Two-Time World Champion Tie-Down Roper Garrison Passes Away

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Junior James Garrison, who won a pair of PRCA tie-down world championships in 1966 and 1970, passed away Aug. 12. He was 79.

Garrison, who was a native of Marlow, Okla., qualified for the National Finals Rodeo 10 times (1964-71, 1975 and 1977). He was the NFR average winner in 1968 and placed second in the average in 1966 and 1977.

Garrison edged ProRodeo Hall of Famer Dean Oliver by $96 for the 1966 world championship. Oliver broke ropes on his last two calves and Garrison helped his own cause by winning Round 7 with a 10.8-second time. Garrison finished the season with $24,304.

“I was lucky…awful lucky, Dean’s the greatest,” Garrison said after he won the ’66 title.
In 1970, Garrison earned $24,311 to earn his 1970 gold buckle.

“If you’re doing something you really like, then you’re always on vacation,” Garrison said. “If you’re on vacation, you don’t want it to end,” Garrison said in a March 22, 1995, issue of the ProRodeo Sports News.

In 1967, Garrison tied a calf in 7.5 seconds in Evergreen, Colo., which was the record for several years.

When Garrison was 17, he was driving a bread truck and didn’t know the slightest thing about rodeo.

Garrison’s high school girlfriend invited him to family get-togethers where they would hold goat ropings. Inspired to prove his friends wrong, Garrison began roping goats.

“I guess it was the laughing (by his friends) that started it all,” Garrison said in 1977 PRCA media guide. “I said I’d show them and learn.”

Learning to rope proved to be a wise decision for Garrison. By age 26, he qualified for his first NFR.

After his rodeo career, Garrison trained and sold roping horses and Thoroughbreds.

Garrison is survived by two daughters, Jeana and Jamie Kay.

Courtesy of PRCA