Weekday
The weekly feature page of the University Daily Kansan April 19.1978
Leather and manure. A trailer house with a herd of longhorn babbles hurling on the grass behind rotting fences. A mechanical fence is built around the herd.
These guys coming up the muddy gravel road wanna be cowboys. Fast.
One of the first to arrive, a skimmy Texas kid, clambers out of his dad's pickup and works hard at lightning a match off his boot.
"My pop was a rodeo man," he says, "but I grew up in the city."
He smiles, he's got a chipped tooth.
"Up till now the only rodee rido! I done is been on those dime machines they out outside a supermasters," he says.
Out on his tractor there's Delayne Long—a clean-shaven man, but a cowboy straight through, thinking as the tractor pulls him into the dirt.
By 9:30 a.m., his yard's full of pickups with bumper stickers.
"Dannn't ruin 'a'm cowboy. Cowbies stay on longer," he says.
Lots of young punks in fence cages and five-gallon hats; their women smoking in the cab. The rain isn't letting up, but they are still sneaking around.
This is the DeLayne Long Rodean Ranch: a two-day clinic where all enrollees will get a taste of mud, maybe blood, and the
"Rodeo's been a good life for me, and I just want to share some of it with the kids." DeLayne says.
f 10 years Detaye the professional rodeo circuit, but now at 34 he retired and making a living as a stock contractor.
On this drizzly Saturday there are a few experienced riders out for the exercise, but most are just kids from where any from
A line forms behind the mechanical bull, where the young riders are taught a few basics before jumping on the real meat
As his girl friend watches from behind, Bud Bundy from Topeka steps onto El Toro.
They do and his cowboy hat falls off and two seconds later so does he.
Most of these kids will be competing at local rodeos by summer, according to Greg Arbomhart, a food service manager at the rodeo.
For two days they will be learning to ride bareback bronc, saddle bronc and wild bulls.
The rain picks up so lush is called and it's down to Tiger's Bar and Grill, Main Street, Lyndon. After dutifully priming the jukebox for a series of country-western numbers, Larry huffed and turned the mic up. "But the hardtendness just laughs so he heads for a pool table."
Even though he's a high school student in Topaek right now,
Watereck says inside he 'nothing but a cowboy.' It'a feeling.
"I'm gonna be the best, " he boasts, plucking a bag of Red Man chewable tobacco from his boots, pounding his stick on the table.
"Jack um," he yells to a friend. "Yea, I ain't afraid of nothing. I've seen a man stumped to be dead in a front of you."
After lunch, which for many of the cowboys has been liquid,
it is time to convene the Osage County Fair Grounds for a cake.
The bulls are waiting in the corrals leading to the chutes. It's getting cold, and some of the bulls are beginning to snort. Even the girls get out of the pickups, don a cowboy hat and find a perch in the splintering stands.
A ball is herded by the clute and DeLayne fastens a flank strap behind the ball's hips. The tighter the strap, the rougher the
"Tighten that strap up," yells a young cowboy, taking a tight-gloved grip for his first ride.
He did pretty good on the machine. The clute opens, the bull
spins and the kid goes flying into the mud.
"Son of a buck," he yells, looking up at his girlfriend behind the chutes.
She laughs, but gives him a kiss anwav.
Delay Lye runs his ranch on the premise that experience is the very best teacher. Spoken advice is short and to the point:
"Get your left hand back." .lean .sap. .run like hell!" "One cowboy who's been riding rodeos for years and is only out to polish his skills says that these boys have to learn to sense a horse's mood.
"The way I see it, you gotta respect a horse. Course there's other ways," he says. "I saw an Indian stumped by a horse once in New Mexico, and that old boy got up, ran over and punched that horse upside the head."
He re-enacts the punch on a nearby post.
"Knocked that horse out cold. Everybody has their own style."
Preparing for this first ride on "real meat" 15-year-old Bob Bundy, Topke (above), secures his grip as he waits for the chute door to open. Bundy's ride lasted only a few seconds before the bull sent him tumbling to the ground. Keeping their "ridin' hands" warm is an integral part of the routine these cowboys (left) have learned from friends and older brothers, many of whom ride the professional rodeo circuit.
Rodeo Men
wince her boyfriend helps round up the bulbs in the corral, Lori Hogan, 16, waits in his truck. Later, her boyfriend, Larry Wiezek, tried his luck on one of the bulbs—the bull won.
Photos by Randy Olson Story by Timothy Tankard