PRORODEO Sports News March 2026 Digital Edition

death on Feb. 1, 1991. Jim’s wife, Julie, also took on a lot of responsibility in Sutton Ro deo. In addition to helping support operations, she served as an NFR timer in 1970 and passed the skill on to her daughter-in-law, Kim Sutton. Jim and Julie received the Donita Barnes Lifetime Achieve ment Award in 2017. Julie Sutton died at 85 years old on July 21, 2021 – four days after Jim was in ducted into the Hall of Fame – after a prolonged battle with cancer. Jim Sutton still hits the road for Sutton Rodeo’s biggest produc tions, including Rodeo Rapid City, which he started in 1978 as the Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo. The rodeo has been nominated 25 times as the PRCA Large Indoor Rodeo of the Year, winning the title seven times (2002-03, 2020-21, 2023-25). “I wish I had a few more years,” Jim Sutton said. “This show in Rap id City, there are no better rodeos anywhere. We always get the top cowboys and try to bring the best stock we can. That’s just the way it is. “All my life, we’ve tried

Today, Steve serves as the presi dent of Sutton Rodeo Company with his wife, Kim, and their children, Brent, Brice and Amy, are intimately involved in the day-to-day operations of the family business. “We all wear a hat,” Steve Sutton said. “And at the end of that hat, you do everything.” Steve Sutton grew up in the family business. He can’t remember the first rodeo he went to, but he picked up a lot of wisdom from his father and grandfather on the rodeo road, and he always loved rodeo and the live stock business. “The reason I enjoy it so much is because I have had good coaches,” Steve Sutton said. “Grandpa and dad, they taught us how to do it the right way. The right way is usually to do what you think the person you’re do ing the job for wants it to be done.” Steve Sutton got his PRCA card between his eighth grade and fresh man year of high school, and went on to be a pickup man at the National High School Finals Rodeo the same summer. Steve became one of the top

lasted a long time and I had the best seat in the house.” Steve and Kim started dating in 1978, the first year of Rodeo Rapid City and the same year that Steve picked up at the NFR. Kim had been involved in the rodeo world as a high schooler in 4H, but saw a whole other side of the rodeo business that year. “It was a whole different world on the backside of rodeo contracting and production,” Kim Sutton recalled. “All of a sudden, I was rooting for the horse and not the cowboy. I learned as I went under Jim and Julie, and Steve and James Sr., Steve’s grand pa. They were really close, and he (James Sr.) was a wonderful man who encouraged us both a lot.” Steve and Kim got married in 1983, and in the following years, they be came more and more essential to the operation of Sutton Rodeo Company. Today, the couple oversees the operation with their kids. Kim han dles timing and marketing with her daughter, Amy Mueller, while Steve runs the livestock program and rodeo production with his two

sons, Brice and Brent, and his son-in law, Steven Mueller. Kim

pickup men in the PRCA.

to get rodeos like this and keep them going. Rapid City is (the result) of what

He was selected to

the National

we’ve been trying to do for years. It’s all kind of fallen into place.” Sutton Rodeo Today

Finals Rodeo twice in Oklahoma City, Okla. (1978, 1981) and three times after the event moved to Las Vegas (1986, 1993, 1995). “I enjoy the PRCA. It’s a great world to be involved in, the rodeo world,” Steve Sutton said. “If I had to start all over again, I would do the same thing. I started picking up at a very early age, and I was lucky that I

said she would almost describe

herself more accurately as the Sutton Rodeo gopher, because a title can’t really describe what any of the family members do to produce rodeos and raise some of the best bucking stock in PRORODEO. “We don’t have offices in our orga nization,” Steve Sutton said. “We all

Steve Sutton, Jim’s son, joined the PRCA in 1976 and became a stock contractor in 1982.

18 PRORODEO SPORTS NEWS DIGITAL MAGAZINE MARCH 2026