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4 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019

A saddle bronc rider competes in the Cody Stampede Rodeo on July 1, 2016, at Stampede Park.
Cody Enterprise On the Cover: Steve Devenyns’
“Sky High” which was used on the
SPECIAL PUBLICATION Stampede Rodeo program in 2005.
Raised in Colorado, Devenyns al-
June 18, 2019 ways enjoyed wildlife, the West and
wide-open spaces. He is a horseman
and outdoorsman who enjoys time
PUBLISHER: John Malmberg in the mountains and working with
fellow ranchers. After an automobile
EDITOR: Amber Peabody accident in 1974, Devenyns spent a
long recuperation period discovering
the layers of his creativity and began
WRITER: Lew Freedman
his career as an artist. Although
primarily self taught, he has been
LAYOUT/DESIGN: Cassie Capellen influenced by many great painters
including Tucker Smith, Jim Wilcox,
ADVERTISING: Megan Barton, Jana Cardew, Robert Tommey and most of all by
Shannon Severude Ray Swanson.
Devenyns has been featured in
3101 Big Horn Ave., Cody, WY • (307) 587-2231 many prestigious art magazines,
codyenterprise.com including Art of the West, Southwest
Summer 2019 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • 5
Art, U.S. Art, Inform Art and the
Western Horseman as well as many
others. He is a multiple Gold Medal
Winner at the Phippen Memorial
Art Show in Arizona and has been
named Artist of the Year for several
national organizations. In 2006,
Devenyns won the People’s Choice
Award at the Buffalo Bill Art Show,
and in 2010 won the Artist’s Choice
Award at the National Museum of
Wildlife Art in Jackson. In 2012,
he was the Featured Artist at the
America’s Horse in Art Show at the
AQHA Museum in Amarillo, Texas,
and an Honored Artist at the Buffalo
Bill Art Show in Cody. In 2016 he
was inducted into the Academy of
Western Artists in Ft. Worth, Texas.
For more info go to stevedevenyns.
com
Celebrating 100
years of rodeo
By LEW FREEDMAN
Reporter

When does a century not equal 100 years?

When discussing the Buffalo Bill Cody Stampede
Rodeo.
Cody is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the
Cody Stampede this July 4 week. But technically, this
is not the 100th Stampede rodeo, nor the 100th an-
niversary of the creation of the Cody Stampede Board
of Directors that is the event’s governing body.
However, 100 years have passed since the Inde-
pendence Day tradition of holding a rodeo began in
the Rodeo Capital of the World.
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who this town is
named for, died in Denver in January 1917. To honor
the memory of the prominent Old West scout and
western show impresario, Cody held a rodeo in the
summer of 1919. This was not the Stampede, but
what was thought to be a one-time occurrence.
Some prominent Cody residents thought having a
rodeo was such a good idea an organizational meet-
ing took place in 1920 and the Stampede Board was
formed. That was 99 years ago.
However, this will not be the 100th Cody Stam-
pede Rodeo because none were held in 1943, 1944
and 1945 due to World War II.
The Indianpolis 500 faced a similar conundrum a
few years ago.
Indy made its debut in 1911, so the 100th anni-
versary of the first race was 2011. But, just like the
Stampede, the automotive race took a hiatus during
World War II after also going dark during World War I.
What organizers of that race did was celebrate in
2011 and again in 2016 when the real 100th race
was scheduled.
The Stampede could legitimately do the same, cel-
ebrating this summer, but again in four years making
up for the 1919 rodeo as a non-Stampede and the
missed war years.
The Stampede board could plan a fresh party in
2023 to celebrate an official 100th Stampede.
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Let ’er Buck
Evan Holman competes in the early years of the Cody Stampede. (Park Count Archives photos)
Stampede Rodeo has storied history
By LEW FREEDMAN
Reporter
The roots of modern rodeo run through
the soil of North Platte, Neb., to the day in
1882 when favorite son William F. Cody
asked what the town had planned to cel-
ebrate the nation’s independence on July 4.
The story goes that after returning to
town, Cody was hanging out with some
other men in an establishment called
Foley’s Store and asked what entertainment
was scheduled.
Not much, he was informed, and Cody
replied, “Oh, we ought to be more patriotic
than that.”
The community where Cody’s Scout’s
Rest Ranch still stands – and is protected
by the U.S. National Register of Historic
8 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019
Places – continues to conduct the Buffalo
Bill Rodeo today, nicknaming it “America’s
First Rodeo.”
This is where Buffalo Bill held one of
the first modern rodeos because some 200
cowboys and 2,000 horses were handily
camped nearby at the end of a roundup.
And this is one reason Cody, Wyoming’s
town fathers believed throwing a rodeo fol-
lowing the great showman’s death was an
ideal way to honor him.
Buffalo Bill Cody’s demise just shy of his
71st birthday in 1917 led to the birth of the
Cody Stampede Rodeo, just as his natural
ingenuity in taking command of the North
Platte July 4 celebration led to the creation
of his Wild West.
When Cody died in Denver that Janu-
ary, he was probably the most famous man
in the world. But by then he was really of
Cody, the town named for him on the out-
skirts of Yellowstone National Park.
Colorado staged a royal funeral and kept
the body, though many fumed Cody wanted
to be buried in Cody.
Left without the man in the flesh, Cody’s
citizenry built upon his spirit.
However, the Cody community, which
in 2019 prides itself on holding one of the
biggest shindigs around over the Fourth
of July, was invested in the holiday long
before rodeo became the centerpiece of the
party.
It was the desire of Buffalo Bill and
fellow visionaries that Cody become an op-
portunistic gateway community to Yellow-
stone, which was established in 1872.
So years before Buffalo Bill passed
Larry Larom (from left), Chief Iron
Tail, Caroline Lockhart and Ernest
Goppert during the 1925 Cody Stam- Bill Pawley rides a white bucking horse during the Cody Stampede in 1921. The picture was widely
pede Parade. circulated and hung on a wall in the White House during President Warren Harding’s administration.
away, Cody was already putting on an an-
nual show linked to “Entrance Day,” when
the East Entrance of the Park opened to
visitors each spring.
Events did not include professional
rodeo as it is now known, but there was a
western theme in what seemed more akin
to a county fair.
There was an event called “Cody
Stampede” in 1906 which listed a program
schedule that included a girls egg race, a
boys three-legged race, speed ice-cream
soda drinking and a tug of war, but also a
roping contest and a saddle horse race.
Part of the July 4, 1910, program
included re-enactment of a stagecoach
holdup, an Indian pony race, bucking
horses and steer roping. It was easy to see
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West influence.
The evolution of the show became a
revolution in 1919 when with Buffalo Bill’s
death fresh in memory Clarence Williams
stepped to the front as rodeo organizer.
Williams had been a rancher and a stage
driver carrying tourists into Yellowstone.
The 1919 events took place in late June
on empty land where the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints on Wyoming
Avenue stands today and the Park County
Enterprise of June 25 raved about the cow-
boy competition.
The theme, Williams’ declaration, was
“Powder River, Let ’er Buck.” Cowboys
flocked to town to participate.
“Perhaps Cody never again will get as
many riders of international reputation to
appear on a program,” the paper reported.
Little did all expect this baby-stepping
into rodeo would result in the best cowboys
in the world trekking to Cody every year to
compete for what is now about $400,000
in prize money and the rodeo would be-
come a cornerstone of professional rodeo’s
Cowboy Christmas over the July 4 holiday.
The 1919 show was such a big hit that
Williams and others decided Cody should
do this all of the time and in 1920 the Buf-
falo Bill Cody Stampede was officially born.
Stampede is formed
One of the most important figures in the
early days of the Stampede was Caroline
Lockhart.
Lockhart was an unconventional and
brash woman for her time. When she
moved to Cody early in the 20th century
she declared her aspiration to become the
most famous woman west of the Mis-
sissippi River. She worked at it, writing
respected western fiction, taking over
ownership of the Cody Enterprise and soon
enough stamping her imprint on the Cody
Stampede Rodeo.
She manufactured an imitation newspa-
per for the Stampede called “The Slippery
Gulch Howler (Guaranteed Under The Pure
Fun Laws).”
The Caroline Lockhart Inn on Cody’s
West Strip, now apartments, was once
her mansion. On April 20, 1920, Lockhart
hosted a group of otherwise all-men at her
living room table.
When discussions ended they had
conceived the Stampede Board of Direc-
tors with the mission of producing a special
rodeo, and choosing July 4 to do so.
The original Stampede board included
Williams, Ernest Goppert, Sid Eldred,
William Loewer, Larry Larom and Lock-
hart. Lockhart was the first president.
She was the only woman to serve on the
Summer 2019 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • 9
board until this year.
Using the Enterprise, Lockhart, who last
year was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of
Fame, broke the news to the community as
rodeo plans developed and was an enthusi-
astic cheerleader.
In a June, 1920 story, Lockhart wrote of
the Cody Stampede having raised $1,000
from the public for purses, observing “Many
cheerful givers enable the committee to
offer purses of a size to attract the best
outside riders and ropers.”
The first citizen to contribute was Doc
Chamberlain, Cody’s first dentist, which
caused Lockhart to gush in print, “We were
so pleased that we had a notion to go in
and let him pull one of our large, glistening,
front teeth out, just to show our apprecia-
tion.”
It was important, she suggested, good
money be available for the bucking horse
contest.
“We opened our hearts for the bucking
contest since a Wild West show without
bucking would be about as satisfying as a
pie without the filling,” Lockhart wrote.
A poster advertising the Stampede
July 2-4 called it “The Saltiest Show in
Northern Wyoming. In A Class By Itself.”
Outlaw horses, rough riders, wild steers,
funny clowns, painted American Indians
and pretty cowgirls were promised, with
$3,000 in prizes.
The Stampede sponsored a ball in the
fall with the Red Lodge Orchestra, secured
sponsorship prize money from the Denver
Post and Lockhart boasted about it.
“Now that is what we call generous of
our ‘Big Brother’ over in Colorado,” she
wrote.
Cody apparently outhustled neighbor
 Bill Linderman
won sev-
eral Stampede
titles during his
rodeo career.
(Linderman
family photo)
Billings. Bulldogging star Pinkey Gist
warned potential rodeo organizers there,
“they would have to hand it to little, old
Cody when it came to pep.”
Lockhart tweaked larger Billings, noting,
“Billings, it seemed, wanted a Stampede
also, but after it had counted the money it
had sewed up in the mattresses and hid
under the edge of the carpet, it decided it
could not afford it.”
The 1920 debut generated great re-
sponse. Could Cody do it again in 1921?
It could. “We’ll Put ‘Er On Wild,” was the
Stampede committee’ slogan and action
lived up to the pledge, with 4,000 people
crowding the town on the last day.
Cowboy Bill Pawley beat nine others
in the wild horse race. His opponent in
the mule race, Bill Stultz, was thrown and
“Mr. Mule went on his way rejoicing,” the
Enterprise reported.
Pawley soon gained renown. He was
photographed on a white bucking horse,
probably named Butterfly, and the dramatic
picture gained wide circulation. It hung on
a wall in the White House, during President
Warren Harding’s administration.
Some early Stampede advertising was
infused with gusto. One “Let ’er Buck,” ad
challenged cowboys to show their skills.
“Say, feller! Come over to Cody and help
us rip up the sod. If you have a bronc
you think you can run, come and take our
money. What’s the use of going off on a
basket picnic the Fourth of July, sitting on
an ant hill, eating ham sandwiches? That’s
no fun. If you can’t be wild, be woolly.”
The involvement of Crow Indians was
heralded in 1921 and famed western actor
Tim McCoy helped plan the event that year.
McCoy, who made more than 90 films,
10 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019
met Buffalo Bill near the end of his life and
the two occasionally drank together.
“There was nobody even remotely like
him,” McCoy said. “To the vast majority of
Americans, including me, he was nothing
less than a hero.”
Rodeo continues to grow
McCoy had his own following and did
some filming in Wyoming in 1930, bring-
ing him to the Stampede again. That was
foreshadowing of later years when western
movie stars came to town as grand marshal
of Stampede parades, most notably the
ultimate cinematic cowboy John Wayne.
By 1930, and through 1946, the rodeo
was conducted where today’s Park County
Library and other community buildings are
located. Lockhart was no longer involved
and no longer even owned the newspaper.
But the rodeo was a staple of the town’s
summer calendar.
That year, when prize money reached
$5,000 and one guest was western author
Will James, the Enterprise bragged in an
editorial about the growth of the Stampede,
which “is looked forward to by people all
over the Big Horn Basin and the state of
Wyoming. We are universally given a rating
next to the Cheyenne Frontier Days, and
each year more and more people are com-
ing Cody-ward at Stampede time to get the
thrills of the western sports and western
atmosphere of Cody town.
“The Cody Stampede is a growing insti-
tution, fostered during these years by the
businessmen of Cody.”
That year eastern companies Fox Film
Corporation and Pathe News Reel commit-
ted to filming the Stampede.
Record crowds appeared, but record
attendances kept setting new highs. Twice,
the rodeo grounds moved, eventually land-
ing at its present destination on the West
Strip in 1976 as the population grew and
new housing was built.
Like the rest of the country, Cody and
the Stampede had difficult moments during
the Depression, with citizen donations way
down.
Early parades were as much proces-
sions, with contestants on horseback, more
than traditional floats.
The 1937 Stampede results demonstrat-
ed how the rodeo had become a destina-
tion for cowboys from all over. The winners
list included men from Idaho, Arizona and
South Dakota.
For years, the post-rodeo gathering
place was the Wolfville, a dance hall, as the
populace partied on. Tokens produced in
1938 highlighting Wolfville read, “It’s Your
Nite To Howl.”
That year saw the introduction of Cody
Nite Rodeo, which has helped fund the
Stampede and celebrated its 80th anniver-
sary last year.
Cody Nite Rodeo really turned Cody
into the “Rodeo Capital of the World,” the
town’s proud slogan since 1967, because
it offers rodeo every night of the week in
summer.
There was tremendous rodeo upheaval
in 1936 when a cowboy walk-out protest-
ing pay at a Boston Garden rodeo led to the
founding of the Cowboys’ Turtle Association
as a governing body. The turtle name was
adopted to show the cowboys were not
afraid to stick their necks out.
In 1945, the name was changed to Ro-
deo Cowboys Association and in 1975, the
 Above, In this aerial view of Cody,
Sheridan Avenue runs across the bot-
tom and 16th Street is the road on the
left. The Buffalo Bill Village Cabins are
in the center and Eastside School is
farther to the north. The rodeo grounds
can be seen at the top of the picture.

Left, An aerial photo of the rodeo

grounds when they were located on
Stampede Avenue.

Summer 2019 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • 11

A team has problems keeping control in the Wild Horse Race during the Cody Stampede Rodeo in 2005.
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association or
PRCA. The Stampede Rodeo has long been
sanctioned by the PRCA.
In the 1940s, the Stampede was again
at the mercy of national and world events,
shutting down completely in 1943-45 due
to World War II.
Racing to the rodeo
By the time the Stampede resumed,
one of the biggest stars in rodeo was Bill
Linderman.
Linderman was born in Bridger and
raised in Red Lodge. He won the first of six
world titles in 1943 in bareback riding and
added others in steer wrestling and saddle
bronc riding, and as All-Around cowboy.
Throughout the 1950s, Linderman, and
family members Walt and Bud, were major
presences, and frequently champions at the
Stampede.
Jay Linderman, great-nephew to the
12 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019
earlier competitors, entered steer wrestling
in 1980. When Jay owned the downtown
Cody restaurant Adriano’s, upon entering
patrons were greeted by a Linderman fam-
ily rodeo display.
Bill Linderman died in a plane crash at
age 45 and subsequently a Bill Linderman
Trophy is awarded to the cowboy who won
the most money in the Gateway Rodeos, in
Cody, Livingston and Red Lodge, over the
July 4 holiday stretch.
It was quite a challenge for competi-
tors to even get to their draws in time at all
three, Jay Linderman said.
“Sometimes there were police escorts
and airplanes flying all over,” he said.
“Cody” Bill Smith, a three-time world
champion now living in Thermopolis, Larry
Mahan, Joe Alexander, Bucky Bradford,
Bill Parker, Larry Peabody, Dan Tryan, K.C.
Jones, Mel Stonehouse, Nick Knight, Deb
Greenough and Cody Custer were some
well-known and popular Stampede winners
from the 1970s and 1980s.
Record crowds appeared, and record at-
tendances kept setting new highs. In 1976
the new rodeo grounds provided more seat-
ing and more open space around the arena.
That was the year John Wayne came to
town, something still talked about. There
have been many other notables serving as
grand marshal of the parade, though. Ac-
tors such as Steven Seagal, James Drury of
“The Virginian,” and Wilford Brimley filled
the role, as did pilot Chuck Yaeger and
generals Jimmy Doolittle and Curtis LeMay.
So did rodeo stars like Larry Mahan, Curtis
Kelly, “Cody” Bill Smith and just last year
Dusty Tuckness, the still-active world
champion bullfighter.
Given the hectic, split-second planning
nature of cowboy travel over July 4, the
comings and goings, here-one-minute, gone
to Livingston, Colorado or Oregon the next
can result in difficulties.
Jim Facinelli, a 49-year member of the
Stampede Board of Directors, recalled the
time in the late 1970s a steer wrestler
named Alfalfa Feddersen seemed to be
missing in action when the public address
announcer summoned him for his turn.
“The announcer called his name,”
Facinelli said. “No Alfalfa. All of a sudden, a
little Piper Cub flies over Stampede Park.”
The plane landed in the parking lot,
Feddersen dashed to the chute, jumped on
his horse and then jumped off it to grab the
steer and immediately exited the premises.
“He ran back to his plane and took off,”
Facinelli said.
In 2016, as the bull riding, the last event
of the July 3 performance, loomed in front
of 5,500 fans, the get-ready area behind
the chutes was devoid of contestants. The
bulls were loaded in their pens, but there
wasn’t a single cowboy entry present.
The entire field was delayed at the Red
Lodge rodeo about 65 miles away, and a
herd of cowboys sped along the highway
towards Cody, bending many traffic laws.
Shane Proctor, the former Northwest
College rider, said he went from Greeley,
Colo., to Red Lodge by plane, and was so
late he jumped the fence to reach his bull.
Then friends positioned a getaway van by
the exit gate to reach Cody. He didn’t have
to turn out at any of the rodeos.
“Ninety percent of the time it works
out,” Proctor said.

Must-stop destination
The Stampede grew in stature, growing
into the one rodeo the best cowboys felt
they had to visit on their Cowboy Christmas
tours. It was a gradual process linked to
money. The bigger the payouts, the stron-
ger the lure.
In 1986, the total Stampede purse was
about $53,000. In 1994, it was nearly
$100,000. In 1997, it was $243,000 and
by 2003 it was $336,000. This July it
should be about $400,000.
“Cody wasn’t that big in prize money.
They made huge strides,” said former
world champion cowboy Dan Mortensen
of Billings, who caught the wave of purse
increases.
“When a rodeo adds that much, it be-
comes a must-stop.”
Over time the Stampede moved away
from wild west competitions and morphed
into all rodeo featuring PRCA events.
One popular event lost was the Wild
Horse Race. A trio of cowboys did their
best to tame the rambunctiousness of a
horse and ride it. In 1989, Gary Fales, Lee
Livingston and Jeff Tift had to improvise on
the fly when the horse smacked Livingston
in the forehead.
“They were too wild,” Fales said of
the demise of the wild horse competition,
Nine-time Bullfighter of the Year Dusty Tuckness of Meeteetse distracts a bull during the
Cody Stampede in 2017.
recalling one horse sending three cowboys
to the hospital in three days.
Rodeo is both sport and show. Clowns
are always a major part of the entertain-
ment. Some became an institution in Cody,
performing year after year. Butch Lem-
kuhler, a North Platte, Neb., school teacher
when not wearing makeup and a four-time
PRCA Clown of the Year, spent so much
time in Cody he could have been a legal
voter.
As prize money increased, its stature
elevated to where the Stampede was twice
selected as Best Large Outdoor Rodeo
of the year by the PRCA. This year the
Stampede was selected for inclusion in the
Professional Rodeo Hall of Fame in Colo-
rado Springs.
Over time, promoters became entertain-
ment producers, figuring out how to cram
entire sessions into two-hour blocks.
Beutler Brothers & Cervi Rodeo Produc-
ers, Sankey Rodeo Company and most
recently Frontier Rodeo have organized the
Stampede over the last few decades.
In the arena, providing information and
a touch of show business, public address
announcers such as Bob McManis, Randy
Schmutz and Lyle Ellis helped keep the
pace of the action crisp. Recently, Boyd
Polhamus, broadcasting into his micro-
phone on horseback, has been the connec-
tion between the fans and the results.
McManis, who announced his first rodeo
in 1936 and retired in 1982, gushed over
the Stampede in 1988.
“Without qualification, Cody has prob-
ably had the most receptive, enthusiastic
and knowledgeable support among its
townspeople and they devote more time to
it than is given to 90 percent of the rodeos
announced today,” McManis said.

Summer 2019 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • 13

Announcer Boyd Polhamus cracks a smile during the Cody Stampede at Stampede Park on July 4, 2018.
For a time, each year’s Stampede
program featured the western artwork of
prominent local artists James Bama and
Steve Devenyns.
Since Mortensen’s heyday, world
champions have been pouring into Cody
for the Stampede each summer.
Texan Trevor Brazile, the richest and
winningest rodeo cowboy of all time with
24 National Finals Rodeo crowns, heads
the list and has been a regular. He won
the one-rodeo record all-around payout
of $11,369 in 2015 and shares the tie-
down roping time record.
Cowboys and cowgirls from nearby
communities like Mortensen, who started
his rodeo competition at Cody Nite
Rodeo when he was in high school; Terri
Kaye Kirkland, also from the Billings
area, who has competed in Cody Nite
Rodeo and the Stampede for decades
and JR Vezain of Cowley, who won
bareback in 2012, are more emotionally
invested in the Stampede.
Tuckness of Meeeetse, the reigning
nine-time PRCA Bullfighter of the Year,
spends a week a year in Cody for Xtreme
Bulls and the Stampede.
“I’ve been fighting bulls there since
14 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019
2004,” Tuckness said. “It’s something I
grew up around. It’s been a place that’s
helped my career.
“I’ve spent half my life in Cody Nite
Rodeo and at the Stampede. It’s a pretty
big part of it. I’m not missing it any
year.”
Eras differ, progress shapes commu-
nities, but it is possible the Buffalo Bill
Cody Stampede was equally as promi-
nent when it began as it is now 100
years later.
It is as patriotic a sporting event as
can be seen in town, with flags waving
vigorously.
“It celebrates our heritage that Buffalo
Bill founded our town with,” said Mike
Darby, the current copresident of the
Stampede Board.
“It’s great to celebrate along with the
celebration of the birthday of our country
at the same time. It touches your heart-
strings. The whole presentation makes
you proud to be an American.”
Buffalo Bill Cody, the buffalo hunter,
scout and showman who did so much to Kanin Asay of Powell displays the buckle he
perpetuate the nation’s image of the Old
West, would offer up a high five to each
won during the Xtreme Bulls in 2007. He also
member of the Stampede committee. won the Cody Stampede that year.
 Ted P. Vlahos D.V.M., Diplomate A.B.V.P
Board Certified Equine Specialist
Member, AAEP Professional Conduct and Ethics Committee

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 The Cody Stampede Board
would like to say

“Thank You!” to All of

Our Sponsors, Supporters & Volunteers
for making the
100th Buffalo Bill Cody Stampede
a Premier Event and
a Great Centennial Celebration!
Cody Stampede Sponsors —————— Cody Buckle Club Members ——————
Pahaska Tepee Joe and Colette Hertzler Tim and Kathy Mahieu
Pepsi/Fremont Beverages Barron G. Collier II Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kuyper
Park County Travel Council Foster and Lynn Friess Russ and Beth Smith
Wyoming Office of Tourism Lance and Lisa Bower Layton and Lynda Steward
Boot Barn Tim and Nikole Clark Jan and Kathy Kouri
Big Horn Radio Network Larry and Susan Patrick Chris and Brandy Lovera
Murdochs Dr. Jimmie and Rachael Biles Michael and Monica Miketa
First Bank Bob Carney and Lorna Maples
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Tanager Beverages/ Budweiser
Lovera Insurance/ US Health Advisors
Rimrock Tire
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Cody Regional Health
Pendleton Whiskey
C&B Operations/ John Deere
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Pinnacle Bank
Rocky Mountain Discount Liquor
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Albertsons
Buffalo Bill Center of the West
Woodward Tractor
Bomgaars
Webster Law Offices
Jim Facinelli stands in the announcer’s booth at Stampede Park, which is named after him and his late wife Colleen.
Longtime board members reflect
By LEW FREEDMAN
Reporter
Just last July, Jim Facinelli was pressed
into action to make an emergency airport
trip to pick up a delinquent Cody Stampede
Rodeo roping contestant.
As many pro rodeo cowboys do over
Cowboy Christmas, this young man was
racing from rodeo to rodeo Fourth of July
week trying to pad his bank account. But
he was late leaving Red Lodge and trying
to reach Stampede Park before his turn
was called.
“He got in the car and said, ‘I’ll pay the
speeding ticket,’” said Facinelli, his chauf-
feur of the moment.
The cowboy bailed out of the car before
it stopped rolling, ran into the arena just as
his calf was being placed into the chute,
competed in the roping and dashed off to
another rodeo.
“I have no idea,” Facinelli said when
18 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019
asked who the guy was.
That’s the kind of stuff that happens
when you have been part of the Stampede
for 49 years, which is how long Facinelli
has served on the board. Cowboys and
results blend with the years, but oddities
stick to the memory.
Facinelli, 79, is the elder statesman of
the board. The announcer’s box at Stam-
pede Park is named after him and his late
wife Colleen, a longtime timer.
As the 100th anniversary celebration
of Cody’s showcase July 4 week event
approaches, Facinelli reflected he has been
part of about half of them and has seen
more than 50, starting in 1965.
“When I came on,” Facinelli said of his
board tenure, “I was a green kid. Heck,
you’ve got to be on this board three or four
years before you know what’s going on.”
Marv Allerheiligen, 77, spent 45 years
on the board. He grew up here and at-
tended the Stampede annually from the
time he was 7, so he figures he has been
in attendance for 70 of them.
“Pretty close,” he said.
He remembers how as a kid, he and
others in town anticipated the big rodeo
and parade well ahead of time.
“You couldn’t wait until the Fourth of
July,” Allerheiligen said. “What else in Cody
draws 10,000 people for any given day?”
These days Allerheiligen has a family
box. It is located not far from the Stam-
pede grounds VIP building that has borne
his name since the 1980s and is used as a
gathering place for officials, cowboys and
eating during the Stampede.
Allerheiligen said he had no idea such a
plan was in the works when he showed up
for “a ceremony” one day.
“Total, total surprise,” he said. “What
an honor.”
The rodeo has grown in stature and
prize money. A turning point was the move
to the West Strip in 1976 at new, larger

rodeo grounds, Allerheiligen said.
“That was reaching for the stars in
those days,” he said.
As a board member, Allerheiligen said,
he rarely got the chance to savor the per-
formances of the big-name rodeo stars.
“I never even got a chance to sit down,”
he said.
Sometimes he caught glimpses of Bill
Linderman, “Cody” Bill Smith and Ed
Pilcher competing. He did make time to
watch Smith bronc riding.
“I knew him in high school,” Allerheigen
said of the three-time world champion who
now lives in Thermopolis.
Allerheiligen was pleased with the Pro
Rodeo Hall of Fame’s selection of the
Stampede Rodeo for induction later this
summer, especially since it came in time
for the 100-year celebration.
“What a wonderful gesture,” he called
the recognition.
He was around the board long enough
to see funky things occur.
Allerheiligen remembers when a truck
driver delivered bulls to the rodeo grounds
in the middle of the night. A gate was left
open and calls poured into the police and
then board members.
“We had bulls all over the West Strip on
people’s lawns,” he said.
Facinelli recalled the same incident.
“At 2 o’clock in the morning we were
out there trying to round up bulls,” he said.
Great and famous rodeo champions
have competed regularly over the years
Summer 2019 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • 19
Marv Allerheiligen
is pictured in front
of the building
named after him
at Stampede Park.
at the Stampede.
Larry Mahan, an eight-time world cham-
pion as a bull rider and all-around cowboy,
won titles at the Stampede in the 1970s.
One year a huge thunderstorm blew in,
and just as Mahan burst out of the chute
aboard a bull, there was a flash and all the
lights at the arena went out.
“He rode in the dark,” Facinelli said.
“You could see him out there with the
lightning flashing. He rode the bull. It was
pitch black. All you could see were silhou-
ettes.”
Facinelli said he hopes to serve one
more year on the board to make it a round
50 and then “call it enough.”
“I’m just honored they’d have me,” he
said. “It’s been a lot of fun.
The crowd enjoys the Stampede Parade in 1986. That year it snowed on July 4 during the parade and rodeo.
Remember when it snowed?
By LEW FREEDMAN
Reporter
“To appreciate the beauty of a snow-
flake, it is necessary to stand out in the
cold.” – Aristotle.
The wily Greek philosopher Aristotle
from the 300s BC never saw a rodeo and
his enthusiastic description of the natural
phenomenon of snowfall may not have
resonated with Cody residents shivering at
Cody Stampede Park or downtown at the
annual parade on various July 3rds and July
4ths.
“Snow on the Fourth of July” is a phrase
sometimes uttered as an example of some-
thing so unlikely to happen as to defy belief.
Not in Cody, situated at 5,016 feet in
the mountains. It snowed on the Cody
Stampede rodeo and parade on July 4,
1986. It also snowed in 1975. Old-timer
Bob Richard said it snowed in the early
1950s over the holiday too. And current
Stampede co-president Mike Darby insists
it snowed on his property in Wapiti in
1982.
Jim Facinelli, who has been a mem-
ber of the Stampede Board for 49 years,
20 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019
recounts how one July 4th the weather
changed abruptly and the temperature
dropped to about 28 degrees briefly as
high winds blew in and began uprooting the
hospitality tent at Stampede Park.
“Everyone was shocked,” he said.
The way Facinelli recalls the tempest,
the tent was under siege and two semi-
trucks were moved into position to help
block the wind.
Then snow started falling. It did not re-
main long and the next day the temperature
zoomed up to 100 degrees. There have
been far more days in the 90s, at least for
the Fourth, than below freezing.
Also in 1986, an Enterprise photog-
rapher was minding his own business,
shooting pictures of the parade when he
realized the precipitation had morphed into
snowflakes.
Buzzy Hassrick and Jim Landers were
on site to judge the parade and were caught
in the snow.
In a thread posted on a Facebook site
called “You might be from Cody, Wyoming
if you remember ...,” in 2014, a young
woman named Holly Bentley wrote, “When
I was a senior in high school, I marched in
the parade and it was snowing! 1975.”
A former resident remembered taking
snow pictures of her grandmother’s yard.
Calvin-Sheree Little wrote, “I marched in
the parade in my Little League uniform in
1966 during a morning snowstorm and by
4 o’clock it was 65 degrees.”
In 1976, proving nature didn’t merely
rain on parades, a June 13 storm bringing
wet snow knocked out telephone and elec-
trical service in Cody and Meeteetse.
One meteorological report said a foot of
snow fell on the South Fork. Ice falling from
trees crushed bushes.
At that time, local weather wizard Mar-
garet Hoskins pulled out records indicating
there had been an inch of snow on June
12, 1969, and 22 inches of snow on June
22, 1938.
Roger Ebert, not as noted a philosopher
as Aristotle, but rather an esteemed Ameri-
can film critic, once said, “The very fact of
snow is such an amazement.”
Amazement likely would be the word
applied any time snow fell on the Stampede
Rodeo, especially if people dressed for the
day wearing shorts and a T-shirt because it
was the Fourth of July.
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Summer 2019 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • 21

John Wayne comes to town
By LEW FREEDMAN
Reporter
Those among the thousands of adoring
fans who lined Sheridan Avenue when Ameri-
can icon John Wayne rode in an open Cadillac
waving in 1976 have never forgotten it.
Announced as the grand marshal of the
Cody Stampede Parade, and in town to help
usher in the grand opening of the then-Win-
chester Firearms Museum, Wayne was the
ultimate guest for a western town that loved
his western movies.
Forevermore, the appearance is casually
referred to in Cody as “The day John Wayne
came to town.”
Wayne was neither ranch wrangler, nor
rodeo cowboy, but was the nation’s image of
what a tough, put-the-black-hat-guys in their
place good guy was supposed to be in the Old
West, always on the side of righteousness.
From “Stagecoach” in 1939, through “True
Grit,” in 1969, for which Wayne won the
Oscar for best actor, he swashbuckled through
many other memorable performances,
including “The Searchers,” “Red River,” “The
Alamo” and “El Dorado.”
“I’ll bet there were 17,000 people on main
street, two or three deep,” said Del Nose,
currently the Northwest College rodeo coach,
who was present for the excitement. “John
Wayne was the real deal.”
If the 17,000 number seems exaggerated
22 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019
for small-town Cody, there were times over
the years when printed parade estimates did
reach that level.
“We filled the town,” said longtime Stam-
pede board member Jim Facinelli. “I think
they were sleeping in the parks.”
Karen Roles, a librarian at the Buffalo Bill
Center of the West, was 7 years old during
that parade. Wayne’s appearance didn’t make
much of an impact on her because she had
no idea who he was. But she does recall the
occasion.
“My parents brought us to the parade and
they were very excited,” Roles said. “He was
just a guy in a cowboy hat to me. I probably
have more a sense of it now than I did then. I
hated the sound of guns going off.”
Local attorney John Housel, 66, said Cody
was not a one-horse town, but was a one-
movie-theater town.
“That was a very exciting time for those
of us who grew up in a town with one movie
theatre,” Housel said. “Most of the mov-
ies were John Wayne movies at the Cody
Theatre.
“We all wanted to be just like John Wayne.
He was ‘The Man.’”
Wayne, Housel said, was the standard for
movie stars.
“Wasn’t he, though?” Housel said.
Housel remembers the jostling for posi-
tion on the street by people who wanted
to make sure they got a good glimpse of
John Wayne
was pre-
sented with
a special
Winchester
Bicenten-
nial rifle at
the Cody
Stampede
in 1976 by
Winchester
president
George
Chandler.
Wayne in the passing parade.
“I just remember the parade crowd was
three times larger than usual,” he said. “I
remember the big hat and the Cadillac he was
in, waving to the crowd left and right.”
Jim Nielson, 88, former president of Husky
Oil in Cody, hosted a party on his ranch prop-
erty to spotlight Wayne.
He said one of his young sons greeted
Wayne with the words, “We’ve got a lot of
whiskey.”
Also served was lots of beef, Wyoming
beef. As Nielson put it, “Of course.”
Guests cooked their own steaks to their
own preference, though Wayne did not have
to do his own grilling.
This Wayne appearance coincided with the
American Bicentennial celebration as well, and
Nielson said he flew on the Husky corporate
jet with Wayne to Philadelphia. The men and
family members were planning a quiet dinner,
but that was not to be.
“When we landed in Philadelphia, there
were all these limousines lined up,” Nielson
said. “And they whisked him away.”
Former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson, Cody, met
and chatted with Wayne at the Nielson party.
Later, when Wayne fell ill with the cancer that
led to his death at 72 in 1979, Simpson said
the two exchanged letters.
Simpson still has the hand-written letter
from Wayne and said it is a prized posses-
sion.
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Summer 2019 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • 23
Stampede a must stop for many
By LEW FREEDMAN
Reporter

It was nearly 25 years ago, but Dan

Mortensen clearly remembers the details
of the ride that set the Cody Stampede
Rodeo saddle bronc record.
Appropriately, for a prize-winning horse
that made a habit out of throwing cow-
boys sky high, his mount that day in 1995
was named Skitzo.
“I had been on her before,” Mortensen
recalled recently. “She had been the buck-
ing horse of the year.”
Further proof the horse was aptly
named was a performance at a rodeo in
Great Falls, Mont., where it jumped out of
the arena.
“She got captured in the beer garden,”
Mortensen said.
The horse, said the Billings cowboy,
now 50, who also rodeoed for Northwest
College, “was just really good. She was
just really fast.”
Skitzo made for the fence at Stam-
pede Park, but Mortensen stayed on as it
bucked.
“I came off after the whistle,” he said
of his official eight-second ride that scored
an unequaled 92 points.
The brightest stars in professional
rodeo come to Cody every summer to
compete in the Stampede, July 1-4, and
have been doing so for decades.
Trevor Brazile of Texas, the winningest
cowboy of all, with 24 National Finals
Rodeo world championships on his re-
sume, has been a regular and shares the
tie-down roping record.
The saddle bronc riding Wrights from
Utah turn out in force, with Rusty Wright
winning in 2018, Jesse Wright in 2017,
and Jake Wright in 2016.
Joe Beaver, Fred Whitfield, Ty Murray,
Joe Alexander, Larry Mahan, “Cody” Bill
Smith, Bill and Walt Linderman, Cody Ohl
and Shane Proctor (who also competed for
Northwest) are among many world cham-
pions who won titles at the Stampede too.
Locals, such as JR Vezain of Cowley
(2012), and Kanin Asay of Powell (2007),
both of whom won Stampede crowns, got
their rodeo starts at Cody Nite Rodeo.
Terri Kaye Kirkland, another Billings-ar-
ea cowgirl, and a four-time National Finals
Rodeo qualifier, is 61 and has been barrel
racing in Cody for more than 40 years.
“It was close and good money,” Kirk-
land said of her continuing repeat visits. “I Heath Ford of Greeley, Colo., competes at Stampede Park in 2015.
have seen the competition get tougher and

24 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019


JR Vezain of Cowley wins the bareback crown in 2012.
tougher. You used to use your horse at home on the ranch and
then rode on the weekend.”
Kirkland will be back again this summer.
Heath Ford, a retired bareback rider, who most recently has
presided over instructional riding clinics to Cody Nite Rodeo com-
petitors, was the 2004 cochampion in his event.
Ford got his pro card in 1998 and competed in the Stampede
every year until 2017. The first time, he was impressed by the
size of the payouts – now at $400,000.
“What an amazing rodeo that pays that much money,” Ford
thought at the time. “I’m going to win it one day. I did, seven
years later.”
Six, actually. During 2004 Cowboy Christmas his traveling
partner broke some ribs and scratched out of the Stampede.
Ford arrived from a Greeley, Colo., rodeo by small plane.
“The pilot let me fly the plane all the way here,” he said.
It was going to be a close call if he would make his ride.
“The National Anthem was underway,” Ford said of the rodeo
being poised to start.
Ford won $10,500, he said, and was so thrilled, “I laminated
it and I hung a copy of the check on my Christmas tree (in De-
cember).”
Summer 2019 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • 25
Terri Kaye Kirkland of Billings runs barrels during the Stampede
slack in 2005.
Dan
Mortensen
of Billings
holds the
Stampede
arena
record
in saddle
bronc
riding. His
score of 92
was set in
1995.
That made up for the occasion when Ford was racing to get to
Cody in time for his competition from a rodeo in Alberta.
“I got my first speeding ticket,” he said.
For local rodeo performers, who grew up in the shadow of the
Stampede, often attending as kids, competing in and winning an
event was something special.
Just about the best few days of Asay’s rodeo career took place
in the 2007 Stampede week when he started by capturing the
title during the first Xtreme Bulls and completed it by winning the
bull riding in the Stampede.
“I was the high money winner over the Fourth of July that
year,” the retired Powell rodeo cowboy said. “That really helped
me. It catapulted my confidence and it helped me maintain my
position to qualify for the National Finals.
“It’s something you always dream of – winning your home-
town rodeo,” Asay said. “I never thought it was necessarily
harder to win my hometown rodeo, but it’s something you strive
for.”
He now raises bulls, but he loves the Stampede.
“It’s where I grew up rodeoing,” Asay said. “It’s a place where
I hold my most memories. It’s part of my blood. It’s part of my
being. It’s part of my life.”
 C o dy
S t a m p e d e

• Bareback: Ty Breuer, 91 points, 2013.

• Saddle Bronc: Dan Mortensen, 92 points, 1995.
• Barrel Racing: Tammy Fischer, 16.79 seconds, 2011.
• Steer Wrestling: Chad Hagan, 3.3 seconds, 1997.
• Tie-Down Roping: Trevor Brazile and Jake Hannum (tie), 7.2 seconds, 2009.
• Team Roping: Dustin Bird and Paul Eaves, 4.0 seconds, 2012.
• Bull Riding: Wesley Silcox, 94 points, 2011.

Trevor Brazile competes in tie-down roping during the Stampede Rodeo in 2015. He holds the arena record in the event.
 Working Hard
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Summer 2019 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • 27

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28 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019

St a m p e d e
Board
1946: Walt Hoffman
1947-1948: E.H.
Melbraaten
1949: Kenneth Davis
1951: T.O. Cowgill
1952: Jack Richard
1953: Orice McGee
1954: Bill Joy
1955: Henry Hecht
1956-1958: Lyle Ellis
1959: Clinton Schultz
1960-1962: Orrin Kaiser
1963-1964: Bunn
Sporer
1965-1966: Lyle Ellis
1967-1974: Bunn Sporer
1975-1977: Dorse Miller
1978-1979: Gary
Lundvall
1980-1984: Ed Webster
1985-1986: Ed Higbie
1987-1988: Jim Facinelli
1989-1991: Mike Schnell
1992: Jerry Nolan:
1993-1994: Loren Tope
1995-1996: Chip
Richard
1997-1998: Al Schultz
1999-2000: Dale Cowan
2001-2002: Tony
Scheiber
2003-2004: Ron
Meeker
Caroline Lockhart, who helped found the Stampede Rodeo, also served as board president 1920-25. 2005-2006: Larry
(Park County Archives photo) Johnson
2007-2008: Al
The Cody Board Presidents 1935: T.C. Molesworth
1936: Frank Blackburn
McCreery
2009-2010: Paul Fees
Stampede was 1920-1925: Caroline
1937: Meyer Rankin 2011-2012: Marc
founded by Ernest Lockhart
1938: Dr. B.F. Russell Thompson
Goppert Sr., Larry 1926: Will Richard
1939: Roy Holm 2013: Larry Johnson
Larom, Caroline 1928-1929: Fred 2014: Al Schultz
1940: Dr. Raymond
Lockhart, William Richard 2015-2017: Mike Darby
Howe
1931: Max Wilde
Loewer and 1933: Monty Jones
1942: L.A. Buchanan 2018: Keith Nelson
Clarence Williams. 1943-1945: (No rodeos 2019: Marc Thompson
1934: George Smith and Mike Darby
due to World War II)
 Miss
C o dy

Pictured
ever and her court in 1934.
Miss Cody Stampede Pat Gre r, (back)
Rule, Marjorie Early, Greeve
are (front, from lef t) Marie ) Nicki Seckman served as Mis
. (Park County Archives photo s Cody Stampede in 2015 and
Ruth Tag gart and Peg Shaw was also crowned Miss Rodeo
Wyoming 2016.
1934: Patricia Greever 1995: Amanda (Corley) Sanders
1950: Sally Haberthier 1996: Tye (Tupps) Green
1953: Beverly Lufkin 1997: Jennifer (Rhinehart) Lewis
1959/1960: Barb Bakken 1998: Julie (Blair) Linebaugh
1967: Patsy Patrick Harter 1999: Stacie (Davidson) Lincoln.
1968: Toni Ebert Trollinger 2000: Stephanie Jacobsen
1969: Gloria Maller 2001: Skye (Perry) Glick
1970: Karen Tegland 2002: Heather Asbell
1971; Barbara Quick 2003: Jessie Coy
1972; Debbie Flanagan 2004: Kimberly (Stambaugh) Zierlein
1973: Debbie Julien 2005: Britt (Whitt) Hayes
1974: Pennee Mitchell 2006: Nichole (Wantlock) Wimmler
1975: Diane Schwantes 2007: Emily (Pfister) Mohler
1976 Lana Boehme 2008: Brittany (Richards) Board
1977: Noreen Bunn 2009: Emily (Delyea) Velazquex
1978: Roberta (Schultz) Sankey 2010: Kiley (Boe) Nelson
1979: Priscilla (Bales) Bell 2011: Bailie (Allshouse) Barham
1980: Sharon Zastrow 2012: Bridget Seidel
1981: Julie Siggins 2013: Trina (Barnett) Wagers
1990: Judy (Damron) O’Hair 2014: Morgan Flitner
1991: Stacey (Parckard) Rockafellow 2015: Nicki Seckman
1992: Cherain (Schultz) Richmond 2016: Jessi Lou Gordon
1993: Andrea (Schmaltz) Weekley 2017: Katelynn Bullock
1994: Kitty (Schultz) Aragon 2019: McKenzie Scott
(While some years are unknown there also wasn’t a Miss Cody Stampede every year.)

30 • CODY STAMPEDE 100TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION • Summer 2019

 WESTERN WEAR
for the
whole family children | women | men

1251 Sheridan Avenue

Downtown Cody
307.578.8725
OPEN: Mon.-Sat 9 a.m.-6 p.m. • Sun. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Summer 2019 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • 31
No One Quicker, No One Better!
FULL SERVICE AUTO REPAIR • JUMP STARTS • BATTERY SERVICE • LOCK OUTS • TIRE CHANGES • FUEL DELIVERY

Light, Medium, & Heavy Duty Towing

24 HOUR TOWING & REPAIR • 307-587-8697

Located at 534 Blackburn Street, Cody
32 • CODY STAMPEDE: Celebrating 100 Years Of Rodeo • Summer 2019