Dean and Julia Woods Keep 20-Year World Finals Streak Alive This Year in Arlington

By: Darci Miller

PUEBLO, Colo. – When Dean and Julia Woods attended their first PBR event in their native Portland, Oregon, it didn’t necessarily have the most auspicious beginning.

They sat down by the announcer’s stand, and one of the bulls kicked dirt all over them.

Justin McKee, then the announcer for the PBR, told the crowd, “These people right down here just atmosphere kicked all over them!”

“Ever since then,” Dean recalled with a laugh, “we’ve been going to the PBR.”

That was around 23 years ago.

The details of the timeline are a little fuzzy for the Woodses, simply because of how much they’ve packed into those 23-ish years. They retired in 2001 and became full-time RVers, at which point they began attending 18-20 PBR events annually.

The Woodses have gone to the PBR World Finals for the last 20 or so years, all of which have been held in Las Vegas. Their streak will continue this year as the 2020 PBR World Finals heads to Arlington, Texas, and AT&T Stadium for the first time on Nov. 12-15.

This won’t be the Woodses’ first time at AT&T Stadium, of course. They’ve attended the PBR Global Cup USA there twice, and before that were personally encouraged to attend in 2014 by a couple of former PBR CEOs.

“Randy Bernard kept telling us we need to go to Dallas, and we told him we wouldn’t go unless it was a two-night deal,” Dean said. “And they got (The American) and PBR put together, and Jim Haworth came to us, and so did Randy Bernard. They said, ‘It’s two nights now. Will you go?’ And I said yes.”

Dean and Julia are full of stories like that that would make even a fellow diehard fan’s head spin.

They’re known current PBR CEO Sean Gleason ever since he started with the PBR, and Dean will occasionally chat with him on the phone. Two years ago at the World Finals, the Woodses attended a private press meeting.

“And the first thing Sean Gleason said was, ‘Dean, don’t complain to me about the Tulsa event next year. We changed it. We changed Tulsa and Nashville. Don’t complain to me about that,’” Dean said with a laugh. “So that was kind of funny, I thought. But he was talking about how much we went and everything. It was very great.”

Then there’s the fact that they’re so well-known to the bull riders and event staff that if they so much as miss an event, it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“I go down to the fence all the time,” Dean said. “If something happens and we miss an event, and we go to the next one, they’ll ask us where we were last week. We just went to the one in Nampa, Idaho, and several of them asked us where we had been. We hadn’t been to very many. We’d both been having a little bit of health problems, and we couldn’t go there for a while, and then the virus, too. But now we’re ready to get back and go.”

There was also the time Dean won the worst-dressed fan of the event in Nampa, Idaho, and the whole crew was in on it except entertainer Flint Rasmussen. Dean was wearing a tank top, shorts and flip-flops, and Rasmussen had some words for him.

“Dean,” he said, “I don’t ever want to see you come to another PBR event dressed like this.”

The Woodses recall being in St. Louis and witnessing 26 qualified rides on the first night of competition. They were also on hand in Nampa to close out the 2020 season several weeks ago, and saw 18 qualified rides the first night, setting up a title race that’s closer than many anticipated it would be.

“I think it’s going to be a close race,” Dean said. “It would be nice if Joao Ricardo Vieira would win, because he he’s getting up to that age where he probably won’t be able to go much more. And I call him Smiley. He’s always smiling, no matter whether he gets hurt or when he gets off of a bull.”

But despite this affinity for Vieira, the Woodses insist they have no favorites. They simply can’t pick.

“When we started, we called them our kids,” Dean said. “We met them all. And after so long a time, they’re our grandkids. And we love all of them. We like (Washington native) Derek Kolbaba and some of the closer people here to us (in the Pacific Northwest), but we love them all.”

Dean and Julia have been married for going on 58 years. While they split their time between Oregon and Arizona these days – when they’re not attending PBR events, of course – they both grew up on ranches in Richland, Oregon, and have always been surrounded by the Western lifestyle.

“I guess because we were born on ranches, we were around horses all the time, we were around cows all the time, and bulls all the time, it’s just a natural likeness, because it’s what we were raised as,” Julia said.

“It’s something that both of us enjoy doing. Our kids know we’re going to do it. When we went to Nampa, we always have a couple of granddaughters (there). This year we only had one granddaughter, but we had a great granddaughter that went with us, and she was only 3. And so that’s the third generation of our family that’s gone to the PBR.”

Dean and Julia have quite a PBR legacy. More than 20 years attending events. Friendly relationships with multiple PBR CEOs. Friendships with bull riders. Notoriety as fixtures at every event.

But they’re very matter-of-fact about it, and how this incredible journey began with a nonchalant decision after getting “atmosphere” kicked all over them in Portland.

“We’re Western people,” Dean said, “and we just decided we’d go.”

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