ProRodeo Sports News - May 27, 2022

but that faded quickly.

“When I was 14 years old, I weighed 175 pounds, which was too big to start with, and I decided right quick to leave the broncs and bulls to someone else,” said Copenhaver in a May 31, 1978, article of the ProRodeo Sports News. “I had been roping since I was about 11 years old, and I liked tying down calves best, anyway.” Jeff joined the PRCA in 1968. He won the Columbia River Circuit Year-End title in 1976 and Lone Star Circuit, now known as the Texas Circuit, in 1978 and was the champion at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo in 1974 and 1978. Jeff trained champion tie-down and breakaway ropers for more than 30 years, in the U.S. and Canada. He has also trained champions in Australia and Cuba. In 1986, Jeff and Sherry started America’s first Cowboy church at Billy Bob’s in the historic Fort Worth (Texas) Stockyards. Jeff and Sherry spent years traveling nationally and internationally teaching roping schools and motivating others to be champions for God in their world. Copenhaver also wrote a book titled “GodWants You toWin!” “It was great to accomplish a goal that was my whole life,” said Copenhaver about winning his world championship in a Dec. 9, 2008, article in the Spokesman-Review. “It consumed my every thought, every breath, my very existence. That night I sat on the edge of my bed and asked, ‘Is that all there is?’ Even with the satisfaction of accomplishing that there was a void, and it started a three-year search.” According to the article in the Spokesman-Review, three years later, at a rodeo inMadison Square Garden in New York, Copenhaver and his wife, Sherry, ran into an old friend, “a calf roper fromConnecticut, you can imagine how rare that is,” Copenhaver said. The Copenhavers were struck by his demeanor. “I could just see the peace, the contentedness, that something good had happened to him,” Copenhaver said. After grilling their friend, the Copenhavers returned to their motel. “We knelt down at the end of our bed,” he recalled, “and asked Jesus Christ into our hearts.”

PRCA ProRodeo file photo

Copenhaver takes a break in the action at the 1973 NFR in Oklahoma City.

PRCA ProRodeo file photo by Eva Scofield ProRodeo Hall of Famer Deb Copenhaver, left, and son Jeff, share a light moment at a Hall of Fame event.

ProRodeo Sports News 5/27/2022

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