PRORODEO Sports News - July 11, 2025

TIME CAPSULE

INNOVATOR SCHUMACHER CHANGED LIVES FOR BARRELMEN

B arrelman Jimmy Schumacher was known as “one of the funniest men ever to enter a rodeo arena,” but he was also a great innovator. In 1953, at Fort Worth’s Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show, he became the first rodeo barrelman to use the barrel open at both ends. That allowed him to move the barrel, walk toward a bull and become a much bigger part of the action. He patented the Walking Barrel in 1954. Schumacher was selected as the barrelman nine times in the first 11 years for the National Finals Rodeo (1960, 1962-69). He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame with the inaugural class in 1979. Born in 1920 in Prescott, Ariz., he was the son of a bakery owner but became fascinated with rodeo and began riding bulls and bareback horses at age 15. He was an excellent

contestant for more than a decade and won the Calgary Stampede twice in bareback riding and once in bull riding. In 1949, his good friend, fellow ProRodeo Hall of Famer George Mills, a bullfighter and clown, convinced Schum acher to join him in the arena as a barrelman. It wasn’t long before he was clowning on a regular basis and spe cializing as a barrelman, although he rode bulls until 1953. Schumacher worked rodeo’s biggest stages - including Madison Square Garden, Denver, Fort Worth, Houston and Phoenix – and partnered with Mills for many years. He retired from rodeo in 1972, and worked at several Las Vegas casinos, notably Binion’s Horseshoe Casino. He and wife Alice were married 56 years, before he died in 2010 at the age of 89 in Las Vegas.

PRORODEO Sports News 31