A Few Heart of Texas Fair and Rodeo Memories

 I was at the Heart of Texas Fair and Rodeo on its 40th anniversary. I was working the grand entry gate to the Heart of Texas Coliseum and opening and closing gates for the bucking bulls, bucking horses, dogging and roping steers and calves that were being moved back and forth between events.  Mounted on the horse I was standing next to was the first rodeo producer of the Heart of Texas Fair and Rodeo, the famous Tommy Steiner of Austin Texas.

Tommy was talking to then-  rodeo producer, Bernis Johnson of Cleburne, Texas, who had been a partner with Charlie Battles, ex-husband of the singer Reba McIntyre, whose father would  haul Reba and her barrel horse to Waco from Oklahoma. I remember Reba, a tiny teenager and a real cowgirl, sitting on her horse, waiting her turn to run barrels.  An old friend of mine, Jim Gibbs of Valley Mills, had raised and provided a lot of the bucking bulls for Bernis and Charlie. 

For several years, my daughter, Jon Marie, and I worked the arena gates and held the horses that Bernis and celebrities rode in the Grand Entry and for introductions.  These were also the horses that event-winners mounted and rode into the arena for their victory laps. Sometimes these arena horses would set back and break the reins or a $50.00 bridle. These were the horses that Jon Marie and I were holding when not on the gate. 

 We felt honored to work the main arena gate alongside old-time cowboy, Glenn Wingo, who had been on the gate for many years.  Tommy Steiner asked me how long I had been coming to the Heart of Texas Fair and Rodeo. When  I answered, "Since I was eight years old in 1954!",  he almost fell off his horse.

 The Heart of Texas Fair and Rodeo was my first rodeo.  My family had been the owner of a prized black-and-white television for only a year, and westerns were my favorite shows.  My little sister, Sue, and I were in Seventh Heaven when we realized we could see--in person--not only the tv stars, but also their beautiful, wonderful horses:  Roy Roger's palomino: Trigger; Dale Evan's buckskin:   Buttermilk;  Dale Robertson's chestnut with the flaxen mane and tail:   Jubilee; the Cisco Kid's black-and-white paint:  Diablo; Gene Autrey's sorrel:   Champion the Wonder Horse;  Hopalong Cassidy's white horse:  Topper;  The Lone Ranger and his silver stallion:  Silver, of course!; and Tonto's brown-and-white paint:  Scout. In truth, Sue and I wanted to see and touch those shiny, soft-as-silk  horses more than than we wanted to see the tv stars!