News & Notes From the Rodeo Trail, May 27
by ProRodeo.com | May 27, 2014
The Santos family has been named the (collective) contestant inductee into the California Rodeo Salinas Hall of Fame, honoring a connection to the rodeo that has existed for four generations and more than eight decades. Original patriarch, the late Frank Santos Sr., made his mark with stockhorse-class wins on the track before World War II. His son, Frank Santos Jr., kicked off his seven-decade career at Salinas riding Santos Sr.-trained National Cow Horse Hall of Famer Dick to three straight victories in the junior stockhorse class from 1950-52. Santos Jr. jumped from track to arena in 1955, as a high school junior, and made his mark against the living legends of that time while still in his teens – in the team roping event with his brother Russ. The 1974 California Rodeo Salinas all-around champion won his most recent Salinas buckle in the Gold Card Team Roping with Jack Roddy in 2003. The third generation of Santos-family contestants at Salinas includes Frank Jr.’s sons, Blaine and Wade. Fourth-generation Santoses competing today include Blaine’s daughter, Kayla, and Cal Poly Mustangs Lane and Taylor, who are the sons of Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Director of Communications Kendra Santos. Also selected for the 2014 HOF class were bullfighter Rob Smets (contestant/personnel category), Albert Hansen Jr. (committee member), the Garcia family (supporters) and the U.S. Army (supporters). Smets worked as a bullfighter at California Rodeo Salinas for more than 10 years and also won five titles in the Salinas bullfight competition, an event created by him and Warren Wayland during a brainstorming session at the PRCA convention in Las Vegas one year. The induction ceremony is set for 11:30 a.m. July 17 at the Salinas Sports Complex …
Four-time World Champion Steer Wrestler Luke Branquinho returned from Australia today after a nine-day trip to conduct a couple of bulldogging clinics. It was his fifth such expedition Down Under …
Coleman Kohorst is back home in Okotoks, Alberta, after spending a week in a Victoria, British Columbia, hospital while doctors tended to injuries he suffered competing in the steer wrestling at the May 17-19 Luxton ProRodeo. Kohorst, a PRCA member for four years, took a horn to the neck, which nicked his jugular vein and severed a nerve on the top of his shoulder. The 30-year-old was also treated for a bacterial infection sustained from the steer’s horn. He hopes to be back competing in 3-4 weeks …
Justin Hampton, the 1999 California Circuit team roping champion, has been selected to succeed Bruce Hunt as rodeo coach of his alma mater, West Hills College in Coalinga, Calif. “I am eager to get started, as this has been a dream of mine for quite some time,” said Hampton, 43. “I am going to put my heart and soul in the program while carrying on the tradition which was started, maintained and made famous by my mentor, Bruce Hunt.” As a student at West Hills, Hampton qualified for the College National Finals Rodeo three times and also served as an assistant coach …
College students entered in the June 14-15 Earl Anderson Memorial Rodeo in Grover, Colo., will be eligible for a $1,500 scholarship award, based on their performance there …
The deadline for Denton County high school seniors to apply for scholarships offered by the North Texas Fair & Rodeo, has been extended a month to July 1. For details of what is being offered and instructions on how to apply, visit here.
George Michael Froome, a former director of the Red Bluff Round-Up Association, died May 7. He was 84. Froome began serving as the program director in 1986, and remained in the position until he resigned in 2013. He also was the first president of the Red Bluff Round-Up Museum …
Richard Cummings, the rodeo club advisor at Black Hills State University for more than 20 years and the first inductee into the BHSU Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2011, died at his Spearfish, S.D., home on May 18. He was 76 …
Gold Card Member and former PRCA bull rider Jim Beeman died May 13 in Saint David, Ariz., where he and his wife, Cindy, had recently opened an art gallery to sell their artwork and that of other Western artists. He was 71 …
Rodeo de Santa Fe (N.M.) will hold its “Pink Boot Breast Cancer Fundraiser” on Friday, June 20, with all proceeds from the event to be donated locally to the Cancer Foundation for New Mexico to help patients with breast cancer pay for transportation, hotel stays and meals so they are able to get to their treatment appointments. Tickets to the event are $30 per person and the festivities begin at 3:30 p.m. at the Rodeo Ground’s VIP tent. Attendees will have the chance to meet rodeo personalities, go on a “Behind the Chutes” tour, participate in live and silent auctions, enjoy a rodeo-style dinner and then stay for the rodeo. For more information, call 505.920.8444 …
As she has done for the past 20 years, Belle Edwards will open up her North Platte, Neb., home to members of the USS Nebraska submarine crew as part of the Nebraskaland Days celebration and Buffalo Bill Rodeo there. The sailors spend 4-5 days in North Platte, and are the honorary guests at Nebraskaland Days activities, from the pancake feed to the beef barbecue, the art show, the parade, the rodeo and most everything in between. The sailors bake one of the cakes for the cake auction, and it’s often one of the highest-selling items. Each year’s crew tries to outdo their predecessors for money raised. “It’s important to them that their cake auctions for a lot of money,” Edwards told the North Platte (Neb.) Bulletin …
The organizers of this past weekend’s Cowboy Capital Pro Rodeo in Bandera, Texas, dedicated the event to the memory of Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame inductee Oscar E. “Butch” Bode III, who died last year. A College National Finals Rodeo champion while at Western Texas College in Snyder, Bode qualified for the 1976 National Finals Rodeo as a tie-down roper …
ProRodeo Hall of Fame stock contractor Cotton Rosser was honored at an exhibit at the Sutter Performing Arts Theater Gallery on May 21. It was a way of thanking him for his continued efforts at the 81st Marysville (Calif.) Stampede. “It’s the only professional sporting event in Yuba-Sutter (counties),” area resident Steven Parks told the Marysville Appeal-Democrat, “and it brings a tremendous boost to the economy – people come from all over.”
Courtesy of PRCA