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HOME OF
CHAMPIONS....
Red Lodge, MT
At the entrance to The Cowboy Hall Of Fame there is a life size
bronze statue of Bill Linderman. (It was sculptured by
Bob Scriver, of Browning, Mt.) |
I grew up in Billings, Montana. This is
rodeo country; and the area has produced many national rodeo champions.
Seven of these came from Red Lodge, Montana (about 60 miles from Billings.) Red
Lodge is called "Home of Champions.''
Every year, one of the more anticipated events was the Red Lodge Rodeo.
This rodeo had outstanding contestants including Bill and Bud Linderman and Turk,
Alice, Marge and Deb Greenough. Bill Smith is listed in record books as
being from Cody , Wyoming; but folks around Red lodge know that Red Lodge is
where he hails from.
Here
is a list of some of their credits:
BILL LINDERMAN....Tabbed the original "King'' of professional rodeo by
his peers.
Won seven world titles during his career in three
different events.
All-around world champion in 1950 and
1953.
In 1950, Linderman accomplished something no cowboy has done
since. He won world titles at both ends of the arena,
in steer wrestling and saddle bronc riding.
World
champion bareback rider in 1943 and 1945.
BUD LINDERMAN Saddle Back Champion
1945, 1950 Bare Back Champion 1951
TURK GREENOUGH Saddle Back Champion 1933, 1934, 1936
ALICE GREENOUGH World Bronc Riding Championship titles in 1933, 1935, 1936 and 1941.
Alice Greenough was the first cowgirl
inducted into the
Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Hereford, Texas, in 1975.
DEB GREENOUGH World Bareback Championship
1993. (Deb Greenough qualified for the National Finals Rodeo 13 times.)
MARGE GREENOUGH Inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1978.
BILL SMITH
World Saddle Bronc titles in 1969, 1971 and 1973.
All are in the Cowboy or
Cowgirl Hall Of Fame.
And Billings, Montana is the home of another great rodeo
champion...
DAN MORTENSEN
World Champion All Around Cowboy 1997
World Saddle Bronc Championship 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998
First cowboy in history to go over the $2 million mark in rodeo earnings.
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Bill Linderman |
Deb Greenough |
Alice Greenough |
Dan Mortenson |
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THE RED LODGE RODEO
(1940s - 1950s)
Bill Linderman
Forget?? I've not forgotten
those times when I was young;
and the memory of those rodeos
tastes sweet upon my tongue.
Red Lodge on July the fourth,
I'd find a way to go
to where the crowd and action was...
the home town rodeo.
I'd head on out for Red Lodge
where everyone was goin'.....
where rodeo grounds were packed with folks
and streets were over flowin.
The ruckus of the rodeo
would rock the Red Lodge crowd.
The cheers and chants and jeers and rants
would vibrate thunder-loud.
And when the chute
was opened
and Bud Linderman shot out,
the home town crowd went crazy,
as the bronco spun about.
With both legs on the same side,
he'd spur the bronc's right side -
then toss across to the left,
a spurrin' as he'd ride.
The right side- then the left side-
a spurrin' all the while;
and then he'd face the hometown crowd
and flash his hometown smile.
And when it came Turk Greenough's time,
we'd marvel at his skill-
the way he'd step right off the bronc
like it was standin' still.
Standin' still? Not hardly!
It bucked! It kicked! It spun!
But Turk stepped off so casual-like
when his ride was done.
And then came destiny's fair child,
and I can see him still......
the Champion All 'Round Cowboy-
Bud's big brother, Bill.
He could ride the bulls and broncs
that came straight outta hell.
He could ride most any brute
and always he'd excell.
Rodeos...I've seen a lot..,.
but nothin' can compare
to the home town rodeo
when all your friends are there;
and you're all there together
a cheerin' loud; and when
the riders that you're cheerin' for
are local home town men.
Bette Wolf Duncan
copyright2000 All rights reserved
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I
was born during the depression, on my grandfather’s ranch in Stillwater
County, Montana. Later my folks moved to Billings, where I went to grade and
high school. This is rodeo country;
and a good portion of summer entertainment involved rodeo attendance.
It is also cattle country; and it was difficult not to grow up a
cowpoke of sorts by osmosis.
As a child, back in the 1930's, my mother used to read
cowboy western poetry to me and my siblings the way some
mothers today read Dr. Seus. One year for a
birthday present, she made me a scrap book with a
wooden cover. She had burned on it a picture of a cowboy
....and a stanza of the most widely known and acclaimed
cowboy poem of the day...OUT WHERE THE WEST BEGINS. We
were small kids at the time, but we knew a stanza or
two of that poem. The scrap book was filled by me with my
favorite cowboy western poems....and this poem heads the
list. (Today, that 68 year old scrap book remains one
of my treasured possessions.)
I worked during high school
as an usherette in a movie theater. I
worked my way through college as a long distance operator; and
I graduated from Rocky Mountain College in Billings Montana in 1954. For
the next 18 years I worked as a Medical Technologist, chiefly in the field of
toxicology. Among other
institutions, I worked at Texas Children’s Hospital and Southwestern Medical
School in Dallas, Los Angeles
County Hospital in Los Angeles and Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys,
California.
In 1974, I graduated from Drake University Law School. Subsequently, I was employed as a Prosecutor in The Polk
County Attorney’s Office, Des Moines, Iowa; and as Director of the Regulatory
Division and legal counsel, Iowa Department of Agriculture.
For the last eight years, prior to my retirement in 1995, I was an
Administrative Law Judge (tax cases). Since
retirement, I have been so busy I wonder how in the world I ever managed before
retirement. Besides writing poetry
and fooling around on the internet, I am finishing a novel, RAPIST.
(It sounds pornographic…it’s not.
Actually, much of the background for the book is the Farmer’s Holiday
Movement during the Depression.)
My first book, RUSSELL COUNTRY, was published in 2001 by Hancock House Publishers.  This collection of poems is an echo of the
stories I heard as a granddaughter of early Montana and North
Dakota pioneers. These poems contain memories of a time when the great buffalo herds still
thundered through the valleys, when Cheyenne and Crow still camped around the
Yellowstone River, when mountain men and cowboys, prospectors and miners,
rustlers and vigilantes still populated Russell Country. Many of the poems are
true accounts of events in the lives of Emma and Caleb Duncan (Grandparents of
my late husband, Bill Duncan.)
Bill was raised on the family ranch. As a small boy, he and his brother Pete
rode bareback on bucking calves with Bud Linderman, pretending to be rodeo
stars. ( Bud Linderman later became a World Champion bareback rider.) Bill was
active on the family ranch. In Spring, he helped drive cattle about 50 miles
from the home base, to higher leased ranges on the Crow Indian reservation. In
fall, he helped drive them back. Many of the poems were based on accounts in
Bill's life.
A second book has just been published...RODEO COUNTRY. I was
raised in Rodeo Country near the Wyoming-Montana border.
RODEO COUNTRY
celebrates the rich western heritage of this region with poems and photos of
local rodeo champions. It contains a collection of poetry and
written accounts that embody much of the history and events that shaped Montana
and Wyoming.
The books
are $12.95. You can order them by snail mail:
B-D Productions; 1755 S.E. 108th St.;Runnells, Iowa 50237 (515)
966-2461
Or by e-mail
wacobelle@msn.com
Do visit my other three web sites:
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