PRORODEO Sports News - January 10, 2025

TIME CAPSULE JACK BUSCHBOM

PRCA ProRodeo file photo Bareback rider Jack Buschbom competes on Sleeper at the Chey enne (Wyo.) Frontier Days in 1959. Buschbom, a three-time world champion, was inducted into the in augural ProRodeo Hall of Fame class in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1979.

‘Bushy’ won gold buckles in three decades BY PRCA STAFF Consistent Champ

championship in three different decades. Known as “Bushy,” the 150-pounder was an amazingly consistent bareback rider – while also remaining healthy – and from 1948 through 1961, he never finished lower than fourth in the bareback riding world standings. His lay-back, wild spurring style was copied by most contestants. Buschbom, who was married with three children, stopped competing in 1962 and opened a motel and hunting lodge in Mobridge, S.D. He returned to competition in 1964 and won the average title at the NFR in Los Angeles; he’d also won the average crown at the NFR in 1959 and ’61. He was always a leader in the sport and served as Rodeo Cowboys Association president in 1960. Buschbom was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo., as part of the 1979 inaugural class. He died in Pierre, S.D., in 2011.

J ack Buschbom was the first home-grown Midwesterner to make it big in PRORODEO and became a three-time world champion bareback rider despite being hurt twice as a boy, when he was kicked in the face by a horse and when a runaway horse crashed in a ravine on his family’s ranch. Buschbom, the son of a stock contractor and former rodeo contestant, was born in State Center, Iowa, but grew up just east of the Mississippi River in Cassville, Wis. He started riding bulls at age 17, despite his mother’s objections, but switched to bareback horses two years later and turned pro in 1946. By 1948, he was reserve world champion, and he claimed the gold buckle in ’49. He added two more gold buckles in 1959 and ’60 to become the first – and only – bareback rider to win a world

ProRodeo Sports News 1/10/2025

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