Word: rodeos
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Ferguson, 23, is a surprisingly mild individual for a man who makes his living as a champion steer wrestler and calf roper. Unlike the ornery, untamed cowboys of rodeo lore, he does not brawl his way from one prairie town to the next. His rodeo skills were honed not on a hardscrabble ranch but on a college campus. Even so, almost every time Ferguson grabs a rampant 800-lb. steer by the horns to "bulldog" it to the turf, or smoothly lassoes a speeding calf, he places in the money. So far this year he has already earned more than...
...manner, if not in his top-level earnings, Ferguson is typical of a new breed of cowboy that is rapidly transforming the rodeo from a rowdy range spectacle to a disciplined, businesslike sport. Fully one-third of the 3,000-member Rodeo Cowboys Association today have attended college, and only half have ever worked on a ranch-rodeo's traditional training ground. For them the path upward winds through "Little Britches" (the cowboy's equivalent of the Little League), high school competition and eventually college teams.*Competitors put up with the serious training regimen in return...
...corrals from Mineral Wells, Texas, to Deadwood, S. Dak., the basic ingredients of the community-organized rodeo have not changed. Bareback bronc and brahma bull riding, the meanest rodeo events, still delight the fans and break the bones of contestants. Shot into the arena on the back of an insanely bucking bull or bronc, the rider must stay aboard for eight frantic seconds, holding on by his spurs and a rope cinch that he is allowed to grasp with only one hand. If the cowboy survives the frenzied ride, two judges score his effort for degree of difficulty and quality...
...rodeo is still rock-hard with flinty characters. Wick Peth, 44, could be relaxing at his ranch in Bow, Wash.; instead, he runs around rodeo arenas as a bullfighter trying to keep marauding horned brahmas from impaling riders who have toppled in their path. Earlier this year, Peth was gored in the leg and ripped both Achilles' tendons; three weeks later he was back in action. Malcolm Baldrige, 51, is more fanatical than flinty. Chairman of the diversified Scovill Manufacturing Co. in non-cowboy Waterbury, Conn., Baldrige takes every chance he can get to join the tour and rope...
Struggling Cowgirls. "Rodeo is tough," says Steer Wrestler Walt Garrison, who doubles as a Dallas Cowboy running back during the football season. "You got to be in good shape." The cowboys are all business as they wait their turn to compete, watching the action to pick up pointers or carefully dowsing their gloves and chaps in resin to improve the grip. "These fellows have changed a lot," says Frank Barrett, rodeo doctor at Cheyenne Frontier Days (attendance this year: 101,000) for 23 years. "I can remember when cowboys used to squat down and drink up before riding. I treated...