PRORODEO Sports News - June 1, 2026

Rodeo Corpus Christi famously awards its champions surfboards. The unique rodeo award reflects the event’s coastal location.

“THE REST OF US WEREN’T PARTICULARLY INTO RODEO, BUT DAVID KNEW TO CALL DONNIE.” At the time, Gay owned the All-Star Rodeo Company and produced the Mesquite (Texas) Championship Ro deo about 400 miles north of Corpus Christi on the fringe of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Gay was already well known in the PRORODEO world as an eight-time gold buckle winner in bull riding, the most in that event in PRCA history. But he’d also begun to rise in pop ularity as a Texas rodeo superstar by serving as a commentator for the Mesquite Championship Rodeo. The weekly event was widely distributed on television nationwide (including ESPN in the early 1980s, TNN from 1986-99, and Fox Sports Network in the early 2000s) from the 1980s through the 2000s. Today, the event is still broadcast nationally on The Cowboy Channel. “That’s how David knew (who I was) and he called the Mesquite

Gay. But he wasn’t exactly chomp ing at the bit to add another event to his calendar and tried to relay the difficulties of starting a rodeo from scratch, even in the heart of cowboy country. “I spent the first hour trying to talk them out of having a rodeo,” Gay said. “Because of how much money it costs, how hard it is to produce a rodeo and they weren’t sure where we were going to keep the livestock. You know, all of the logistical things that people generally sitting in the grandstands have no idea about. “Finally, I don’t know if it was Fred or David who said, ‘We’re going to have a rodeo.’ And I said, ‘Enough with being Nelly Negative.’ And we got down to brass tacks.” From there, the committee worked with Gay to settle all of the details. They booked the Memorial Coliseum (demolished in 2010), Gay brought the portable rodeo arena set, bucking chutes built by Harry Tompkins used at the first National Finals Rodeo, gathered the stock, loaded up his trucks and ventured to South Texas. Despite the logistical challenges,

Rodeo offices,” Gay said. “I had the All-Star Rodeo Company, and my dad (ProRodeo Hall of Famer Neal Gay) was scaling back at the time. And we produced other rodeos, and I wound

DONNIE GAY

ProRodeo Hall of Famer and 8x World Champion bull rider

up with about ten other contracts. I signed a deal with these guys, and I’ve been here ever since.” After the phone call, the committee drove up to Mesquite to meet with

10 PRORODEO SPORTS NEWS DIGITAL MAGAZINE JUNE 1, 2026