News & Notes from the Rodeo Trail, April 30
The PRCA has announced that RAM is now the exclusive title sponsor of the RAM PRCA World Standings.
The George Paul Memorial Xtreme Bulls Division 1 event will be shown on tape delay on ProRodeoTV.com at 7 p.m. MT on May 4-5. The listing of the broadcast can be found in “In The Chute” section of ProRodeoTV.com. To subscribe to ProRodeoTV.com visit this link www.prorodeo.com/prorodeotv-subscribe.
Steve Kenyon and ProRodeoLive.com will broadcast the Guymon (Okla.) Pioneer Days Rodeo, May 4 at 7:30 p.m. (CT), May 5 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and May 6 at 2 p.m.
Teigen Finnerty, a PRCA steer wrestler, tie-down roper and team roper, passed away April 28 as a result of a motor vehicle accident near Wheatland, Wyo. He was 21. A funeral service for Finnerty will be held at 11 a.m. (MT), May 4, at the Doug Branscom Memorial Show Ring at the Platte County Fairgrounds in Wheatland with Pastor James Wakefield officiating. A vigil for the deceased will be held at 7 p.m., (May 3) at the Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church in Wheatland with Father Tom Kadera. Finnerty was born Aug. 9, 1996, in Wheatland; the son of Dean Patrick Finnerty and Dawn Marie (Williams) Finnerty-Carmichael. A memorial scholarship fund has been established at the Wyoming Community Foundation, 1472 North Fifth Street, Suite 201, Laramie, Wyo., 82072, specify “Teigen Finnerty Memorial Fund” in the memo line of the check, or contribute at www.wycf.org.
The lives of the Wright family, from Bill and Evelyn Wright to their 13 children (former saddle bronc riding World Champion Cody is the oldest) to many more grandchildren, is chronicled in a new book, “The Last Cowboys,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Branch of the New York Times. “The Last Cowboys,” scheduled for a May 15 release from publisher W.W. Norton & Company, is the result of more than three years’ worth of Branch’s thorough reporting. Readers not only get an inside look at the grind of professional rodeo, they’re also immersed into the world of cattle raising. For 150 years, the Wright family has run cattle at their ranch on Smith Mesa in southern Utah outside Zion National Park.
The Franklin (Tenn.) Rodeo has awarded a scholarship to a student at the University of Tennessee-Martin. Jonny Walker, of Parkers Crossroads, Tenn., is the designee for the 2018 scholarship award. Walker, a bareback rider, is in his first year of studies at UT-M. He graduated from Ranger (Texas) College last May, before transferring. He competed in the Tennessee High School Rodeo Association, winning the bareback riding reserve title in his event in 2012-13 and competing at the National High School Finals Rodeo the same years. He is studying ag business and will graduate in May 2019. He is ranked second in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association’s Ozark Region and competed at the Franklin Rodeo last year, where he made a qualified ride. The Franklin Rodeo takes place May 17-19.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“We’ve created an atmosphere with quality animals, a $300,000 purse to get those cowboys here, and then we work hard to keep the tickets reasonable.”
– Clovis (Calif.) Rodeo Director Chuck Rigsbee to ABC 30 Action News KFSN-TV Fresno about the success of the Clovis Rodeo, which concluded its 104th annual rodeo on April 29.
Courtesy of PRCA