ProRodeo Sports News February 16, 2024

EDITOR’S LETTER TRACY RENCK

Tracy Renck is the Manager of Communications and Media. He previously served three years as the editor of the ProRodeo Sports News, and before that he spent seven years as a media coordinator at the PRCA. He has three decades of experience in sports journalism with the last decade consumed by ProRodeo.

Looking back at RodeoHouston 1969 T here are many memorable events that took place in the year of 1969. First, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, July 20, 1969, during the Apollo 11 mission. With more than half a billion people watching on TV, Armstrong climbed down the ladder and proclaimed: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” DeVere Helfrich photo ProRodeo Hall of Famer Olin Young prepares to compete at the inaugural National Finals Rodeo in Dallas in 1959. Young was still going strong when he won the calf roping in Houston a decade later.

Young took first place and edged out a newcomer Phil Lyne. Lyne, 22, was a senior at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, at the time, and left town after earning $4,540. Young did have the fastest time of the event, stopping the clock in 10.2 seconds when he won the second round. Other winners were future ProRodeo Hall of Famers all-around cowboy Doug Brown, who earned $3,359 in saddle bronc riding and bull riding; steer wrestler Roy Duvall and saddle bronc rider Bill Smith; bareback rider Royce Smith; and pint-sized bull rider David Glover. Of those winners at the Astrodome in ’69, Duvall, and Smith and Brown – in bull riding – went on to claim coveted Rodeo Cowboys Association World Championships that season. The RCA was a precursor to the PRCA. Knowing what happened in ’69, it begs the question, who will star at NRG Stadium in Houston this year? RodeoHouston runs from Feb. 27 through March 17. A Houston title is certainly a game-changer for any cowboy. All the 2023 winners – bareback rider Leighton Berry, steer wrestler Dalton Massey, team ropers Rhen Richard/Jeremy Buhler, saddle bronc rider Sage Newman, tie-down roper Riley Webb and bull rider Ky Hamilton – qualified for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. Hamilton earned a RodeoHouston-best $67,750. What’s more, Webb and Hamilton walked out of the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas on Dec. 16 with their inaugural world championships. When contestants compete at RodeoHouston this year they will try and write history of their own just like Young and others did way back in 1969.

Less than a month later, the National Register Woodstock Music Festival site commemorated a three-day music festival that took place, Aug. 15-18, 1969, on nearly 300 acres of rolling farmland in rural Sullivan County, New York. There were legendary performances from Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin just to name a couple. Before these historic American events unfolded another big event happened in the rodeo world. On Feb. 19 through March 2 – Houston’s annual rodeo took place in the Astrodome. That Houston rodeo was nearly 45 years ago and had some noteworthy performances. This is what the headline read in the March 15 edition of the ProRodeo Sports News – Houston’s Astrodome Rodeo Pays out Nearly $92,000 Prize Money. The star of the rodeo was future ProRodeo Hall of Famer Olin Young. Young, who was one of the game’s top ropers for a decade – at the time – snapped a cold streak that had been dogging him for weeks to emerge the big money winner collecting $5,249, thanks to posting 24 seconds in the two-head average in calf roping.

ProRodeo Sports News 2/16/2024

ProRodeo.com

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