knew I was being recruited to take the place of Jim Sharp because he was in his last year, and he was a guy who I idolized at that time, being a few years older than me, he was setting the world on fire, in Intercollegiate Rodeo and PRORODEO, and I wanted to come to Texas,” Murray said. “I wanted to get around the best bull riders in the world. And I had an oppor tunity to come to Texas, and that also gave me the opportunity to travel with Jim and Cody Lambert and Lane Frost. That was a very lucky scenario for me to

Left to right, Chad Decker, founder of the Cowboy Capital of the World Rodeo Association, rodeo secretary Delia Walls, and Casey Hammons, Cowboy Capital of the World Rodeo As sociation, share a light moment on Feb. 7 in Stephenville.

start out as a rookie and be able to get in with those guys. So, I went to Odessa and Jim, and I became really good friends there and we lived together there. “We wanted to get closer to the DFW airport, because flying in and out of Odessa you always had to go to DFW anyway. When I got out of college, we loaded up and went to Benbrook (Texas). When we were living in Benbrook, Jim was dating a girl who went to Tarleton (in the late 1980s), here in Stephenville, so we'd come down here all the time.” That’s when Murray was first drawn to Stephenville. “Growing up in Arizona, I really like the country, and it was my dream

to try and own a ranch one day. So, growing up in the desert, when I saw this kind of country with all the grass and the trees and the water, I just thought it was ideal for me. After spending so much time in Stephen ville, I told Jim that I was going to buy a place there. He said, ‘If you are, I am too, and I bought a house, and he bought a piece of land, and we came down together.’ Tom Reeves (a ProRodeo Hall of Fame saddle bronc rider) was living with us as well. “The three of us came down to Ste phenville, and they both lived with me and then eventually they both built houses.” The fact that Murray, Sharp and Reeves picked Stephenville to estab

lish roots didn’t surprise Walls. “Stephenville is a very cowboy friendly town, and then the PRCA cowboys began to figure out they could live here and be within an hour and 45 minutes of either airport and easily be able to travel to wherever they needed to go,” Walls said. “The Chamber of Com merce and many of the businesses in Stephenville welcomed the cowboys here. When we first moved here, land was probably bringing $300 to $500 an acre, and that would be high. Now it's $10,000 to $15,000 an acre, and there's not much left, and it's just a wonderful place to live be cause it's rural, but we have access to the big cities, and everybody really likes it.”

PRORODEO SPORTS NEWS 9