PRORODEO Sports News - October 4, 2024

TIME CAPSULE RONNYE SEWALT

Southpaw Ronnye Sewalt made his final trip to the National Finals Rodeo in 1978. Over his career, Sewalt qualified for the NFR 16 times.

by a rattlesnake as a colt and nearly died. “I call him Dunnie when he’s acting alright. It’s when he starts acting a little goofy that I call him Coyote,” Ronnye said in 1975. “I think the snake bite really did affect his brain a little bit, and sometimes he gets goofy.” His horse’s “goofy” nature may have been a reflection of his own quirky personality, as Ronnye filled out several questionnaires for the RCA with some tongue-in-cheek answers on par with the kind he would sometimes give news reporters. Although his rodeo career was flourishing, he kept in mind that he had a wife, Joy, and sons, Rusty and Ryan, to provide for, so he got into the cattle business as a supplement to his rodeo career. “Funny thing though – for years, everyone kept telling me to get into something besides rodeo for more security, so I got into the cattle business. Now, if I’m lucky, rodeo will keep me from going broke with my cattle,” Ronnye said in 1975. A few years later, he cared for his family by working as a broker for Hertz car rentals in Magnolia, Texas. “Records alone don’t buy any groceries,” he said in 1983, five years after his retirement from rodeo. “It got to the point where I wasn’t getting any younger or any quicker than the new ropers coming up, so I decided to retire before I was forced out.” Ronnye’s father, Royce, was the 1946 world champion calf roper, and Ronnye’s son, Rusty, carried the family tradition of roping calves into the 21st century by qualifying for the NFR five times (1993-94, ’96, ’98, 2002). Ronnye’s sister, LaTonne Sewalt Enright, was the youngest girl to win the Girls Rodeo Association world title for barrel racing, at only 11 years old in 1950. Ronnye Sewalt died Sept. 14, 1994, in Tomball, Texas, at age 53 after a long battle with cancer.

16-time NFR qualifier was rare left-handed tie-down roper BY PRCA STAFF A t a time when being left-handed was even more infrequent than it is today, Ronnye Sewalt of Brownwood and Chico, Texas, was one of only six left-handed tie-down ropers to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo – and he did it 16 times (1961, 1963-75, 1977-78). At 19 years old, Ronnye joined the PRCA (known as the RCA at the time) in July 1959, and his PRORODEO career lasted until 1978, when he made his final NFR appearance. During those 19 years, he primarily earned his living in the rodeo arena, and said he liked that it was an “independent occupation.” In 1974, he set a NFR calf roping record, winning the average with a time of 137.6 seconds on 10 head. He finished in the top five of the world standings seven times, including being reserve world champion in 1964. Much of his infamous rodeo career was on the back of Coyote, an unregistered ranch-raised American Quarter Horse gelding who was bitten

ProRodeo Sports News 10/4/2024

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