Paternal PARTNERS

In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson designated the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day, and six years later, President Richard Nixon signed it into law. Luckily, the holiday is annual. Because there are so many team roping dads and granddads worth honoring that we could go on for years.

In the meantime, here are a few fathers worthy of accolades on June 21.

PAPA SMURF

The passing of the gold-buckle baton from Jake ’n Clay to Speed ’n Rich in the mid-1990s overshadowed wolfy West Coast NFR team ropers like Daniel and Chris Green, Wes and Cameron Moore, and the late Mike Boothe.

But they were tough. And they all came through Bruce Hunt’s program at West Hills College in Coalinga, California. Hunt, a Canadian, left his own promising full-time rodeo career to mentor those kids and his own with his wife, fellow roping ace Liz Hunt.

“We always had a handful of college students sleeping in the living room the first few weeks of school,” recalled Hunt’s oldest daughter, Nora Hunt-Lee. “They called him Papa Smurf.”

Keeping good steers in front of teenaged boys who ride high and duck hard can be challenging. But