ProRodeo Sports News - June 21, 2024

TIME CAPSULE SHOAT WEBSTER

ProRodeo Hall of Fame file photo

Shoat Webster, who was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1979, was one of the best steer ropers of all time.

BY PRCA STAFF H oward Chouteau “Shoat” Webster, part of the 1979 inaugural class of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, was the most dominant steer roper of his time. In a seven-year stretch from 1949-55, the Oklahoma cowboy won four world championships (1949-50, 1954-55), was second twice (1951, ’53) and third the other time. In a span of 18 years from 1949-66, he finished in the top 14 in the world every time, was in the top 10 all but twice and was in the top four an amazing 13 times, including a third reserve world title in 1959. The cowboy from Lenapah, Okla. – located in the northeastern part of the state, just south of the Kansas border – was also a steer wrestler and tie-down roper. But Webster made his name roping steers. He won the prestigious Cheyenne (Wyo.) Frontier Days and Pendleton (Ore.) Round-Up four times each. He gained permanent possession of the Sam Jackson all-around cowboy trophy at Pendleton ‘He Was Elvis’

Shoat Webster was the king of steer ropers

by winning it three times in a row (1949-51), and once cited that as his proudest moment. PRCA announcer Justin McKee, who grew up watching Webster rope and later married Shoat’s niece, Jeannie, told PSN upon the death of the great roper at age 88 in 2013, “In the rodeo towns that had steer roping like Cheyenne and Pendleton, there wasn’t a bigger celebrity in those towns than Shoat. He was the king; he was Elvis.” Born in 1925, he was raised on a ranch and competed in his first rodeo at age 15. He was a rancher throughout his rodeo career and his contemporaries thought he could’ve won more world titles had he traveled more. Webster told PSN in a 2005 interview that he never drank beer and turned down a chance to be the Marlboro man. “I never regretted it,” he said. “Those young kids, they’ll pattern after you, and I didn’t want them smoking those danged old cigarettes.”

ProRodeo Sports News 6/21/2024

ProRodeo.com

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