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USA Today
09-08-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Why all-Black rodeo events are 'so hot right now'
The nation's longest running Black rodeo is among a handful of events some say have seen a boost due to Beyonce's groundbreaking 2024 country album. Call it the Beyoncé effect: One of America's biggest music superstars unleashed a stampede of excitement for Black rodeos across the country with her 2024 album "Cowboy Carter." Nowhere is that more obvious than in tiny Okmulgee, Oklahoma, home to the nation's oldest continuously operated Black rodeo. 'When Beyoncé released that country album, she told Black people it's okay to wear cowboy boots and cowboy hats,' said Danell Tipton, a champion bull rider who now serves as arena director for multiple state rodeos, including what is now the Okmulgee Roy LeBlanc Invitational Rodeo. 'Black rodeoing is so hot right now, every event we go to," Tipton said. "I haven't seen so many Black girls in cowboy hats and boots, ever. We've had our rodeos, but city slickers were never in tune with it. Now, it's like the floodgates opened.' On the weekend of August 9, the Okmulgee Roy LeBlanc Invitational Rodeo marks its 70th year, the legacy of two dozen Black businessmen, farmers and ranchers frustrated with the second-class treatment accorded to Black rodeo competitors and their fans in the 1950s. Tipton has been attending the Okmulgee rodeo ever since he was a kid riding along with his family's roundup club, the Oklahoma City Paraders. The equestrian-minded community organization held weekend parades to precede Black rodeo competitions in rural outposts around the state, in places like Tatums, Clearview and Drumright. 'Okmulgee was always the last rodeo of the year,' he said. 'It was like our Super Bowl.' Situated 40 miles south of Tulsa, the Okmulgee Roy LeBlanc Invitational Rodeo is among the country's largest Black sporting events, according to event producer Kenneth LeBlanc. In 1956, LeBlanc's father Roy and grandfather Charles were among the founders of what was then called the Okmulgee County Roundup Club. 'Black people couldn't get into White rodeos,' said Marcous Friday, who has been the Okmulgee event's announcer for two decades. 'That's why they started the rodeo. Who would have thought that 70 years later, it's still going?' An old-school tradition Okmulgee was among a patchwork of Black rodeo circuit events that thrived in the 1950s and 1960s throughout the Texas Gulf Coast region and the area around Tulsa, according to Keith Ryan Cartwright, author of 'Black Cowboys of Rodeo: Unsung Heroes from Harlem to Hollywood and the American West.' 'A lot of Black rodeo cowboys got their start in one of those two areas,' said Cartwright, who now serves as assistant general manager of the Nashville Stampede, a pro bull riding team. 'Maybe they weren't from there, but they would migrate there in order to compete regularly.' Nearly an hour to the west, the Boley (Oklahoma) Rodeo is the oldest of all Black rodeos, dating back to 1903 – but with several interruptions along the way. Okmulgee has clung to its annual tradition like a bull rider refusing to be bucked off. 'This is the 70th year, and there's no asterisk,' Cartwright said. 'They even found a way to have it in 2020." The 2025 event features more than 200 competitors, including dozens of calf ropers, team ropers, steer wrestlers and barrel racers. The atmosphere bears little resemblance to the big-money, corporate-sponsored spectacles broadcast on television. 'It's not some multimillion-dollar production,' Cartwright said. 'It's old-school.' 'When they come back to Black rodeo, there's a home for them' The rodeo's inaugural run was held north of town on leased land owned by the local White roundup club, Tipton said. When the club saw the event's success and significantly raised its rates the next year, the organizers of the budding Black rodeo decided it was time to find their own venue and bought 40 acres south of town, he said. That's where the Okmulgee Invitational rodeo was held until 1991, he said, when the all-Black event moved to the Bob Arrington Rodeo Arena, owned by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. By that time Tipton was starting to compete himself, riding bulls and wrestling steers. In 1998, he was named the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association's bull riding and overall rookie of the year. Coming up in the pro ranks, Tipton said, fellow Black cowboys were a rare sight. Even now, he said, when he goes to events on the East or West coasts, 'they're like, 'Wow. Black cowboys.' They see White cowboys competing on TV every day.' Among the barriers, Tipton said, are finances and unfamiliarity with the logistical strategies necessary to qualify for the national finals, which are based on prize money won throughout the year. Competitors must navigate a network of seasonal events held across the country to finish among the top 15 qualifiers in their respective categories. 'There's so many Black cowboys who should be making tons of money,' Tipton said. 'A lot don't know the business side. So when they come back to Black rodeo, there's a home for them.' When he found success as a rookie and hit the pro circuit, Tipton said, he didn't return to the Black rodeo circuit for several years. But he always made sure to return for Okmulgee. 'The Jackie Robinson of rodeo' He wasn't the only one. Many of the Black rodeo greats throughout the years have frequented Okmulgee, among them Myrtis Dightman, often referred to as 'the Jackie Robinson of rodeo.' Dightman was among those featured during Beyoncé's Christmas Day halftime show during the Houston Texans' game against the Baltimore Ravens in December. 'He was the first African American to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo,' said Friday, the event announcer. 'He never won a world title, but he's the one who actually opened the doors for African American cowboys in rodeo today.' Dightman grew up on a ranch in Crockett, Texas, two hours north of Houston, where his father was a ranch hand and his mother helped work the fields, Cartwright said. He went to school when ranch work allowed, never learning to read. As a young man, Dightman found work as a rodeo clown and bullfighter but knew he had the skills to be an accomplished bull rider, Cartwright said. Like other Black rodeo hopefuls, he often wouldn't be allowed to ride until events were over. 'He quickly established himself not as a great Black bull rider but as a great bull rider,' Cartwright said. Eventually, the humble and well-liked Dightman would earn his way onto the circuit with other cowboys eager to compete against him. In the 1960s, Cartwright said, standards called for only two event judges, and all it took was one to poison a competitor's chances for success. 'It wasn't so egregious as to make them finish last,' he said. 'All they had to do was rob them of a point here or there.' But spread over the course of a season, Cartwright said, these sprinklings of bias had their effect, depriving certain competitors of prize money and dropping them several places in the standings. He believes that happened to Dightman and others. Dightman realized that despite whatever slights he might face, he could still claw his way to the finals if he competed in enough events to earn sufficient prize money. He avoided Southern rodeos and instead hit events in Texas, Oklahoma, on the West Coast and throughout the Midwest and Rust Belt. 'He thought, there's always going to be a judge that isn't going to let me win an event, but if over the course of a season I go to more events than anyone else, all my 2nd places and 4th places will get me there,' Cartwright said. 'He hustled and was very methodical.' In 1967 and 1968, Dightman finished among the three or four top-ranked bull riders in the world. While he never won the sport's gold buckle, Dightman knew he had accomplished something special, Cartwright said. 'I can't stress enough how good he had to be to finish third at a time when our country was facing the racial animus it did,' he said. 'He said to me, 'I wanted to be a world champion but I never were a world champion, but I was a world champion as a man.' He wasn't bragging on himself. What he was saying was that he saw something that hadn't been done and he wanted to do it and did everything he could to do it. I just find him to be heroic.' Legends of the sport In February, Tipton and Friday teamed up to produce their second annual National Black Cowboy Rodeo Awards and Gala in Oklahoma City. 'We've honored all the old cowboys the last two years,' Tipton said. Dightman, now 90, was among them; so was Charles Sampson, the former kid from Watts, California, who with Dightman's mentorship became the first Black bull rider to win a rodeo world title, in 1982. Both have been among the luminaries who polished their craft at Okmulgee. 'Myrtis and Charlie are legends,' Cartwright said. 'Not just among Black cowboys. They're legendary rodeo cowboys, period.' Before a bull rider's bucking chute opens, there is someone there to tighten the rope he'll use to hold on to for the duration of the ride, and riders are notoriously picky about who gets to do it, Cartwright said. 'When Charlie won the world title in the 10th round, Myrtis was there and Charlie had him pull his bull rope for him,' he said. 'For him to wave off the guy who would normally pull his rope and let Myrtis do it goes to show that Charlie understood the significance of his moment and that the road to that moment was paved by Myrtis.' It's on that foundation that today's young Black cowboys will build on when they compete this weekend in Okmulgee. 'Okmulgee originated at a time when it was needed,' Cartwright said. 'There was nowhere else for them to go. It's a historic event.'
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
2025 PBR Chevron Showdown: The Ariat Texas Rattlers mentorship with Odessa College
ODESSA, Texas (KMID/KPEJ) – The Ariat Texas Rattlers return to Odessa for the second straight year of the Professional Bull Riding Chevron Showdown at Ector County Coliseum. This year features the Rattlers, who were the 2023 PBR Team Champions, the Nashville Stampede who won in 2022 and also competing is our very own Odessa College Rodeo Team. The Texas Rattlers have partnered with the Wranglers leading up to the Chevron Showdown to provide a mentorship, and OC head coach Tom Kelly says it's invaluable. 'For Chevron and Kent Quick to bring the Texas Rattlers to town and then for them to also include us in this event with this training, with working out with the Rattlers, with riding with them, practicing with them, you can't put a price tag on that.' With the Rattlers back in Odessa, they are looking to expand their brand nationwide, starting with the Lone Star State. 'Our hometown is Fort Worth, but we want to be known all over the country,' Rattlers head coach Cody Lambert said. 'Coming here to Odessa, I want fans, I want to be looked at, I want the Rattlers to be looked at as Texas' team.' In the 2024 PBR Chevron Showdown, Odessa College's Hayden Welsh won the event, and the team gives a lot of credit to the Rattlers team. 'It just started our year off well, and we carried the momentum through. In my opinion, we owe a big thank you to the Rattlers for helping us do that,' Kelly said. Now, the 2025 PBR Chevron Showdown expectations are at an all-time high. 'We got some of the best bulls in the business, the best bull riders in the business. It will come down to who wants to win.' The event is set for 7:00 p.m. at Ector County Coliseum in Odessa, and tickets can be found online at or the box office for $25. Following the event, country music legend Dwight Yoakam will be performing. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Bull riding's top tour back in Sioux Falls
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — The most exciting eight seconds in sports is ready to make its return to Sioux Falls. The stage at the Premier Center is nearly set for PBR Unleash the Beast. Rapid City schools committed to supporting Native students 'The root of the PBR is to guarantee the fans, when they come to a show, to see the greatest bull riders in the world on the greatest bulls in the world,' said Flint Rasmussen, senior vice president of fan engagement. The three-day event kicks off Friday with something new to Sioux Falls. Of the 44 individual bull riders scheduled to compete, 12 will also be part of a team challenge. It's a preview of the PBR Team Series which starts in July. 'A few events, on the first night, we throw in a team element as part of that show,' Rasmussen said. There are ten teams in the series, including Friday's competitors representing the Nashville Stampede and Carolina Cowboys. 'Even the coaches are superstars. Nashville has Justin McBride, one of our greatest world champions. The legendary Jerome Davis is the Carolina coach, and so we just want people to see what we're trying to accomplish, how that head to head competition goes,' Rasmussen said. 'It's just another way to get fans to interact, so I think it's really cool and it's a cool way to keep progressing the sport forward,' professional bull rider Ezekiel Mitchell said. Mitchell isn't part of the team competition, but the Texas native needs to perform well in Sioux Falls to qualify for a spot in next month's World Finals. 'This is going to be the last three-day event of the year,' he said. 'That means we have more points up for grabs than any other event for the rest of the year, so this is kind of crunch time for everybody to start making their move.' Building industry impacted by tariffs As every bull rider attempts to hang on for eight seconds, don't underestimate the importance of the fans. 'The energy of the crowd carries over to what's going on in those chutes, simple as that, football players know it, basketball players know it, baseball players know it, bull riders are the same,' Rasmussen said. This is the fifth consecutive season the PBR's top tour has visited Sioux Falls. The competition gets underway at 7:45 Friday and Saturday night, and wraps up at 1:45 Sunday afternoon. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
