ProRodeo Sports News - January 10, 2020

MEMORIAM WICK PETH

Hall of Famer Passes

DeVere Helfrich photo

Bullfighter Wick Peth works the arena while bull rider Jim Fortado rides in Klamath Falls, Ore., in 1964.

Wick Peth, known as PRCA’s first pure bullfighter, was 89

BY TRACY RENCK M elvin “Wick” Peth, the original bullfighter and the man credited with changing the job from part-time clown to full-time protector, passed away Dec. 27. He was 89. Peth was the first real specialist, a pure bullfighter and the first to earn a living that way. His 37-year career ended in 1985, six years after he was part of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in Colorado Springs, Colo. A celebration of Peth’s life will be held Sunday, Feb. 9, at 1 p.m. (PT), at the Swinomish Casino and Lodge in Anacortes, Wash. Peth worked the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo eight times – 1961- 64, 1966, 1969, 1975 and 1979. He also was chosen as an alternate in 1972-

74. “I find that I can get play out of most any bull,” Peth said in a press release when he was 49 and still fighting bulls. “They’re all mean and anxious to put up a fight if they get half a chance. I run at them from an angle rather than head-on so they can tell which way I’m going, and they’ll nearly always charge me.” Peth had no interest in being funny for rodeo audiences, although that was part of the job when he quit riding bulls and concentrated on saving bull riders. “I was about as funny as a funeral in the rain,” he was fond of saying. Born April 15, 1930, in Mount Vernon, Wash., to parents John and Florence Peth, of Bow, Wash., Wick resided his entire life on their family farm and cattle ranch near Edison, where he and his brothers acquired a

ProRodeo Sports News 1/10/2020

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