PRORODEO Sports News - Sept. 9, 2026

PRORODEO HALL OF FAME STOCK CONTRACTOR JIM SUTTON JR. PASSES AWAY By PRCA Staff

Jim Sutton watching over his stock. PRCA file photo P roRodeo Hall of Fame S.D. He was 91 years old. The South Dakota native ran Sutton Rodeo Company with his father, James H. Sutton Sr., beginning in 1968, and transformed the outfit into one of the top firms in PRORODEO. When asked how he’d want to be remembered during Rodeo Rapid City (S.D.) this past February, he gave a stock contractor Jim Sutton Jr. passed away Sept. 3 in Pierre,

simple answer. “Probably the way it is,” Sutton said to the PRORODEO Sports News ahead of his 91st birthday. “All the family is involved, and it looks like they’re going to continue to be involved for quite a few years.” The Sutton family hosted the first rodeo on the family’s ranch in the river hills of Sully County in 1926 and sought to see which local ranch had the best cowboys.

Edwin Sutton, Jim Sutton’s grand father, saw potential in the rodeo business and sought to grow the com pany from a family pastime to a profit center. He quickly partnered with George Fairbank and began a successful tour ing rodeo before the Great Depression slowed operations until the 1940s. Jim’s father, James H. Sutton Sr., launched the next iteration of the firm in the 1950s by partnering with fellow

12 PRORODEO SPORTS NEWS DIGITAL MAGAZINE September 9, 2026