ProRodeo Sports News - August 2, 2019

got it tight enough for him. He rode the bull and won the rodeo. From then on, he was known in the area.” He’s not just known in the area anymore. “I have a Western store (Frost RanchWear) in Atoka (Okla.),” Muggli said. “Cowboys and kids stop through here, and what blows my mind is the young kids, anywhere in age from 4 to 12 to 19, are just as excited about him and enamored with him today as they were 10 years ago. It blows my mind. He was gone 20 years before some of these kids were even born and they still are excited about him as ever.” Elsie believes faith played a role in people gravitating to Frost. “I have said all along I think God gave Lane the personality that he did to draw people to him, because God knew the big picture in what was going to happen,” Elsie said. “Lane liked everybody. It didn’t matter if you were 80

“Anybody who walks into a rodeo arena now, Lane had some influence on whether it be through old cowboy stories or from the movie or whatever the reason may be,” Kimzey said. “I feel like everybody looks up to him. I watched videos of Lane riding, and I think everybody has watched 8 Seconds about a million times. With him leaving this Earth too soon, he became that larger-than-life character. I know for me at least, and my generation of cowboys, it was always when you grow up you wanted to be like Lane Frost. There are only a handful of icons in bull riding, and Lane is definitely one of them – not only how he rode bulls, but how he carried himself and the person he was.” ONE GOAL The fact Frost became a bull rider was no surprise to Elsie. “His dad was a saddle bronc rider and a bareback rider and bulldogged, and most kids wanted to do what their dad did, but not Lane,” Elsie said. “From the time he was litte bitty, he wanted to be a bull rider. He had a lot of God-given talent, but he also worked at it hard. He did whatever it took to do what he wanted to do. “That’s what I remember, just his passion for it. We would have much rather had him choose something else to do, but you just can’t deny a child who has that much passion for something. You want them to do what they want to do, and I’ve always said, if he had to go that would have been his choice of the way to go. He just loved it so much.” Muggli echoed her mom. “All in all, I don’t know how you would have changed things because Lane wanted to ride bulls from a really, really young age, and it was obvious that’s all he wanted to do,” she said. “There’s no way you could have changed things even knowing what was going to happen because you wouldn’t have been able to convince him not to have gotten on. There was no option for another event, he only wanted to be a bull rider. I still hate that it happened (that he passed away riding a bull), but I don’t know how you would have changed it.”

or 8, he wanted to visit with you. He was bad at remembering names, but he never forgot your face. If he saw somebody a year later that he visited with at that rodeo, he remembered them. He had a God-given talent to draw people to him.” Tuff Hedeman was Frost’s best friend. Just months after Frost’s death, Hedeman was crowned the 1989 PRCAWorld Champion Bull Rider. “The reality of it is, is he was as advertised,” Hedeman said. “He was the coolest, best guy you would ever meet. He was the guy when he was alive. He was the kind of guy if you ever wanted to be somebody, you wanted to be him. He was to everybody, not to just me. He was a very genuine, sincere, kind guy. I still stay in touch with his mother and father (Clyde), and I think we continue

“The reality of it is, is he was as advertised. He was the coolest, best guy you would ever meet. ... He was the kind of guy if you ever wanted to be somebody, you wanted to be him. He was a very genuine, sincere, kind guy. – TUFF HEDEMAN

to be amazed that he’s a bigger deal now than he was 30 years ago. I think that is rare in any walk of life.” Elsie said her faith is how she dealt with the death of her son. “I don’t know how anyone can lose a child without the faith in God and without God to give them the comfort and assurance

that he’s in Heaven,” she said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s in Heaven because he accepted Jesus as his savior and that was only about a year-and-a-half before he died that he did that. Even though we have missed him for 30 years and the hurt is still there, we know we are going to see him someday.” About five years after Lane’s passing, Elsie said paperback New Testament Bibles were printed with a picture of Lane on the front. “We have given away about 330,000 of those Bibles over the years,” said Elsie, who gives the Bibles away through her Bible ministry. “On the inside front cover, I tell them about Lane’s salvation and how to be saved so that anyone who reads it knows what they need to do to accept Jesus as their personal savior.” Frost, who was posthumously inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1990, has had a lasting impact on bull riders today – few of whom were born before he died. That includes PRCA bull rider Sage Kimzey, 24, who has won five consecutive PRCA world championships.

PRCA ProRodeo file photo Lane Frost waves to the crowd in Spanish Fork, Utah, after riding Red Rock on July 25, 1988, to break a tie and win the Challenge of Champions.

ProRodeo Sports News 8/2/2019

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