ProRodeo Sports News - July 10, 2020

TIME CAPSULE THE BUCKBOARD

BY MATT NABER P utting together the puzzle of rodeo’s past can be a scattered endeavor, and the further back you go, the more difficult it becomes. Old magazines, photos and news clips can be like a rodeo alumni yearbook for past competitors, and those keepsakes can turn up in the most unexpected places. Texas cowboy Dutch Taylor didn’t go far with his ProRodeo career, but his passion for the sport held strong for nearly a century. Taylor, member No. 3348, passed away Aug. 13, 2018, at 92, leaving behind a treasure trove of ProRodeo memorabilia. At an estate sale held about a year after Taylor’s passing, family friend Debbie Garrison, Miss Rodeo America 1979, found a box of ProRodeo history. But it wasn’t until Garrison was preparing to move in 2020 that she discovered the April 1951 and June 1951 editions of The Buckboard in Taylor’s box of photos, daysheets, programs and magazines. “I didn’t even know The Buckboard was the old magazine before ProRodeo Sports News ,” Garrison said. “Most people would just throw it in the trash, but I love to read about the history of rodeo and the people behind it back when it wasn’t as easy to enter and travel like we do now. I was getting ready to move but everything stopped at that moment, and I went through them page by page.” Garrison met Taylor through his wife, Jerry Ann Portwood Taylor, who was one of the original ranch girls at the Madison Square Garden rodeo. Jerry Ann and Dutch were childhood sweethearts that went separate ways as she got more into trick riding and he competed on the Texas Tech History in Print

Miss Rodeo America 1979 finds 70-year-old rodeo magazines

rodeo team. They got back together and married later in life. “He worked all events for a while, but he said he worked bareback riding and saddle bronc riding because if you roped or did any of the other events or rode bulls, that meant you wouldn’t get to the rodeo’s dance until late and all the pretty girls would be taken by then,” Garrison laughed. “I know his rodeo life was important to him and Jerry Ann, and it brought them happiness and friendships. They stayed friends with the rodeo people they knew through all of those years until they passed away, so it meant so much more to him because of the memories.” Their marriage lasted until Jerry Ann passed away in 2012 at 81. “Dutch didn’t have any children of his own, but he had a lot of nieces and nephews, and he left his estate to them,” Garrison said. Rodeo memorabilia holds a special place for Garrison because she participated in the grand opening of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame as Miss Rodeo America. “It was a real treat to see that and be part of the opening ceremony,” Garrison said. Knowing they’d be safely preserved for future generations, Garrison recently donated the magazines to the PRCA. Holding on to magazines and daysheets isn’t easy when on the rodeo road, but Taylor held onto them for 70 years, and finding them today is a bit of a treasure hunt. “I think the best thing to do is go to an estate sale out in the country where someone lives that used to rodeo because sometimes the family members aren’t knowledgeable on the history of their relatives,” Garrison said. “You never know what you’re going to find. And for the young people, if they have grandparents or parents or great-grandparents who rodeoed, they should sit down and visit and learn the history of rodeo.”

ProRodeo Sports News 7/10/2020

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