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Anthony Click to filter

Hi there, I'm Court. It is May 1st, 2020. I'm here with Anthony, who also goes by Chicken Nugget in the Rodeo Circuit. It is 7:00am. And, Anthony, you are in the Dallas metropolitan area, that's what you said? Yes, ma'am. Perfect. So just going to get started. Where did you grow up? I grew up in a really small town northwest of Fort Worth of Spring Town, probably about an hour northwest of Downtown Fort Worth. And what year were born? I was born in 93. 93. You're a millennial, then? I am, according to most. But I don't consider myself a millennial. I don't have a mindset like most millennials. Yeah. What do you consider the millennial mindset? Oh, Lord. Dramatics. Dramatics. Like just one word for it, I guess. How was your childhood growing up over there? Within my family, it was really, really good. I had a really loving and caring family. Outside of that, though, especially living in a small town in Texas, being gay is like unheard of, especially back in the day when I was going through all that, going to school and stuff. So outside of my house, it was really rough or up until after high school, after high school, it kind of changed quite a bit. But yeah, it was really rough on like school life.(Subjects: childhood) When did you come out, then? I came out to a few friends in middle school in seventh grade. And then, of course, didn't really tell my parents and stuff until the summer going into my ninth grade year in high school and I was kind of outed, actually. I wasn't ready to tell my parents, but somebody had spread the news to them. So I ended up just coming up to them as well. And high school was where it really got rough.(Subjects: comingout) You said that you had a very loving and accepting childhood. Do you want to share any memories? Do you have any fond memories that you want to share? I don't really. I mean, everything really was a memory to me. We always did everything as a family. My dad was on the volunteer fire department. My mom was a nurse. And then outside of the fire department, my dad was U.P.S. driver. But everything we did, whether it was going to church, going to the movies, going out to dinner, like for their honeymoon - or no not their honeymoon - their, um, anniversary dinner, like we always did it all together as a family.(Subjects: childhood, family) So you guys were tightknit, you would say?. Extremely. How did they react when you came out? Well, my mom didn't really care. I mean, she didn't show hate towards it. She didn't really necessarily show acceptance. But I mean, she wasn't like not wanting it to be...not wanting me to be who I was. My dad took it really hard, actually, to the point where he tried to kick me out of the house and didn't want me as a son anymore. And it took a lot of heart to heart with my parents. My grandmother, of all people, who was the last person I wanted to know I was gay, she actually told my mom that we need to watch this movie called "Prayers for Bobby." I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it's oh, my God, you you need to watch it 'cause you'll cry at the end, but it's such a good movie. But we ended up watching it as a family. And at the end of the movie, all of us were crying. And my dad came up to me and he hugged me and said I would never want to see myself do that to you. Like it happened in the movie. And ever since then, he's gone to every pride with me here in Dallas and Fort Worth. He's marched in the parade with PFLAG in the Fort Worth parade with me multiple times. And now, I mean, they're like 100 percent supportive in all aspects. I think, I don't even have one family member in my entire family that doesn't support me and my LGBTQ lifestyle. So it's kind of nice. (Subjects: comingout, family, parents) Wow. Yeah. Did you come out to all of your family at the same time? Not really. I came out to like my immediate family all kind of after I obviously got outed. And then I kinda went in waves on who I told and who I didn't and who I finally got around to telling. But yeah, that was within about a year span. It took me to get the whole family on board.(Subjects: comingout, family) Looking back, do you think that you're glad that you came out so early in your life? Yeah. Yeah. I think that I probably would have drove myself insane if I would have waited. Especially into my adulthood. Like there's just no way I see friends today that are older than me and haven't came out yet. And they're having to live such a closeted lifestyle. And I don't think I could handle that lifestyle, being in the closet, as you would say.(Subjects: comingout) How would you describe your lifestyle now? It's crazy. I mean, I actually just got engaged.(Subjects: family) Congratulations. Yeah, last Friday. So never in my life did I think I was actually going to get married. So it's been pretty crazy. But I did meet my partner on the gay rodeo circuit and it's...I mean, my lifestyles pretty, pretty fun. I mean, it's I've made a lot of friends through these past couple years in the rodeo. And it's just that's all I do now is spend time with all my rodeo family and friends.(Subjects: family) Wow. Congratulations. How did that go? How did, did you propose or? No, he proposed to me. It was kind of funny. We were out at my mom and dad for dinner, and he always gets onto me because when I'm around friends and family, I'll get on my phone, but check on Facebook or whatnot. So it sounded like when he started talking, it sounds like he was getting on to me for being on my phone. And I looked at my mom and I go, here he goes again. And I look back over and he was on his knee and I about fainted. So it was a surprise for sure.(Subjects: family) Yeah. Have you guys picked a date or a time? Actually, I think we have. So we've actually talked about getting married for the past year. My family, my grandparents on my mom's side own a lake house up in Canada. It's like the most beautiful setting. And so we're thinking because we're planning on going up there on vacation at the end of summer this year, hoping if this COVID-19 stuff kind of clears up by then. If not, we'll push it back and do something different. But we're hoping to do it at the end of the summer.(Subjects: family) That's really amazing. Congratulations again. Thank you so much. Are you still pretty nervous about telling people? Not really. I mean, of course, as soon as that happened, because I always told them I was like, you can't just ask me when I was two alone. I have to have people around. I want them to witness, it's a special time. But he did it in front of my parents, which I'm totally, perfectly fine with. So, of course, one of my closest friends not being there, I had to call them all. I told - I told the closest people in my life. And here, like, slowly but surely, people are starting to find out and congratulating me and all that. But... Yeah, announcing things right now is difficult. Did you do you like... It is very difficult. Did you do like a mass phone call or a text? Yeah, I did a group text with, um, like we have a rodeo group chat we do. And I listed it on there. And then friends of mine from like high school that aren't involved in rodeo or whatnot, I would just call them personally and told them. Today would have been that the Palm Springs rodeo where you planning on going to that? I was I actually was kind of funny. I called in sick to work Monday 'cause I had stayed out a little too late at a friend's house Sunday. And my boss said, let me know that I had the week scheduled off for vacation. I'm like, well, why would I have the week off for vacation? And then I remembered it was the week of Palm Springs 'cause I was actually going to haul horses with my partner and our really good friend and her horses at the Palm Springs. So, yes, I was really hoping to go there. That's one of my favorite rodeos on the gay circuit.(Subjects: jobs, rodeo) Is it just the place or is it also the people in Palm Springs? Well, so that organization has always done very well. They have something going on at all times. Like you don't feel like you're just sitting kind of twiddling their thumbs or whatnot. There's always something going on like nightlife. They have like shows like pushed towards the rodeo team and the rodeo folks that are in town starting from Thursday all the way up until Monday morning. It's really cool. And it's, I just love and enjoy it. And Palm Springs is Palm Springs, so...it's beautiful there.(Subjects: rodeo) Oh, yeah. Do you do events? What do you compete in? I do. So when I first started on the gay rodeo, I was only doing goat dressing and then I very quickly got pulled into doing steer deco, wild drag, and then eventually calf roping. This year, I was actually going to start doing horse events because my partner and I bought a horse last year and I've been training on him and I was going to start doing barrels and polls with him. But obviously that kinda went down the tube. So, gives me a little bit extra time to train on him and look a little bit more professional on him, I guess you could say. And I was actually thinking about picking up chute dogging in the near future as well.(Subjects: rodeo) So you mainly did camp events to start, you said, and now you're moving in to like Gymkhana. Could you describe some gymkhana or chute dogging for me? So chute dogging, you're in the chutee with the steer. And when you come out, it's 10 feet from the chute. You have to get all four hooves of the steer passed that line and then you dog it, which pretty much you wrestle it to the ground and have to get all four hooves off the ground. And then that's when the time stops. So as soon as the nose hits the line, that's when your time starts. And then you have to drag it all the way across the line and then steer it down to the ground.(Subjects: rodeo) Wow. Yeah. It's intense. I did it at a rodeo school last year. And I about, I was like, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this.(Subjects: rodeo) How was that last year when you tried it? It was fun. I mean, it's really exhilarating, but it's definitely something you have to do a couple times, like, not at a rodeo, but maybe at a rodeo school to get used to and know that you're doing it the right way. 'Cause the first time I did it, I was doing it so wrong and it didn't work out. But, yeah, I was exhilarating.(Subjects: rodeo) Yeah. So, you've been riding for about a year. Have you have had horse experience before that? I have. So my mom, when I was first born, my mom actually owned a horse. I didn't do any rodeo persay on that horse, but I always used to ride him. And then in high school, I took AG and was around horses all the time and friends that were in rodeo. And I actually helped out in rodeo in high school. I didn't compete, but I did help out. So I got to ride horses all through high school. Yeah, living out the country. I mean, all my friends had horses. So.(Subjects: childhood) [00:13:18]So, [0.0s] your country life, kind of, you're like stock, horse life, started really early on then. Oh, Yeah. Yeah. When did you know that you wanted to have like a country, rodeo lifestyle? I mean, kind of funny, but I was always attracted to like cowboys, like my uncle used to work at Billy Bob's, which is a country bar here in Fort Worth. And they also do rodeos there. They have like a bull riding rink and stuff. So he used to work security when I was like real little. I remember me and my sister used always like to look at that one. Look at that one. My sister is pretty much the one that knew the whole time. But always kept it hush hush until I was ready to tell people.(Subjects: childhood, comingout, highlight) That's really that's really nice of her to be honest. Right. It sounds like you guys have a pretty close bond, you know, going to these rodeos, talking about cowboys, has that continued into adulthood? Not necessarily. She has had children now and been married and kinda off doing her own thing. I mean, we're still really close. And she's gone to a couple rodeos that I've gone to and competed in. But she's got her hands full with a bunch of babies, now she's got four kids.(Subjects: family) Yeah. Do you have any stories from those early rodeos that you want to share? So there was a rodeo clown that was really good friends with my uncle and he used to always come after the rodeo and paint our faces and stuff. And I remember I had my uncle put me in wranglers and boots, and Jeans, or a hat all that stuff like a whole that cowboy get up. He came up to me and painted my face and he said, "you're going to make a cowboy one day." And here I am doing rodeos that I never really thought that I was actually going to compete in or whatnot, but it's always stuck with me. So.(Subjects: childhood, highlight) Do you compete in mainstream rodeos or like the jackpot circuit? I do not. When did you find out about the gay rodeo? So, when I first started going out to bars here in the Metroplex, the rodeo association, I'm now a part of Texas Gay Rodeo Association. They did a lot of drag shows and fundraisers and stuff at the bars. And I met a friend of mine who was a part of the association at the time, and he invited me out to this fundraiser, so I went out, really enjoyed it. So I started volunteering to help out like help setup stuff at the bars when they do fundraisers and run music back and forth to the DJ, just like small stuff like that. And then my ex-boyfriend, he actually was a member when I had got together with him and I decided to join. And that's when I started by going to rodeos and volunteering to help out with the rodeos. And then when we split up, I went to my first finals rodeo in Albuquerque, and, I believe it's 2017. And that's where I met my current partner and I got...he's been a rodeo director for finals for the past three years. And he's also the rodeo director for Texas Rodeo. [...](Subjects: community ) [...] [...] So that's that's when, um, that rodeo was my first real gay rodeo experience. And it actually was insane because being able to follow my partner around as a black shirt, as rodeo director, I got to go behind the scenes. I got to really see how everything was. And I I told him that weekend I was like, I really want to do this. And it wasn't two months later I was doing my first rodeo school. And a month after that I started competing.(Subjects: community) Your partner, was he involved with horses before the IGRA? Yeah. He actually competed in rodeo in high school. He was a bull rider and chute dogger and a couple other things. Does he still do like rough stock and horse events? Yeah, he does chute dogging still. He's too afraid he's gonna break something if he tries to do any bull riding or steer riding. We, um, a bunch of us and kinda got him talked into doing steer ridding, which is kind of the lesser of bull riding. So we'll see if that happens when these rodeos start back up.(Subjects: rodeo) Switching gears just a little bit. What do you what do you do for a living? So, I work for Coca-Cola.(Subjects: jobs) Oh, wow. And my partner actually is what got me the job at Coca-Cola. He's been there for 18 years. So yeah, we make sirup for the fountain machines.(Subjects: jobs) Wow, sounds like a very different job than your regular lifestyle. Right. It's crazy. Helps pay the bills, though. It helps pay for rodeos and stuff. That's what I like about it.(Subjects: jobs) Yeah. Are you out at work? I'm assuming, yes, because your partner also works there. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like your work environment and your, like, gay rodeo environment clash in any way? I personally don't think so. Good thing like with how I work...like with my work ethic and stuff or not, my ethnic work period is: I worked during the week, rodeo's are normally on the weekends, so it's like a perfect handoff. I don't ever feel like I have to give up rodeo because of work or give up work because of rodeo. So it just kind of clicks well together.(Subjects: jobs) Thats good. I feel like it's hard to find. It is hard to find. There's so many people on the rodeo circuit that deal with that all the time, like "I'm be able to go to this rodeo because I can't get off." And I'm like, "oh that sucks. I can."(Subjects: jobs) Has gay rodeo changed since you've started? Yeah, it has. How would you say it's changed? It's gotten smaller, in my opinion. I think it's like nowadays, the LGBTQ community is starting to come together more and the acceptance is at a higher level nowadays. And then the Western lifestyle is kind of dying in a sense. Because back in the day when like especially when IGRA and TGRA and all these gay rodeo organizations started, it was pretty much to give gay cowboys and cowgirls a safe haven to do what they love to do. Now, you don't really need that because the majority of the world nowadays accepts it. But yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things that I've noticed is changing. The rodeos have just gotten smaller. People are doing other things or found new, newer and more exciting hobbies than rodeo. I know at our - my home association here in Texas, that's one of our biggest things is trying to pull in more members. Why do you think that the Western lifestyle is dying? It's a tough one. In my own personal opinion, I think it's because everything nowadays is so materialized. Like even like going to the bars, like the country bars nowadays, like you don't hear country music that much, like you'll hear it up until about 7 or 8 o'clock at night and then those bars. Change it to rap and pop music and stuff like that, which I'm OK with. Like you always want the diversity in music and stuff, but it doesn't have that country vibe like it did for, say, ten, fifteen years ago. How would you describe a country lifestyle? Like what..how do you, how do you define that for yourself?(Subjects: cowperson) I would say it's a very exhilarating lifestyle full of always changing events. It's never the same, but it's always very exciting and rewarding.(Subjects: cowperson) You mentioned that there's like a whole nightlife aspect to country living. Are you involved in any dancing or like two stepping? Well, so there's a bar in Dallas that like we do shows at it's a country bar. And my partner and I will go up there and do country dances and stuff. But it's not anything persay that I'm like always dying to do because I cannot dance. I try, but I can't. [laughs](Subjects: dance) Dancing is hard. It is really hard, especially when you've had a drink or two and you're being yelled at to follow their lead. Like what? Follow what? [Laughs](Subjects: dance) Can you talk for a moment about your rodeo family? It sounds like you guys are very close. So I'm just wondering if you have any stories about the community and community in general or like family memories? Well, so I can say when my ex and I broke up, I was in a really, really bad place in my life. I started developing an eating disorder. I was told I was too fat and ugly and all this stuff. And by my own community, not the rodeo community, but just by the gay community in itself. And that put me in a really deep depression. And then my ex breaking up with me just kind of put it in deeper. And so when I joined this organization, it gave me a purpose again. And I can probably tell you 99.9% of my friends now are from the rodeo. I do everything with them like these past few weeks, weekends, when I'm not at work, I'm at my friend's house helping her finish setting up her barn and reinstalling new panels on her barn. I mean, it's just always, always, always doing stuff for my rodeo family. But it's really given me purpose to my life back. And there are just countless memories that I've made with every single one of them that I've been with in this organization. Yeah, we're definitely tightknit, of course, just like siblings as there's... a lot of members that butt heads and stuff, we always in the end come together for the right reasons. And do we love doing most and that's rodeo.(Subjects: community ) Yeah. Do you think that the gay rodeo community is different from the larger LGBTQ+ community? Say that again. Do you think that the gay rodeo community is different or how do you think it differs from the larger LGBTQ+ community? So I actually do think there is a big difference. But like I said, like how I was treated by the gay community, like you don't really find that in gay rodeo. And that's just one example. But like, I can go into a bar with a bunch of people that know me and they'll be like, oh hi, hey, whatever. And then like, I go in to a rodeo to these people that I haven't seen a couple weeks and we just pick up right where we left off. And I mean, it's like a family on the rodeo side of it. But I don't feel that much towards people that I know in just the gay community itself.(Subjects: community) Do you think that the gay community accepts the gay rodeo. To an extent, like I mentioned earlier, times have changed. Especially like...Oh, I don't want to call the gay community catty, but all the catty gays nowadays don't really care for the rodeo. They'd rather go to brunch on Sundays and spend their time at house parties and stuff like that. But I mean, when we do shows and stuff, we always have a pretty good turnout from the local community people and they always help fundraise and raise money. And that's one thing about all the gay rodeo associations, all the money that we raised are uh, goes to charity.(Subjects: community) You've mentioned shows a couple times. Do you perform? I do. So something I never thought in my lifetime I would ever do. I used to be such a very nervous wreck. being in front of a lot of people, like I mentioned earlier when I went to finals in Albuquerque for the first finals rodeo, I got to watch the IGRA royalty competition. And I told my now partner, I told him, I think you know what? I want to do that, too. I think I want to help because the royalty teams are the face of their organization. They're the ones that help the most by going out raising money for these organizations. And I was like I would feel like so warm inside if I was able to help raise money and for all these charities and stuff. So we came back to Texas and I ended up running last year for the royalty team for Texas. And I actually won. And then back in October, I ran for Mr. IGRA and won that as well. So I am now, Mr. IGRA, which is insane. Yes, I do perform as a boy. I do not do drag.(Subjects: events) Well, congratulations. Unless it's for extra money. Well, congratulations. That's really exciting. Yeah, it's really exciting for me, too. Yeah. This is your year: you're Mr. IGRA, you just got engaged. I know it. Yeah. Been on cloud nine since October. Would you describe the Mr. IGRA competition? What you do, how you perform? So as Mr. IGRA, the competition itself was very, very challenging, not really challenging, but a lot of work. There was four of us total competing and they, they take the winner and then two runner ups, and so unfortunately one of us did not make it on the team this year. But we all worked really, really hard. That's all that matters to me. But the competition was really hard and it involved an interview where you have a panel of judges that ask you questions regarding rodeo history, IGRA history and then some questions just to like figure out what kind of person you are and what you bring to the table as if you were to become Mr. IGRA. And then you also do a performance of some sort and you can either do a performance or horsemanship, which horsemanship is a...they provide a pattern that you have to ride the horse in a certain way and fashion. Trot, here. Lope, here. Like that. So you have the option between those two and then you do onstage stage. Q and A. And Western wear. Sorry, I forgot Western wear too. But in my performances I didn't want to do horsemanship because it's so easy to mess up on and make your score drop. So, I didn't want to even risk that, but in all my performances I always do country music. I can't get myself to do any other style of music. I mean, I love rap and all other kinds of music and stuff, but I don't know. It's a country organization and I've tried to do it once. I was like, I just don't feel comfortable. I have to do country. But yeah, now like as Mr. IGRA, it's kind of hard, the whole team has been having a hard time doing what we are supposed to be doing because of this COVID-19 thing. Thankfully, IGRA has actually pushed the whole season to combine it with the '21 season. So we will now be IGRA royalty this year and next year. And so thankfully if something goes on, we still have of all next year to be able to raise our funds and, uh excuse me, raise our funds and go to all these rodeos and represent. (Subjects: events) That's really exciting. I'm curious now that you're starting to ride and you're starting to work on your horsemanship, if like looking into the future, if you would do horsemanship in a competition like this later. You know, I think if I had a little bit more training and was able like felt really comfortable with it, I definitely would. And I've actually me and my, my TGRA royalty team. We actually all three went on to compete at IGRA. And we're all three of us are on the team for IGRA as well. But we decided that we're going to come back in a couple of years and we're all going to swap roles. So like my friend Phillip, he actually does drag and he competed as a drag queen and won at that, my friend Jessie, she competed as a drag king, which is a woman that dresses as a man. And so we're all going to swap roles and run under different categories here in a couple years. So I'm like, well, we'll see what I can pull out of my boot and do that time.(Subjects: events) That's amazing. Have you ever considered doing rough stock? I have. And I've been thinking about doing chute dogging. Like I said, I tried it and I want to do it a couple more times before I actually spend money at a rodeo to try to do it, because watching some of the guys that have been around for 20, 30 plus years doing it, they do it so fast, it's almost like embarrassing to even try 'cause you're like, why? Why do it? But it'll be the fun of it.(Subjects: events) Have you ever been injured at a rodeo? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. What types of injuries have you occured? So the the one rodeo that actually got to happen this year was in Arizona. Back in February. Me and my friend Philip were doing steer deco, which is putting a, you have to tie, a ribbon to the tail of a steer and I'm the ribbon tier. So, Philip had gotten on the head of the steer to kind of neutralize the steer and get him stopped. So I could get on the tail. And right when I got to the tail, he got a little rambunctious and got away from Philip and went straight into my crotch with his horns, hooked me in the leg. Thankfully, I haven't had any cuts, but I've had lots of bruises, no broken bones, thank goodness. Lots, lots of bruising and dizziness falling on my head. And...(Subjects: injuries) It's dangerous. Anything with animals. Have you been injured on your horse, yet? Yes, I have. And it was mainly my fault. When I first started riding him. I was giving him mixed signals as my horse trainer was telling me. And he put me right into the side of a fence and hurt my leg a little bit. But like I said, that was my fault.(Subjects: injuries) What kind of horse did you guys get? Oh, goodness. He's a, um... I always can't answer this question because I always forget the word. He's a, um... Well, no he's not a paint, he's a um... I'll have to get back to you on that one. I always forget what kind of that word that they call him? We just met, but I can see you on a palomino. Oh, I love Palominos. Yeah, he's not a palomino. I love palominos. My mom's horse that she had when I was first born was a palomino. Do you think that you'll have more horses in the future? Is this just the beginning of your horsemanship? I think so. We've been talking, my partner and I, about buying a ranch and potentially trying to host rodeos there like, um, we went out a couple of weeks ago and actually looked at property to buy. And we were going to put an arena out there and potentially start doing rodeos and small jackpots and stuff out there and get more horses. Wow. That's going to be... gonna be fun. It would be fun. Yeah. Outside of rodeo, do you wear Western wear? I do. Most of the time I'm in boots and jeans. Mainly a t-shirt, if I'm just out and about. If I'm going to show or anything to represent my organization or IGRA, I'm always in Western wear like you will not find me at a drag show or anything, not wearing western wear. Today, I've been having to run a bunch errands, so I'm not in Western wear. I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt. But it's hot and I don't want to wear jeans. But, yeah, a majority of the time I'm in boots and jeans and a hat. Do you consider yourself a cowboy? Yes and no. I mean, I definitely enjoy the Western lifestyle and I partake in a lot of Western lifestyle, Western lifestyle aspects. But at the same time, um, in my opinion, a real cowboy is somebody that's out there working on the ranch doing stuff like on a day to day basis like, that's their job, like that's how they make their income is out herding cattle and doing all those kinda things. But in a sense I, at the same time, I think that people that are involved in rodeo, but not necessarily do the working in the fields and all that kind of stuff at the ranch like that, they're still considered a cowboy or a cowgirl.(Subjects: cowperson) What do you think the future of the IGRA is? You know, I actually have really big dreams and I'm kind of excited for the future of it. I think that the royalty team, especially this year, has a lot of plans up our sleeves to try to get the general public more involved, not even just the gay community, but the general public more involved. And I think that's what we really need nowadays. So I'm actually really excited to see. I think it's going to grow a lot in the next couple of years. Hopefully, after all this COVID-19 stuff is gone.(Subjects: igra) When it does grow, what do you think that'll look like? What's your ideal İGRA rodeo space? My honest dream for IGRA. I want to see it how it was back in the 80's when it first started. When I was running for IGRA and TGRA, I learned so much history on all the old rodeo's and I'm constantly getting the pictures sent to me from rodeo's from before I was even born, like gay rodeos too and it's insane to me like thinking Holy crap, that they've gone back this long. But you see pictures from these rodeo's and like the stands are full of people and it's just breathtaking and like so, nowadays, like we go to a rodeo in the stands or maybe half full, maybe a quarter full just depending on location or whatnot. But like Arizona's rodeo this year was like so amazing because both days there was not an empty seat in the stands. I mean, it was just full of people. And that's what, that's what I want to see happen. And I do think it's going to happen in the next year or two once we start getting more people involved.(Subjects: igra) It's amazing. I just have one last question for you. Have you ever experienced homophobia at the rodeo or on your way to a rodeo? Um, at the gay rodeo's. I've never actually experienced that, thankfully. I don't think and I don't really recall ever seeing any protester or like you would see a gay pride. I haven't seen any of that. Yeah, I, it was actually funny, at finals last year, it was held in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the way the arena was, it was right next to a convention center that was having this RV show and this family came walking over, thinking it was like just a regular, like, straight rodeo. And it was really kind of funny. They came in and somebody had explained it to them and stuff and they're like, "well, we've been enjoying it. We're going to stay and I think we're gonna come back tomorrow and bring some of our friends too."(Subjects: community) Oh, wow, that's amazing. Yeah, it was actually, it was kind of nice because you wouldn't expect that from a straight family like how that was. But then that, that's just the sign of the times, I mean. [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] But, um, so, I pretty much was saying, um, it's just a sign of the times now that everything is more accepting. You don't really see that negativity and... hateful words and stuff being spread all like wildfire, like it used to. Well, thank you so much. Do you have anything else to add before I let you go? I don't think so. I really think it's awesome what you guys are doing. And I can't wait to hear where it goes. Yeah, I wish you guys the best of luck in this. Hopefully, I get more people to enter in to have an interview done and I'll definitely spread it around to some of my royalty team. There's quite a few that have been around for a little bit. So I know that you guys were at convention, right? We have, yeah? I think we're at convention and the Phoenix rodeo. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Yeah. I remember seeing y'all at the Phoenix rodeo as well. I'll definitely hit up some more people because I love this. It's just giving more history for the books for the future. So. Thank you so much.

Greg Begay Click to filter

This is Renae Campbell and I am here with Greg Begay and we are at the Denver, Colorado, International Gay Rodeo Association Convention. It's November 22nd, 2019, and we're going to talk a little bit about your background first, if that’s okay. I'd like to start with asking where you were born. I was born on the Navajo Reservation in Fort Defiance, Arizona.(Subjects: childhood) Okay. And did you grow up there? Yeah. Not specifically in Fort Defiance, but in a small local town called Klagetoh. There's probably less than a thousand people that live there.(Subjects: childhood) So that would be—would you consider that a rural location, probably? Well, it's so rural that to this day there's not really cell phone service there. And it's kind of primitive because you have to haul water for some houses—they still don't have running water or plumbing. And some houses don't even have electricity. I love it. It's kind of what I've grown up with, so starting a fire or doing anything manual is not very hard.(Subjects: childhood) Do you live there still? My parents do. My dad works for a company that supplies natural gas to, basically, the U.S. They have a house that runs with electricity and then they have a house that doesn't have electricity. So, you do get both sides of it. I love being back—even though my phone doesn't work.(Subjects: family, parents) So, did you go to school there? I went to school there. And then in high school, we went out of town—out of our town—and we went to a private school, a Catholic school. Then ventured off to Tempe for college.(Subjects: childhood) You said “we.” Do you have brothers and sisters? Yeah, I have two sisters and one brother, one older and the other two are younger. So, kind of a big family, I guess. I would think its normal size for that day because nowadays people like to have one child or two children. Unless you're like, what is it, Kate Plus 8?(Subjects: family) It sounds like you and your siblings had a pretty fun time growing up? Well, there's a pretty big gap with the younger siblings. I believe my brother is seven or eight years younger and then my little sister’s another seven or eight between them. So, it's kind of like a fourteen-year gap between me and the youngest. We grew up near our cousins, so we always had kids to play with.(Subjects: family) And were you involved in, any sort of—were you around horses, or rodeo, or anything growing up? My dad learned rodeo from my uncles and just went with it. And then we were born, me and my older sister, and we kind of just grew up on the road—loaded up into a van in the middle of the night, and drive to a rodeo, and then hang out and play underneath the bleachers, and watch our dad rope. And then, as we got more comfortable with riding and he put us on or he, like, sat us up there, we were like, “We want to do this.” So, we did junior rodeos and little gymkhanas. And then my older sister was very good at sports, so she didn't really do it past like, going into middle school. But I ended up going into high school rodeo. And I did that.(Subjects: family, parents, childhood, highlight) So, you have a pretty strong background in it? Yeah. It's more of a love than just kinda something you picked up. I’m still having the passion to get better, to do better at rodeos. It’s kind of just what I love.(Subjects: highlight) Nice. So, did you graduate from college? I did not, unfortunately. I chose a subject that I’m passionate about but didn't have the focus to remain and do well. And so, I don’t have a college degree. What was the subject? I went in for pre-veterinarian. Which, there are some days where I think, “Oh, I totally could do that now.” But that’s more bills on top of bills that I have to pay for, right, being an adult. Before it was like, “Oh, I can just go to school, have my parents pay for it.” But it’s not the same now. Yeah. So, what do you do for work now? I am a blackjack dealer.(Subjects: jobs) Oh. Yeah. It’s fun. I mean, it's fun for me. […] It's fun…90 percent of the time. Ten percent it's, like, dealing with a disgruntled guest or a player that didn't win.(Subjects: jobs) And where do you work? I work in Scottsdale at Talking Stick Resort and Casino, Arizona. I've been there eleven years. I’ve also been doing this going on 14 years, since I turned 21, mostly.(Subjects: jobs) And you said you were born on the Navajo Reservation? Yeah. Are you Navajo? I am 100 percent Navajo, yes. And my parents, um, they were lucky enough to grow up with family that their first language was Navajo. And then they went to school and they learned English afterwards. Not the same as […] growing up we lived with quite a bit of, what is that, Caucasian families? And they spoke English. So, the difference between me speaking English because we lived with a bunch of families is different than having Navajo kids just normally. The English is a little different. That's kind of how they were. It wasn't like a normal thing to hear people speak English then. Them learning afterwards, it just kind of evolved.(Subjects: family, parents, race) In your household, then, did you speak primarily Navajo? When we were young, it was kinda just English. In high school, me and my older sister had to take Navajo language as an elective to meet the requirements for certain Navajo scholarships for college. We did that and we did pick up on most of it. Conversation-wise, we're not very good but we know certain words and we fill in the blanks, mostly.(Subjects: family) So, when your parents are talking, you can…? You’re like, “Oh, they're talking about us.” And then like, “Uh…no, it's not good, let's go.” But Rosetta Stone did make it as a language, so I plan to get that. Because my grandmother passed away two years ago, and I couldn’t really have a conversation with her because she never spoke English. She knew certain words like “pop” or “soda,” but having a conversation with her was, well, was never achieved. I missed out on that.(Subjects: family) So, you did rodeo in high school and then did you keep doing rodeo after that? I still compete in both rodeos. I mean, I’m a member of the Gay Rodeo Association, but I also compete in the World Series of team roping, and Indian rodeos, and, just everywhere where horses take me, really. I didn’t really stop. I did traditional rodeos all through high school ‘cause, at the time, I was competitive enough to stick with people that are older than me. And doing high school rodeo was, it was just fun. I didn't have a great partner then because I kind of got into it late. I started my senior year and so I kinda got the leftovers, I think. So, sometimes it clicked, most of the time it didn’t, but it was still fun.(Subjects: highlight) How did you discover the IGRA? I think I was like nineteen or twenty, and I was hearing all this gay stuff, like, “I think there's a gay rodeo.” And I searched it up on the internet. And then I forgot to delete the search history and my mom was like, “What is this?” I was like, “Oh, I was just wondering if they had an association for themselves.” Because I didn't come out until I was twenty-one, so it kinda led into something that I wasn't prepared for. So, when did I go? My first gay rodeo was—I think I was twenty-three.(Subjects: comingout, parents) You came out before you joined? Yeah, I joined in February of 2009. So, I’d already been twenty-one, or maybe it’s twenty-four. Yeah, twenty-four. And so, that’s when I joined them and went to my first rodeo. And I wasn't as involved then as I am now. At the time, I was living paycheck to paycheck and I was like, “I really have to watch my money.” And when I went to my first rodeo and I got paid I was like, “Man, this check isn't really what I'm used to winning.” Like, when I win, it’s not very big, so then I was like, “Okay….” So, did you participate in the first IGRA rodeo that you went to? Yes. I entered; I went…. I think I got there Friday during the day. And then I went and I kinda did some research on, like, entering, and reading the rulebook, and new contestants will have no late fee. I was like, “Okay.” So, I went, and I registered, and I competed. I did well. I think I won the breakaway and I might have placed in the team roping. But I was still new so I kind of—I competed and then right after I was done, I would go back to my truck and I would sit in my truck because I didn't know anybody and not a lot of people talked to me. So, I just kinda went back to the truck and then sat in there and waited ‘till my event came up again and then went back to the arena.(Subjects: events) And then, you decided relatively soon after that to go to another one? Or did you think about it for a while? Um, no. I think the next rodeo I went to was like August. That was in Las Vegas. And it, that rodeo, was only a one-round rodeo. So, I went to that and did well. I didn't take my own horse then. And I asked somebody, “Hey, can I borrow your horse for this event?” And, fortunately, she said “Yes.” And I did well on it. And then, um, I think I went to my first finals—that was in Albuquerque in 2009. And I didn't have enough points to go in the team roping myself, so I had to partner with somebody and then get invited through them. I made it in the breakaway also, so then I had two events. Did that, and it was fun for me.(Subjects: events) And is that when you kind of started meeting more people? I mean… yeah, but there wasn't a bunch of communication. Like, I was either too shy or I didn't know their phone number. Back then, I think it was like MySpace, and I just didn't get all that together yet. But, um, I went to—the next year, I think I went to three rodeos. But I didn't go to finals because I had just gotten this new job and I kinda was like, “Now I have to wait.” I was tempted to do the suicide missions of going to work, and then driving three hours to the rodeo, rodeoing, drive back, sleep for like 30 minutes, and then go to work again. I was like, “I think I can do that,” but I was like, “I can't, because when I am going to sleep? And I might run off the road with my horses.” So, I opted not to go to the finals. And it was sad because it was fairly close to me and I really like the facility because I've been there before. So, what are your main events that you compete in? Currently? Yeah—has it changed over time? Oh, yeah. Back then, I think I did the calf roping on foot, break-away, team roping, barrels, poles, and flags. And I tried wild drag then, but never really was successful so not a lot of people asked me or competed with me. But now I do break-away, calf roping on foot, team roping, barrels, poles, flags, steer decorating, goat dressing, and wild drag.(Subjects: events) You do a lot of them! Yeah. It's an all-day event. Things just go, and go, and go. Like, from the moment we wake up to feed the horses, to the night when cleaning stalls, and watering, and graining; having sometime to eat something, or get relaxed enough to have a drink and hang out with people. Sometimes, I'm just not feeling it. I'm just so run down, I’m like “I'm going to sleep.” And it does… make it look like I don't want to be around people, but I’m literally just thinking about myself like, “I want to be able to do well tomorrow.”(Subjects: events) Do you go to a lot more rodeos now? Right now, I think I went to seven. Arizona, Palm Springs, Santa Fe, Denver, San Francisco, Vegas, and finals. So, yeah, seven. When I first started, I only went to two a year and now I go to seven. And, I mean, I really wouldn’t to be able to go to that many without my sponsors because they do help financially and they're supportive enough to, like—I'm able to get to there without having trouble or being in a predicament where I wouldn't be able to enter as many rodeos. What's the process like for finding sponsors? I would think it’s—I think it's mostly about personality and what you bring to the table. I mean, anybody can be good but you’re essentially representing that association, or those people. So, the process, I mean, I went up and I talked to people. Face-to-face is always easier and you're gonna get a better response than writing a letter. And I've done that. I've written letters and I've gotten turned down. And some sponsors asked, “What can you do for us?” I'm like, “Well, this is what I plan to do. I don't know if it'll work.” So, who are your sponsors now? I’m sponsored by Charlie's of Phoenix and John King—he owns the bar there in Phoenix. And my friend owns his own horse—performance horse training— and providing horses, and he sponsors me as well. I do have another sponsor in California. She is an equine therapist, it's called “A Step Ahead Equine.” And she does Acuscope and Myoscope treatments, sort of like relaying micro-pulses of electricity through your body to help and heal. So, she's done treatment on my horses and myself—like when I tore my ACL, when I broke my leg, and when I fell off a horse. She treated me after the rodeo. It really did help with soreness.(Subjects: injuries) So, have you had many injuries throughout your career? I don't know. I wouldn't say… there's only been like one real injury where it did take me out, or—two actually—that really took me out from competing. One was a concussion where I tried to ride steer riding, and that didn't work out too good. And then, the second was when I broke my leg in the pole bending. I had a horse up front, unfortunately, slip and fall. And my ankle was the one that took everything, and it broke it. Stopped the rodeo. Ugh. That wasn't…. but it was fun.(Subjects: injuries) I mean, in the sense that when I fell and I was laying in the middle of the arena, and people were trying to hide me from the crowd because they didn’t want to see what would happen, or if I was gonna say something. But I guess I was like, “Why are you guys hiding me from my fans?” [laughs] In all honesty, my ankle really didn't hurt until I got to the hospital. I think the adrenaline had worn off by then.(Subjects: injuries) How long before you could compete again after that? So, I think I got on a horse… a month after. Way before I was allowed to, but that's just, that’s just me. I don't want to be away from that. And I watched this movie recently, it was sad. It was very sad. It's like, I think it's “One of Us” or something like that. Where it’s talking with people about getting injured and ending up in a wheelchair. One person was injured when they were a toddler, somebody was injured like two weeks ago and they’re quadriplegic.(Subjects: injuries) And it was sad because they're like, “I just want to get back.” Like one guy did stem cell and it didn't work, and he was like, “I’m fighting to get back to be able to walk.” And one guy kind of made improvements. But I guess that's what was in me. Like, I didn't want to get stuck away from that. I didn’t want to be that person that it got taken away from me. I think that's why I tried to get back as fast—trying not to lose what I love.(Subjects: injuries) And was that—where you injured yourself—at an IGRA event or rodeo? Yes. All the times that I've actually been injured has been in a gay rodeo. I got concussed doing gay rodeo that took me out of rodeo for the rest of the day. But apparently, I didn't know what was going on. Like, I would, I kept asking the same questions. Then, I got injured again when the horse broke its leg. And then, at finals in Albuquerque, I got kicked in the knee and tore my ACL. But I didn't know it. That was the second event of that first day, the first go, and I competed that whole weekend and ended up second in the all-around. But I won the team roping and the break-away. Not knowing that, I had a torn ACL for like eight months until I got it fixed. I competed that whole next year with the torn ACL. Can't stop me, I guess.(Subjects: injuries, events) I guess not, yeah. And it sounds like you've won a number of all-arounds and other things? Oh, that's, I mean… Do you have some titles you’re particularly proud of? I am particularly proud of the individual event that… I am very strong in the breakaway roping. It's fast; it can be difficult. The timing part and being together with your horse, it really does make it challenging for myself. And anytime I can be a two, I'm thrilled about it. But there are times where I have gone in no time and.... that's the one I really beat myself up on. If I make a mistake in that event, then I really am upset about that. As far as team events, I have been team roping basically my whole life and any time I can win the team roping with my partner—which is, I would say, ninety-nine percent of the time at the gay rodeos, is my best friend—and anytime we can win that together, it just it just makes everything that much better. (Subjects: events, highlight) I don't know. Winning the all-around for the year end, does make things that much better. If you win the all-around, then you’re there. You’re on fire because you can't win the all-around just by winning a little bit. […] This past finals, the finals was really in my home town—basically where I live now. And I, I did let the pressure get to me the first day. I really wanted to do good, I just…. And that doesn’t happen all too often. But, the second day, I kicked butt. It was fun. I guess, I just let everything go. I was like, “I can do the things I can control but that's about it. I can't really hang on to yesterday because that doesn't make any—that doesn't make me get points for today.”(Subjects: events, highlight) Did you have any family members or friends come and watch you? My little sister has recently been an amazing cheerleader and team supporter of me and my friends. So, she was there all day. I think she got there Friday-ish late and stayed the whole weekend. My older sister came Saturday, and she stayed pretty much the whole day. And that's a big thrill. I did hear her when I was running poles. I heard her, like, I know distinctly I can hear her voice. And she's like, “Go!” I was like, I heard it. I was like, “Wait, I’m doing something right now. I gotta focus!” [laughs] But, this rodeo association has kind of become a family to me. We look out for each other, we help each other when we need it, or if we can. So, it's never like I'm alone. That’s just kind of how it's been for me. I don't know about everybody else, but it kinda transformed into a rodeo family and makes everything a little bit better.(Subjects: family, community) That's actually something I hear over and over again. Yeah, well, growing up in traditional rodeo and going all these ropings, you do get that same camaraderie. Sometimes it’s, they're out to beat each other, to win. And some people can't, if they're winning, they can allow themselves to help out somebody who needs it. The competitiveness drives more than just being normal—just a normal person. But here, not always. I mean, there are some people that just compete for themselves. It happens. Can't really control that part of that. But, if I can help you in any way that you're going to do your best or that I can help you to do your best, I'm going to do it. If you need me to stand in the box with your horse right before I have to go, I’m gonna try to help you if nobody else can help you. I've helped several of my competitors do that this year because they, not only do they make me compete harder and with more heart, it just makes the rodeo better. When people are catching, and riding, and doing the best, then they're making a good showing. Why not try to help them?(Subjects: highlight) So, is that kind of one of the big differences you’ve seen? Since you've been involved in different rodeos, is there something that makes IGRA different than the other rodeos you've been involved with? Oh, man. It's not, there’s not a difference between night and day. It's like, little small things. It's an association that is including, like, down to the timers and volunteers. That in, that sense, what I see is different than traditional rodeos. I don't see a whole lot of the production side of traditional rodeos and what is involved. I go there, show up, rope, sometimes I leave immediately after. Sometimes I wait and watch some of the rodeo, or I get there early and watch part of the rodeo. But, since I'm in so many events in the gay rodeo, I see it a whole different side and things that are different from my point of view. But, it's a rodeo. I mean, I can't really say that it's that much different, other than the quality of contestants is different. And, you're going to get that from different associations and rodeo backgrounds—like there are people that learn how to ride at an older age, or people that rode a long time ago but their training technique has is behind the curve, coming up and learning new things. So, it's not something that is directly different. Okay. And, so are you involved in any of—sort of—the planning and behind the scenes type of stuff? I am not. I would like to think I'm a leader, but I'm really not. [laughs] I am a very good teammate. I’m “You asked me to do this. I'll do it.” If you have an idea, I can help out, structuring it and figuring out how exactly to do it but I am not a good planner. I… planning doesn’t work for my lifestyle. Anything that I plan goes to crap and so I don't plan. I am very spontaneous. I take off when I want to. Like, buying plane tickets is hard because I'm like, “I don't want to go now.” But I bet you have to do that for a lot of rodeos, right? Or, do you drive your horses? Um, I drive. I drive because I have horses. And so, there's no, I mean, if that were an option, it would be easier—but no. This trip was probably one of the few that I didn't have to worry about my horses. But I had to make reservations for a hotel, and make flight plans, and stuff like that. And then, the last minute I was like, “I'll just take my own truck to the airport and park it at the east parking lot instead of having to get dropped off. […] The plan was to get dropped off, and then somebody drive me home so I could get my truck, so I could go to work. But then, I ended up changing that like, literally, the last minute. So, yeah, planning doesn’t work for me. But you made it here! Oh, yeah. That was always the goal. I wouldn't say a plan, but it was always the goal. And, like, a couple of days before I was leaving, I was like, “I’ll just stay home. They don’t need me.” But, probably should—I need to do something. Is your local organization Arizona? Yeah. Yeah, I kind of ventured away for a couple of years and then I went back. But I’ve always been with Arizona. And did you—you said you did a couple camp events, is that right? Yeah. I do the steer decorating, the goat dressing, and the wild drag.(Subjects: events) So, you do a lot of them. Yeah, I do a lot of it. Are those events that you enjoy being part of the rodeo? Um, I… I don’t know. It’s just, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's challenging. And I do almost all—I do all my team events with my best friend. So, we know when somebody’s slacking or if they can't do it. And if we can't get it done, then we just say, “That's it, we left it all out there.” But, I mean, some of the events are funny. It just cracks me up. So I can't really say that, I mean, there's no event like it other than in gay rodeo. Like, the wild drag is an easier way of doing wild horse racing, being that they use a wild horse, and they put a saddle on the horse, and they let it go. Basically, they let it go. They don't drive it like we do with a steer.(Subjects: events) So, is your best friend someone you met here? Or did they… So, I met my best friend, yeah, through gay rodeo. But that's not how you should meet her best friend. Why do you say that? I met my best friend David in Palm Springs, like, six years ago now. And I had roped in the break-away and I won the first round, like by a considerable amount. But David was second, and his time was pretty good. And, on average, the times aren’t always great. So, I was like, “Oh, well, this is somebody that's gonna rope.” And then, um, he had slaughtered everybody in the barrel racing. And I ran but it wasn't that great. And then, like, I guess the tradition after that rodeo was everybody was supposed to go to the same restaurant and eat there. And it was called Grandmas, or something like that. It was like a small diner. And so, you get this huge block of corn bread with almost every meal. And so, he's sitting there eating and then, he's like, “So are you gonna rope the same?” Or something came up with me roping and he wanted to barrel race I said, “Do you really need to be eating that cornbread?” And it was so bad! Like, it sounds really bad, but it was kind of like funny/shady. So, our best friends started with an insult. […] And then, I think we danced on Sunday night like normal, I guess. I don't know. We just danced. I was like, “No, I don’t want to dance.” And he’s like, “I'll show you. So, we just danced, and then like five, three—like three months later—the Bay Area Rodeo was happening and he had normally roped with this team roping partner. And she went another way and teamed up with somebody else. And so, he was kind of searching for a partner. And then, he, I guess he got my phone number from somebody, he's like, “Hey, this is David [...].” And I'm like, “Uh, hi?” And he’s like, “If you fly up here, I'll find you a horse to ride in the barrels and poles. Will you rope with me in the team roping?” And I was like, “Um, I’d have to check with work but, I mean, yeah. That sounds fun.” And so I went there. And then we kicked his old partners butt in the team roping. And we’ve kind of been friends since. I mean, it evolved into being best friends and treating him like family. So, that's kind of just what we have. Our relationship started with me being shady. So, do you country dance much? Or do other dance? I don't. I don't dance country very often. […] And even if, it looks very amateur. But dancing is fun. I don't go out, typically, a whole lot. I haven't really been into that scene. So, yeah, I’m kind of like the boring homebody. I like being home with family, it feels more comfortable. That’s just me.(Subjects: dance) Yeah. Do you have any favorite moments from rodeos? Oh, there—geeze—that's a big one. [pause] My favorite of, like, all time—well, one of them is when I, we went to Canada for the rodeo there in 2015. In order for […] me and David's rodeo to be somewhat financially profitable, we had to run the same course in one event. And I ran my, I ran, I won, the pole bending buckle that weekend. And, it was just, it wasn't easy because I had to run against David on the same horse. And that horse, he’s had that horse forever. And to get that, to be able to beat him, was a feat in itself.(Subjects: events) And then I ended up riding that horse at finals that year. And I ran my first twenty on the pole bending on him. And that, I mean running twenties, is hard unless you're really small, like a small girl or a small guy and just having a horse that works really good. But to be over 200 pounds, you’re resisting—like that resistance is heavier, so it's going to slow you down anyway. But to ride my first twenty was amazing. I cried. It was awesome. But then…there's so many highlights in my life as far as rodeo goes. Like almost winning a truck, or winning a roping in Vegas. It—there's too many—there's too many highlights to say that one is better than the other because it just fills up everything.(Subjects: events, highlight) Yeah. Do you sport your buckles that you’ve won very often? Um, some of them. There's quite a few, so the prettiest ones, I guess I wear. I guess the buckle company sometimes that they order from, they end up just selecting the same outline and so they kind of look—a quite a bit of them—a few look at the same. Most of the time I wear them. Like right now I'm wearing the all-around buckle from the 2015, from the finals. It’s one I’m proud of. And do you plan to kinda keep being involved in IGRA in the future? Um, so long as it's still around, I plan to be in it. There's nothing that stops me really from going. Probably unless I got, like, if I had gotten a partner that was mind controlling and beat me if I left the house, that probably would be the only way stop. But I'm not in to those kind of people… That’s good. I guess nothing would really stop me. And I do support the association, and being that it's a charity event, it does—it gives back. I'm proud of that. I'm the entertainment. I'm like, I wouldn’t say I'm Beyoncé. But, if she were to do a benefit concert, I’m that. I'm that singer. But I can't sing. I’m horrible.(Subjects: highlight) [laughs] You’re the Beyoncé that doesn't sing? Yes. I'm a mime. [laughs] Nice. Well, what do you think about IGRA in the future? Do you have any hopes or fears? Ah, […] Hope is tough, because people feed on hope, and it doesn't happen, and it hurts. Like, I'm one of the youngest competitors. And I’m 34. So our pool hasn't really grown lately. Being that there are associations that pay better and there are gay cowboys and gay cowgirls that see that. They see the dollar signs. But they don't realize what can happen when you compete here. They don't have, they don't realize that, to be—their success isn’t judged by how much you win. Like, you can be successful and be friends with everybody. When you compete in traditional barrel races, you know, there's winners. But it’s not all about the money. I mean, in some senses, where I do enter, it's about money. Yeah, for sure. I'm going for that. But, to be able to hang out with people and feel like I don't have to worry about anything.(Subjects: igra, community) Do you feel like you have to worry about stuff when you compete in non-IGRA rodeos? Oh, um, not anymore. Okay. I kind of give the, the notion that, nothing they do to me can hurt me. Unless they physically hurt me. I've crossed that mental barrier a long time ago. I put up with the, kind of the, hazing, as you could call it. I don’t, I mean, I don't care that I'm different in the sense that I like the same sex. But people do. And sometimes their view changes—and that's cool. But I won't make the decision to go or not because of some person. I'll do it foremost if my horse is healthy, or if I'm healthy, or financially I can make it.(Subjects: homophobia) That's what I plan on, or that’s what I go on. I don't go on the fact that somebody’s not going to like me. I’m real sure that not every person likes me. I'm not going to stop because some person doesn't think that I should be there. I've taken straight people's money just as much as I do the gay people's money. And being that competitor—like, I grew up doing high school sports and junior rodeos—I’ve always wanted to be. So, it doesn't matter where I’m at, I’m still going to try to win.(Subjects: homophobia) Nice. So, do you think that the money, maybe, is kind of the main thing that is holding back, maybe the younger generation from joining? I think some. I think some view the money more, yeah. But I think some see that it's “gay,” the word “gay” is in there. And that’s gonna make people look at them differently.(Subjects: igra, homophobia) Even if they are people that identify that way? Yeah. I mean, I know a couple that recently got married that they go to all these barrel races, and they post about it, and they posted their wedding pictures. And they don’t come to our rodeos. I mean, I wouldn't understand why, because they live in Arizona. But like, why? I mean, our entry fees aren’t more than the barrel races that they go to, so I can’t see why. And if they think they have such great horses, why wouldn’t you go and show off a little bit? If you're going for the money, try to take our money. But they're scared. In some sense, they’re scared. They don’t want to be known, I guess. I mean, that's my personal opinion. I don't know if that's truly how it is. But typically, when people get beat up or... something gets taken away from somebody is because part of them is scared. They’re scared of something.(Subjects: igra, homophobia) Yeah… I don't know. Can’t really help them. Yeah. Yeah, there's not much you can do then… No. I mean, I've reached out even to people that I know that are gay. And I try to keep—I tried to say, “Hey, just so you know, there's a rodeo coming up that's pretty close—if you can make it.” And then sometimes they're like, “I don't have a horse right now, or financially I can't go.” And that's understandable. But I do try to reach out. Some people have asked me for help on how to do things or coaching. But I can't force—I can't manipulate people into going. They have to ultimately choose to go. And it sucks because some of the competitors that are good now won't be good next year. Don’t know.(Subjects: igra) Yeah. I mean, I've gone so far as taking my little brother who is straight. And we competed in a few—like one year, we competed in the team roping. I hold the, our association's record in the team roping with him. That’s the fastest time. So, I’m proud of that.(Subjects: family, events) So, does your little brother also do rodeo? Yes. Everybody has done rodeo—even my mom, like, back in the day. She doesn't compete anymore, but she's a good videographer and she stresses for us more than we stress for ourselves. My older sister doesn't compete anymore. After our good horse when we were kids got hurt, and we had to retire him, that kinda fire left. So, she doesn't compete anymore. But I am roping with my brother in Vegas in a couple of weeks and excited about that. Really excited. So, I'm practicing a lot. And just getting ready for that. And we just had a rodeo this past weekend, just outside of Phoenix, with my dad and my brother.(Subjects: family, parents) Sounds like you stay very busy. Oh, yeah. This weekend there was a roping that I wanted to go to but then I was asked quite a bit ago to come to this—to the convention. And so, I was like, “Yeah, I’ll go.” Are you serving as a delegate here? Yes. For the Arizona Gay Rodeo. Nice. And have you been to convention before, or is this…? I have never been. It's kind of an eye-opener. Sitting in rodeo rules, it's interesting the logic behind some people’s thoughts and how some person views this and, like, trying to change some rules to make it easier or more better for the contestants. But we’ll see what happens. I mean, it's not…voted. It's not approved yet by the whole convention. So, we'll see. That's tomorrow? Yeah. We'll see how people like me then. They might not like me anymore. Do you feel like you’ve been outspoken on some issues since you've been here? Yes, yes. But...I always get the notion that people don't like me anyway. But, it's not like hatred, is just like “How many times are you gonna win?” Like, “You won, why don't you let us win.” I mean, I guess it's just the practice that I put in. I've been doing this a long time, so it's very…the muscle memory is there. And it might be a mental game with some people. I mean, I don't know. I mean, if you were to ask me, “What did I do wrong?” Well, this is what I saw but I don’t know how you feel like you were doing it. When I mess up or I do something wrong, I watched tons of videos. I go back and I watch it, and I break it down. I just pick myself apart to make myself a little bit better every time. So, do you—you don't have to share this—but, were there any rules that you suggested changes to? Um, yes. Two of them. One was with break away, just having a uniform string through all of it. Because some people use different densities or quality of string. And some is easier to break, and some is harder. Like, I rope with the hardest one to break. But it makes a pop and it makes the rope fly out faster. That’s just me. Nice. Okay, So, is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you would like to add? Um… I'm very single. [laughs] [laughs] You want me to put that on the website? Yes. Okay. No, I don’t know. I really don't know because there are tons of things to talk about, tons of things that don't get spoken on. But it doesn’t directly have to do with me. So, I don't—I don't stick my feet where I don't need to be. Um…I just wish there’d be more, I mean, I wish there were sponsors for our association that would allow us to probably grow as well as the PRCA, or even like some of the amateur rodeos that get kind of national sponsorships. I just kind of wish...I guess, I just wish we weren’t turned away as much as others. […] I reached out to one company, and they were like, “Well, we don’t support that.” So, wow, okay.(Subjects: igra, homophobia) Wow, that’s frustrating. Yes. Don't tell anybody this, but I eat Chick-fil-A. [laughs] They employ gay people, so who cares? Yeah… that’s a personal choice. I like Chick-fil-A, though. I have never actually eaten Chick-fil-A. Oh, my God! Just because, I never really have. [laughs] It's, like, right out here. I saw it over there. It’s so good. [laughs] Okay. Um, so the last question that I usually ask everyone is whether you consider yourself to be a cow person/a cowboy or cowgirl.(Subjects: cowperson) Ooh. That's a tough question. That’s why I save it for last. In a sense that I'm a performance rodeo athlete, yeah. But as far as the old historic term of being a cowboy, I don't work on a ranch. I don’t heard cattle. I mean, yes. I do when they get out and I have to chase them back to the house. But, I mean, I know how to castrate a horse. I’ve done it twice this year, so there’s that. [laughs] But…as far as being an athlete, I am a cowboy. As far as farming and taking care of animals—like, animal husbandry—yes. But herding animals, no. It’s just, it’s a big question. It’s like, do you consider yourself a professional interviewer?(Subjects: cowperson) Huh. Probably not. But you are an interviewer. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, it's however you want to answer it. It’s whatever nuance you want to bring to it, right? Just, I mean, I feel like I am a performance athlete. Because I trained my body, I trained my mind, I trained my horses. Perfect practice makes perfect, not practice makes perfect. Because you can practice whenever and do whatever but until you try to make. perfect in everything…I mean, essentially perfect is never going to be attainable, but if you can allow yourself to train as if you could be perfect, that is attainable. Yeah. I think, I don't know…That's how I see myself, as a performance athlete.(Subjects: cowperson) Okay, cool. Well, thank you very much for sharing some time with me today. No Problem I'm going to go ahead and stop this.

Desirey Benavides Click to filter

Okay, so this is Rebecca Scofield and I am here with Desirey. It's May 13th 2017 and we're at the hot rodeo outside Palm Springs. So can you tell what year you were born?(Subjects: childhood) Yup, November 7th 1959.(Subjects: childhood) And where did you grow up?(Subjects: childhood) Predominantly in Lakewood. I actually started off in Long Beach, and then around my 4th grade year is when we moved to Lakewood. That's where I went to school and graduated from Lakewood High.(Subjects: childhood) Did you guys live sort of in town, did you own property?(Subjects: childhood, parents) My Dad, we had a house in Lakewood and was there with my Mom, my Dad and then I have a younger brother, we're a year and a half apart, my younger brother. (Subjects: childhood, parents, family) What did your parents do, for a living for most of your childhood?(Subjects: childhood, parents) My mom was a housewife and my dad worked for GTE, and then around my junior high years is when they got divorced after 20 years of marriage. Then my mom ended up having to, you know, go to work, so then she was a waitress.(Subjects: childhood, parents) Did you spend much time around animals when you were growing up?(Subjects: childhood, family) No, typically dogs, that type of stuff. My parents are from south Texas, which is in Kingsville which is is owned by the Kings ranch. I remember a couple times going out to King ranch because I think, my grandfather, on my mom's side, he used to work at the King ranch, so we used to go out there, but we didn't play with steers or any of that thing. Typically growing up was always like being a cowboy, dressing as Roy Rogers and Zorro or something like that.(Subjects: childhood, family) That's nice. So, can you tell me how you identify in terms of gender and sexuality?(Subjects: community) Well I mean, I had my surgeries so I am a female, but I mean I still am part of the transgender community. So people ask, yes, I am transgender. Though I don't, I don't try to label myself as being transgender because you spend 35,000 plus to became a female, it's what you wanted to do so why I wanna tell people. Sometimes it happens and people, you know, "Well, how come your voice is so deep" or "How come you dress as a guy when you're at work?" I work at the postal service, I'm an area maintenance specialist, and I'm doing kinda guy work. They're like you kinda act like a guy sometimes and I'm like okay whatever, it's my, my job. But, no I, somebody says I'm female. Course kids, they're really hard to trick, adults are not too... you know it's usually pretty easy for adults unless I'm on the phone or something and they're like "Yes sir", and I'm like, "No, it's ma'am", but kids are always like, "You're a guy". *jokingly* I'm like "Shut up; go away, Where's your parents? Get away from me." But no, I typically try to identify as a female but when people ask, yes I'm part of the transgender community and I try to support it and help out in any way I can.(Subjects: community, jobs) How did your relationship with your gender identity manifest as a child?(Subjects: childhood, family, parents) Growing up... I always was, I guess there was just something that was a little bit different. I remember stealing some of my cousin's cloths, I was always jealous of her. Her name's Else. Anyways I was always jealous of her and so one time I stole some of her clothes. And then in my 4th grade year is when I almost got found out, because I had hid her clothes underneath my mattress. My mom used to flip mattresses every spring, you know, the flipping of the mattress, and found them and confronted me with it. I was like, I don't know how they got there, talk to Else. Else got in trouble for it, I told her later on in the years, "Sorry," for about those spankings you got. But... it's interesting because... once my parents got divorced and I really started dressing because my mom was never home, she was like I said a waitress, during the day she was a waitress at night she was a cocktail waitress, she had to do two jobs. So, mom was gone, my brother was a jock, so he was out, so I'd dress up in my mom's clothes and was like, "Oh yeah, this is great." But, it was... it was interesting cause later on in the years after my mom had passed, my mom passed about a month after I had my surgery, I was talking to one of my, Comadre -- my Mom's best friend, and her names Yolanda; she lives in south Texas. And I was talking about her and she goes, "Yeah, you and your mom and I we used to talk about you we knew something was different with you", and I was like, "Why didn't you tell me, why did you wait till I was 40 some years old before I find out, I have this, this certain part of me that needed to be expressed. Not 40 even early, I mean I was, I was way into it before that. Even, even to realize that they saw it... the way that I sat, the way that I acted, the way that I, I'm like "Okay, I'll come," but of course when you're growing up in a Hispanic type family, even though my dad forbid any kind of Mexican type stuff, it was predominantly machismo type things. I did all the boy stuff growing up: play sports, was a boy scout and did all that kind of stuff. Up until the time when my parents finally got divorced, I wasn't a jock. I did the sports like in the park league, I never got into the school league. I played in the band. I was a trumpet player, so did that kind of stuff. My brother was the jock of the family and that kind of stuff.(Subjects: childhood, family, parents) And after you graduated high school what did you do?(Subjects: jobs, family, homophobia) Wow, after I graduated from high school I moved to Redding with my mom and the guy I call my step-Father, we opened up a Mexican restaurant, I played soccer in Redding. I met my first wife, knew we were getting serious, and had kept my dressing pretty well, under cover -- it was like closet type stuff. Went into the military, joined the Air Force in '79. Pretty much put my dressing on hold throughout that period of my life. Then shortly into my military career, she went somewhere, I don't know where she came and she came home early and caught me and oh god the shit hit the fan. And so anyways shortly thereafter we ended up getting a divorce ourselves.(Subjects: jobs, family, homophobia) Was your dressing the main reason for the divorce?(Subjects: transphobia) I really don't know the exact reason, I think there was a lot of different stuff going on. She had mentioned, she wanted someone who was more... a guy, assertive, I'm not the type of person, now a little bit I am, I don't know why. But when she would say, where do you want to go to eat, I'm like, "I don't care, wherever you want to go, as long as it's not this, this, or this, I'm fine." I don't do Sushi, I don't do Thai, I don't do, but anything else is game. I get in and she said, well I want a man that says "We're going here," and I'm like "This is not it, I'm not the type of person". So I don't know if that was, partly and then of course with the catching me dressing. I went TDY, to get retrained in another job. And found out that she had somebody else, or was seeing somebody else, who knows? (Subjects: transphobia) What was it like to be in that military culture with this side of yourself?(Subjects: jobs, highlight) It was interesting because once we started getting our separation, I started dressing a lot more, and I was going out, dressed as Desirey. And it was interesting cause I met a lot of military personnel that were, at these bars that I was going to. I guess you could call them gay bars, but there was transgender in there, drag queens. I remember one time I was in there and somebody kept buying me beers and I'm like, this is cool, I like this part of it. And finally I asked the waitress, "Whose buying me these beers?" and she is like, "Oh that guy over there", and I recognized him. So I went up and I said, "Hello Staff Sergeant Adams," and he was like, "H-how do you know my name?" I go, "Staff Sergeant Benivides." I was actually the swing supervisor for structural repair, he was the swing shift supervisor for jet propulsion which was right, our bays were kind of connected. I was like, "Oh I didn't know it was you", well I know, that's kinda the point isn't it. So it was kinda interesting, being in the military and dressing. And then I lost a child, my second child. Then I ended up losing it in the military and throwing away an 8 and a half year career. But it is what it is, so you do what you gotta do. I look back on it, would of, could of, should of, but it happens. (Subjects: jobs, highlight) So after you, left the military, what did you do next?(Subjects: jobs) Drank heavily. Then went to my dad and my brother and said I needed to get back into the workforce and so I ended up getting a job at the McDonald-Douglas. Still dressing pretty much on the side, just... back then though, I got out of the military in '87 and I remember contacting a few of the gay bars, and "Do you guys allow transgender?", and a lot of them were like "No, we don't want that kind in here." So it was kinda different trying to find a place to go that you could be comfortable and not worry about getting the shit beat out of you.(Subjects: jobs, transphobia) Did you ever sleep with men?(Subjects: jobs) No, I didn't want to have anything to do with guys, I like girls but I like to dress as a girl. I had girlfriends after I got out of the military, and for the most part it was like fun and games. A lot of them that I met were like, "This is fun", and then after 2 or 3 months, "Okay, I want you to stop" and it was like "Yeah, no". It ain't stopping, this is who I am and I'm gonna go all the way. But, I got out of the military went to went at Douglas, and just, did that until I got laid off from Douglas. That's what I did.(Subjects: jobs) You mentioned that you had children? (Subjects: family) I had three children with my first wife, and lost two. First one was stillborn, and then had Rey the third -- he is my namesake, my old name. Then I had another son, and he died when he was three years old.(Subjects: family) And then I married a second time. This is when I was still working at Douglas, I think it was around '90. I had decided that I was gonna throw Desirey away. Got rid of all my female stuff everything, became a fat Mexican guy. Mustache, short hair, the whole shot. Met this girl at "The Hop," it's a 50's dance bar, and like 2 months later we ended up getting married. Stayed with her, she caught me dressing. She told my dad. That didn't go over too well, and we ended up getting an annulment 9 months later. The interesting part of that was, when I worked at Douglas, when I first started working at Douglas when I was still dressing, I had long hair, I had earrings, then I threw it all away and I became Rey. I got rid of all that, like I said mustache the whole shot. Then when I went back, I remember this one black supervisor -- I really liked her, she was a nice supervisor and she had come up to me and said, "I'm glad to see you're back". I never left, what the fuck you're talking about? She's like "No, that other person was a real asshole, I'm glad to see you're back." And that is when I came to the realization, you know what? I need to be who I'm meant to be. Trying to be something else is not who I am. Even when I started, I met Janet and, in '92, met Janet, and we were starting to get serous and finally figured, I gotta let her know. So we went to our usual place to walk, we would walk on the Seal Beach pier, and I said, "We need to talk." I asked her, where do you see this relationship going? She goes I'd like to see it go further, I said I need to be upfront with you I need to show you something. She thought I was gonna show her I was into bondage, S&M or something, and it was pictures of me dressed as a female. And she's was like "Okay", and I go no, this is not okay, I mean per say. I mean, I'm saying this is who I'm gonna be; I'm gonna go full time, so if you're not alright with this, let me know upfront, and we'll just be good friends. Because, I've dated too many women, and this is all just fun and games, and then after a few months, "I want you to stop, go back to being who your body tolds you to be." That's not happening, I'm gonna take my hormones, I'm gonna do all the stuff. She was alright with it, course she wanted to get married right away, and it was like, no, I'm gonna wait. So I moved in with her shortly thereafter but we didn't get married until '94. I think 2 years in, finally I said "Okay, I think you're in for the long haul". Not that it hasn't been easy, she has 2 older kids. I remember when we told, in '94, is when I told her kids. I was giving my son, the visitations I has for my namesake, I would get 30 days in the summer. I only thought it was fair that if I tell her kids I'd tell my son, and my son told his mom. And that was the last I saw of Rey the third until 2000 when he finally came back into my life. Now I think it was only so he could get his degree as a chef because, I haven't heard from him. I had my surgery February 2010. He left, well he's always been a mama's type of boy, but I haven't seen him since then he really hasn't been in contact with me. I'm like "Okay, it is what it is, you'll have to deal with it in your own way." As far as I'm concerned I'm still his father, can't change that.(Subjects: family) What did you do for work after Douglas? (Subjects: jobs, transphobia ) I bounced around in jobs, was an office manager for a psych department for some psychologists, worked in geriatric psych, used to work in the adult daycares. Got tired of that cause, I get attached to people. I had these blonde moments where it's like, I'd go to pick up somebody and it's like, "They're no longer with us," and I'm like "Where did they go?" and they're like "They're no longer with us," and I'm like, "Okay so what facility are they at, I'll go pick them up there?" and they're like "Hello *knocks*, they're no longer with us." I'm like "Oh, they're no longer with us. Okay, now I get it. Lightbulb. Ding, ding, ding! It got too much so after that, I ended up being a, kind of a housewife. Went back to school. I got a degree as a recording engineer. I thought well that'll be a good degree because there's a lot of crazy people in the recording industry, you see all kinds. And when I told... the boss, this guy Wes Dooley, pretty well known in the audio industry. He was owner of audio engineering associates. I used to, refurbish ribbon microphones and build specialty audio equipment. When I told him I wanted to go full time he goes, "I don't understand why you want to be a second class citizen". And, I was like okay, I never thought of women as a second class citizen, but to each his own. And then when I had these done, my breasts done in, like 2001 I think. I told him I was getting my breasts done, well you know I only hire small breasted women, because big breasted women distract me from my work. Okay, I can see where this is going. So I ended up quitting that job, which I really did like. I ended up quitting and becoming a office manager, escrow officer, loan officer, notary for a loan company at hard money loans. This guy that I knew, he hired me and I ended up working there for a few years, something like 2002, somewhere around 2002, 2003 to like 2006 when the loans started crashing. Then after that, I tried to do some loans on the side. I told Janet that if I don't get anything that I'll look for other work. The post office was hiring and I never thought I'd get a job at the post office but they're really into diversity, which I didn't know. So I got hired on, but my driver's license had already been changed to Desirey, had it already set to where it said female, so I wouldn't get that clash about using the wrong bathroom, you know, back then, but my social security card still said M, because I hadn't had my full surgery yet. I remember going to work at the post office, and of course my supervisors had access to my records. So, in my records showed M, but I was working as a female. I remember a couple, well when I went to my orientation this one, ex-marine -- not that I had anything against marines, my father-in-law is a marine and my brother is a marine. But anyways we were in orientation and I kept on raising my hand cause I had questions, and he was like "Yes, sir?", and I said, "its ma'am", and he answer "Yes, sir." So I said, "Call me sir one more time, and we're going to take a walk over to HR, and we're going to explain to them why you want out me. How do you like that private?" Cause I could tell by his marine plaque, that he was a gunny, a gunny sergeant, and he looked at me and I go "Yeah." Some people, back then of course when I started at Douglas it was like '06, so you know the whole transgender thing hadn't progressed yet so there was still people that, liked to flex their power and show that they could try to out me or whatever. But, I didn't put up with it. So I ended up getting a job at the post office, which I enjoyed, quite a bit. (Subjects: jobs, transphobia) I'm a past empress for the imperial court system. Once for Long Beach, I'm the "Bouncy Tigger Transgender Emerald Empress of the 29th Reign," I'm also past empress of orange county. I'm the "Country Western Yellow Rose (Don't Mess With Her), Transgender Emerald Empress of the 29th Reign." So, like when you were asking what do I identify with. Okay in my titles I have transgender and I think that with that I knew when I would walk, as an empress, and they would read off my title, other people would say, "Oh you're transgender, can I talk to you? I've got questions. How did you do this?" or "How did you do that? Can you help me with work?" That type of stuff, and so I ended up becoming like, the spokesperson for transgender. I mean I even spoke. I spoke twice at Cal State Long Beach for the human sexuality class. I spoke once over at the Santa Ana college at the human sexuality class, trying to educate the students of what it means to be transgender. Back at that time I hadn't had my surgery, and wasn't planning on getting my surgery. Didn't really have a desire to get it, until Janet's oldest, Kathleen had, Johnny our first grandson, and back then Janet was the night-night grandma and I was the play grandma. And Johnny and I would wrestle and that type of stuff, and of course he wanted to take a shower with me and so most of the time I would wear swimsuits, swimming trunks, and he was like, "Why do you wear swim trunks in the shower grandma?" Because we have to, let's put it like that. But we would wrestle, even in the pool, my inlaws had a pool. I was always afraid something would fall out. What happens if, and how would I explain it to him? Janet and I talked about it, and we're not really using it, per say, so we ended up taking, we have property out in the desert, we ended up taking a loan out on that property and had my surgery. When was that? 2010. February 16th 2010, is when I had my surgery. My final surgery, the big one. I had that done, and I had my Adam's apple shaved. (Subjects: family, community) I think we should pause and check on steer decorating. So I'm back here with Desirey, so you were just talking about going through the final surgery. What was that process like, emotionally, physically? Well the thing about it is, it was really. When I finally decided to do it, Doctor Bowers who was the one that did it, you have to have all these papers, you have to have this paper from the psychologist, you have to have this paper from the psychologist, the psychiatrist, or therapist and the psychiatrist. All this stuff, plus you had to have been taking the testosterone blockers. And the thing about it was, when I, when I first started my transition I was getting my pills from Mexico, because back then they weren't prescribing it. I have went to, I had Kaiser with Janet, cause Janet worked for the city, and so Kaiser wasn't doing it. I remember asking one of the doctors I said I need to go on hormones, and he said we don't believe in giving something to enhance one person's body. And I'm like, you're not enhancing my body, you're putting it where it's supposed to be. So, when I finally, this was in, finally I think in 2001, I had an appointment for an endocrinologist and Kaiser finally paid for my hormones, and also put me on testosterone blockers and that type of stuff. And so when I had to get these papers filled out from Kaiser, I went into the psych department I had to see the first person, the therapist they had to ask me a bunch of questions. I was like look, let's cut to the fucking chase, basic bottom line, I'm going to get my surgery, all I need you to do, that paper that's there in front of you, just sign it, that's it -- that's all I need you to do. They're like, well how come you never seen, I said cause I don't want to see you guys, I'm tired of talking to you guys, I don't like talking to you guys, just sign my paper, this is easy, I'll be gone, we're done. So they're like no, we need to talk, and I'm like, no we don't need to talk. And the same thing with the psychologist, the psychiatrist, they wanted to ask, I'm just here to sign the paper, that's all I need you to do is sign the paper. Basic bottom line I got the paper signed from them, and got my surgery date and everything. But because I didn't do it the way, that you're supposed to do it, I went around the system. So my surgery was a little bit... different I guess you could say, when I finally got Kaiser to get on board with everything. Like I was saying out there, because I had three kids it's like, they don't give you a manual on how this thing is supposed to work. I'm like, okay, after the surgery, you have to do the dilation, you have to do this, and you have to do that. I didn't know that, typically when you go to the bathroom you don't rub it clean, you pad it. I was like, how come this thing, is bleeding all over the place, well you're rubbing the stitches. Well nobody told me, you pat dry the darn thing. It was an experience for me. Dr. Bowers is cool, she was nice, it was done over in Trinidad, Colorado. Now I understand she moved to Santa Rosa, California or something, but I had it done in Trinidad Colorado, which is a really nice place, snowed, cause I had it done in February so it snowed. Janet does not drive very well in the snow, she doesn't drive very well period. She has a tendency of falling asleep. I remember when we were coming back, I wasn't supposed to drive for a couple weeks. So I'm sitting in the passenger seat and Janet's driving and I'm hearing *brbrbrbrbr* *brbrbrbrbr* I'm like, "Honey are you alright?", "I'm trying, I'm trying," I'm like okay, sitting there *brbrbrbr*, I'm like "Okay, at the next rest stop pull over," "Well you're not supposed to drive," "Just pull over, I'll figure something out." We had borrowed our daughter's forerunner, she had let us use her forerunner instead of taking our car. And it had cruise control so I told Janet, I says, I tell you what I do, once we get going, I'll just set the thing on cruise control, that way I won't put any pressure, I won't put any pressure down there, set the cruise control and I'll be fine. The thing about it was, I was supposed to dilate it, at that time it was 3 times a day for 10 to 15 minutes, so I'm pulling to rest areas, come on get a towel, trying to get some privacy so I can stick this thing inside of me for 15 minutes so I can get to driving again. So, we made it, we made it back. Then I was off from work. Like I said in the post office a lot, when I first started I was an automation clerk, and then I became a mechanic and... A female doing a guy's work, but some of the guys I had already known. There was another girl who had transistioned, she actually was a guy, become a girl in the post office, but I came in as a girl. But, this other person put, put a lot of them through hell, from what I understand, made them take diversity training, this training, that. So when I got into mechanics, everyone thought I was gonna be almost like Sara, I finally had to tell them, look I'm not fucking Sara, don't treat me like fucking Sara, all I want to do is be treated like a human being, and be treated like the person I was meant to be, period. If you can't do that, then don't work with me, I have no problem working by myself; I can get the job done. So, when I went for my surgery, I guess there was a lot of the guys in the mechanics who took up a collection, and they were gonna buy me flowers. Well, Sara caught wind of it, and was gonna file a grievance, she was gonna file an EOO, blah, blah, blah, because they didn't do shit for her when she went in for her surgery. So, the guys ended up not buying me flowers but when I came back, I finally came back to work, the guys presented me with this pink hard hat. I thought that was really cool that that was their way of accepting me into the group. And it got to the point where I had built up a good enough rapport, with my coworkers, that it got to the point where they would come up to me and ask me, "How did you fix this?" or "How did you do this?", "How did you get this done?", because I ended up knowing, cause I knew about working on equipment, or working on buildings. I'm a building mechanic so I have some experience behind doing that. So it got to the point where it was really good, they knew that, I just wasn't some... person that didn't know nothing, I actually do have a head on my shoulders when it comes to that kind of work, so that was kind of neat.(Subjects: homophobia, jobs) And, where were you in the adoption process with your children at this point?(Subjects: family) They were still part of the, part of the foster care system, they were still wards of DCFS. Like I said we had gotten Robert, and he has another sister, and Emariah, a black girl, we got them first, and then Ciara was on her way. So we got him in March, end of March. Ciara was due in June. We picked up Ciara, right out of a hospital, and then, Ciara's grandma, the father of her, who, he was in NORCO state prison. They wanted, Sierra, I mean and Emariah, I mean their side of the family, and I was like, I can understand their point, but I was kind of glad myself, because I did not know how to care for a little black girl. Her hair, I mean trying to figure out how to comb that, and they're whole, I remember the case worker well you know, we don't wash our hair every night. Excuse me? They're out playing, and you don't wash their hair? What kind of shit is that? So I was kind of glad when her side of the family wanted her, cause whenever she would go over and visit, her hair would come back all braided with the beads, the ribbons or whatever in her hair, and I thought, that's what she needs, she needs to be on that side of the family. And Emariah, shortly thereafter they took Emariah to her side of the family and they adopted her. And then we has Robert and Ciara, which Robert and Ciara are only 11 months apart, so I mean they're real real close, and then Christopher the baby was born in January in 2012. And like I said, at first I just did not want three kids, two's enough, there's no way I'm gonna. One of my supervisors at work was like, god's not gonna give you any more you can handle. So i'm like next time you talk to god, tell him that I'm done. This is too much. But I ended up spending the first 3 weeks of his life, with him. I remember, like I said, the case worker calling and saying, well I'm still trying to find someone to take him. I'm like "Yeah, fuck you," you knew what you were doing, my motherly instincts kicked in, and I said he's not going anywhere he's staying here. And he's actually, he's my baby, he's my little cuddlier, if I want someone to cuddle with, he's the one, though he can be a handful, he's a handful. But at night when he's telling you, mama, arm, so I put out my arm, and he puts his head there and then he takes my arm and moves it to where it wraps around him, I'm like, okay, Im done, I'm done.(Subjects: family) So what motivated you to take on these three?(Subjects: family) Janet, Janet, I didn't want any. I did not want to raise, at 50 years old I wasn't anywhere near wanting to raise, raise babies again. I'm 57 now, I'll be 58 in November, and it's funny because some of the guys, when I came into the post office, I mean when I finally came back full time regular. You can buy back your military years, so I bought back my military years, I have 8 years, 2 months, 13 days I bought back through the post office which means I have that towards my retirement. So I think, 12, I'm done, we're hitting the road Janet, we're gonna see the sights. Now, some of the guys mess with me like, yeah Desirey, so how long you got in the postal service? I'm like "F you, I've got a 5 year old, I've got 13 at least, 13 more years until he gets out of high school before I can get out of the postal service." So I'm like fuck you, shut up, just shut up. There's, there's good days and there's bad days, I mean there's days when it's like, why do we even bother doing this, cause we do have some issues with the 2 boys. They got the brunt of the drugs in their system from their parents. Christopher had tested positive for opium and meth in his system. And Christopher was on AZT for about the first 4 months of his life, both parents were HIV positive and hep c, they took Christopher C-section so that none of the blood would be on him, but just to be on the safe side they put him on AZT. So I mean they've got some stuff, sometimes it manifests itself and you're just like, why did I do this, but then there's those moment where it's like okay, okay, it's good. Like going to the rodeo, they really love, we've been bringing them to the rodeo since they were babies. A lot of the people that's out there, they know my kids, and it's like a family reunion for them. So they get to come out here and see their uncle Red, or this other cowboy they know, or some of the cowboys that have horses when they're practicing will sometimes throw the kids on the horse and give them a ride. So they just love it, they love being a part of that, and it's fun for them.(Subjects: family) And when did you first get involved with gay rodeo?(Subjects: family, injuries) In '99 is when I became a member. I didn't compete back then, I was still in the court system, pretty heavily in the court system. But I did volunteer, they'd look at me, and I'm kinda stout, to say the least, and I'm a kinda a... butch looking girl sometimes. So they used to put me as far security they would put me in these gates, and they'd say, we're gonna put you in security cause no one's gonna mess with you. I'm like I'm not that kind of girl, I'm not a fighter, my brother is the fighter of the family. I mean, I remember getting into fights and, I didn't back down from a fight, but people would be like, there was one time I was at a skating rink, this was junior high, and this guy wanted to fight me. We were going around the corner, and so he says, "Before I fight you, who are you?" And I said "I'm Rey Benivedes." He said "Stop, what did you say your name was?". And I said "Rey Benivedes." "Do you have a brother?" And I go "Ya." And he goes "What's your brother's name?" and I'm like "Rick Benivedes." "Oh, never mind," and I'm like, "What are we gonna do this or what?" "No never mind." So I remember going home that night, and like I said my brother and I are a year and a half apart so he's younger than me. So I'm getting ready to go to bed, my brother and I stay in the same room, and I said, "I was gonna get in a fight with this guy and, I tell him your name and he didn't want to fight me," and he goes, "I'll take care of it". And I'm like, "Don't take care of it, Rick, it's already done." So then I remember the next day at school, I heard my brother had got suspended, and I'm like "What did you do?", he goes, "Well remember that guy, well I took care of it he won't mess with you again." And I'm like, "Rick, he wasn't gonna mess with me in the first place once I mentioned your name." And he's like, "Well he won't mess with you now, and I'm only suspended for a day" So, yeah I'm not too much of a fighter. So anyways I would do security and stuff and then, when did I start competing? I don't know people say it was almost 2011, 2012. When I got the bug, somebody had asked me they needed a girl for wild drag. They said all you have to do is this, I could do that, I could do that, and after that I got the bug, and then I did that most of the time. And then some girls, in San Francisco's rodeo said, "Hey a friend of ours needs a person for Steer deco, you've got some guns on you." Well ya my arms are kind of big, but I've never done this, and they're like, "Aww you'll be fine." Got into steer deco, so yeah it kinda progressed. I've been laid out in the area, at Santa Fey Springs I was laid out for a few minutes, had the wind knocked out of me, from a steer stepping on me. My wife, my kids ran out, ohh mom are you alright, Ama, Ama, cause I go by Ama, I took on my mom's name when she passed, cause that's what I used to call my mother, Ama. So I took on Ama and Janet's mom. So Janet will ask me, "So how much longer are you gonna be doing this?" I'm like, "I don't know man, maybe when I hit 60 I'll stop." But, the guys that's my partner, he's 62 and he's still competing, so I don't know, I don't know. I know, I'm not getting any younger, things start breaking down, a lot easier, when you start hitting those ages.(Subjects: family, injuries) And both in the court system and in rodeo did you do a lot of entertaining? Yes, oh ya. What is your specialty? Well country western, cause I'm a country western girl at heart. So a lot of the music that I do is, country western. People say, "You'd be great doing this one". Well ya I've done Britney Spears and worn a school girl outfit, I've done all kinds. My first emperor, when I was in Long Beach cause I'm Benevides, and he says, "You ought to do something from your culture." Like, I didn't wanna do nothing, so I ended up doing, Linda Ronstadt when she did the music for her father, the mariachi music. I've done Paulina Rubio, so I've done some Hispanic stuff. I've done, but most of the time when I perform, even when I became royalty for the LA rodeo, before they folded. And then I was asked to be royalty in 2015, for Palm Springs, I do country western, thats just the kind of music I usually like to listen to. And did you hear about the rodeo through the court system? I think so, I think in '99 I heard about it, and I went to my first rodeo and I liked it and I joined. Janet and I joined, and it was just Janet and I. Janet would work the ticket booth, or where they'd ban you for making sure you're old enough to drink, she's not much into... manual type labor, and I don't mind it, so, that's how we got into it. And then, one year, at the LA rodeo, they were honoring the royalty. I remember walking, me from Long Beach, the empress from LA, the Empress from Santa Monica, the empress from Ventura we all kind of, was on the grand entry. I think I heard from it, through the court system cause I mean, I was pretty, I stayed in the court system a pretty long time, I mean '99 till, 2003, cause after I got out of being empress I ended up being president of board of directors for both organizations. Then finally I got tired of sitting around looking pretty with a gown and a crown and I wanted to do something, I'm very hyper active. And so I thought, "Where can I go to, where I can still be a girl, still have fun, still move around? I'll go in the rodeo, start competing, I mean now I compete as a girl." So that's what I ended up doing. Have you ever experienced any of that, you talked a little bit about the transphobia that you has seen in the gay bars, have you ever experienced that at the rodeo at all?(Subjects: homophobia) No, no, not at all. Everyone's been, and even... even when I started competing as a female nobody really questioned, I mean I did carry the letter around, and I think I sent it in, one time, just so that they'll know, yeah I am official. They never really, questioned are you, you know, actually a female can you compete as a female instead of competing as a male they never really questioned that? So it was... it was never, an issue, as far as the rodeo, they just always treated me as a female. So yeah, it's been, my rodeo experience has always been really good, everybody has been really friendly. Even to my kids, I mean they get rambunctious and they have to scold them every now and then, you know climbing the fence or whatever, but for the most part my rodeo experience has always been good.(Subjects: homophobia) What do you think it is about country western that draws you to it, that you love to perform it?(Subjects: childhood, family, parents) I don't know, like I said growing up as a kid I remember, for Halloween dressing up as Roy Rogers. Didn't get to be Dale Evans but hey whatever. I dressed up as Zorro... and I don't know why I had this thing for, I remember watching Sheriff John, which was a, kinda like the Hobo Kelly, the romper room back in the day, captain kangaroo, back in the day, watching that. But I don't know, I've always had an infatuation for western, my dad wasn't, my dad was not western, my mom was not western. My grandparents on my dad's side, my grandfather on my mom's side like I said I think he worked in the Kings Ranch for a while, he was a jack of all trades, he was a really smart man, too bad I couldn't speak Spanish so I can understand what he knew, because he knew a lot of stuff. But my dad forbid Spanish speaking in the house, so my brother and I didn't get to learn it, my parents are bilingual.(Subjects: childhood, family, parents) Can I ask why your dad did that? (Subjects: childhood, family, parents) My dad grew up in a small town, Kingsville, at that time it was a small town. And my dad wanted to be like a white man, he wanted to have the two cars, two houses, a wife and a mistress, so he forbid any Spanish speaking in the house. The only Spanish speaking my brother and I heard was when my parents were arguing and they didn't want us to know what they were arguing about. All Mexican food was forbidden, except for the American type, tacos, enchiladas, burritos, cause my mom, knew how to cook all that, she knew how to make homemade tortillas, you know the whole shot. So, he didn't want to have, nothing to do with them, I mean, even to do this day people kid around with me, some of the people that know you know I'm Hispanic, they'll say, you aren't Hispanic you're a coconut, and I'm like that's right, I'm brown on the outside white on the inside. I didn't grow up in a predominantly Hispanic, type culture. I grew up in Lakewood, Lakewood High, right around the corner was Lakewood country club, all my friends that I knew were, white. That's all I knew, didn't speak any Spanish, none of that stuff. I could understand some Spanish because, my grandma on my dad’s side didn't speak any English, and my grandfather on my mom's side didn't speak any English, so my grandma Alaniz even though she spoke some English, she would speak in Spanish. And of course, when grandma speaks you better know that she's saying, so if she says, "ben para ka" you better come cause you know, something's up. I knew enough to get me, to keep me out of trouble but that was about it, I didn't speak. And I remember taking Spanish in junior high and ended up getting kicked out of the class, because my mom helped me with my homework, and my mom speaks tex-mex, which is kind of a slang Spanish, and the Spanish teacher had said something about my mom. And I went off on her, and I got called to my principal's office, and then when my mom came by to pick me up and I told her my mom what this lady done, and then my mom went off on this Spanish lady, and I didn't have to go Spanish class anymore so ended up only had 6 periods instead of 7 so I got to take off early every day. I didn't get to, sometimes people say, "Don't you ever want to learn Spanish?" No, I have no desire, when I had my surgery, my step daughter said, "That would be a good time for you to learn a second language, you get one of those Rosetta Stone, I'm not gonna learn any damn language." If I'm gonna learn anything its sign language, so I bought some books, I knew how to do A B C, so I started learning that type of stuff, how to spell my name in sign, that type of stuff. And I, because I work with, Handicapable Adults, these are adults with Down syndrome or mental disability. I'm a Square Dance Caller, I learned how to be a square dance caller back in '93. I started working with these kids, they're adults a lot of them, but mentally their kids. And some of them, they communicate with sign because their vocabulary is not very good. They can understand me, and I have one girl that, she's not dancing as much anymore, they get to the point to where sometimes they don't. She's deaf, but she knows what I'm saying by watching the other dancers, so I thought that would be kind of cool if I could learn sign language, but I just never did. It's one of those things where if you don't use it all the time you can't communicate, you have to be able to sign, to do it enough, and I just don't do it enough to be able to do that.(Subjects: childhood, family, parents) And do you square dance and 2-step?(Subjects: homophobia, dance) I do square dancing, I don't 2-step. I do western themed parties where I'll teach some easy line dancing. People are like I want to learn slap and leather, no I won't teach you that. Something that's easy that everyone can get up and do, that's the stuff I do for western parties. And I teach square dancing, and of course when I did do my transition I lost a lot of my bookings, when I finally became Desirey. So I don't call anymore for the... normal, if you wanna call it that, the normal group, I don't call anymore for that, I typically just call for my Handicapable dancers. There was an article done by a writer, KCET... on how, because of who I am and cause who my kids, I call them my kids, who they are, how we kinda connect and they are misunderstood for who they are and sometimes they get ridiculed, how I was misunderstood how I get, used to get ridiculed. Some of these kids, they still do know me as Rey, and they'll still say he, and sometimes some of them will call me Rey, but I don't, I don't get mad at them, cause I know who they are. But there are other callers, other people that still remember me and they call me Rey, they'll call me he, and I'm like, "Hello?", and they're like, "Well I just remember you from back then," and I'm like, "Been a female for, since, hello, you know, 2000, when I started my transition, come on, get with the program."(Subjects: homophobia, dance) Do you think, you said you lost some bookings, was that simply because you were recovering-(Subjects: homophobia, dance) No, I think it was a lot of from my transition, a lot of, a lot of people couldn't quite. But it's weird because I called one dance as Desirey, and I remember there was this one older couple, I knew them from this club that Janet and I went to, and... oh first call... ... and I remember them dancing that night and they came up later on and they said "Wow," and I'd go, "What?" And they go, "Your calling has gotten 10 times better, you're happier, your voice," and I'm like thank you, so, I guess for me to be me, it showed even in my square dance calling.(Subjects: homophobia, dance) So I was just wondering, over the, time that you've been here, what almost 20 years, in gay rodeo, what are the biggest changes you've seen?(Subjects: igra, family) More families, more kids, I have noticed that, first coming out to the rodeos it wasn't as many kids, and one of the things that, as royalty, that I was bringing up as the fact that we are getting more gay couples that are having kids, and they're coming to the rodeo, and we need to start doing more, family oriented stuff. San Francisco did some really neat thing, they had a play area, but it was filled with corn kernels, and my kids had a blast in there. I mean they were just digging in there and coming out of all of these corn kernels they had in there, kind of like a big sandbox but out of corn kernels. But I think with more gay couples getting children, adopting or however, however we have them, or get them, I think we should start doing more family oriented stuff. And I mean I understand that, where the rodeo came from, and a lot of it is still the drag queens, and there is still a lot of drinking, but we need to start gearing, looking our focus, we have that, that's good, it keeps our major, the majority of people who come to the gay rodeo, keep them happy, but at the same time, for the parents, the couples that do bring out their kids, I think we ought to do something for them. And that's one thing that Red, the guy I compete with, and my kids, they end up calling him uncle Red, and he does things with the kids: teaches them how to rope, or plays bulls with them, or whatever. He's just a big kid at heart, he'll get the squirt guns out or whatever. So I think that's kind of neat, there's someone like him, to keep the kids busy.(Subjects: igra, family) And as someone who does, camp events, what do you think the sort of value of having those types of events at the gay rodeo is?(Subjects: events) Well, I mean, I think mostly our camp events is geared for us, and it does, I think a lot of the spectators get a lot out of it. It's something they chuckle about, they have fun watching, weather its putting underwear on a goat or watching a guy in drag trying to get up on a steer and cross the 70 foot line. But that's our draw, that's our draw, that's why everybody comes. I mean I'm not saying everyone comes just to see the camp events, but they do have a tendency to stay in for that. That's why you notice the wild drag is at the end, because they're trying to keep the people in the seats, that’s what makes us unique, I think. When I talk about rodeo and I talk about it to people that might do the straight rodeo... they just don't understand. It was funny talking about straight rodeo, I took the kids, because my kids have gone to gay rodeos all the time, and as you can see they're running up and down the bleachers, they're running around with Red, just all over the place. So I took them to a straight rodeo, and Janet and I were sitting there, and the events, not all the same but there's a few, but my kids were running up and down the bleachers, and a lot of the people there -- not giving me the evil eye, but like why aren't you controlling your kids? And I was like, "Sorry, my kids are used to a different rodeo," a rodeo that's more like a big family reunion than it is a rodeo for them, because I've been competing for so many years that, for them, they get to see all these. Just like today, half a dozen people coming up to me saying, "I haven't seen your kids in so long, they've grown, they've gotten bigger." A lot of them have seen them when I first brought them out and they were babies, Ciara was in a baby thing. Christopher, all of them, so, not only for this rodeo, they watch the kids, grow, in the rodeo. Like, when they have the community goat dressing, my kids usually compete in it, and they help them out. There's always some cowboy that's gonna help them out, and they get a kick out of it. So then when I talk about putting them into a junior rodeo, and they say, I want to do what you do, I want to do goat dressing and steer deco, I'm like, "They don't do that in those rodeo's, I'm sorry you're gonna have to do the stuff they do in their rodeo." That's kinda where it’s at, the camp events, that's what makes us a gay rodeo, that's what makes us fun. And you know, girls get to compete at some of the same stuff guys get to compete in, steer riding... bull riding, chute dogging, you don't ever see a girl competing in throwing down a steer, you don't see it. But, in our rodeo, whatever the guys do, the girls can do it. Have at it, if you want, if you're game to do it then do it. So that's one thing that's nice about our rodeo is that we don't have that gender thing of saying, "No, I'm sorry you're a girl, all you can do, like in those other rodeos, is barrel racing, you can't do bronc riding you can't do, some of these other events, all you got is barrel racing, that's it." Whereas in our rodeo, and even for our guys, the guys do barrel racing, the guys do pole bending, the guys do some of the events that, in a straight rodeo would be predominantly a female type sport.(Subjects: events) So, a couple of other people have mentioned to me that, rough stock events aren't as popular as they once were in the association, that bronc riding for instance, isn't offered today, why do you think that would be?(Subjects: events, injuries) I think for us, a lot of us still have jobs, we still have to get up and go to work. We still have to get up on Monday morning and be able to do our job. We're not, a lot of us are not 100% rodeo that's all we do, where as you see in some of these other rodeos, that's their job, they go from rodeo to rodeo. Ours is, the basic bottom line is ours is for fun, you're coming out you're having fun. So there's not many people that are... probably fluent in that event to provide it. if you only got maybe one person, what's the use in having the event, that person is gonna win, but at the same time you only got one person. If there was enough people that were interested in it, then maybe it would be something that was beneficial, but there isn't, and at the same time, even though we do provide bull riding, I think everybody associates rodeo with bull riding. The first thing people say about rodeo is, even for me, they're like so you ride a steer, or bull, no, I just wrestle them around a couple times, and they find that, kinda hard to believe, ya I don't do chute dogging, I'm not gonna throw them on its back, there's no way my body strength can do it, I don't think, because I had back surgery, I have 2 screws holding my right foot together, there's just, I mean I would love to try it, just to say I did it, just the same thing with steer riding. I wouldn't mind trying it once, although Janet would probably shoot me, if I did. When I was with my first wife, I was stationed at Edwards Air Force base, they had a rodeo team, I wanted to join, because prior to going into the military, me and this guy I knew, in Redding, we were gonna go into team roping, and I was training to do heeling, get into heels. But I ended up going into the air force so we didn't get to compete. But they were actually looking for someone to ride bulls, "Well we're gonna train you on a baby bull," and I'm like "yeeaaahhhh, I've got 2 kids, I don't know if I should be -- ." And that's the thing a lot of us, we have to think about that. Hey, I've gotta get up on Monday morning and go back to work, and my job, I don't sit behind a desk or something like that, so I have to be able to do what I have to do, the next day. But for rough stock, the ones that we have are the ones that people want to watch: throwing a steer on its back, steer deco is somewhat rough stock cause the fact that you're wrestling that. But it's also somewhat camp because who ties a ribbon on a steers tail, not that we're tying it. But in a roundabout way, that's what we're doing. So I think what we do as far as rough stock, it's enough, it brings in the people and they get to stay and they get to watch, it's just like in Nascar, people say you don't go to Nascar to watch the cars go around the track, you actually watch it so you can see if there's gonna be an accident, a crash, I think it's the same thing. It's good to watch, but after a while you wanna see that F-ing train wreck, it's not funny but we do play with 1,000 pound animals and anything can happen. Like I said, I've been laid out on the arena, it's not fun, I've had my foot stepped on, that's not fun, butted heads with a steer on wild drag. It's part of the adrenaline rush that we get, even my boss, when I was leaving today, leaving yesterday, he was like, "You better be careful, you better come back to work," I'm like, "I'll be careful, don't worry."(Subjects: events, injuries) And as someone who has really brought up your kids around this, what would you hope for the future of the association?(Subjects: igra, family) For me... I don't really have a whole lot as far as where do I see myself, as far as the association. I just continue to support it, whatever way I can. In 2015 when they asked me to be royalty and I was like "Ahhh, been there done that, it's a lot of work." You try to, as... you know even as empress you try to travel, cause that's the way you promote your organization you gotta travel, you spend money because you don't get a travel fund, it comes out of your pocket. And then representing, looking nice, your outfits, whatever. So I try to support the rodeo, and I just want to see it continue to thrive. What I wouldn't mind seeing is, a little on down the line, if my kids were able to compete, not that they had to be gay, or even Ciara be a lesbian, but just that if they get to that point that they would like to, to compete, that would be kinda neat. I don't, I haven't really looked at the bylaws, I would think they would have to be at least 18 to compete. But that would be neat. if they were to follow someone in their footsteps, and compete in some of these events that I do, but if they find interest in it that's fine, if they decide no, they just wanna keep continue go with momma just to watch it that's fine too.(Subjects: igra, family) Well they are trying to put underwear on dogs, so(Subjects: igra, family) Yes, they are putting underwear on dogs or trying to ride Lance in the backyard which is kinda funny, but who knows? For me I just try to give them every opportunity to try everything that's out there, I'm not gonna sit there and say no you can't do that it's too dangerous. There's danger in everything. We have property out in the desert, and they ride motorcycles, they ride quads, I have BB guns, I have a bow and arrows. So, I just try to teach them to be safe, and teach them to be, got to know your equipment, whether it’s a motorcycle, a quad, or a thousand pound animal, that you're trying to put a ribbon on its frickin tail, so it's one of those things.(Subjects: igra, family) As a cowgirl, what does it mean to you to be able to compete as a cowgirl in these rodeos?(Subjects: cowperson) Oh, it's the ultimate -- I mean for me, I had put on Facebook prior to coming out here that I was real nervous, because I had started my recovery last year. Spent a few years in Kaiser, addiction medicine. Last year's rodeo, I was only like 14 days sober, which was still new, and this year, I'm over a 100 and some odd days, or over a year sober. So for me, it's the adrenaline rush. I mean, it's knowing that I get to do something that I've always dreamed about doing is competing in a rodeo, I may not be doing team roping, I mean I don't own a horse. First thing everyone asks me, "So you own a horse?" "No." I keep on joking with my wife I want a horse, but they're expensive and I think my RV costs us enough. But, for me it's just fun and it's the comradery , I get to see a lot of people that I've seen in the circuit since I've started. And then to just, some of the I look up as being the pros, the ones that really, always seem to get the buckles, always seem to get the number one ribbon tell me, "Good luck, you'll do good." Like when I posted on Facebook, that I was nervous about coming out here, how many responses I got saying "Girl you got this, it’s like riding a bike don't worry, you'll get it done." So that was nice, people encouraging me and saying, "You can do this, you got this, don't worry about it." Getting out there for the first time, in steer deco, I was a little nervous, and a little apprehensive about getting behind the steer and putting a ribbon on them, but once I did it felt good, felt good. Same thing with goat dressing, I'm sure I'll have the same jitters for wild drag, but once I've got that thousand pound animal coming at me, it'll all go out the window.(Subjects: cowperson) Well is there anything else you wanted to say? No, this has been real interesting. Glad I could help out, if there's anything else you need to ask, you got my email. Thank you so much. Just give me a call, or send me an email, I'll answer whatever questions you felt didn't get answered. Amazing, thank you. You're welcome.

Roger Bergmann Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield, I'm here with Roger Bergmann, past IGRA president. It's November 19th and we are at the International Gay Rodeo Association Annual Convention 2016. And yeah, could you tell me a little about where you grew up?(Subjects: ) I grew up in Northwest Montana, in Kalispell, Montana, near Glacier National Park. And, as a youth, my parents never went to the annual county fair, but I would ride my bicycle to the fair in August every year and leave it leaning against the fence and stay there all day for the four days. And there would be a rodeo on the weekends and I'd go in and watch the rodeos.(Subjects: childhood, parents) What did your parents do for a living?(Subjects: parents ) My dad was a full time meat cutter, had his own meat shop inside of a small grocery store. And my mom worked as a secretary at various small businesses around town after I was about 6 years old.(Subjects: parents, jobs) Did you guys live in town? We lived in town, only like a half a block from the downtown area of Kalispell, which when I was growing up it was about a town of 15,000 people. Now it's probably about 45,000.(Subjects: childhood) Wow, did you stay in the area after high school or? I was there until I was 21 and I had gone to the University of Montana, I graduated from college in 1971. The Vietnam War was still going on but I had applied for a conscientious objector’s status with the selective service and was granted that. I thought I would be drafted because at that time they were doing a lottery system for people being drafted and the ping pong balls…it's just like lotto, they had numbers on ping pong balls and my April 18th birthday came up as number ninety—so I knew I would likely be drafted. So instead of waiting for the draft to happen, there was a period where—it was very confusing, but the selective service law had lapsed but I knew it was going to be re-instituted by congress so I went ahead and volunteered for my alternate service, and ended up going to California for the alternate service for something called the California Ecology Core, which is now the California Conservation Corps.(Subjects: jobs) Wow, so you were really coming up in the thick of it there. Yeah, at the time I did not realize or accept the fact that I was gay or I could have gotten that for a deferment for the selective service. But, I did get deferred as a conscientious objector. And were you involved in any relationships at the time? Uh no, I didn't actually come out, even going into a gay bar until I was almost 31. And I ended up in a long distance relationship with someone when I was probably close to 40.(Subjects: comingout) And where did you move to when you left Montana? Well, I was yeah, when I left Montana for this alternate service it was in Bishop, California. Bishop was a small town of about 8,000 people and outside of it was this California Division of Forestry Center and it had previously been a minimum security prison camp for people to fight fire but in the early 70s, California courts were realizing minimum security prisons back onto the street so they had four of these camps that hold 80 people were empty so Governor Ronald Reagan and the state of California created the California Ecology Corps so they could fill up these centers to have bodies to fight wildfires and do public works projects when there weren't fires.(Subjects: jobs) ... ... So during this career you're doing, were you starting to grapple with your sexuality at all? What was the sort of culture like? Well, the Forest Service is a fairly conservative organization, especially when I first started. It was about 1977 that I became full time with the Forest Service rather than seasonal jobs. And at this point I still had not accepted my own sexuality, it was about 1981 that I finally went into my first gay bar. And I was nervous as could be when I was going in. It was a bar called the Eye Beam in San Francisco and I loved to dance, so I would always go out there, I wanted to be ready to dance at nine o’clock nobody goes out ‘til 10:30 but I'm there early. But as soon as I got into the bar and walked around there were a few pool tables and people playing pool and I felt totally comfortable and at ease and, felt that yes, it's not just a curiosity. I am gay.(Subjects: comingout, community, highlight) And did being in that look, that community make that better for you? Make it…?(Subjects: community ) It made it better for me in my mind, but I was still closeted with my friends and family. But I quickly told my best friend who lived in Bishop and my sister about a year later and my parents about three years after I first went into the bar, I was about thirty four I guess when I told my parents.(Subjects: family, comingout) And how did your family take the news?(Subjects: family ) My sister, no problem. My parents, really no problem. It stunned them, but there was no rejection. My father thought and verbalized, “Oh this is just a phase, a curiosity, it'll pass you'll get married someday.” And I said, “No, that's not going to happen.” But there were no problems. My mother discussed things about my relationships throughout the years, my father never really talked about it. I didn't push the subject with him but we had a very good relationship. I know he loved me, I was with him the last three months of his life, helping take care of him every day, and it was, I feel really fortunate with the family that I have.(Subjects: family, comingout, parents) So how did you first hear of a gay rodeo? Well, after I had gone into my first bar in 1981, in San Francisco I saw a flyer on the wall for the National Reno Gay Rodeo which was the first gay rodeos that were held. They started in 1976, I believe it was, by a man named, Phil Ragsdale, in Reno, Nevada. And I went to the rodeo in August of 1981 shortly after I had gone into my first bar, because of the flyer that I had seen. So there were about 8,000 people in the stands. There was only one gay rodeo a year at that time and that was in Reno. A lot of people from San Francisco and Los Angeles would get up there for the rodeo. And I went, from 1981, I went every year until they closed. They had their last rodeo which I think was 1985, I believe. They started in ‘76 and they had nine rodeos before they ended up going into bankruptcy and not having another rodeo. But by that time, it was probably about 1983, I was at a parking lot country western dance there during the rodeo weekend and I heard a couple of people talking next to me and I didn't know who they were, and I didn't approach them but, one man had a very melodic voice, I mean it was a voice you could not mistake. And I found out later that it was Wayne Jakino who was a co-owner of Charlie's in Denver, Colorado, and he became one of the first rodeo announcers for the International Gay Rodeo Association. And he was also the founding president of the IGRA. And he had had a voice that was unmistakable and just really pleasant announcing voice. But I heard him talking about the group from Colorado and how they had to get more people to come out to Reno for the rodeo. That's amazing. What would an average weekend at the Reno rodeo look like? What were you doing? That I'm not going to talk about. [Laughter]. Those weekends were pretty wild. That was a just at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. I came out to my first bar in 1981, and it was shortly after that I picked up a San Francisco…I can't remember what the…The Bay Guardian, Baysomething…the gay newspaper up there, and they still didn't call it AIDS it was just this, “the gay disease” and some other kind of non-specific name. Nobody knew what was causing it or anything. But there were the dances, I would go to the country western dances at the local bars, they didn't have anything really at the rodeo grounds the first year. But then Joan Rivers was the grand marshal for one of the events, and they did have a big night time party at the Washoe County Fairgrounds after the rodeo with Joan Rivers there. And that was where the first concept for the Mister and Miss and Ms IGRA came from, but they only did a Miss competition at the National Reno Gay Rodeo. And they would raise money starting in 1976, they were raising it for muscular dystrophy mainly. And then later on they also raised money for the local senior community and the seniors would come out and help at the rodeo.(Subjects: community, highlight) Now as it started to grow and become more of an association were you involved with that? As I said, the Reno rodeo ended in about 1985 or probably ‘84 at that last rodeo I, the Sands Hotelin Reno was the host hotel and a gay group called Great Outdoors was hosting a dinner for just anybody that wanted to go on Friday night. So I went to the dinner and ended up at a table of eight sitting next to Al Bell and his partner Pat McGrath who were just getting ready to open up a country western dance bar in Long Beach, California and so I was visiting with them throughout this period of this dinner and I told them I was an avid country western dancer so I got to know them and started going to their bar shortly after it opened. And Al Bell was the founding president of the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association, GSGRA, and even though I lived about five hours from Long Beach, I didn't really go to their meetings but I got involved I became a founding member of the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association. And went to their first gay rodeo in March of 1985 and in September of 1985 was the first IGRA convention that was held in Denver, Colorado and the four founding groups, Colorado, Golden State—California—Arizona Gay Rodeo Association and New Mexico and also Oklahoma was there to be seated as the 5th group in September of 1985. I went to that convention only knowing Al Bell, really and I sat in the back of the room and wasn't even sure if I was allowed to be there. But nobody said anything about I couldn't be there and I met John King who was the president of Arizona Gay Rodeo Association at the time. And a number of people and kind of was brought into the fold. John King has been a good friend ever since. Al Bell has passed away a number of years ago. But so I was at that first convention and had a good time meeting people and seeing the organization of the International Gay Rodeo Association.(Subjects: highlight) So how many people total were probably at that first convention? Oh that first convention there were probably less than thirty maybe and most of them were probably from Denver. I mean there were a few people from each of the four founding associations and and Oklahoma which was the fifth that came in that same year. Now do you like all forms of dance or country western most particularly? I like all forms of dance but I mean when I was in the 6th or 7th grade, a lot of people went to our church and learned how to do the Fox Trot and the Waltz and the two step and then we all went to the school dance and did none of that. Yep and so as the rodeo got underway with the association did they usually have dances along with them? There were only four rodeos that first year, really. And dance was very popular, country western dance was extremely popular in the mid-80s to about 1997 there was a lot of country western dance, a lot of country western gay bars, and that's where we drew most of our spectators from so—and that was before there were a gay cruises and gay travel companies and a lot of other options, so the fact that the gay rodeo association had had come out and we were having four rodeos and then five rodeos and then six rodeos a year a lot of these dancers would plan on going to those rodeo events because each of them would have a good country western dance usually at the host hotel.(Subjects: events) And why do you think country western was so popular at that time? I honestly don't know how it happened. I mean, I grew up in Montana and I hated country western music. When I was living in Bishop, California, it was a five hour drive to get to Los Angeles but I went down there in…you know I came out in the spring of ‘81, Valentine's Day weekend was my first time in a gay bar. In June, I went to the gay pride event in Los Angeles, and I heard some people talking about this place that they'd gone to the night before and they talked for thirty minutes about how much fun it was and everything and before they told the name of the bar and that it was a country western bar and so I went there that night. It was called the New Town Saloon on Santa Monica Boulevard. And it had swinging doors just like a saloon, but I stood outside for a minute looking in at everybody dancing and then I went in after I had saw how much everybody is smiling and having a great time, so I went in and a I saw this guy I'm 6 foot 2 and this guy was about 6 foot 5. And he was leading people in a good dance and so I asked if he would teach me how to dance. First I complimented him on how good he was so that he would feel obligated to dance with me. But he took me around and showed me how to do the two step and I fell in love with it right away it was everybody was having so much fun. And probably just a few weeks after that weekend I had to go back to Pasadena for a week of training for the Forest Service and every night I drove over to West Hollywood and learned more about how to dance, learned how to lead instead of just follow.(Subjects: community) And you said you started to have a long distance relationship? Yes, that was with somebody from Seattle. At that time we had a Northwest Gay Rodeo Association, it doesn't exist any longer but I had actually gone I had an older friend who traveled a lot he had an extra discount ticket to fly up to anywhere, so we flew up to Seattle for the weekend. We had heard about this great country western bar in Seattle called the Timberland, which had been they were in an old lodge building of some sort that had this beautiful wooden floor and all four sides of it were these chairs for the officers of this moose lodge or whatever, elks club, or whatever it had been it was it was a beautiful old building with this huge dance floor and we went up there for the weekend and my first night there I saw this blonde, blue-eyed boy dancing the line dance and beautiful smile and having a great time. So I asked him to dance and we danced the rest of the night and the rest of the weekend and every rodeo I would go to by this time I was a rodeo judge, but so I would be going to all the rodeos and he would travel to the rodeos and meet me and then I would fly up to Seattle for a weekend or he would fly to Los Angeles for a weekend. But he had a good job with Boeing, and didn't want to quit and leave and I had a good job a with Forest Service and didn't want to quit that or transfer so it was a long distance relationship for a few years until he passed away from AIDS. And what year did you meet him in? Uh, that was probably about 1992. And so, you were getting more and more involved? Yes, we skipped the part where ‘85 I went to my first Los Angles rodeo and I did travel to all of the rodeos as a dancer and spectator that year of 1985. In 1986, I went to the rodeo and there was a sign on the door as I walked in saying that they were looking for people that wanted to judge the gay rodeos, well when I was growing up in Montana, and even in to high school, I would go to the local rodeo and I would try to guess what the scores were going to be. You know, I didn't know anything about how the judging took place but I would see what the judges were doing and then I would watch the ride and see how close I could get to how they were scoring. So I kind of enjoyed the watching rodeo and thought I could become a good judge, so I volunteered and spent that weekend in Los Angeles with Casey Jackson from Colorado, who had experience in rodeo long before IGRA started. And she had been a bull rider and a rodeo competitor and she was the training coordinator for the rodeo judges. So I sat with her through that weekend and also then went to the Denver rodeo and the Oklahoma rodeo that year and after three rodeos with my prior experience as well, they felt that I was ready to judge rodeo so I got certified as a judge—the second person to be certified as a judge for the gay rodeo association after the Oklahoma rodeo and I judged my first rodeo in November of 1986 in Dallas. The first year that we had the wild drag race. Which was a disaster, we thought it was going to be a great easy event and as soon as the gates opened, we all started blowing our whistles and stopped the event. And everybody got together to talk about how we could fix this and make it work. (Subjects: events) Do you know what the inspiration for the event was? John Beck from Colorado who has been competing since the very first gay rodeo in in Colorado, in fact I believe he also competed at one of the Reno National Gay Rodeos before this formation of the IGRA. And the first Colorado rodeo was before the formation of IGRA as well. He, he can say it better and hopefully you'll have a chance to interview with John too, but he just says I had a dream. And it was more like a nightmare. The wild drag event is usually just a steer with a twenty-five foot rope on a halter. A woman is holding onto the rope ten feet from the gate, as the gate opens she holds that rope and the other two people—a man or a woman in a in a drag outfit wearing a wig and some type of a dress—and a man are standing about forty feet away, they run up to help move this animal across a line seventy feet from the gate I believe it is, and then the drag has to get on and ride the steer back across the line. The way the rule was first written was as soon as the gate opened they were supposed to go out towards this line but stop the steer and get on it and ride it across the line away from the cutes but when that first gates opened those steers took off and were all at the other end of the arena before anybody had a chance to get on it. So that's when we revised the rule that it instead of having to get on before they cross the line they had to take the animal across the line and then bring it back.(Subjects: events, highlight) It's good trial and error. So did you ever compete yourself in any events? I did actually. That first year that I was getting trained as a judge I had not competed yet in in Los Angeles or Denver, but when I went to the Oklahoma rodeo which was the 3rd rodeo where I was getting trained as a judge, I also competed in chute-dogging for the first time. And I had never really seen it so I thought well I'll just watch people go out and then I'll learn it. Well, the first day I was the first person to go out, so I didn't get to see anybody else do it. I dogged the steer in about nine and a half seconds the first day. And then I watched people and the second day I got it in about four and a half seconds. I never did win any buckles, I won a few ribbons. I did some other events, I did—our first we did wild cow riding at first for a few years before we changed it to wild steer riding. The wild cows were more difficult to ride because at that time we also had wild cow milking. So we were using the same cows and they would jump around in the chutes because they weren't with their calf, that's because they still had milk—so they were pretty wild in the chutes. And so we didn't keep that event very long before we went to steer riding. But I never made a successful steer riding. I just…I rode horizontal a lot. I always hit the ground.(Subjects: events) Did you ever get injured?(Subjects: injuries) I spent a night in the hospital after a hard fall in Los Angeles. I collapsed my lung.(Subjects: injuries) Yeah, that's scary. That's scary. But no real interest in in sort of being a bronc rider or roper? I love to dance and I didn't want to screw up my dancing. My grandfather danced until he was in his late eighties. And how did you get involved with the leadership after becoming a judge? Well, I started judging in 1986 and in the spring of 1993 I got a phone call from Wayne Jakino, the founding president of IGRA, and said that he had been talking with some of the other people: Les Campbell was the 2nd president, some of the vice presidents, trustees, etc. And they had…as a judge I had been going to all of the rodeos and at that time, with only four and five and then six rodeos a year, they were having a board of directors meeting before on Friday before each of the rodeos. And I would get in on Friday so I would go and attend the meetings so I was aware of what was happening already and I knew all of the people that were on the board. But they called and thought that I should run for president and I said, “Well, you caught me totally off guard. But I'll think about it.” So I thought about it for a couple of weeks and called back and said that I would. And when the word got out that I was going to run for president nobody else did. And I was voted in by acclamation since nobody else was running against me. And I ran a second year and then the man that I was dating in the long distance relationship passed away in 1994, and I had planned on not running so that I could spend time with him. But when he passed away I decided I would run for a third term. So that I would keep busy over the next year, and so I ran. I was president from 1993 through 1995.(Subjects: highlight) Did it help to stay busy? It did. It kept me busy. It kept me involved with people so that helped get through the grieving period.(Subjects: community) Was the community helpful?(Subjects: community ) Yes, yes. What were some of the challenges you had when you were president? Well, rodeo was growing rapidly. I became president at a time when country music was still on the rise and in 1993 interest in rodeo had grown tremendously. Every year that I was president we brought in two or three member associations. I can't remember now what all they were but every year we were seating new groups and I think our total, the total membership, nobody is a member for the International Gay Rodeo Association you are a member for the association the state association that are affiliated with IGRA, but through all of those associations there were somewhere between 6,500 and 7,000 members across the United States and Canada. The ARGRA, Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association was one of the groups that came in while I was president. So there was always, there was a lot of growth happening and we still didn't really have cell phones and email was not very popular at that time in ‘93, ‘94, ‘95. I was getting written letters, I was making a lot of telephone calls, but it had to be on a hard line, not a cell phone. So I guess those were the challenges.(Subjects: highlight) And so, as you said this was a time of rapid growth, were you as president going to a lot of these events yourself? Well, as I, as a rodeo judge and… So you're still judging while being president? I was judging while president. I was one of the main judges for a while. There were three of us: Chuck Barackman, myself, and Mark Friedann. Neither of them, none of us are judging anymore but one time we were called the three musketeers cause we seemed to be the three judges that were being picked for most of the rodeos. There were not a lot of judges at that time. We were, I was involved in also training new judges so we could build up the pool of judges. But I judged rodeos for a total of sixteen, a little over sixteen years. And I was judging while I was president so, I could get to all of those rodeos because I was usually judging the rodeos.(Subjects: events) Wow, and I mean this is really you know the ‘80s, early ‘90s with the AIDS epedemic. How did that effect the feeling of rodeos and gay culture? At that time the main focus, I mean IGRA and our member associations tried to be involved in raising funds for different charitable organizations. And in the early years, 1985 through probably about 19… maybe all the way to 2000, the main focus of all of the groups was to raise money for different AIDS organizations. Now we’ve branched out and more it's breast cancer, we do things for equine organizations, children’s organizations, we've branched out into a lot of areas not just related to assisting people in the gay community but also other areas. That's amazing. Were they still pretty big parties or as they grew were they getting more focused on rodeo? Well, the rodeo was always the main focus of the weekend and most of the rodeos in the beginning also had some kind of a dance venue at the rodeo grounds, but they would always have a Friday and Saturday night party with big dancing especially on the West coast: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Denver, and Albuquerque. Not so much in the eastern area, they would have parties at the local country bars. There were some, even Texas and Oklahoma I remember having big dance parties at the very beginning but those faded away a little bit. Washington, D.C. had a couple of big parties at the Post Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. Different areas—as the as the dancing became less popular, it was not the main source of our spectators, they had to draw more spectators from their local area than plan on the dancers coming in from around the country. Because other things were happening: gay cruises, gay softball, gay basketball, I don't think there’s gay basketball but there's something or other, soccer, rugby, there's all sorts of things that are taking people from the gay rodeo events that that were so popular at the very beginning.(Subjects: highlight) ... And how…what was the interaction between the rodeos and the communities that were being hosted in did you experience any homophobia?(Subjects: homophobia) Yes. Not so much in the larger cities but I remember the first time that we held a rodeo and I don't remember the name of the city I think it was Enumclaw, Washington. It was about sixty miles south of Seattle when the Northwest Rodeo Association held their first rodeo. The word had gotten out in the community that there was going to be a gay rodeo and when we went over there the morning for the first rodeo there were mostly high school kids and maybe a few people in their 20s holding up signs picketing the gay rodeo and having a lot of anti-gay slurs which I'm not even going to bother to mention.(Subjects: homophobia) ... And as you work with the communities do you people gay or straight express surprise over the gay rodeo at all? Well, even to this day there's people in the gay community that are surprised to hear about it. I mean, a lot of people now find us on the internet, they type in gay, and just find out what’s out there and that's how they stumble upon gay rodeo, and so that may be how there's an event in their area or one that they want to travel to. And within the last ten years there's quite a few straight people that now compete in our rodeos because we are open to anybody that wants to compete and there's a number of people that are very good, especially in horse contestants, that come to our rodeos to compete and they've been very supportive of our membership. Recently, one of the first contestants for the Nevada Gay Rodeo Association, Richard Armstrong, was discovered to have a brain tumor, and he had had surgery, he just actually passed away three days ago. But about a month ago we had a fundraising effort in Nevada, in Las Vegas, and it was the majority of people there were straight people that had known him through the roping and riding equestrian groups, thousands of dollars were raised to help him with his medical bills.(Subjects: events, highlight, community) ... Let's see, so would you consider yourself a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) No. [Laughter] Even though I did work on a cattle ranch after I graduated from high school, the summers I did work on a cattle ranch. And mostly the first year just dealing with getting in the hay for the winter season but the following three years I did work with his livestock. Grooming them, brushing them, washing them, and showing them on cattle shows. After I graduated from college and was able to work with them longer into the fall, I did actually go with him to the San Francisco Cow Palace for the Grand National Rodeo that’s held there in October. That year they had a special show for Polled Herefords, which is what he raised. So my picture is actually hanging on the wall in the Cow Palace Center in San Francisco. But it's way up high and it’s this picture of the entire rodeo arena with about a hundred animals being led in by people and I'm leading four animals, four bulls, into the arena for this spectacular show that they did for the rodeo.(Subjects: cowperson) But you wouldn't consider yourself a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) Not compared to these people that can ride a horse really well. Even as a judge I was able to ride a horse but I'm not a…I don't consider myself a really good equestrian person.(Subjects: cowperson ) Do you still dance? I still dance, as much as I can. At sixty-seven I've got some problems with my feet but I still dance up a storm when I can. ...

Tre Brewbaker Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Tre, Mr. NGRA 2017 and were at the Texas Tradition Rodeo outside Dallas and its April 1st, 2017. So can you tell me what year you were born? 1982…long time ago.  And where did you grow up? I grew up in El Paso, Texas. Were you more in town? Were you out on a place? I was in town, I lived in the city. Well east El Paso which is now center of El Paso, so yeah I lived in the city.  Did you have much experience with stock growing up? No, my family is traditionally stock car racing, dirt tracks so the communities are very similar, the experiences…however, animal interaction was minimal as a kid.(Subjects: family) Were you at all interested in…like did you want to go ride horses at all? Absolutely, I think anyone who lives and grows up in Texas it's like in your blood. It's very…I think it's culture. Like I feel like the way I was raised and when I grew up it was just there's something…horses are amazing and they're majestic and they are powerful there are just so many positive words I can't think of any negative ones. And who wouldn't want to be involved in something of that nature. What did your parents do? My dad is an architectural engineer and a general contractor now currently its yeah… And my mother stayed home and worked stayed at home so we could have someone there she didn't want to put us in daycare and have someone else raise us. So it made it tough sometimes…eventually she worked you know side jobs.(Subjects: parents, events) Side jobs. Do you have siblings?  I do a bunch of them. I'm the oldest. My parents were divorced so we have step and half-sisters. I have a full brother, a half-brother, a half-sister, and a step-sister in all reality I have 4 siblings. I don't treat any of them different to me they are all the same.(Subjects: parents, childhood) That's great. Were any of them interested in animals or horses growing up? My…I think every girl that I've ever known as a little kid wants a pony. So my sisters totally did…they ended up in music which I'm very thankful for. It's a lot more affordable. And they love it. But they again rodeo's expensive, we couldn't afford it. So I think just going to the events was our extent of it which was just as good for me.(Subjects: childhood, music, events) So how did you end up in New Mexico? I you know you hit that age where you go I have to get out of the house. I'm a very independent person, very go getter. And so I said you know what I want to move out and I met a friend who races and uh he was just getting out of school and was like I've got this house you should move in we can split the rent it was one of those weird things where you are 20 years old and said let’s do it and so I did. And I moved to Farmington, New Mexico which is in the middle of nowhere and the Four Corners and it was fun and everything else is like a series of events that happened that led me to Albuquerque. (Subjects: events) That's amazing. So you are in Albuquerque now? I am. In town or outside of? I'm right on the edge of Albuquerque and everyone says you live to far away I do live like 20 minutes from the center of town which for us is no big deal but you tell everyone else and they are like, “That's so far.”  Do you do you have any stock now? I don't. I don't.  So what do you do for a living? I am a social media specialist for T-Mobile. (Subjects: jobs) Oh wow. So yeah, I love my job. I absolutely take every chance you can cause you never know when it's going to work out and it did. I love it.(Subjects: jobs) That's really good. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here. How long have you been working for them? I've been with T-Mobile for 5 years this May, so 5 years next month, oh my gosh. And it's been amazing. They are very supportive. They know that my title that I'm part of the rodeo that I was Mr. New Mexico Pride last year and they supported that tremendously. (Subjects: jobs) That's right. Very exciting. So how do you identify in terms of gender and sexuality? I'm a male. I'm a dude. And I'm very comfortable in my own skin, I guess, and I'm gay. So how was dealing with your sexuality growing up? Hard. Very much so. And that's internal. You grow up in Texas right you grew up with a southern values that doesn't change nothing has for me but the you go through the “something's not the same.” You don't realize it til like afterthought. And then, “Okay, well maybe I can convince myself otherwise.” So I went through that and that didn’t really change. So I was like, okay. You get to that point where you accept it, where you are like, okay this is me. And then you have to start planning…oh I'm a thinker and a planner and an overthinker and such so it's planning I literally sat there and when am I going to tell anyone? And how? And am I prepared to lose everything I have and start over. That answers is always no. (Subjects: comingout) You got to the day where it was a yes. And it's extremely emotional. You have that one person, if it wasn't for some of my friends who were like dropping hints like they knew it wouldn't have happened, yet. I came out very late publicly to my family. It wasn't a negative experience per say a lot of people say it was but I didn't get shunned I'm happy with that. I'm thought I was going to lose everything and I didn't. I don't have the same relationship with my parents, but I still have a relationship with my parents and that's something that I think they still struggle to this day. But they know and I don't hide it I just don't talk about it. And so, it is what it is. (Subjects: comingout, family, parents) And they are they still in El Paso? My mother is, and my dad is in Arizona now. He moved there for work and so they know. We've talked about and my mom and I talked about it once. She's very religious but not crazy religious and I say that loosely because everybody's definition of crazy is different. And you know I'm spiritual as well so that makes it even more confusing, but I think you know my parents always taught me that it's me and my relationship and that's all that matters. So that's what I do.(Subjects: parents, comingout, religion) And you said you were Mr. New…? New Mexico Pride last year? Wow. So question? Did you come to performing through rodeo or come to rodeo through performing? Great question. I am…I don't consider myself a wonderful performer. That's something that I think some of these people that you'll see this weekend are just amazing. Where I became a performer was, it's for charity. You stand up there and lip sync a song which we do out loud in a car and it's super scary. It's very awkward with a queen or someone in a costume it's very easy because you become something else. And I on stage I mean, “How come you don't have a stage name?” I spent 26 years trying to be someone else, I don't want to be anyone else but me. And so, when I perform, I perform something that's me. I show everybody who I am. So it's a little different from what you will see in other people but I was known to make people cry. I'm very emotional on stage in whatever it is. Because I think that's what you are there to see some sort of emotion, laugh, cry, scare whatever. (Subjects: charity, performance) What's your favorite thing to perform to? I love my country western music. I love country western. See that's what took me to rodeo. I had a friend who came up to me and says you need to run for this. Well, four years later here I am. And I didn't know he was our Mr. [title holder] five years before that. So he was there to crown me and it was a huge deal, for him and for me. That was his legacy. He got to pass it on to someone. I said, “You know I don't want to do pop. I'm like the worst gay ever. I don't…I'm not a Beyoncé fan. I'm not…I hate glitter and the rainbows. I'm not that person.” Once I was able to accept that, no, I'm going to be my own brand because there's gotta be someone out there like me and I'm hoping that one person gets to see it and that's where everything took off.(Subjects: music, performance) Did you grow up listening to country? Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely. What's your favorite performance you've done to a country song? Great question. Most memorable favorite it’s [inaudible]. I'm performing that here in a few minutes. It's huge. So when I won Mr. New Mexico Pride I was invited if I won to perform the next night at an event, it's like a victory show kind of one of the clubs in town perform. And I had my birthday party the same night, so I was double booked, and you make things happen you just figure it out. So I said okay and we worked with everybody and when I was there and I performed this song that I'm about to perform. It's Jason Aldine, “Gonna Know We Were Here,” because I wanted that to be my motto for the year. Because it says, “We may not be around in 20 years, but they are sure going to know we were here,” like leaving your mark. I think that's what everybody wants. When I got out of the car, I felt like a million dollars that night. It was better than when I won because it was real. (Subjects: performance, music, events) The next day or no, I left the bar, finished, packed my clothes, ran to the car, cause I had to be somewhere else down the road at another bar, I get in the car and the music's playing and it's stops and that song comes on the radio live. And I have no idea why or how or what…I couldn't make that up. I mean, yeah, I could [laughs] but you know that's one of those weird things. And I was just like totally overwhelmed with tons of emotions. So then I was like I'm changing my song and doing it again at this bar cause no one was there to see it. It just made me feel good cause it tells me what I need to do. Like it reminds me of my job and how it feels like that day. So I nobody here has seen me perform it but one person, so I was like well I definitely want to do an up-tempo, lively--I want people to know who I am. And it's it doesn't say I it says we. Cause it's everybody we are a team.(Subjects: music, performance) That's so amazing.  It gives me goosebumps.  So how did you find out about the gay rodeo? How did I…oh my gosh I'm like on everything. I'm social media crazy. How did I learn…? I'm trying to think way back. Someone had a flyer or poster or something. Oh wait! You know what way before that, I found out Nevada had one. I didn't know we had one, but I was in Vegas with my then fiancé now husband and we were in Vegas just on vacation. It's a cheap vacation from Albuquerque, it’s right down the road. And we were at Charlie's in Vegas and they had a poster. And I was like, “Oh I wish we had something like this.” Well, a year later I found out we do. And so I was like, “Let’s go!” And that's when I met Jessie and Jessie’s the one that got me, he pushed me, “This is what you need to be doing. This is where you need to be.” And he was absolutely right.  That's amazing. I haven't been happier. Do you compete in the rodeo? We get a lot of firsts. I am about to compete as soon as I finish performing for the very first time tonight in two events. (Subjects: events) What are you going to do? I’m doing goat dressing which have you seen goat dressing?  I have seen it, but you can explain it.  Goat dressing is crazy, ultimately, and I was telling them this was my way of getting everyone in the rodeo. They were like, “What do you do? Do you ride bulls?” No. No, I do not. I'm not in shape not that I should. I'm like, “You've seen those bull riders.” They, you, they, no. I mean would I love to, I have more respect for them than any other athlete, but they are just amazing people too. But in goat dressing you're basically putting underwear on a goat. I mean that is the gist of it and if you can do it faster as a team then you win. And people are like that's hilarious, no way. And I'm like, “Show up and find out.” I'm like, “Why don't you do it?” “Well…” “What you can't put underwear on a goat?” And there's no no in there. And that's how you build our numbers and so I'm doing that one and doing wild drag race. That is insane. And I’m doing it with two people I just met. One of them I haven't met yet. I'm doing it with Josh from Australia, and he and I were just talking and next thing you know I'm on a team and this girl Ashley from New Mexico, also. So it's really cool that I said well we were on your team but now you are on New Mexico's team. So we are really excited to have him on board and it's gonna be entertaining we will go with that I have no idea what to expect. And are you guys hosting finals this year? We have two events in two months. We have the Z Regional Rodeo in August 11-13th in Santa Fe, and in my hometown of Albuquerque which is 50 minutes South, in Albuquerque we will host the World Finals. (Subjects: events) That's amazing. And the IGRA royalty competition as well. (Subjects: igra, royalty) Wow. Lots of pressure. Oh, I love it. It's totally like perfect. It's nerve racking because for the first time we've had it, all of our past royalty members are out of state or wherever. They are not really involved anymore because there has been a large gap. So I'm really excited to have our IGRA team. They have been extremely helpful like, “How can we help you? Here is our guide.” They have been very helpful, not telling us but guiding us. And it's been it's nice to have thirty people from across the country being there to help.(Subjects: igra, royalty) And you were mentioning kind of a gap that happened? Seven years without royalty. We are the first team since seven years.(Subjects: royalty) Why do you think that happened? A lot of things, I think the there's a change that's happened and thankfully…I don't know 100% about this, but I have my theories based on research and talking to people. We moved our rodeo from Albuquerque to Santa Fe for due to sponsorship…it's a good thing actually, looking at a bad thing it was a better thing to move it financially because we got more money to pay our contestants and such like that. However, in that it is an hour away and all the epicenter everything is in Albuquerque so getting someone it's the same thing as being in Denton having people to drive from Dallas, you think it's not big because I drove ten hours to get here, to me it's no big deal for thirty minutes. But asking your people to drive past eight different things that they normally go to, to something they aren't sure about, outside in the hot sun. We've changed it. Now we have a night rodeo, one of the only night rodeos so it's under the lights which is really cool, it's outdoors in the wonderful August air in New Mexico. So it's going to be something different and it worked last year, now that we have a royalty team. I wanted it, and I was like I need to can I told my Miss and she'll tell you more about how that process went I guarantee she will it's a really good story. About how I convinced her to do it and I didn't convince her but she I won't ruin the story but you will wanna know that one. It's and it'll tell you who she is. So it was a wonderful deal and I forgot the question because I started rambling.  That's fine. We don't need to stay on topic. Can you tell me do you do other things in the gay community other than just rodeo? Rodeo takes up a lot of our time now, every chance we have to raise a cause we are going to. When we do it one dollar at a time. And I love it. Like I absolutely love it. I still help the other organizations we have several of us who are the heads of different organizations. The Imperial Court System um, the Pride organization, um, we have an organization called MM Power which does a lot of HIV outreach, so we directly connected with them as well. We are trying to work on mending, not mending, building stronger bridges, they are there, but they need to be more solid and it's really working. Someone kind of had to take the reigns and then it's always nice the new kid in town and the rodeo’s the new kid in town again. So it's like the new shiny thing that everybody wants to be a part of and we are totally embracing that. And so we're you know hey well come over here we will be a part of yours too, let’s work together. So it's one in the same we all have the same goals. We are doing something for someone and they give us something we can do in a safe place, which is crazy. (Subjects: community) So I know we have to go pretty quick but just I know that a lot of the older members have expressed sort of a frustration of getting younger members and you’re obviously a younger member. I love that. What do you think is that sort of drew you to it, kept you here, and how are you going to draw in other young people? I love the southern lifestyle. I love the everyone’s welcoming. I mean you're here everybody’s so nice and genuinely nice. There's nice cause you have to put on a face, but you don't get that here. Everyone's literally like, “Hey, how are you doing?” And they actually care like they want you to talk to them. They were laughing yesterday cause it took me two and a half hours because I was like oh my god I saw someone and I have to say hi. It's a family, a real family and a lot of us are here talking about earlier is that family is not as strong but it's still there, but you miss that feeling and you get that here. We all understand each other. We are all so different, but…I mean when I left Phoenix it was like I'm not going to see everyone for four weeks. Seriously, four weeks, get over it, right?. I had so much going on in those four weeks I didn't know what else was I going to do, right? But it was crazy how much fun it is. (Subjects: family) As far as getting the youth involved, we knew that was going to be big. Our average age was in the 40's before we joined, before we joined. I don't know that actually, we were included in that number cause it was the end of the year and I'm like, “Oh my gosh, how are we going to do that?” The reason for us, is that again the Santa Fe is very much older community, traditionalist type community very gay friendly. Albuquerque is as well, but is much younger. It's where the bars are, the inner city, it's where all the…it's the city right. So were okay, if I told you, “Hey, there's a rodeo this weekend.” So? Okay so we are going to go put underwear on a goat or we are going to put drag queens on bulls. That's where you get the youth. The camp events are designed to get the youth involved but if you don't tell them about it… I mean you can tell the story two different ways you're going to get different results. And we are seeing it. (Subjects: community, events) We are seeing it in major numbers. And I'm excited, I can't wait for the end of the year so I have quantifying results and I can say this isn't my thought, this is my results. And if it wasn't working, we already changed it. Now we are going to make mini-rodeos in our bar we are using stick horses instead of real horses we are going to get a blow up sheep for our goat and were are going to make them do that, we are going to teach them so they are already involved. The other thing I've learned in promoting, cause I do a lot of race car promoting, when you go to a race you don't know anybody there, you're not going to [stay] you're going to leave. You are going to eat a coke, drink a beer, or you are going to eat a coke, eat a hot dog. [laughs] Drink a beer and go home. Now we have drag shows during the rodeos, so you need to tell them there are other events. It’s a daylong thing. Then you have to tell them, you know, hey, introduce them to the cowboys and the cowgirls so they know who to cheer for. And that's something we are working on because we haven't seen it enough. When they are out there announcing who they are, tell me where they are from; tell me who is from New Mexico. I found out my teammate in wild drag is from New Mexico and I didn't even know her. Of course, it's a big state so it's very possible but if I knew I'd be cheering for her. That's what we do. We are going to watch tomorrow, I've got a big New Mexico flag, we are going to be waving it. We are going to try something different and as soon as you start trying something new, you aren't getting anywhere so we are blowing the box up.(Subjects: events) That's amazing.  We are trying. Well I'm looking forward to your performance. I'll let you go, but thank you so much for your time. Okay it was a pleasure. Absolutely, thank you.  Thank you. And anything you ever need let me know. 

Chuck Browning Click to filter

OK, so this is Rebecca Scofield, and I'm here today with Chuck Browning. It is July 9, [2001.] And we are in Denver for the Rocky Mountain Regional. So can you tell me what year you were born? Born in 1963. And where were you born? I was born in Casper, Wyoming. Is that where you grew up? I grew up in Casper, Wyoming, through 4th grade, moved to upstate New York 5th through 10th grade, back to Wyoming for my final year of high school, then up to Montana for college, then ended in Phoenix, where I've been for 34 years. What did your parents do while growing up? My stepfather was an electrical engineer, so he did a lot of the high-powered power line constructions. So we would move where the work would go to. So, we traveled for most of my adolescence.(Subjects: parents) And what about your mom? Uh, my mom did some accounting work, she did work as she could, and she also helped my dad with his company.(Subjects: parents) And did you have siblings? I have four older siblings, two older sisters, two older brothers. I had two older stepbrothers and older stepsister and two younger stepbrothers.(Subjects: family) Wow. Yah. I'm really impressed right now [laughs]. I'm impressed I can remember all that. [laughs with RS] And can you tell me a little bit about growing up, what your family dynamics were like? Yeah, growing up in Wyoming, things that I remember is going to the fair and the rodeo and seeing the troopers, which is a drum corps, being very influenced by that. It was kind of like that whole cowboy culture. In the springtime, we would go out to Hat Six Ranch, which was a friend of my uncles who had a cattle ranch, and they did roundups. We watched the castrations. We watched the Rocky Mountain oysters. We watched all that going on. I was probably anywhere from four to six years old. So participating in that, I didn't do. But seeing it definitely kind of affected me, my whole culture at that point in time.(Subjects: childhood, family) Moving out to New York, uh, upstate New York, uh, completely different culture, they thought that we still fought with the Indians, you know, I mean, it was just that whole transition of that. We called, you know, a Coke, we called it pop.(Subjects: childhood) Mmhm. They called it soda. So, you know, that whole evolution thing. So then we kind of transferred all the way to their culture and then melded with that, you know, more hockey. It was more about soccer, is more about lacrosse, you know, rodeo? Nobody even knew what rodeo was. So it wasn't really until we got back to Casper, which was my final year of high school, that, you know, and not really then did I get interested in rodeo, it was a little bit even later after college, but yeah, it was kind of a kind of a big change.(Subjects: childhood) And growing up in such a big family. Did you get along with all your siblings and step-siblings? Well, it was most of just the five, the initial five, three Scorpios, a Taurus, and a Leo. And so if anybody knows, you know, that part of you know, it's power signs. So uh, three scorpios alone, the oldest and the last two. But, we did get along. I mean, we because we moved a lot, we had to rely on each other for that transitioning and building friendships. When we moved to New York, we found out that families had eight to 10 kids, you know, so it was like, you know, this guy and well, you know her sister and you go to school with the brother and everything. So it was kind of, kind of nice in that way. When we did move, we did travel a lot. But then my older brothers went to college and it was my sisters and me and, you know, then my sister, we kind of moved back to Montana and Wyoming. So it was we always had that and we're still very close. So.(Subjects: childhood) So in, you know, middle school, high school, as you're moving, did you form any really close friendships that you still think of today? Actually, I have two very close friends in upstate New York, Michelle Rose and Maxine [Jibo]. Michelle is from Chadwicks and Maxine was from Malone. Malone was where I went 7th through 10th grade, so that was probably the most impactful part of you growing up. Maxine, actually I reconnected with her on Facebook because I had lost touch with her and she actually came out to Phoenix and I met with her and I met her partner and talked about, you know, the fact that we both had alternative lifestyles, which was probably why we connected so well. So that was just kind of liberating, I guess you can say. But other than that, I haven't really kept close friendships, even from people in college. I think that maybe just because I'm used to moving and relocating, but I do have a lot of good friends in Phoenix, because I've been there for 34 years. And can I ask how you identify in terms of gender and sexuality? Gender, I'm a man, a he or a him. Sexuality, I had sex with women in college. I prefer to have sex with men. So I guess I'm gay, I guess I'm bi, I guess I'm whatever anybody needs to label me as, that's, I'm good with that. That's great. [laughs with CB] That's perfect. And so growing up did you struggle with that at all? Were you aware of that? Um, concerned about it? I think when I go back to it, I had a teacher when I first moved to Chadwicks, New York. And he was Italian, dark hair, you know, muscular. I look back at that and I was like, there was some reason that I was, you know, there was a connection. I didn't understand it then. But now I look back and I'm like, you know what, that probably was what was going on, but I was just too young to know that. I think I really resisted any of that. Of like seeing guys and saying, God, they're attractive or, you know, or things like that just because of where I grew up in Wyoming and what the talk was and how people that were in the community at the time that identified as being gay and how they were treated. And, you know, it was fear, it was fear-based. And I was like, and I really, those that I did know that were gay, I really wasn't like them. And so I was like, OK, is this black and white? I gotta either be this way or that way because I'm not that way. So there was that struggle, but there was also that uniformity with the culture and the expectations that you're going to have a girlfriend and you're going to get married, you're going to have kids. So I kind of bought into that, I think, probably until I got into college. So, I was in college when I started, uh. I was a lifeguard and was coaching a swim team and hung out with other lifeguards and met a couple other that were gay and lesbians. Started realizing that there's a whole gambit of different levels of this alternative lifestyle. It's not just this way or that way. And where did you go to college? At the time it was called Eastern Montana College. It's now called MSUB, so outside of Billings. Right in Billings, actually. Yeah. And what was your experience like in college and in such a red state? Well, again, because my friends at college were from all different areas and it was kind of like I still hadn't grasped my sexuality. I think I was starting to understand that there was a lifeguard, his name was Jack, and he was open and free about it. And, but he wasn't like the flamboyant type either. So that when I was like, okay, wait a minute, this is a little bit more uh, broader than I kind of thought it was. You know, there were guys that I found attractive, but I really never reacted on it because I was still dating women. I dated two girls in college, you know, and thought, you know, everything was fine until I probably moved to Phoenix and then and realized that I was a trainer at the time. And one of my clients who I didn't know at the time was gay. And, you know, he knew that I was new to town. He says, hey, there's a bar in Phoenix that you should come out and just kind of hang out with us. And it was Charlie's. And, you know, I was like, how did he know? How did I know? You know, I sat in the parking lot for an hour before I went in because I was like, oh, I [inaudible] guys going in there, but. You know, I think that was the turning point for me, and I was like, just just go in there, had a great time. That's really great. Do you think um, if you hadn't had, you know, such a good friend to kind of prompt you, do you think you would have started grappling with it eventually? Well, it's funny how things work out and how life just kind of works. And I think that's what happened. I mean, he, not that I don't perceive myself to be flamboyantly gay or, you know, just broadcast it. Maybe I do, I don't know, maybe I'm confusing myself. But he obviously knew. He obviously knew. And I think he kind of guided me at least that way to find people more like me. And coming from Montana, Wyoming, into Phoenix, which at the time was a big city for me, to actually go into a gay bar and see guys dancing and start to talk to guys and, you know, then start to go to other gay bars and see that there's, you know, country bars, there's the disco bars, there's whatever, you know. Yeah. The leather bars, all that stuff. It was just, it just opened my eyes even more. So when did you graduate college? Graduated college in 1987. And what took you to Phoenix? Warm weather [laughs]. I, I had a girlfriend, I guess you could quote that and uh, I used to teach aerobics in Billings at the [inaudible] Fitness Center and one of the girls there was coming to Phoenix to see her sister. So she invited me to come with her and it was in November. So in Montana in November, you know, it's cold. And we came down to Phoenix and it's 80 degrees and I'm like. Oh, my. Oh, my. This is paradise. So I was about ready to finish college and I just thought, where am I going to go? My brother actually lived down here at the time and I just needed a new adventure and wanted to get to a big city, probably because I was trying to. Just, you know, open up, so, that's why I decided to go to Phoenix. So 1987, would have been right in the middle of, you know, the Reagan years and the AIDS epidemic? Correct. How did that affect your life? Well, I got into Phoenix in November of '87. My grandmother had just passed away. So on my trip down, I stopped in Casper got there. You know, this is when I was kind of like, trying to find jobs. I was, you know, I had my degree was kind of a personal trainer at the time. So I found a couple of jobs doing that and then started to go to the gay bars and then starting to hear about this gay cancer, and all about everything. So for me, it was, it was scary because I didn't understand it. I didn't really know what it was about. I mean, I'm just like getting into being gay and hearing this, and it's like, what the hell? So I befriended an older gentleman. His name is Gary. And I met him at Charlie's and on Friday night and we went to a place where everybody goes for breakfast and we were just chatting and. He was getting ready to go to Flagstaff to work on some people's houses, kind of like a handyman, so he asked me, he said, listen, I need someone to look at my house for the summer. Would you be interested in just staying at my house for the summer? Like what? So I literally did and I mean, and he knew I was from Montana and he told me, he said, listen, I know that you're good people and I'm still good friends with him. And I think he was another person that kind of helped guide me into that and everything. So it was, it was still scary, it was still unknown. I wasn't sure what was going on. But again, because I'm new to all this it was also there is some political stuff going on in Arizona at the time with our governor and Ed Buck and. All that stuff, so it was, you know, it was just crazy. Yeah, but just literally crazy. And, you know, when you started going to Charlie's and opening up more, did you talk at all with your family about it? I did not. In fact, let's say that was in '87. I started going to the rodeos in Phoenix in that January, I think it was '88. I volunteered in '89. I thought these guys were crazy. Greg Olsen was the big rodeo cowboy at the time and I went to L.A. to go to the rodeos so he got stepped on by a bull and a lacerated liver these guys are frickin crazy. What the hell are they doing? But I kind of got into that whole rodeo thing and ended up going to Denver. And in Denver, I apparently had a little too much to drink and got into a situation that was not good. And I don't remember a lot of it except for about six months later, I went and had tested and was HIV positive. So being 26 at the time, being new to all this, and everything else - uh, it was just, it just happened. And, you know, it was unfortunate. My family still didn't know about me being gay. And then in 1990, I met a doctor that I was dating and I'm like, you're crazy, you're dating a doctor, you're HIV positive. You know, he's going to find out. (Subjects: family) He's going to freak out. And it was that whole stigma with it, because literally every time I would date somebody and they would find out, they were like, you know, they just ghost you. They just didn't - and I can't blame them, because they don't understand it. But, so I was dating, this doctor's name is Ken Cross, and, you know, we were -we met at Charlie's, actually. Our friends brought us together. My friends physically picked me up and carried me and stood in front of him and said, you guys need to talk to each other. We talked for three hours. We didn't move. We never talked about a relationship, it just developed. And we started just doing things together. And he had a place in Deer Valley and I had my condo. We would spend certain places and nights with him and he'd spend nights with me and we had it all worked out, he had a sister. But one night we were just sitting there talking. He said, listen, I need to talk to you. I said, Well, I need to talk to you, too. And he said, well, let me go first. And he told me he's HIV positive. And how ironic that anybody would find, what I want to say, good in that? Because I did and he did because when I told him, it was like, how did, why, how, who, what? You know, just how could this even happen? And so to me, that was liberating, it was like, oh, thank God to this stigma thing of, you know, trying to date people and figure that out. But um, he was an emergency doctor in L.A., so he was working at the emergency hospital. And a lot of this was going on and. I was told when he was draining an AIDS patients lungs, they had to switch the bag out, the needle got stuck and ran back into his finger and so, I don't know the specifics of it, but to me, it was like listen, it doesn't matter. It is what it is. And so we were together for two years and in June of '92, he passed away from AIDS. Which is really tough. It was a time when I was lucky to be allowed to be in the hospital with him. So that was tough and my parents had just arrived in Phoenix the weekend after he had passed away. And again, my family know nothing about me being gay. They know nothing about the fact that this is my partner. They, I know. It was just - [inhales] so I'm trying to show my parents a good time and, you know, and everything and so I was with my mother that I finally kind of told her everything was going on about that was just about being gay. I did not tell her about being HIV positive. That came out years later. But, that was the first step. And she was fine with it, said there was no issue and. Eventually kind of rolled it out to the rest of the family who have never had any problem with it. So, yah.(Subjects: comingout, parents) So, when did you actually start competing in events at the rodeo? Started in 1995 at the Phoenix rodeo, which was in February at that time. So, you know you were aware of it, you've been going to it, you've been on, you know, the edges of it, dating, losing loved ones. What pushed you over the edge to start competing? After I lost Ken, it took me a couple of years before I really started dating again. And then I started dating guys that were positive. And then I lost about three other friends that were guys that I was dating at the time and, you know, which was really difficult to deal with. I mean, it's like, what - you know, and I, when I was diagnosed in '90, January of '90, basically my doctor said, you probably have five years, so you probably need to get your affairs in order. And I was like, OK. Family still doesn't know about that, but um. I think what happened is I started thinking about what do you really want to do if you've got five years, you know? And I thought, you know what, I always wanted a horse. I always wanted to compete in rodeos. Maybe this is something I can do. So, one of the girls I was working with at the Scottsdale Princess, um, lesbian, open about it, awesome, had a brother who was gay and she was telling me that he competes in rodeos. So she kind of connected me with Chris, and then Chris was talking to me and he found me this horse, and, you know, so I got a horse, like probably about six months before the rodeo and started learning how to ride and do all that stuff. And basically in January of '95, I entered my first rodeo and I think that's when the bug hit. I was just going to do horse events - I was not interested in anything else. But, yah, it's just again, the right people at the right time and how that worked out, I don't know. And can I ask, how did you cope with um, being told you had five years to live and losing so many people you were close with? How do you even begin to cope with that? I journaled. I have a journal and I go back to it. And today when I go back and read, it brings me to tears because it was pretty dark. It was really dark. And to have that documented and I'm already getting a little bit, whatever right now, [inhales] um. It, again, because my family wasn't aware of my medical stuff as they were of being gay, my roommate at time, Gary Harry, was very supportive of that and probably the one that I leaned on the most. And I guess you just move on. You have to be able to say, listen, this is what happened. Are you going to get sucked into the black hole of all the what, why, when, how, poor me, or are you going to move forward, find things that you want to do, enjoy life and, you know, take control of that? And I think that's what I did. So I kind of got myself into rodeo. Work was really good work was where is was at the time and that gave me the ability to kind of start working with rodeo, meeting really good people and being able to travel and have fun and yeah. So, I think that's just how I coped with it, but my journal was my big thing for me to just write down every day, kind of what the hell happened, and how you were feeling. And, yeah, and it wasn't always good. I was like, you know, I'm ready, I'm ready. I'm done with this. I'm ready - [laughs] which is crazy. But yeah, I know it's kinda - I lost a lot of friends, you know, and it's just uh, [exhales] yeah. I guess I'm fortunate, very fortunate, blessed, whatever you want to call it. But I do work very hard to take care of myself and took control of that, and my, you know, my medical care. I don't just do what the doctor says. You know, I research. I challenge.(Subjects: jobs) And were you open at work, did you feel supported at work at all? Not initially, in fact, in Arizona, you could be fired for being gay. So I literally had a doctor who would create an alternate being for, and you would pay cash for everything, because you didn't want anything going to your insurance companies, which just is crazy that people had to do that in order to get the care that they needed. And thankfully, you know, although it probably was illegal with the doctors at the time, they had to do something for these people. And, you know, some of them didn't have that, and then when their employers found out not only were they sick and needing help, they were unemployed.(Subjects: jobs) That's really devastatingly scary. It is, it really is. So as you started to get more involved with rodeo, you said you started with some of the horse events. What did that look like? That's barrel racing, pole bending, flag racing. Barrel racing is a traditional women's rodeo event, but in gay rodeo, women and men can compete in all 13 of our events. We don't - we open that up for them. So I was competing in those three events. I had a friend that was coming in that I was going to compete in Steer Deco, I can't forget. I don't think I was doing Wild Drag at the time I wasn't doing any roping. So it was just those three or four events. Goat Dressing is just a fun camp event where you run down and put a pair of BVDs on a goat. And, you know, it's crazy as hell, but it's fun and yeah, it's probably one of the most entered events.(Subjects: events) Um, did you work with one horse in particular? Yeah, it was a four year-old mare that I bought, her name was Sugar, from Chris. Chris [Eisenhet]. And she was a little smaller than most horses, but she was uh, she was out of [Justalina and Dockbar], which is great horse lines, you know, just she just had a heart of gold and just loved what she can do, so yah. So if you were living in a condo at the time or were you still? Or essentially I'm asking where did the horse go? Initially I was boarding him at Chris [Eisenhet's] place. So he's the one that found her for me, so he was going to take care of her and everything. So I basically would go down there and ride and then when we went to the rodeos, he'd haul her for me. In fact, one that year, he hauled her out to Atlanta, Georgia, because they had a rodeo out there, so yah. It was awesome because he kinda took care of all the hard work, basically, and I just kind of, you know, showed up and jumped on. Well I've heard before that there might be some divides at times in IGRA culture between the horse people and the non-horse people. Is that a real thing and did you ever feel that at all?(Subjects: igra) [breathes in] Well, there was a term called FHP, which is some people will say his "favorite horse people," but other people use the other acronym for the F word. Um, you know, it exists. It exists because we as horse people, who make large investments in our animals and their care, we don't want them injured, you know, so arena dirt conditions to us are very important. We do not want hard packed dirt. We don't want it where they can slip and fall. We want a safe environment for them, as with anybody who has a pet. If you're doing anything with them in any type of competition. So, you know, I crossed the line because I was in, I started doing rough stock events, I did the camp events, and then I started adding roping events - so I basically competed in all 13 events. (Subjects: events, igra) I can kind of see where certain contestants that, you know, are the rough stock riders. They just kind of come in with their gear bag. They put their gear up and get ready to go and they jump on the animal. They do their event, they're done, they're gone. But they also want the arena to be a little bit soft because when you fall on that, it hurts. And, you know, when it's rock hard, you, your hip doesn't - yeah, well, if you're twenty-five, it's probably OK. But as you get older it's, you know, and people falling off of horses are et cetera, et cetera. So horse people are a little bit, you know, persnickety because they care for their animals and those are expensive animals. And when you have an injury, it's expensive to take care of. Yah. Have you ever experienced any protest of gay rodeo from either, you know, people saying that rodeo shouldn't be gay? Or from PETA and people concerned about animal welfare at all? Both. San Francisco, Sacramento, Vegas - all from PETA, understandably. And I respect them and I understand where they're coming from, it is out of concern. But it's more of an educational thing. They just don't understand things to the point where somebody was like, oh, my God, they blind the horses with these things over their head. And it's like, you do know that's a fly mask? And that literally is to protect them from the flies biting their eyes. Oh! So, you know, it is about education. It's like you can't just look at something, you know, when they flank a bull or a bronc to buck. You know, it has a fleece-lined flank strap. It's like cotton, guys.(Subjects: peta) I mean, it's yes, they want it off, but it's not harming them in any way. You know, when you're trying to move a fifteen-hundred-pound bull through the chutes to get them in there, sometimes they're stubborn and they don't want to move. Well, sometimes you got to slap them on the ass or something to do that. And we went from Hot Shots, which are just little electrical things. But you know what? It's just you can hot shot anybody, it's not that bad. But it does get them to move or it gets them out of a dangerous situation. So we try to adapt and move to beaded paddles, which is a paddle full of beads. You know, they get smart. They're like, I ain't movin, you know, and it's kind of - so definitely I understand that. I respect it, I respect their right to do that. As long as they respect our right to do our sport and realize that we take very good care of our animals. They are very well taken care of. From the gay aspect? Yeah, there's been a couple of pride parades that we've been in as rodeo associations that we've seen the protesters line up and all that. Which, you know, again, it's America, everybody should have the right to express themselves and we don't deny that, they're free to do that. But, you know, we're also free to live our lives the way we want to as well. So when did you meet Brian Helander? Brian started rodeo in the same rodeo I did. I knew Brian because I met him at Charlie's one night and, you know, he was a little older than me, maybe 10 years, but [laughs]. He'll, he'll be pissed off with that, but that's OK. And, you know, I mean, back then, he was very attractive and I was attracted to him, but he had a boyfriend. So to me, it's like there's no chance of that. But the gentleman that I was supposed to rodeo with in camp events that first time ended up not being able to get down to the rodeo. So I didn't have anybody to partner with. I didn't partner with Brian at the time, but I partnered with another guy from Chicago and I rodeoed, did camp events with him for that first year. But, Brian and I had met each other knowing that we were doing the rodeo and we're talking and it was in '96 that we decided to do all the camp and team roping and everything together and just be kind of rodeo partners. And travel together and everything, so. That's amazing, and I'm sure Brian will love that you noted his age. [laughs with CB] That's OK. It's bittersweet [laughs with RS]. I mean, he will appreciate that you called him attractive. Well of course! I, I, - you would be surprised. I've seen the pictures, I'm like oh my God. So I want to drill down into some of the events. What do you think is the role of camp events in IGRA? They're really designed for fun to bring people into the rodeo arena that don't have a horse or don't want to do rough stock. Just want to come out and play and kind of just get used to that. We think that that'll bring them in and get them maybe interested in a little bit more. Yah. What was or has been your favorite camp event to participate in? Probably goat dressing. You know, Brian and I, for twenty-six years, we've got the whole non-verbal, verbal everything down and you know, to the point that people have tried to videotape us and see how we're - what we do to that underwear, you know, and it's it's just funny. And, you know, we've been successful in that event. We've been successful and Steer Deco too, Wild Drag is fun, but lately the animals have been a little bit rougher than usual, so. Being, you know, rather old myself, [laughs] you know, it's kind of like I'm not sure, but it really was intended to have fun. And we - I think we need to refocus on that. But definitely goat dressing is our favorite. So can you, so in Rough Stock which Rough Stock did you participate in? I actually competed in all: Bull Riding, the Steer Riding, the Bareback Bronc Riding and the Chute Dogging. And can you walk me through what, sort of, preparations before you get on a bull and then what that experience is like? Obviously ride would be different, but just sort of, how does that feel bodily to do that? How do you get yourself ready? And then live through it? Yeah, well, definitely being in good physical condition is good. I, you know, it was a personal trainer. I worked out as much as I can in my entire life, and I will continue to do that, you know, so strength to a certain extent is good. But it's more about center of gravity. It's more about stretching and flexibility and making sure prior to my ride that I was stretched out. Uh, as far as preparation, you know, from strapping my boots and jeans up to put my spurs on, to my chaps, to my vest, to my, you know, I didn't wear a helmet at the time. It was not the thing to do and knock on wood. I somehow escaped any, you know seriou- well, maybe not. Maybe I've had a few head, head-bumps. But, you know, once you get focused on all your preparation and that for me, that was what it was about to where I wasn't thinking about my ride or how big the animal was or look at those horns or, oh, my God, he's only got a left horn. Nothing. I really didn't want to see my bull. I didn't want to stock contractor to come tell me, he traditionally comes out so circles to the left or the right, and sometimes they'll tell you that because they're unpredictable. And if you are set to think they're going left, and they go right, you're already gone. So for me, it was about I focused more on my preparation, stretching, flexibility, equipment, getting everything ready, burning up the rosin on my rope, getting the handle rosined up as well, making sure my glove is good, getting my wrist taped, having my mouthpiece, everything ready to go, having my poller and my safety set up, you know, so when my team and my bull came in, in the preload shoot, I would go rig them up myself because I want to make sure my riggin' was right the way that I want it. Although Brian was very good at that. And Brian, majority of my rides was always there - I learned that he would do that for me and he wanted to and I was good with that. You can rig it backwards, and I think maybe that happened once or twice, but I always told him, I said, just drop the bell over left [laughs]. I told him don't drop the tail, because for me, that's bad luck. But, you know, you get all these, you know, he can't wear yellow. You can't put your hat on the bed. You know, you can't wear a buckle after you rent it until two rodeos later. But anyway, I digress. But it was really about focusing more on everything that I needed in my equipment and [inaudible]. So when I got up there, it was it was still the focus. Get on, get centered, get your riggin' where you want it, move it up under his armpits, you know, get the bell centered. It was all a process. For me, the more I stuck to the process of what I was doing, to the point in time that I was ready to go and I would nod my head, then it was stick on your spot and just stay with it and just not tense up. But use my arm as my strength and keep my feet wrapped around him. I was pretty successful at it. I don't know why. Everybody told me as big as I was or like, you can't ride bulls, you're too big. And I'm like, "Oh well, we'll see." So for me, I think keeping focused on the preparation and the steps of everything I needed to do, kept my head out of the fact that you're sitting on a fifteen-hundred pound bull and this could happen, this could happen, this - you never think about that. And even to the point when you hear the buzzer go off, you pull the rope, you look over, for me because I'm left-handed, you look over your left shoulder. You flip your right leg over, he'll throw you up and you'll land on your feet. I mean, you just had that all figured out to where. It didn't always happen that way, ya know, but yah. What does it feel like, is it, you know, is it like being on a roller coaster or in a jet plane? What is that? The spinning and the going up and down. Have you ever experienced anything else like that? Uh, I did the Fremont experience zip line. And initially, when they dropped that gate down in your coming out there and I did the one where you kind of do the Superman position thing, and it was kind of like that. Now I want to do some of these like Brazilian ones where it's like forty miles up and that, you know, it's that feeling of that adrenaline when it hits you and you're just like, oh, my God. And then it just hits. And you're like, this is amazing! And it was for me, it was just the feeling of, you know, just keeping my spot and keeping where I need to be. And, you know, and then it was done. And that adrenaline and that feeling to me, you can't match it. Yeah, that was my drug of choice. And did you ever have any serious injuries at the rodeo? Well, luckily from bull riding, I only had a fractured ankle, which, you know, and it was because six weeks earlier I had fractured my ankle in Bronc Riding in Vegas. And so, I probably didn't let it heal up. And as and it wasn't because he stepped on me. It's because I got off on my left foot wasn't right. And I rolled it and I refractured it, which just a small hairline fracture. So knock on wood, Bull Riding, no serious. Steer Riding I broke my right arm, both bones, and it was Oklahoma City. Brian was riding steers at the time and I'm trying to walk out of the arena with my arm hanging because it's broken and he's yelling, "I need the vest! I need the vest!" Because he was still riding [laughs], but it was like oh don't worry about me. So they got him the vest. But it was, [chuckles] just the things we deal with. So I'm in the back behind the chutes waiting for him to finish up the rodeo with my wrapped up arm.(Subjects: injuries) You know. I had two titanium plates put in, probably the worst one for me. And it wasn't really bad. It was in Albuquerque finals. In Wild Drag, my friend Mickey Montoy and I, there were there were a couple of lesbians that were doing a documentary on us and it was awesome. So they were, you know, we were like, hey, we're going to dress up in drag for you. So we put lipstick on. We did the whole thing. And mind you, we don't do drag per say like drag-drag like professionals, but leave that to them. But, you know, so we went out in Wild Drag, my steer, just as I was going over the line, did a quick turn, and I rolled over in the back hook, caught my lip and ripped my lip down to my jawline. (Subjects: injuries) So I had you can't see it, but there was a scar there. So I got up, you know, and everyone was like, "Oh, my God, you're bleeding." And I'm like, "What?!" Well, you know, again, your adrenaline's high, you don't know what's going on. So I just kind of grabbed it, not thinking that I have shitty dirty gloves, but, you know, anyway. So we go over to the medics and the medics are like trying to get it cleaned up and they're like, "You're going to have to go to the hospital. You're going to need stitches." I'm like, "But wait a minute, I got flag race left. I gotta finish flags because this is finals! I qualified!" So I said, "Dude, tape it up, whatever. I got another event to do!" So they taped it up and crazy as it was, and uh, finished flags.(Subjects: injuries, race) And Brian got me to the hospital and on the way, he's like, "You've got to get that lipstick off. You've got to get that lipstick off." Because you don't go to the hospital and say, "Hey, I was just in a rodeo," because your insurance will freak out. But so, I'm trying to hold the flap and pull the lipstick off, you know, and do everything I possibly can, but. You know, we eventually got to the hospital, they didn't ask too many questions, but it was just like, you know, that they were just they probably knew, but they're probably. "Well, what happened?" "Well, we were just practicing for Halloween dress up and we had an accident and I slipped and caught my lip." And, you know it was, uh. Yeah. I've hit my head several times, you know, not too seriously, but other than that, I think, you know a couple gores, you know, from the bullhorn or whatever. Oh, I forgot New Mexico two years ago, in Wild Drag, I had the rope and the steer was crazy. And so they, I was dragging on the ground, literally it was Wild Drag. (Subjects: injuries) So I grabbed the rope and pulled em, and the steer turned around. Well he saw me and he was aggressive and I was just getting up and he came after me and I took his right horn right above my right eye. And everybody said it sounded like a watermelon exploded. It didn't. It just cut it open. But the blood was coming into eye, I thought I had lost my eye. So I stood up with the flak jacket that had fallen around my legs because the straps had come undone. And I proceeded to probably say every fowl word there was in the book for about 20 minutes. And Brian, who's a nurse, knows that sometimes that happens when that [inaudible] [laughs]. But the poor medics were trying to hold it on there and, you know, get it cleaned up and I ended up going in for stitches. But I'm sure the crowd was like, "Oh, my God, this man is crazy!" because I just everything. So I'm not proud of that moment, but [laughs] what else could I do?!(Subjects: injuries) What are you competing in this weekend? All the roping events, all the speed events, and Chute Dogging and Goat Dressing and Steer Deco.(Subjects: events) Can I ask? What is - what's really the difference between Bull Riding and Steer Riding? In terms of experience? It's, Steer Riding is more for entry-level people to come in, but it's actually a little bit more difficult to do, because they're smaller, they're quicker and they're really not trained in the event. But it does give our contestants a less dangerous event, I guess you could say, to see if they really want to move into Bull Riding or not. But, yeah, I mean, it's for me, it's harder to write a steer because they're smaller and they're squirmy and they belly roll and, you know, so it's a little bit more challenging.(Subjects: events) Have you ever competed on any of the royalty competitions as a Mr. or a Miss? I have not. I think I did a fun Charlie's Miss Rodeo fun thing, whatever, one time, so. But that was it, yah. Um, are you close with anyone who does royalty at all? Actually, Brian and I were, in the earlier years, the royalty have to do a horsemanship video. So we were always there to help them with that and get their horsemanship videos on our horses. So, yeah, we were you know, that's where we felt we could contribute to that. That's really great. Yah. So, as you've been a member for, twenty-five years, thirty-five years? Twenty-six. Twenty-six years - I'm good at math. It's OK [laughs]. History PHD over here [laughs with CB] How have you seen the association change over time? When I first started going to rodeos before I was competing, especially like L.A., it was amazing how many people in the community came out. I mean, we're talking 10,000 people. Not all of them came for the rodeo. They came because there were dance tents. There were cloggers in this tent. We had country line dancing here. We had two-step over here. We had disco over here. So it was like every, you know, gambit of the whole LGBTQ+ community [laughs]. Uh, you know, so it was it was exciting to be a part of that. And going out after the rodeo and the bars were crazy and, you know, people were having fun. You know, it kind of went through a lull, I'm going to say probably in the early 2000s. And then I kind of pick back up and then we started losing contestants, mainly because we're not bringing in younger contestants and we're all getting old, because time does that to you. (Subjects: community, dance) So I think we're suffering from that point. I think we're really wanting to bring in some younger people, to not only do the rodeo, but get involved in the associations, how are all non-profit. We all do it for charity. And initially it was all that money was going to help a lot of AIDS patients. Now we do it for cancer. We do it for, you know, the community. The rodeo community gets to choose who their beneficiaries are of that. So it is about charity. But, but you know, yeah, I think we're struggling right now and then especially with Covid, you know, and having that lull. This is our first rodeo coming back. So we're excited to see who's coming back and see what I can do.(Subjects: charity, community) Yeah. So my first question would be, why do you think young aren't joining? Well, I think that, and this isn't a bad thing, I think. Just overall, people are becoming more accepting of it. I think a lot of the younger kids don't see the need to go to a gay bar. They go hang out with their friends, whoever their friends are, whatever their friends are, they don't care. They don't do labels. It's just interesting for me to see what's happened. And it's kind of like, we've been fighting for this for years and it's happened and we're all like, oh, crap. [laughs] We didn't expect this is a side effect. So you can't be upset with them, you know? And maybe we need to look at it, and I think, you know, there's been discussion. Maybe we need to take the gay out of our rodeo associations and just make it more about inclusive and, you know, non-discriminative or, you know, just whatever we can do - because we allow everybody to compete. We don't care if you're gay or not. But we had the gay games in Akron, Ohio, and the facility where we had them, I was the contestant, kind of support person, the lady that ran that said, you know, all my writers here are so happy you guys are coming and we're going to do everything we can. We know we can't compete, you know, but we're okay with that. But we want to help in any way that we can. I said that you can compete. She's like, but we're not gay. And I said, that's okay. There's nobody that checks for that. [Laughs] There's no way to really check for that unless that, no. But anyway, so it is that stereotype that we can't get over. But, you know, just for me, if I went to, hey, there's a straight hockey league, I'm going to be a little bit hesitant about it because I'm gay and it is about how you label it. So we've had the discussion at our conventions for several years trying to figure out a solution to that. We've not come to a point where we can get the majority of the assembly to really change that. But my suggestion years ago was drop the gay and put in a deeper, diverse. The International Diverse Rodeo Association - something. But uh, until we do that, I think we have to understand that, we're going to have to explain to people - we're not, you know, exclusive to just gays. Yeah. And how is the association historically been split between, you know, men, women, non-binary people? What is it historically looked like? We always had a strong male leadership. I think we've had a couple of female presidents, including Candy, our current president and Linda, oh I forget, Linda Frazier. But other than that, it's mostly been men, even the board of directors has been traditionally more men, although we have more female trustees coming on board, which is good. Um, [clears throat] you know, as far as, what their sexuality is and that? I know that we've had straight people in those roles. Lori comes to mind, she's from Vegas, and she's kind of a straight ally. But it wasn't about, again, being gay or whatever. It was just like, be a part of us. So I don't think we necessarily look at leadership from sexuality in any way. And who knows for sure? Because I don't ask them. I'm like, what are you? "Well I'm -" ya know [laughs]. We just assume you're here and, you know, you're going to bring something to the table and you're going to help us promote things and build the association. In the late 80's and early 90's, what was the sort of a country-western scene like? Was Charlie's filled with, um you know, gay men and lesbians? Were the bars separated? What did that look like? Charlie's was more male. I don't think that they really discriminated, but I th- they might have at the door. I've heard that, which I think is sad. But there was a bar called Cash-In, in Phoenix that was mostly the lesbian cowgirls. And again, it was like, why? You know, why can't, you know? And I'd been to the Cash-In before and they never gave me any problem, you know. But it was kind of their space and their place and we didn't want to be disrespectful or whatever. And they probably thought the same thing. But it was really ridiculous, when I look back at it, it's like, why? Why would you do that? Both good supporters of gay rodeo. I know Charlie's traditionally has been very strong in supporting gay rodeo, which is wonderful. But we also need to make sure that we're allowing other not just bars, other organizations to come in and be a part of that and support it, but. Yah. So, you know, moving forward, what do you see both for your own continued future in the association and then what do you hope for the association? Well, for me, you know, I take it pretty much one rodeo at a time. I've got my seven-year-old mare that I've trained, and this is her first rodeo. So for me, this is all about her. This is all about creating great experiences for her. The trailer ride up went great, getting into the stall went great, you know, getting the arena today went great, getting in the roping box went great. Tomorrow's a whole different possibility because there's going to be music and noise and announcers and things that she's not been exposed to. So, uh, she's my priority right now. I know what to do for the events that I'll use her in, but I'll be using her in the speed events and then the roping, too, which is a lot to ask from a seven-year-old, but she's very smart, she's just like her mom. So, you know, for me, if she's willing to do this and she's good and, you know, I'm good with that. (Subjects: events) Again, I'm just taking it one rodeo at a time. Maybe another year, maybe two? That Brian and I talked about this 20 years ago, like, you know, there's going to come at a time when we decide that we're going to probably have to transition. And we're like, OK, transition to what? And we always talked about, probably being judges, rodeo officials. So, you know, for the association, um, it's a lot of struggles and it's a lot of struggles because the bars, the gay bars are struggling. And that was our support. So we've got to find other support systems to help us, but it's really about supporting us because then our associations can get back to the charities and their community. And I think we need to do a better job of that. If it's looking for grants, if it's writing more grants or finding somebody who can help us write grants, then that's probably something we need to do. Um, so. I forgot my question. [laughs with CB and Unknown] That happens a lot because I'm listening. I forgot the answer, by the way. [Everyone laughs] I wanted to ask if, um because, you know, I know that Brian's your rodeo partner, but I wanted to hear if you had ever had a part - a partner or partners in your personal life? I have. I'm not one of the lucky ones that finds the golden egg and that you know, you're there for 25 years, but I still try. I've had a few rough ones, you know, which it's unfortunate, you know, that there's people out there aren't truthful, but, you know, I weather it and I move on. And for whatever reason, if I just like I said earlier, when life kind of just guides you and directs you, you sometimes can't blame yourself for, like picking the wrong person, you kind of just have to realize that listen, is this going to go or not? But if it's an unhealthy situation, then by all means, you need to get out of it and I want to make sure anybody that's in that situation knows that. And, you know, I have hope. I mean, I've extended my life beyond '95, which was my expiration date, and my health is exceptional. And I'm going to continue to drive it out and you know, and I know that eventually I'll find my, my twin flame or my soul partner. I think I might be your twin flame [laughs]. Hey! [Laughs with RS]. I shouldn't say that, that's inappropriate [laughs]. So, uh, my follow-up question to that is, as a competitor, I know that rodeo weekends can be really intense, but were they also places that you were looking to find love or did find love even if it didn't last all the time? Well, it is. It's a possibility. You know, there's been opportunities for some, you know, one-night stands or flings or whatever, and that's fine. I mean, you know, I don't judge people. I know there's people out there. However, whatever they want to do, it's none of my business, you know, and just as you know, what I do is not necessarily everybody else's business. But, you know, I do believe that I really want that that soul mate, you know, to settle down with. And I have a lot to give and a lot of love and. I look forward to that and I keep that forward thinking and keep it in my vision. But you know, it any rodeo, gay or straight, it tends to be about, you know, people hookin up! And that's just kind of a [inaudible] But that's a music festival, that's a NASCAR race. You know, that's that's anything that just kind of is what it is. [laughs with RS] And we're just natures, er, you know.(Subjects: music) Yeah. Did you know anybody who met a rodeo and stayed together for a long time? Uhhhh, yes. [pauses] I want to say, can Sean Eddings and Kirk Carter. Live in Texas now, Kirk was from California, Sean was from New Mexico. And they had known each other in rodeo for a long time and they're still together. Great guys, love them to death and that's a, that's a good match there. So, yeah, they're find people that meet and um. I'm trying to think - there was another couple that I know that met in '95 and they're just I'm drawing a blank right now but. Yeah, in terms of the social life of rodeos, how do you or did you during like the last twenty-six years, do you compete, go to the bars, compete, or is it competition all weekend? Well, earlier we used I used to go out, you know, I don't - I like drinking. I'm not a, you know, a heavy drinker, you know, especially now I've kind of learned to keep in moderation. But, you know, there - some people function well under the influence. So if they drink a lot the night before, they seem to do better the next day, maybe because they're a little more relaxed. That may have worked for me earlier on. I don't know, it doesn't anymore. So I, I'm not a big drinker, I you know, I'm like I'm I have like one good quality margarita a week and I'm good. I look forward to that. But, you know, I had one yesterday [laughs with RS] and I'm like, yay! You know, but one is good for me. But yeah, I tend to on rodeo weekends between Saturday and Sunday, I tend to not drink. I tend to focus on my hydration and getting all my electrolytes back up and get my vitamins in me and everything else because I'm not twenty-six anymore [laughs]. Um, can you talk about how last year with Covid-19 has affected either you personally, or the association, and what this rodeo could potentially mean? Well, it drew us all from the association into a tailspin because we didn't know what to do. You know, we have an annual convention to do. We have our royalty competition that is in conjunction with finals. We knew that, you know when Arizona had theirs in February, which I was at that rodeo, and then everything hit. And then we finally made the decision of what do we do? We have to reach out to a parliamentarian to kind of help us look through our bylaws and figure out that the probably the best thing to do is to merge the two years together. Well, that means we didn't have a convention. That means our royalty team is going to roll over for two years instead of one year, you know, and then we're in the predicament now of like, well are you going to do 2020, 2021 and 2022? But now we're kind of doing a little bit different. So it's it's I think some decisions have been made, which aren't correct. But, that's just my way of thinkin'. Maybe a few other people, but not everybody thinks that, but. (Subjects: royalty) The main thing is to get our rodeos back on. And so having this one, having Santa Fe, having Vegas is good, you know, and that's four rodeos in the last, what, two years. And then we can add that to 2022 and kind of get things rolling. So I think a lot of associations lost their support from their community and their bars, not because people didn't want to give, but because everything shut down. So a lot of the associations are struggling and that's why they had to cancel the rodeos. Not only that, because our rodeo in Canada can't get people across the border. If they brought the officials, they'd have to quarantine them for 10 days. So, yeah, it's for me personally, I just miss my rodeos. I mean, that was my expression. But I just kind of had to hope that things were, you know, would come around. For me, working from home was great and it still is. Saved me a lot of money on gas and travel, and time. But, you know, I still have my horse. I still have to work with her and get her trained and everything. So if it, if anything, it's giving me more time to train her to get her ready for this experience. OK, so I kept you for about an hour. Oh, wow. Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you would like to talk about? Um, I don't think so. Um. No, not unless- Do you have anything you like to follow up on? Yeah, just like a couple of questions. But you um, you talked about how you got into rodeo, right, when you were dealing with the fact that you were trying to save your own life, basically by yourself without your family. You've been given this diagnosis of five years. You lost a partner. Do you think that there was something specific about rodeo and maybe the danger of rodeo or the physicality of rodeo, that something specifically about rodeo that helped you through that point? Well, you know, I think it was more about when, you know, the people in the rodeo were looking at me based on not being HIV positive. And again, because I I chose to take control, I chose to do a lot of specific things for my health care that were not traditional. You know, I had a naturopath and was working with that right away. So if I'm understanding your question, which I hope I am. It, it was a way for me to to push further into life rather than pull back. And I think that maybe that's what it was, and again, having the right people in the right place at the right time, you know, I mean, I really was going through enough dealing with losing my partner. And I think one of the hardest part was the family wasn't really kind of, the father was OK with me the mother was a little struggling with it, my partner's mother. And the fact that they - I was allowed to be a pallbearer was really devastating to me. So with all of that, I think I needed. To get into something that would get me out of that and not dwell on it, so again, I'm grateful for the power above or whoever guided me to the right people at the right time to make those decisions because it was life-changing to me, you know, and again, I I don't know what my expiration date is. Nobody ever does. But I was given one which sometimes feels like, hey, at least you have one. But it's like yah, but it's way the hell back there. Can you give me a revised one? Because, you know, it's hard. It's hard to see people get up and go through the crap of, like, you know, and it's like where is? Just, just give me the button, you know, I'm out [chuckles]. But yeah, I think the right people at the right time and the right influences helped push me into, "Go live." And that's what I wanted to do. And I guess just too, like hearing you talk about preparing to write a bull. Like it seems so all consuming, like you're not about anything else. Is that an aspect of it that maybe keeps you grounded or centered, like it almost - do you meditate? I'm just was wondering if there's a similar mental space you go into to take care of all those ropes and harnesses and physical things, it seems overwhelming to someone like me who is just hearing about it. Well, again, because, you know, my first steer ride was in Oklahoma City and I borrowed Cheryl Wains [inaudible]. Cheryl was an awesome bull rider. She was probably 5"2, and she probably weighed 100 pounds. And I mean, she was just amazing, you know, but she would get thrown off that bull and she'd hang on her, get tied up and she'd swing around that thing. And I'm just like, this is crazy. But I had influences like Scoot, Dennis Terrell's brother, who's straight, and he competed in the rodeos and he kind of gave me some hints. So I picked up little bits from people. And for me, I'm a processor. I'm analytic. I have to have a flow-chart, if you want to say that. To me, that's what I do at work. So I think I was able to take this process over here and when I mentor certain students, I do the same thing. I'm like, this is what you need to do this and you need to repeat it every time. And it becomes muscle memory and it becomes automatic and you know what you're doing, but it keeps you out of thinking what could happen and it keeps you away from the fears, because that's in everywhere in life, you know, and you're going to, you're going to have failures and you can go back and analyze it. And I usually do with my kids that I mentor. Alexander's one of them. And I'm like, when he gets off ride again, tell me what tell me what's in your head. Relive it, rethink it. Go through it. See where you lost your focus. But, yeah. Did that answer your question?(Subjects: mentor, teaching) Yeah. Thank you. So I did think of a follow-up, I'm sorry. When it comes out when it comes to living through this pandemic. You know, I have kids, I am just the absolute horror of this past year of being afraid, and I'm wondering, as someone who has lived HIV positive, you know, what was it like watching the rest of the world kind of grapple with their mortality or the mortality of their friends and family in a way that, you know, the gay community had to do in the 1980s while other people looked on in judgment and, or ignorance or completely ignored the situation? What did that feel like for you? Well, you don't wish any ill will on anybody for sure. I think there's a lot of people out there that really don't understand what happens with the AIDS epidemic. They'd have to dig into to go research it. But kind of being on the front lines of that with my partner and seeing everything that happened, it was, it was just horrible. You know, there were, there were angels who came in to help people where not even these men's families would come to their aid and help them. Not even a place to bury them. I mean, you know, to me, it should be taught in history, but it probably won't. But, you know, hopefully, hopefully some kids will take an opportunity to look at that. So when this all started, of course, you know, I'm HIV positive. I'm also diabetic. So I was like, oh, shit. But I was also told from work to go work from home and I did not go out. I mean, I wore two masks when I went shopping if I had to. But I went shopping, I went to the pharmacy and that was it. And I went home and I worked. And you didn't do anything. I did work with my horse because I had the capability to do that, you know, without anybody else around. So that was good. But, you know, I, I. We need to look at what it can teach us. We need to look at the lesson. We need to look at what we can do in the future, what we can do better. And I still see some people that are resisting it. And I don't understand it. But that's, again, that's part of America. People are free to believe how they want to believe. And it's like, could you please just validate your resources before you make up your mind? Could you please just go to some of these organizations that will validate what's being said and if it's accurate or not? And but you know what? You're, you're educated from your family. And I see these younger kids that were brought up in these rural communities, and it's kind of what they were taught and it's scary. And you're like, when are you going to learn to go outside and do some of your own investigations and make your own mind up? I think that would benefit everybody, but it's going to be that way. It's something that we have to live with and we're going to have to expect, because if there's a right side and a left side, you're never going to bring the right to the left or the left to the right. And if there's a way to find a middle line somewhere in there, then that's what we can do. But, you know, I, I - it still scares me that some people are not getting vaccinated. You know, I wish them well. I'm concerned, especially with the Delta variant, you know, so. Has, has history taught us anything? I don't think so. Now, the nice thing about it, if there is one, the nice thing about wearing masks, not Covid, the nice thing about wearing masks is the number of flu cases that went down. So can we look at that? Can we start to see that this isn't just about Covid. This is about what can we do to protect everybody all the time? That's great. OK, well, I'm sure you're exhausted, but thank you! Oh no! I could talk forever. [laughs with RS]. And we can always do follow-ups. OK. And thank you so much for your time! Oh, thank you guys. I appreciate it.

Tommy Channel Click to filter

This is Renae Campbell and we are doing an interview at the International Gay Rodeo Association Convention in Denver, Colorado. It’s November 11, 2019—nope—November 22nd. [laughs….]. And I am here with Tommy Channel, and we are going to talk a little bit about your experience with IGRA. Okay. And so, I usually like to start by asking where you were born. I was born in a little town called Cushing, Texas. About three hours east of Dallas.(Subjects: childhood) Nice. And did you grow up there, or…? Born and raised. Nacogdoches County.(Subjects: childhood) And what was it like growing up there? I was born a coal miner's daughter… no. [laughs] I was born and raised on a farm with my mom and dad. Grandparents lived right next door and they were vegetable farmers, raised cattle and pigs. That's how I grew up.(Subjects: childhood, family) You grew up around animals then, it sounds like? Yeah, I did. And I had a good childhood. I had a good childhood. We didn't go hungry. We didn't have a lot of money, but we had what we needed to live.(Subjects: childhood) And did you have brothers and sisters? I had two older sisters—two older sisters, we're very close. I enjoy being with my sisters when I do go home.(Subjects: childhood, family) So, does your family still live mostly all in Texas? They all live in Texas. Okay. And I have a little farmhouse there on two acres that I was raised in. When my parents passed away, I inherited the homestead and my partner and I frequently visit there.(Subjects: family) Nice. So, you have some fond memories of your childhood, it sounds like. Very fond memories, yes. And did you go to high school there? High school in Cushing, Texas. And then attended a little business college in Nacogdoches called Massey Business college back in the day.(Subjects: childhood) Okay. And then, what did you do after college? After college, well, after that business college, my first real job that I call an extended job was for an export company, actually. They're in Nacogdoches. We exported to Saudi Arabia—to the oilfields in Saudi Arabia back in the mid- ‘70s.(Subjects: jobs) Okay. And growing up, did you go to many rodeos? Was that part of your upbringing? We did. That was—that was a pretty good—pretty much the pastime back out in the country in east Texas. A lot of rodeoing, country rodeos, yes.(Subjects: childhood) And were you involved in them? I was not at the time, no. Okay. How did you find out about IGRA? Well, after—after working for a few years there in Nacogdoches for that export company, I met some friends who introduced me to Houston, Texas, and discovered where I needed to be. And who I needed to be, finally.(Subjects: comingout) So, was that kind of during that period that you came out, or was it before then? No. That that was the period where I came out, where I discovered who I was—who I am.(Subjects: comingout) And was that a—what was that experience like for you? It was.... It was like a weight lifted off your shoulders. When you finally know who you are, and you don't have to pretend to be somebody that you're not to try and satisfy a religion or a family expectation. It's a huge relief to finally know who you are.(Subjects: comingout) And did you have a very supportive community there, with you at that time? My family is very supportive. In the day—in those late ‘70s, by this time—mid- to late ‘70s—it wasn't something you talked about. Families know; mothers know. I think mothers know from adolescence. It's just—I think it's an instinct.(Subjects: family, comingout) So, then, it was your friends there in Houston that introduced you to IGRA events? Correct. My first IGRA event was in Houston, Texas. In, um, ‘80…. Wow, can't remember. ‘80 something—the early ‘80s. And I didn't know anybody at the event. I just heard about it. Maybe I saw a poster or something at a bar or read about it, maybe somewhere that I had been. I don't remember how I heard about it. But I went, and I didn't know anyone. I didn't know a soul. But I was so intrigued, watching these events that were so—some of them—foreign.(Subjects: events, highlight) Some of them were just rodeo events like, you know, bronc riding, bull riding, and roping—those kind of things. But they did something so unusual that I had never seen before, like a drag race, and the goat dressing, and wild drag. Those events were foreign. Something I'd never seen before. And to these people, it was—they were having fun. They were really fun. And guess what? I wanted, I wanted to be a part of it. [laughs] So, I did what I needed to do, and met some people, and said, “How do I—how do I do this?” And that's what we did.(Subjects: events, highlight) So then did you go—uh, what was the next one that you went to? Did you immediately start attending? The next—the next event was in Denver, Colorado. The next gay rodeo was in Denver, Colorado. And, um, that's when I fell in love with Denver. And did you participate in that one? Or did you just, um…? Not in the first one, no. But it was probably the next one or so. I ran right out and bought myself a horse—yeah. And my little horse’s name was Sassafras. Nicknamed Sassy, after myself, of course. And we did barrels, poles, flags—the horse events. And we, we just blended right in.(Subjects: events) So, did you do more events than that, or are those primarily…? Those were the primary. The camp events, and the wild drag, and the goat dressing, and […] steer decorating, now, I did those as well. Yeah, I did. I never rode a bull, never rode a bronc—no.(Subjects: events) Did you have a favorite of those events? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely! My horse and I, our favorite event was flag race for sure. We loved running flags.(Subjects: events) And did you…? A couple buckles? Yeah. Yeah? How did you know what I was gonna ask? [laughs] [laughs] Huh? Yeah. I sport a couple of buckles in that event. Nice. And then have you been pretty consistently involved since that time? I have been very involved since then. I have been president of the Colorado Gay Rodeo Association four terms, and I've been a rodeo director for CGRA, the Colorado group, I believe, three times. I've been rodeo director for the International Finals Rodeo twice—two different times. And just last year was my—I think it was my fourth term as president here, which ended in September of this year. And I have been a Mr. IGRA in 1997—I think. I think that's the year. [laughs] And that was a huge accomplishment, something to be proud of, I'm proud of. To be recognized by your peers is always a good thing. And, um…. So, it sounds like you've done the rodeo events, you've also been part of royalty, and you've been part of the administration so to speak. Currently—I am currently—the administrative assistant. I'm the only paid employee of the International Association. And so, I'm very involved currently. Still in the in the International Association and with CGRA. I helped produce this weekend's event here: Convention.(Subjects: jobs) Congratulations on pulling that off. I think it's going very well. Thank you. Yeah. So, when you came out to that first rodeo in Denver, was that when you decided to move out here or…? I had already moved. Oh, you had already moved. Okay. I had already moved here when I attended that rodeo. And in all the different roles that you have served, do you think that there are—do you think that you've seen a good cross-section of…? Oh, absolutely. Going from a contestant to administration and production of the event that I love so much, it's a huge spectrum to cross. And I've enjoyed every minute of it; every event that I participate in, I love.(Subjects: highlight) Nice. So, what do you think makes IGRA different from, say, the rodeos that you participated in—or saw—as a kid? Hmm. Well, for one thing, we—the interaction from association to association, state to state, becomes a family affair—a huge social event. And it's exciting to see friends and people that you consider family at this point, you know, a few times a year. Just like you—just like I go home to see my blood family. These people are my family. I love them dearly and appreciate their contributions, you know, to our society. We have doctors, lawyers, nurses, practitioners, veterinarians in our group, schoolteachers, you name it. Sexuality has no boundaries. And it's, it's a beautiful family.(Subjects: family, community, highlight) Nice. Um…Yeah. That's a lovely statement. Well, thank you. It was not rehearsed. It just came out that way. Yeah. So, have you ever been at one of the events where there were—it sounds like you've been on a lot of them—where they were protesting? Absolutely. Absolutely. In the early years, in the early ‘80s, perhaps even in the early ‘90s, we experienced quite a bit of protesting. Not only—they weren't so much protesting “gay,” they were protesting “rodeo.” And what they considered animal abuse. Many signs that come to my memory first off would be, let’s see… I remember seeing this in California, particularly, that would say “Gay yes. Rodeo no.” Comes to mind as one of the proliferate, or more…. that’s what I remember.(Subjects: peta) So, you would see that outside of the rodeos as you were going in? They would be at the entrances in the street—at the street entrances to the property, yeah. They were never allowed on the property. I mean, it's free speech, but, uh, yeah. And does that happen much anymore? No. We don't see that anymore. You know, freedom of sexuality, thank goodness, has become easier and more accepting today. In the last probably 20 years, you know, thank goodness. Yes. Are there any other changes that you've kind of noticed over the period of time that you've been involved? Well, early—in the early years, up through then, up through the ‘90s, you know, rodeo, country and western was at its height, in my opinion. We have seen a decrease in our spectator crowds and in participation—sadly. What we sometimes refer to as the Garth Brooks days—thank goodness he’s back [laughs]—but there was a period of time where it was—it was cool to be country. You know, there's a song… [laughs] To that effect? [laughs] “I was country when country wasn't cool.” And so, anyway, so, yeah. Things have changed. Social media has changed our way of life drastically. You, you used to have a social outlet, that was the bars, that we don't have to experience anymore. You pick up your phone and get a date. So, do you think that a lot of word of mouth for IGRA came from different bars? Absolutely, absolutely. Personal interaction was a big… oh, what’s the word? Medium, I guess. You know, that's—a lot of people heard about it from you talking about it in a bar or club atmosphere. And we don't see that anymore. Where we used to go into a bar here in town, in Denver, there’d be a sea of cowboy hats—doesn't happen anymore, sadly. And I miss those days. ‘Course I'm 64 years old now. I was 34 back then. Do you ever wear your cowboy hat anymore? Oh, yeah. Still do. Still do. Love my hats. [laughs] So, do you consider—would you say that you dress in sort of a Western way? Every day. Every day? Every day. Right here. [points to boots] Yeah, every day. I wear my boots every day. I don't wear a hat every day because it might not work—it would be in the way. But, yeah. And what do you do now—for work? I'm an antique dealer. Yes. So, I'm pushing, and pulling, and moving furniture almost every day.(Subjects: jobs) Yeah. I can see how a cowboy hat might not work. Yeah. It gets hot. And then you've also said that you're currently the, um, …? The administrative assistant for IGRA, yes. And that's a very focused job on IGRA. So, I handle all of the insurance needs, anything that the president needs from me, you know, um, to assist with. Whatever they may need, you know, me to do as far as, mostly insurance. I make sure that all of our events are properly insured, and our stock contractors are all properly insured.(Subjects: jobs) How much time do you say that you—would you say that you—dedicate towards that a year? It varies. It varies. The summer months are busier when there’s more rodeos than in the spring. You know, our finals are in the fall. It's very busy. So, it just varies from month to month.(Subjects: jobs) And you've been doing that for a while, have you not? I've been doing—I've been administrative assistant for almost, I think, about 15 years. Yeah.(Subjects: jobs) Nice. And do you plan to keep doing it? As long as they let me! Okay. Do you have a favorite part about that position? Uh, well, a responsibility under that is merchandising. I handled the branding—merchandising brand—that you saw downstairs for the association. I love merchandising. So, that's probably my favorite. Yeah.(Subjects: jobs) Huh. And would you say that you have ever had, or have, a mentor in IGRA? Or are you someone's mentor? Is that something that’s been important to you? Humm. I hope. I guess everybody would hope that you have a positive effect on somebody out there. I hope. I hope somebody is looking up to me. I really don't know if I can call a name, but I would hope so. Do I have a mentor? Hmm… yeah, probably so. Sadly, he's passed away.(Subjects: mentor) I’m sorry. His name was Wayne Jakino. Have you heard that name before?(Subjects: mentor) I have heard that name before, yes. He was a very special person that was instrumental in starting this organization back in the early ‘80s. If I had to look up to somebody, it would probably have been him. I didn't know him personally. Sounds like other people have mentioned him as well?(Subjects: mentor) Yeah, well, I've heard his name from Patrick a number of times too. Well, there you go. Okay, good. Yep. It's too bad we can't interview him. It would be an awesome interview. And there probably is some recording somewhere. Maybe they'll find that someday in an archive. I'm pretty sure there is. I'm sure there is. Let's see if we can't get that for you. Yeah, that would be great. So, do you have some favorite aspects of IGRA? Favorite aspect? Uh…. You know, like… I think you talked about the difference between IGRA rodeos and other ones. But, you know, is there something that keeps bringing you back into the fold with it? That keeps you so heavily involved? Well, I think, I think there’s a very simple answer to that: It's my family. And I just—I would not be complete without this group of people. That's what keeps me around. I love the events. I love, you know, World Gay Rodeo Finals in the fall every year is a special event that I'm very fond of, and I take very personal interest in. And I have been involved with the production of that event for, oh, probably, going on 15 years.(Subjects: community) So, do you always make that event every year? Every year. Every year, yeah. Because I'm usually in some portion of production. Even if it is just providing the branded merchandise. I get involved with buckle designs often. For several years I have handled buckle designs. This past year, worked very, very closely with another team member and handed it off to her because I was so busy. She does a fantastic job—so maybe I mentored her now that I think about it. So, yeah, that's always a, uh, that's always an enjoyable task for me as well. Because I love design and things like that.(Subjects: mentor) I've seen a number of those buckles on the website and…. Some of those were probably my work. They're lovely! Not that I made them, but just—with the buckle manufacture and design. So, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to but, like a family, do you ever have frustrations with any parts of IGRA? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, just like with any family. Family is family. And you don't always agree but, when you love someone, and you care about someone, you agree to disagree. And that's what you have to do to maintain. And, well, that means a lot when you can do that. That's when you know you have a friend. Are there any directions you would like to see IGRA take in the future? Well, sure. We need to, we need to grow our organization. But I would like to see some more public exposure. I don't have an answer to how. But that that would be, probably, at the top of my list. To expose a younger generation to our world called gay rodeo. Because there are many, many young people—and what I call young people is 30 and younger, probably—that are looking for something to call home. And looking for a family. We could be that family.(Subjects: igra) So, do you find less younger people involved? Unfortunately, yes. Our group is growing old. You're talking to one of them. [laughs] We would love to see a younger generation. Someone's got to take over for us. Someone has to keep our organization alive. And that's the only way we're going to survive.(Subjects: igra) Yeah, makes sense. Sure does. And you mentioned earlier—just to kind of jump back—some of the camp events. Is that something that you approve of? Enjoy being part of at the rodeo? Oh, absolutely. They're fun to watch. And I participated when I was younger. And they are fun events. But they're—they can be dangerous as well. They can be just as dangerous as they are fun. The crowd seems to love the wild drag race, probably the most of the three camp events, because it can get wild and crazy.(Subjects: events) As the name would suggest. As the name would suggest. Do you have a favorite rodeo that you've been to, since you've been to so many? Or are there several that kind of...? Well, okay. That's a great question. And I have a great answer. We produced a gay rodeo for Gay Games in Cleveland, Ohio. Well, Gay Games was in Cleveland, Ohio. The rodeo we produce was in Akron during Gay Games…. What year? What year was it? Oh, my goodness…. We're gonna have to find that out. K. It was a few years ago, maybe four or five years ago. It was a life changing experience to produce an event that was attended—not so much contestant-wise, but spectator-wise—to have the stands filled. Filled with countries, delegations from other, you know, from parts of the world. It was a life changing experience to be part of the opening ceremonies of an Olympic event. It really, it really was an incredible time. Do you think that helped grow your membership at all? Is that…? I'm not sure that it did. We hoped. But the base of spectator there was, was a worldwide base. So I'm not—I don't know if it did. But it certainly exposed us. We, uh, we showed the world, at that point, who we were. And many of them had never heard of us. So that was the intention, really. So, I noticed that the name “International” has been in the acronym since the beginning. Do you know anything about how that came to be? Canada. It's the United States and Canada. Canada put the “I” in IGRA. We're very proud of our Canadian friends to the north. And then, I guess, sort of to the flip side, do you have a rodeo that you felt like… just didn't go right or… that you were less pleased with? Well, there was but, unfortunately, I was not in attendance to a finals rodeo that was in Reno—Reno, Nevada, I believe it was—that had to be canceled because of protests, that we talked about earlier. There was a big protest and the grounds where the event was to be held ordered us off of the property. The event was not held. That's probably the biggest disappointment. Like I said, I wasn't in attendance there, but I was involved during the time. I just wasn't at that event.(Subjects: homophobia) And you knew many of the people who were there? Right, right. I can't remember what year that was. We can look that up, too. We'll have to look it up. Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell me about your experience in IGRA or anything else? I don't know, I think I've said a lot. But, you know, I guess I would stress the family orientation of our group. How we, as large as we are, we're a small organization. And our representation is special to each of us. With each other, it truly is a family. And was that something you felt immediately? Immediately, immediately. That first event that I went to in Houston, Texas, in the ‘80s, I knew I was home. I knew I was home. Even though, like I said before, I didn't know anybody. I knew I found it. I knew I had found where I needed to be.(Subjects: highlight) That’s lovely. So, the last question I always ask folks is, um, if you consider yourself a cow person—a cowboy or a cowgirl? And if so or not, why? I'm cowboy-ish. [laughs] Because I currently don't have a horse, even though I like to dress cowboy. I like to wear a hat, my boots, and… I still like to put myself in that category.(Subjects: cowperson) Excellent. Okay, well, thank you very much for your time today. I know it's busy here.

Marie Antoinette DuBarry Click to filter

It's April 1st at the Texas Tradition Rodeo 2017 outside of Dallas. This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Paul and your stage name is Marie Antoinette Du Barry. So could you tell me first, and I'm sorry for this, what year you were born? I was born in 1980. So it was late in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I'm the only child of an only child. My grandmother owned a bridal shop. She's very well known in New Mexico, actually in Santa Fe. She owned her business for fifty-five years and I grew up in that bridal shop. So, yeah that's where I come from and that's who sort of who I am. That's sort of the great beginnings of Du Barry.(Subjects: childhood) And as a little kid, did you ever feel like you were different at all? Did you feel pretty mainstream? I was very different. I was classified as weird at a very early age. So maybe about anywhere from late kindergarten to first grade, the acronym “weird,” “you're weird,” “what are you talking about? You’re weird,” was constantly referenced because I was dyslexic. They didn't really discover it until I was maybe 5th or 6th grade, which is actually I find is really the norm for LGBTQ people. I think it's in our genetics and I think it's something that helps us cope with different abilities. So I wasn't a very good reader so that made me very obvious. I was also very effeminate, which is really obvious. And all those things made for an interesting school life especially at the beginning because kids don't necessarily have the protection from being bullied. (Subjects: childhood) The protection from…because back then it was completely normal for the principal to say to my mother, “Well, boys will be boys. Boy will be boys. Your son is effeminate so you're going to have to expect some of this.” So that is sort of the beginning experience of school. I was very good at art, I was very good in history, I was very good in tests that did not involve writing or spelling. And later on as I grew up in school I started to get…they diagnosed with me with dyslexia. And actually it, what’s really interesting is, it's not a learning disability like most people say, it's actually a learning different ability. That’s what I like to refer to it as. Because it's a totally different learning ability, you learn in a very different way but boy can you store a lot of different computer stuff in your brain.(Subjects: childhood) So was your mom pretty protective of you with all the bullying? Yes, my mother was extremely protective of me for bullying. I moved schools about three or four times. I finally finished my schooling out in elementary at Gonzales. So it was always, you know, once the bullying got too much, my mom would move me, move me, and move me cause there was that constant, “oh, boys will be boys.” That kind of crazy nowadays if you really think about it.(Subjects: parents, childhood) As a mother of a son I hoped that that's crazy. Yeah, it's intense. And it's completely…you see a lot of resurgence right now and of course this will go into forever, this interview will go into prosperity, prosperity, posterity. And we’re seeing a lot of those resurgence of allowing people to act the way…by allowing it, saying, “Oh, well, that's how people are supposed to act.” When that's not really how they're supposed to act at all. We're supposed to act much better than that. And it's shameful to see a lot of that. But it's really wonderful to see other people standing up for each other. So it's sort of this weird sort of time of vacillation of breaking with the old and stuff like that. But my mother was incredibly protective of me. She was always afraid that I was going to get kidnapped. So really weird phobia that she had: I was born during the prison riots in New Mexico, where there was a very bad prison riot that happened at the state pen. And my grandfather actually boarded up the windows and kept her in a specific room and then put told her not to come out ‘cause he was afraid that they were going to come down the street and kill people. So and he was a police officer, so my mother was sequestered into a particular room and I think that's what caused her to be so overprotective of me. As I speak to you with a wig on my head right now so. [Laughter] It's really funny when I think I'm like ahh. So yes she was incredibly protective.(Subjects: parents) Were you able to, even though you were switching schools and sort of bullied, were you ever able to make a core group of friends or a best friend that saw you through some of that? Yes, I had a couple, but it was more in middle school and then, after middle school, it was high school. It was sort of the time where I found it…I was very introverted in middle school because I wasn't out and then I decided when I hit high school I was going to be out for the whole experience. And so being sort of the artistic person that I was in that time and that I am now it was very hard for them to not automatically say that I was gay or whatever. And then as I got older and then I went into high school, you know all these people really admired me for coming out at such a young age and saying this is who I am, this is what I where I'm going, and I'm not going to let anybody tell me no. So that experience was very liberating in high school as a freshman. But to miss out, as me as a person, I missed out on things like I wanted to go to prom with a boy, I wasn't able to because everybody was so intimidated by being so out and being so forward about my gaiety, my homosexuality. I hate to say it because it sounds so clinical when you say “homosexuality.” My queerness. And so it's really a strange thing because boys are either attracted to especially in that age they're either attracted to you or they're not attracted to you so it's really hard experience going through high school. (Subjects: childhood, comingout) Yeah. So how do you identify as far as gender and sexuality? I identify as gender-fluid, so I don't really identify either as a boy or a girl. Though I vacillate between the two, sort of…[letting people pass by] Now that the chatty Cathies have passed. Gender, I mean I identify as gender-fluid. I'm sort of in between, I sort of float in between being masculine and feminine. Though I live my life as a man, I am very comfortable being a woman, dressing up as a woman. But I consider drag a very sacred experience. I consider it Greek Theatre. I consider it divinely inspired. Very sort of older than Christianity. Which is typically normal for ancient societies and then when you get into Christianity all of a sudden it sort of stopped because its considered not normal which ironically it is very normal to consider yourself both sexes or be more on the spectrum of being masculine or being feminine. So that’s sort of changeable and you can sort of change throughout your life and be more masculine when you're younger and be more effeminate when you're older or vice versa for either genders. So that's sort of what I consider myself. That's great. And when did you first start getting into drag? I think I was always doing drag. I think even around five or six, ‘cause my grandmother owned the bridal shop that I had mentioned earlier, I always tried on high heels, you know my grandma was using me for like dressmaker's dummy, so I was always, you know, ‘cause of course I was the right size of a flower girl at, you know, five or six. So these dresses worked really well. So I was constantly trying on bodices and trying on skirts and trying on hoops and stuff like that so it was very, very natural for me to just be able to slip into drag. But officially I started drag as a sort of as a career in six or seven years ago. And have you always had the same stage name? No. My stage name has changed throughout time. So the first of my stage names was Cherry Boom Boom and then later on I became Marie Antoinette Du Barry, which was the amalgamation of two women at the court of Versailles. Of course, Marie Antoinette and then Du Barry, who is sort of a lesser known. She was a courtesan at court of Louis XV. And what happened is I sort of blended the two girls together because I thought it would be really funny to have two, excuse my language, bitches sort of residing together who never liked each other and make it a full name. And so that's why I glued them together. That's amazing. What draws you to that period of time that sort of, you know, late French empire period? What draws me is the extreme pomp of everything, every movement meant something, every little thing you had on your dress. I mean if you had passion flower on your dress, it meant something. And women were constant rivals of each other, which much is like today. Who's wearing what? Are you wearing Gucci? Today, you know, it's Gucci or McQueen. But in those days, you had your dressmaker who you bought your fabric that had no fabric on it and thought of a dress that you wanted and then you said I want lilacs and lilies embroidered on the fabric and then. So that the extreme elegance and that extreme hard work to make such a beautiful outfit is really what draws me to it. And just simply the width of the dresses. The silhouette is what is really stunning to me because it could be, it could be really boring. But you have a tiny little waist and then giant hips and, you know, no bosom. I think that's really, I know it sounds crazy, but it's very effeminate to me, it’s very charming and beautiful. Because how does a woman move in that? How does a woman go from point A to point B in a carriage like that? And it takes a lot of patience and a lot of grace and a lot of elegance to get into the carriage to get out of the carriage without killing yourself. You're literally, I mean without tumbling out and dying or suffocating to death. So that's why I'm drawn to that, ‘cause it's so. And everybody knows it. Everybody knows that that is sort of the height of elegance and wealth and beauty. That always impresses me and that's why I decided to choose that. So when you officially came out and started getting more into the artistic side of drag and things like that, has your mother and your grandmother still supported you and are they still sort of part of your artistic vision? Well, my mother doesn't really have an artistic bone in her body. She can only draw like Christmas trees and roses. But my grandmother she passed away in 2016, so this will be her second-year anniversary. She was a wonderful lady. She taught me how to sew, so the dress that you saw was I made it and you know did all my stuff on it. And she taught me how to sew and she taught me how to be a lady. She said you can show as much heaving cleavage as you want but don't show your ankles. Men don't get to see your ankles. Men don't get to see certain things. They get to see other things, but they don’t get to see other things because those are personal, those are private things that make men interested in who you are. They ask questions. And I get that all the time. Why do you only show your shoulders? Like I don't wear triple D boobs because I don't think that's a natural thing for my body type, I think that maybe I'm a C or anything from a B to a C and I don't think it's proper to have giant boobs and give other people a false impression of womanhood. Because you don't have to have giant boobs to be a beautiful woman. You don't have to have a tiny waist to be a beautiful woman. Even though I corset myself quite a bit, in fact I wear corsets probably for everything that I dress in, but it's very important and very special to me that I don't have a very big bosom. ‘Cause I'm not interested. I don't like padding out, I don't pad out because that's not natural for me. And I typically find that other drag queens wear pads and stuff because they've been forced into it. And if they had a choice, I think that they would go in a different, they would do other things. And that's why I used panniers, which are the hip hoops that make me look wider. Because it makes my shoulders look way smaller and it makes me look like I haven't eaten in like three days, which is perfect so, you know. Which is of course isn't a natural way that woman would ever look but in that time period it would be very normal to have a teeny weeny little waist. So where did you start performing when you first got into it? I started at the Closet Ball which is where like men that are in the community that haven't done drag before or have done very little drag start off as men and then change into women. And so that's when I was Cherry Boom Boom and then a friend of mine whose a producer of show the Joe Box Cabaret in Santa Fe, her name is Linda Kraus. She was the lighting person for the show and she saw me and said you really have to join the show, so I joined the show from there. And it was very fortuitous because I didn't really have an outlet, you know I would dress up to go to parties you know or for Halloween but I really didn't I really didn't have a place to perform. Because I didn't perform at all I just went out in my costumes.(Subjects: performance) Yeah, what is your sort of you know we talked about your artistic side as far as fashion goes. What about singing, dancing, any of that side? It's very funny because I look a lot to history for, you probably I figure I look a lot to history, so I learn ancient dances like the Volta, which was a favorite dance of Queen Elizabeth, where the man, where it was sort of like a hop, skip, and a jump and then the man lifts the lady up from her crotch into the air and they say, “Volta.” It was an Italian dance, which was all the rage in her time and I put it to her modern music and it's very interesting because modern music has a lot of the same tonality of old music. And if you find the right one it's scary because it looks like exactly and people are like, “Well, where the hell did you think that dance up?” I didn't think it up, it's just an old dance that's re-appropriated. You know waltzing, I use a lot of that stuff. So, yes, I do dance.(Subjects: dance, performance) I don't really sing. Not really. I don't…I'm not really a big singer but I enjoy singing in the car and things like that. But I enjoy lip-syncing more because you get the tonality that you want. You get the song that you want from the singer you want and all you have to do is emote that emotion. There's some people that aren't good lip-syncers and there are people that are good lip-syncers. And you just, you have to hear the music and I think that that love between music and your performance is really what conveys to the audience because you can be talking to somebody over here and look at somebody from across the room and they'll be like, “Oh my gosh.” It means a lot to them. Oh my god. So that's yeah. But I don't sing, I don't sing very well. I sing but I don't sing very well, yes.(Subjects: performance) So how often would you perform in like in maybe a month? With this particular title, ‘cause now I'm the now reigning Miss New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association 2017, it's almost every other week. And some of them I have such a lucky sort of experience where I'm experiencing out of town so I'm actually performing outside of Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm performing in like Texas and you know Denver and things of that nature. So I'm able to show off my drag and it's…but it's very interesting because I get mixed reviews. I've always got mixed reviews on my drag because people say, “Well that's not drag.” Yes, it is. It's historically it is drag. If you look at Shakespeare yes, it is drag. You are seeing women dressed up in different time periods. Men dressed as women doing different time periods. First of all, yes it is drag. Historical drag is drag because it's in history. But I forgot what we are talking about.(Subjects: performance) Different responses to your drag outside of New Mexico. Then there's…it's interesting because now with rodeo there are people who have certain definers or what’s called hegemony of what rodeo should look like. And I tend to step outside of that boundary of what it looks like. Because what is really rodeo? What is really western looks? Because we can look at right now with stretch jersey and stretch jean and boots or we can go back to the 1600s or go back to the 1800s and we can see woman with bustle dresses. So what is really the definer of western looks? Is it a duster? Is it all leather? Is it jeans? Because in the 1800s Levi Straus I don't even I think he had started maybe making Levi's.(Subjects: cowperson) For mainly miners. For miners, yeah. And women weren't wearing pants. God forbid they were wearing pants. They were all corseted and bustled. Even the soiled dove women, which are prostitutes at that time period, were wearing, to go out in public because they weren't going to go out how they were dressed, in certain definers that defined what they looked like, you know, feathers in their hair can can girls. That is that is typically western. And then you look to modern sort of western sort of history. It doesn't just start now. It starts with polka. It starts with, you know, crinolines and colors and Annette Funicello square dancing. So you see this various range and then you see these people who tend to sometimes, they love country so much that they feel it has to be defined in a certain way. (Subjects: cowperson) But how do you define it? It's not just music. And it's not just fashion. It's what's inside you and sometimes it's the manners how you take care of each other with that changes that perception of western. Paula Cole said it best when she wrote her song about where have all the cowboys gone? You know, where's my Marlboro man? That's the truth of the matter. And I think with western people they have a romanticized idea of what it's supposed to look like. Jersey-comfortable, whatever. But it really isn't comfortable. Really, it's actually not a stereotype because it's really not a stereotype. It's an experience that you either experience it in your heart and you convey it to the audience or you don't. Especially as a performer you can either do it whatever you want to do it but I think it’s the gentleness that they want. (Subjects: cowperson) It's almost Southern in a way. Where western men are I mean I've never met nicer men than this. I mean tipping hats and being really lovely. In the gay community because it's a completely different community then if I was a pride pageant because gay men would be like a little snooty. Well not snooty but they can be a little huffy sometimes. And not all of them. But some of them. So there's that experience and with western experience they are very, very nice, it's like you experience gentlemen. And not all the time ‘cause there's some that are a little out of control but you can't do anything about that you just move on and have a good time.(Subjects: community) Yeah this is a really interesting point you are making about the sort of historicalness of western style when you know the south west was Spanish ladies and native women and lots of different visions of femininity before bling and Wranglers. And bell bottoms and boots because you look. I come from Santa Fe. Which is the end of the Santa Fe Trail. It ends with me. It ends where everybody wanted to go. I mean everybody was coming out to New Mexico and finding, I mean turquoise, silver, Wrangler boots—boots, and Wranglers, and concha belts. Where do you think it all came from? It came from where I come from. So I know where I'm coming from and I can play with it how I want to because I am where the Santa Fe Trail ends. But I also have the Spanish background and it’s unfair to only see the Anglicized version of “western” because there is no…even, even those gentlemen were fur trappers they were French, they were Anglo-Saxon, they were Spanish, they were—shoot, they were buffalo soldiers, Native American peoples. What is Southwestern? What is the defining moment that says, “Oh, well, that's western, a cowboy hat. That's western”? There's nothing. You can pick and choose from whatever the hell you want and make it into whatever you want. So what is it?(Subjects: cowperson) So have you gotten a lot of comments of like today you know you were dressed in a corset and lace and that more… Antiquated Style, yeah. Sort of hyper-feminine beautiful style, whereas a lot of the other women were dressed in jeans, tight fitting jeans, button down shirt, some had hats. Do you get comments on not fitting in to the other…? I think, not I'm not going to take them as negative comments but I think that they think that it's not country enough. And ironically, it's sort of, to me and my perception, it is country it's just a different version of country. Today somebody told me I look steampunk. Steampunk western is a perfect example of a defining moment in fashion and in a visual experience where people dress with top hats they have crazy little things. They have little doohickies and doodads but they act with the same gentility they you know bustles but the dresses are short and you know the ankle breakers and things like the fans and the little parasols. That's western. That really is western, you know. So you really get these experiences of “I don't understand you, so I'm not going to understand you. So it's easier to not understand you, so you're not, you're not country.” (Subjects: cowperson) What the heck is country? I just went through it. It can be Buffalo Soldier, it can be an Anglo coming down the Spanish trail. It can be a Spanish person. If you if you went back just a couple years earlier, you'd see people in squaw skirts and concha belts and peasant blouses. And ironically those peasant blouses and squaw skirts are coming back into fashion but it's typically Spanish with silver buckles down the side of the dress. Okay. Well, give me what is right historical western fashion I'll stick to it. Because if you really want to get real serious, go to the Native Americans where they defined Southwestern fashion, because they were here way before anybody else and say you know a rug dress is what is Southwestern, is country. It's so interesting.(Subjects: cowperson) It's really fascinating. So most of the time you let them have their perception of it, you love them anyway, and you accept them for what…’cause there's no reason to fight over it. If they have a defining idea of western, God bless all let them have it. I'm not going to take it away. I'm proud of them. But maybe I've twisted their mind a little and they said oh I can do that too and it's perfectly fine if I want to do it they don't have to do it.(Subjects: cowperson) So did you get any training in fashion? Well, my grandmother was the main sort of lady who trained me in fashion, sort of taught me certain ways of putting outfits together. I went to the College of Santa Fe and got my bachelor of fine arts in Historical Costuming. So that's why I can really speak from a historical point of view of the knowledge of what things should look like and sort of put them in historical context and then juxtaposition them against today's sort of look. That's super interesting. I’m sorry. You were going to say? No, no, go ahead I totally forgot anyway. So what do you do for a living now?(Subjects: jobs) So this is really interesting, I work as a funeral ambassador. So it goes from drag queen in the evening to funeral ambassador in the day. I do it all, you know I formulate death certificates and help take loved ones into our care, which is taking them from the home or the place of passing, to the funeral home, to doing all the paperwork for my funeral director, to helping them lay them to rest. So it's very interesting.(Subjects: jobs) Does that take a lot of emotional strength for you?(Subjects: jobs) I think so. And I know it seems…I don't think it seems too healthy. Sometimes you have to turn it off. Not turn it off in a cruel way and not have compassion for the people who have lost loved ones but you have to be the strong sort of wall to lean on for them. Otherwise if you are all messed up and crying, messed up and crying, messed up and crying how are you helping any of these people? You can't do any of your job, so it's pointless. And it may not be easy, but it has to get done because you know the loved one isn't going to get up and do it for themselves. I know that first hand so I'm like eh. So.(Subjects: jobs) And where are you living? In Pojoaque, New Mexico, which is 15 to 30 minutes outside of Santa Fe. It's right out past Santa Fe Opera. So would you say that's a small town or like a suburb of Santa Fe? It's actually a pueblo it's like it's within in the Pojoaque Pueblo. It's not within the Pueblo itself but it's surrounding territory. So how did you first find out about the gay rodeo? My brother Trey, who is not really my blood brother because I'm an only child but he's my spiritual brother, let me know about the International Gay Rodeo and the New Mexico Gay Rodeo, and asked me if I wanted to join and then run for Miss New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association, the host association, because there hadn't been a court in about seven years. And he really wanted to do the run with me. We were the only contestants. We won. And so here I am. (Subjects: family, igra) Sort of a funny story, I tell it to a lot of people. He had been sort of bugging at me—not bugging at me in a bad way ‘cause New Mexicans use the word “bug” but not in a bad way—he was calling me and he I was sitting on the can and I see his phone number come up and I said, “Well, I better answer,” ‘cause I really enjoy my phone calls with Trey. So I answered it and he says, “So have you made up your mind about running for Miss New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association?” And I told him…you know, I was going to tell him no and all of the sudden I stopped and I heard this voice and it wasn't Trey's voice and it wasn't my voice. And it was sort of this divine voice. I don't know what to say better than that. It was like right out of like a story book and it says and I heard it just as clear as day and it said, “He's not asking you. I'm asking you. Say yes.” And I said, “Yes. Yeah, I will. Yeah, why not? Let's do it.” And he's like, “What?” ‘Cause he was expecting me to say no. And that's sort of the beginning of this experience. So it's been very amazing, very different. I don't think I've had more fun—because I was the first Miss Santa Fe Pride—I don't think I've had more fun holding a title than this title. It's been a blast. Had you ever been to a gay rodeo before? Yes, I had. The year before, it was sort of ironic, it was like I was being primed for it. I performed at the gay rodeo in Santa Fe which is the Zia rodeo, it's in Santa Fe, on the rodeo grounds, and I performed there and I was like geez this is really fun but I never thought in a million years that I would be Miss New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association. And do you perform in the rodeo, do you compete I mean, in the rodeo? Yes and no. In October, we will be tested and then we will have to perform and crowned for International Gay Rodeo which is the highest that you can go, that’s world, right now I'm just state. So I'll be competing with my other brothers and sisters, and I always call it competing with because I'm not competing against—it's not fair to say that I'm competing against because then that would make me an enemy of theirs and I'm not an enemy I just want to compete with and have a good time. That's great. And what were you scheduled to do today but you're going to do tomorrow? The Gay Rodeo Association, the International Gay Rodeo Association, as it is known, has different events which define itself as queer/gay/LGBT and the sort of there are several stock events, and two others, but what defines it as queer/gay/LGBT is camp events. So we do campy sort of things which are goat dressing, wild drag race which is where you put a drag queen on the back of a of a heifer and the heifer goes all over the place and you have to pull it across a line. Goat dressing is where you have to put underwear on a goat. Steer decorating is where you have to put a bow on a steer’s tail. So that's typically LGBT. It's taking that real heavy, intense, competitive nature and making it really fun and silly, sort of making fun of itself, which is perfectly okay.(Subjects: events) So I often have a hard time defining the word camp for my students. How would you define camp? Camp is I think not ordinary or regular or associated, it's not going not camping. People would automatically say camp is camping. Not it's not camping. It's not going outside and cooking with a Dutch oven. It's seeing things in an unordinary fashion and being able to laugh at it. I think also the rodeo, the straight rodeo had been so oppressive to the gay competitor to the LGBT competitor, that they needed to have something to breathe and break away from that oppression, that slavery. ‘Cause I often say that we’re sometimes in emotional chains. Or people say it's not okay for us to be who we are, which is completely insane because of course it's okay for us to be whoever we are. And whatever we believe in and if you don't like it, you can go you-know-what. When you are listening to this interview and you don't agree with it too bad. Everybody is allowed to have their own experience and I think you best beat back the misunderstanding and the ugliness with humor. So I think the gay rodeo beats back that oppression with funniness, with clever funniness which makes it light and airy and not so intense. Though it can be intense you're bull riding, you are racing, you could get hurt, you could get killed, you know, you could get paralyzed but the camp events make it so that it's like who cares at least I was having fun when I did it and that's the truth of the matter, you know. Do you ever want to ride a bull? You know, I see it and it looks really interesting and you know I'm full in drag. I would do it full in drag, wig and all and yes, I would. But there's like this one…but I'm sort of…I have a husband and, you know, I have cats and I always worry that I could get severely hurt and be a quadriplegic. You know they live full, rich lives they just have to work a little harder. And but it's a little scary ‘cause you can die doing whatever we're doing, you can have an accident and just die accidentally. You can hit your head wrong. You are dealing with wild animals, and those are drag queens included. [Laughter] I'm just teasing. But you are dealing with wild animals and wild animals are like children that have no…they are afraid and scared or comfortable and happy or…there's no in between and there's no having the conversation saying, “I'm going to put some underwear on you today, little goat. You don't need to gore me. You don't need to poke me in the butt or anything.” “I'm just going to ride on your back, bull, for eight seconds. If you just make this easy for all of us, you know, it'll be okay.” There's no conversating with them because they don't understand you. And so that's you know eh. And you mentioned you're married. Are you legally married?(Subjects: family) Mhhm. We were married in August of 2007 and, legally but we were married the year before in October 2016 with a spiritual marriage and then we went to California before Prop 8 was actually voted through and everything but we had sort of a grandfather time where we were sort of grandfathered in so we were married legally and then we brought the…but New Mexico didn't recognize it until the United States Congress Supreme…Congress pushed it through. So we were still not legally married in New Mexico but were legally married in California which is the most stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's stupid.(Subjects: family) But you have had a spiritual marriage? Mhm Does he come to gay rodeos with you? Yeah, he just walked by just earlier he went to go to the bathroom with his sister. He supports me in everything. He carries my sash, he helps me change, he helps me dress, he keeps me on time. So, yes, he's a great support in my life. Richard Lee Polly. So he doesn't get mad that I didn't mention him in the interview.(Subjects: family) And you… He'll say, “You said husband but you never said my full name.” I said your full name so stop complaining. And yeah, I mean, do you think there's any resistance to having drag or royalty as part of the rodeo? Have you ever had anyone be like, “Well, rodeo's just rodeo why do we fuss with these other things?” Not yet, and I say not yet because it's not yet. But I think I'll probably be confronted by it. But it's sort of interesting because our rodeo had not had royalty for seven years. And that was a very hard time for them because they hadn't had royalty, so other royalty had to stand in. So there was always royalty but it was by proxy royalty. And I think the face of drag and I think the face of royalty brings a lot of recognition to the rodeo because it draws people in and says, “Well, why are they wearing crowns? What are they doing? What's the New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association?” And when people start asking questions then they want to join or they want to say, “Oh, I want to be a cowboy. I want to do stuff.” So it's very different. It's very different without and with. I think sometimes they are symbiotic and they need to have each other. And sometimes it's good and sometimes it's, bad but it is what it is. That's really great. So in the day-to-day operations of the association what is your, other than Goodwill Ambassador, what is your main…? PR. Information. Being able to answer people's questions if they have like “what's goat dressing? what's…,” you have to have certain answers. Then there's everyday questions that are like “Who is your president? Do you have an association? What's your chapter number?” You know, things like that so it's really interesting. So it’s just light stuff, you know. But for our test we have two-hundred questions we have to answer for IGRA. And you only get one chance to answer those right. That either places you as one, two…so Queen one, two, and three, or nothing. So I got to get my shit together for that. Do you think you're going to do other, whether the Imperial Court System or other organizations that have royalties, would you'd be interested in doing…? I have worked closely with different courts and the Imperial System. And my title as a city title for Miss Santa Fe Pride was sort of. Yes, so yes, working with them but I don't think I'd ever, I found sort of my niche in rodeo and I think this is where I want to stay. Though things always change it's not like anything permanent. Yeah. And, you know, I know there's a lot of concern about just not getting younger people in you know and the association shrinking. How do you think gay rodeo can expand, can go into the future?(Subjects: igra) Well, I think we're now experiencing a Renaissance again. So there's a renewed interest in the rodeo, it's starting to come back little by little. But I think the important part is that you have to accept everybody for what they are and what they define rodeo or Western as. Because when you say, “You don't fit in.” You take that prospective person who's interested and you alienate them. You say you can't be who you are. Because what defines rodeo? What defines Southwestern? What defines country? Is it the music? Is it the clothing? Or is it the person? And if you are denying the person his or her own individuality of how they express it then you're doomed. And have to be clever to allow other people's definition of it and say, “Hey, that's okay. Or I don't understand it, but what the hell, go for it. I'm like eh whatever.” And that's when you find a renaissance, a rebirth. (Subjects: igra) ‘Cause there is a rebirth of western stuff in pop culture which is steampunk. So you look at steampunk western, people are wearing western stuff. And so you just have to remember that nothing defines country. If it's a top or it's a pair of earrings, then you have to look a little bit deeper. ‘Cause it goes much further than that. ‘Cause it is history Manifest Destiny, Westward Ho. You know, Westward Ho, you read it in your history book, Westward Ho, the lady carrying electricity to the West with no wings but she's an angel and she's carrying a peace branch but everybody’s getting killed. That's what we’re experiencing. Cattle rustling, cowboys, Billy the Kid: those are only one part of very a large experience, people coming from Chicago going to New Mexico, people leaving New Mexico to go to Chicago, some people who never got there. They all have stories and they all have their own fashion in their own way that they experienced life. We're not living in that time, so we can't define what it is.(Subjects: cowperson, igra) Well, this has been fantastic. Is there anything else you want to mention? Hello. No I'm just kidding. Just that…not really. I think I've pretty much said everything that I thought I wanted to say. And then I'll say, “Damnit, I forgot something.” You can always call me on the phone and I'm like hello yes, and I'm all so yeah. So if you ever need me, just yeah give me a call. Excellent. Thank you so much. You are more than welcome.

Lacey Edwards Click to filter

Hi, this is Court Fund, sitting here with Lacey Edwards at the Pheonix Rodeo. Hi, Lacey how are you today? Good. How are you? Pretty good. I'm just going to go ahead and start. What year were you born? 76.(Subjects: childhood) 76. And where did you grow up?(Subjects: childhood) All over. My dad was a regional manager for a company. So we moved every two and a half to three years.(Subjects: childhood) OK. Where all did you live?(Subjects: childhood) Oregon. California, Utah, Arizona and Washington.(Subjects: childhood) So, yeah. All over the place. Did you have any experience in those places with rodeos or did you grow up with stock around that time?(Subjects: childhood) In Oregon, we lived across the street from a cow farm. So, I mean, that's where I mean I kinda got my feeling for country living.(Subjects: childhood) Yeah. Think it just kind of struck something that you wanted to do? Yes. Awesome. What was your childhood like growing up - kind of on the road - sounds like you moved every two years.(Subjects: childhood) It was really great. My younger sister didn't do well with moving to new environments and meeting new people. And I loved it. My dad always says I'm a gypsy at heart.(Subjects: childhood) So what did your dad do for a living then?(Subjects: parents) He worked for Oregon Pest Control.(Subjects: parents) So kind of in ag. still. Yeah. If you don't mind me asking, how do you identify in terms of gender? Totally female and totally gay, even though I look straight, I'm probably the only straight looking gay woman you'll ever meet. Do you have a partner here with you today? No, she's not here. But yes, I do have a partner.(Subjects: family) And you said you have kids and they're at a volleyball tournament currently?(Subjects: family) I do. My ex partner and I, which we actually met through Arizona Gay Rodeo Association. We have a beautiful 18 year old son together and he is now in college in Kentucky.(Subjects: family) Wow. So pretty far away. Yeah. What is he doing there? He got a volleyball scholarship and an academic scholarship. Wow. So, it's pretty unusual for him to be here with you guys. No. He would love to be here now. He used to come to every rodeo. He was born in August of 2001. And the International Gay Finals Rodeo was in Palm Springs that year. And AGRA made him a onesie. And Bobby Minto, who has passed away, and Ron Trusley actually carried him through the parade because back in the day, the rodeo used to have Grand Entry and it was a full parade and my son was part of it.(Subjects: family) It's huge. And I still have that onesie and it's in his Shadowbox. And my son is very proud to have gay parents when he was a freshman in high school, he, actually, the yearbook committee asked him to do an article and he called it the Fuller House. And he wrote a whole two page thing for his yearbook about having two gay moms.(Subjects: family, parents) That's amazing. It was awesome. So this really was a community for you guys. Oh, absolutely. That's really great. How - what was it like raising my son in this community?(Subjects: family, community) It was amazing. I always used to say, my son's name is [redacted], he had more aunts or uncles or uncles or aunts, depending on what they were wearing. He knew the drag queens as their drag queen name; as aunt Erika, as aunt Victoria. And then he also knew them as who they were in their males' figure. So it was it was beautiful.(Subjects: family, community) That's amazing. That's really fantastic. Switching gears a little bit, did you go to college and what are you doing now? I currently I know this sounds ridiculous. I fix hearts for a living. I work in the cath lab. I work with great nurses and physicians. And we put stints in, so if you're having a heart attack in the middle of the night, that's me that's fixing you.(Subjects: jobs) Wow. You're a lifesaver. Yes. I've always worked in the medical field and they absolutely love it.(Subjects: jobs) Lifesaver by day, rodeo contestant by night - Yes. And you're coming back to compete next year? I'm hoping so. I mean, I had to take a break for a while. And my ex-partner, she used to ride broncs and bulls and steers, which they don't have a lot of those events now. But we had to raise a kid, so we couldn't do these crazy things. But now he's 18 and living in Kentucky, so I'm willing and ready to come back.(Subjects: family, events) What events did you do? Well, of course, I'm a little princess, so I did goat dressing wild drag, steer deco, calf roping on foot. In fact, we actually had a rodeo in Utah, which I was very nervous to go to as a gay rodeo association having it there. And it was the first year there and I was pregnant as a house. And was wearing overalls and did calf roping on foot and back in the day, Wayne Taquito, who was the founder with John King and Ron Trusley, they were like the last rodeo you can do because I was pregnant and they didn't want me to get hurt.(Subjects: events, family, community) So, your son really was raised in this community, from the time you were pregnant. You were still competing. Absolutely. AGRA threw a baby shower for me.(Subjects: community, family) Oh, that's amazing. It was amazing. You also mentioned that you did some royalty stuff. I did. I was Miss AGRA 1999 and first runner up in IGRA in 2000.(Subjects: royalty) And so you stopped competing in 2001, is that right? Well, I stopped competing, yes. Because we had a baby. My ex, she stopped competing in 2002 because we did have a child and she rode rough stock. So, yeah.(Subjects: events, family) So it's been a while. I'm sure they're glad you're back. And we would still come to rodeos and do everything. And my son has a great community here and his godparents were actually part of New Mexico's association. So we used to go there and watch rodeo for weekends on end.(Subjects: family, community) So you traveled with the rodeo circuit? Absolutely. Yeah. Sounds like you went to Utah, Palm Springs... Oklahoma, California. Yes. It was a great experience. Were there any differences between the rodeos? Not really. I mean, I will say that when you're in the confined space, it's beautiful. When I competed for International in 2000, the rodeo was in Arkansas. And I was kind of afraid to go there. Being gay in Arkansas, my mother traveled with me the whole time. I mean, my mom is a huge support. Arkansas was a little scary for me because in 2000, being gay was not okay. It was - and like how you have the functions here - we were stuck in this little tiny industrial warehouse. But the community itself, we felt so safe and so loved.(Subjects: community) Did you ever feel any adversity on the road? It sounds like you were a little nervous in Arkansas and Utah. Did you ever feel any pushback from the communities there? Yes and no. And fortunately for me, my mother was always traveling with us and my partner, who was extremely butch. People always thought it was kind of strange. I was also very thankful that I had this great group of royalty with me. We would fly together, go together. Never like left each other's sides. So it was okay.(Subjects: community, family) That's good to hear. And like I say, you like when you're in this community and you have the advantage. You go together, you come together and you're safe in your own zone.(Subjects: community) You have each other's backs. It sounds like your mom traveled with you quite a bit, were any of your other family members, besides your ex, also involved with the rodeo?(Subjects: family) No, but my sister, my nieces and nephews, they came to every event.(Subjects: family) Just very supportive? It's a whole family affair. Like I was saying, it was telling one of my friends. So my dad, I'm the oldest daughter, who was not okay with me being gay in 1999. And, everybody was here.(Subjects: family, comingout) My dad actually, and it makes me want to have tears, came to this rodeo grounds, which used to be totally different and walked through the doors, where the stage is now and brought me this bouquet of roses because he was like, this is you and this is where you're going to do so. Like, this, please has a really special place in my heart.(Subjects: family, comingout) That's amazing. So, this was like a big moment for you. A huge moment. 'Cause I was daddy's little girl and I was supposed to have the big white wedding...I'm gay. And he was like, okay. But he showed up here. My mom said, you know what? She's your one and only oldest daughter and you need to be there. And he walked through with two dozen roses and gave them to me on stage and sat and talked with some of the most amazing people. He was like, okay, it's okay because there was this stigmatism about being gay. And he was like, it's okay.(Subjects: family, highlight) When did you come out to your parents?(Subjects: family, comingout) 1997(Subjects: comingout) It was just a couple of years before then. How did they take that? It sounds like your dad and your mom had different reactions.(Subjects: family, comingout) They struggled with it because again, I was the oldest daughter and I don't fit your stereotypical lesbian and, um, they struggled with it, but they were very supportive. It's just like - when my - of course, they went through the huge gamut of, oh, my God, we'll never have a wedding, you'll never have children. Blah, blah, blah. And so when I came to them and I was like, "I'm gonna have a baby and I've picked a donor and I actually sat in the living room with my ex-partner and we went through all the donors and picked it" and my parents actually said, we are going to buy your first round of sperm so that you can have a baby. And was like, "that's your Christmas present." I was like, OK. [laughs](Subjects: family, comingout) That's so nice of them, it's very supportive. Very supportive. And they think it was. It's the unknown. When you don't know what the opportunities are, it makes be people close minded. But once you show them all the opportunities, then they're like, oh, okay.(Subjects: family, comingout) So, how did you learn of the gay rodeo? I was - actually, the first time I came here, I had a fake I.D. [Laughs] No, true story. I heard about it, and I will tell you, when I was in California going to school for my profession, I had gone to a couple of gay bars and they were very scary because I had long hair and boobs and all these things and women with mullets and chains and they were like, "what are you doing?" So, I randomly said I saw this when I moved back and I was like, oh, I'm going to go. And, so, I met some friends. So I kind of just came out here on a wing and a prayer, and I've never left it.(Subjects: community) So you just fell in love with it. Mhm. I was going to ask how has being involved in gay rodeo affected other aspects of your life? But it sounds like you just really meshed with this community. It is huge. I will tell you this much, through this community, especially when I was running for royalty. We did all kinds of fundraisers for THON, which is I don't even know if it's still around, but, there was a very special person who was gay. He was a drag queen and his mom was 100 percent supportive, and when he passed away, we took his ashes, each one of us, and spread them around. It has given me a sense of community. And life, like everybody that walks through the doors - whether you're a cocktail whore, or a regular whore, or you drink too much or whatever, you mean something.(Subjects: community) I've really noticed being here that there's people from all different backgrounds and walks of life, It seem very accepting... It's very accepting. And well, like for me. I'm not out at work because if I was out at work, I would not have a job. So everybody thinks I'm this cute little thing with long hair and bat my eyelashes and I'm not out at work because they won't accept it. And I don't care if they don't accept it because where I get my grounding and my sanity is a community like this.(Subjects: community, jobs) Do you feel like not being out at work puts up some boundaries between you and your co-workers?(Subjects: jobs) Oh, absolutely.(Subjects: jobs) Do you feel like you have to be kind of secretive about it?(Subjects: jobs) Oh, I'm really good at the pronoun game.(Subjects: jobs) How does that affect your work environment?(Subjects: jobs) You know, I'm there to do a job. I think that... I really don't want to have contact with them outside of work, so I will play the pronoun game all day long and that's fine with me. Because I watch people say bad things about other people. So to me, I don't need your negativity in my life and I won't take it. It's my story to tell. And I don't want to share it with them. It's my little bubble. It's my safe space.(Subjects: jobs) Do you mind if I ask, what you mean by the pronoun game?(Subjects: jobs) I don't call my person a 'she.' I call them a 'he'. It's the 'they' they, 'we,' 'we do this.' There's never a 'she.' Nobody knows. So I play the pronoun game.(Subjects: jobs) Do you think the larger LGBTQ+ community supports the rodeo? Or how do you feel the gay rodeo fits into the larger LGBTQ community? So I'm an old school lesbian.[Laughs] I wish more of the LGBTQ would come to events like this versus gay pride. I love gay pride, but I don't think you should have to pay to be gay. And I think that sometimes people are more eccentric and lose who they are and what the community is really about. When you come here, it's super small. It's super whatever, whether you go to a rodeo here - back in the day, they have a rodeo and Tuson so you could do Phoenix and Tucson. You meet an amazing community.(Subjects: community) Have you ever found any frustration with the İGRA in terms of, like, it [not] being racially diverse or being a woman in the community?(Subjects: community, race) No.(Subjects: community, race) Have you ever experienced blatant or subtle forms of homophobia at the rodeo or on your way to the rodeo? I know we touched on this little bit earlier.(Subjects: homophobia) Um, not really like I say, it was crazy back in the day. I was actually just telling the story - so the day I got crowned Miss AGRA and back in the day Charlie's didn't let women in. And the only reason why I got in was because I was royalty and I actually got a drink at the bar. But I will tell you, the scariest stripe was from here to Charlie's got a flat tire and it's me and a drag queen on the side of the road out here in podunk country. But I knew it was safe because we had each other. So to me it was totally different. My favorite story is, is when Tucson used to have a chapter. Me, my drag queen, and some friends, we went down to Tucson and we were staying at , who knows, we were cheap bitches, back then we were staying at a Motel 6 and we walked in as two girls and two guys. And everybody's in the pool and our room just happened to be by the pool. And as we walked out, we were two girls and two really, really tall girls because the drag queens got all dressed up and you watched everybody in the pool doing this - but it was a blast.(Subjects: community, homophobia, highlight, royalty) No, you're fine [Brief interuption from community member] Have you ever been injured in the rodeo? No, my partner was. We have done to multiple hospitals multiple times. [Brief interruption from rodeo participant] No, go ahead - if you're okay with speaking with [the participate smoking behind us]? Oh, yeah. And that was because you said your partner did a lot of rough stock events. Yeah. Do you have any stories about that, that you want to share?(Subjects: events) Well, since I work in the medical field, my partner actually broke her arm in Oklahoma. We taped it together along with Chuck Browning and Brian, and I don't know if I can use their names, but they've been in radio forever. We taped it together with a Pepsi box. I called the orthopedic surgeon. I was like, this is what's happening. And he's like, all right, when do you fly in? And we took care of it. Yeah.(Subjects: injuries) Wow. So she went on the plane with the broken arm. Oh, yeah. She still rodeoed and in tied in other people with a broken arm. It's just what you do. [Laughs] Do you consider yourself a cowgirl? Yes. What's your definition of a cowgirl? How do you fit into that? I would want to see I'm classy with a 'K.' I love the finer things, I love to have champagne. I do all this, but I actually own acreage and muck shit all day long and have animals and I love going out at night and just having my own space. So, yes, am I a country girl at heart? Absolutely.(Subjects: cowperson) And you own property here in Phoenix? I'm actually in Surprise. OK. And that's in the outside [Phoenix] area? Mhm. Nice. What kind of animals do you have? Currently, I have just four miniature donkies because of all my horses have passed and my cows have passed. So I have four miniature donkeys in their yard ornaments and they're like dogs and they're final. Has gay rodeo changed in the time that you've been a member. Yes. How do you think it's changed? You want my honest opinion? Yes. I'm really happy to see the crowd and all of those things, but..once it was okay to be gay. I think, people come out for the party and they don't come out to support what it's all about.(Subjects: igra) What do you think it's all about? I think it's about camaraderie, family, being close with somebody. It's okay that everybody wants to come and party and have a good time. But I think the personal connections have kind of been lost.(Subjects: igra) How was it when you first started? How would you describe the rodeo besides community? It was a family. It was a family. It was a huge family. What do you see for the future of rodeo, of gay rodeo? I want it to be bigger, like I was actually talking to a gentleman in the stands, who's straight. He was like, this is weird. And I was like, you know, this is so small to only have 44 contestants here. When I joined rodeo in 1998, it went from like 7:00 a.m. till 8 o'clock at night and, you know, you were changing in each other's horse trailers and you were doing all of these things and I think it's great for the party scene. But it is missing that, um...people traveled from all over the world to come to rodeos.(Subjects: igra) Why do you think that changed? It's really expensive to rodeo. It's really expensive to rodeo. Mind you, we're all old and a lot of the younger people don't want to buy horses. They don't want to do those things, which is fine. So if you still have all the people and they want to come out here and support it. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful experience.(Subjects: igra) How do think that the gay rodeo fits in to the rodeo scene in gerneral and the local ranch rodeos or professional rodeo? So I'm a rodeo girl at heart and I go to other rodeos and do things. I don't think gay rodeo will necessarily become mainstream. Because the difference is, is that not everybody's here just to make money. They're here for the experience and in mainstream rodeo, they're there to make money. Nine times out of ten, I can tell you, you actually lose money being a contestant.(Subjects: igra) Do you participate in any of the dances? I admit I've been absent for quite a few years because I was raising a child and now I will be more so. Yes. Would you ever consider giving rough stock a chance, do you think? Or are you going to go back to the- No, I'm too pretty.[Laughs] No, actually, I would love to do rough stock. I always did. My ex used to tell me, 'uh, no.' My job wouldn't let me do it. If I got hurt, I couldn't do my job, so I can't support my family. But I would love to do rough stock. There's something kind of romantic about, isn't there? Oh, my gosh, yes. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Anything that I am missing about your experience? I think it's really great that you guys are doing this because, you know, I'm thankful to have this group of people and some of us are 40, some of us are 90. I would like through your support and what you're doing to bring back how important the family is. I think it's beautiful. I hope so, too. Well, thank you for sitting and talking with me. I'm going to end [it here].

Tennent Emmons Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm with Tennent Emmons at the Texas Tradition Rodeo outside Dallas. It's April 1st, 2017. So, could you tell me when you were born and where you grew up?(Subjects: childhood) I was born in New Jersey in 1957, so I'm one of the older contestants in the rodeo circuit. I did not start the rodeo circuit 'til approximately 1993. So, I was about 36 years old when I got involved in the rodeo circuit. I had taught country western dance for a little while and got connected with the rodeo system through an ex of mine, back in the ASGRA days, which is the Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association out of Washington D.C. in the metro area. And I've been competing, I've been a certified official, and now I'm Mr. IGRA 2017 first runner up.(Subjects: childhood, igra, jobs) That's fantastic--so what was it like growing up in New Jersey? What was an average day like?(Subjects: childhood) An average day for me was mostly isolating in my room. I didn't get out too much growing up. I was shy, introverted--still am. Since I'd felt I was different from an early age I didn't do a lot of socialization, didn't want to get in trouble, didn't really get harassed or anything, maybe once in a while, but not anything that some folks go through.(Subjects: childhood) What did you parents do for a living?(Subjects: childhood, family) My dad was a truck driver and my mom was a seamstress. I was the first one to go to college out of my family. My dad had to quit school in 8th grade and go to work back in the '50s. Mom, unfortunately had my sister, [laughs] well fortunately had my sister so...then growing up I was more of a mama's boy and my sister was the daddy's girl. Dad got me into horses. He grew up with a horse. I didn't, but I've always had a love for horses and during high school that's how I would pass my afternoons was to go out trail riding in New Jersey.(Subjects: childhood, family) Was there like a company that did that or did you stable your own horse?(Subjects: childhood) No, it was an independent company. Gentleman's name was Mr. French--probably has deceased since then. God rest you, Mr. French. He allowed me to go on the trail rides by myself after going there several times and trusting me on a horse and I do not have a horse. It's one thing I miss out of the rodeo. Being a title holder in IGRA requires you to either doing horsemanship or entertainment. I am thankful for the support from my home association Great Plains Rodeo Association they help me with securing a horse for the horsemanship portion of the title comptetition. The President of GPRA told me after I won my association Mr. GPRA title, "We may have created a monster after I did the entertainment portion. Like I said, I was an introvert mostly.(Subjects: childhood, igra) So after high school where did you go to college? High school I took 3 years off and worked at a veterinary hospital then worked at a human hospital and the patients ar similar, they bite. [Laughs] So then I went to college in Nebraska. Up and left New Jersey and went to Nebraska for a different atmosphere. Didn't do much in country western or anything back in the late '70s early '80s. So, yes, that's my dated years. I returned to New Jersey and after a couple years back there, I had gone out to Dallas with a boyfriend for his birthday and did a trail riding before we went back to New Jersey. It was too hot and it was just walking and I wanted to experience riding and I went to a western wear place--I was going to start going to country western bars because a friend's daughter was coming to NJ for a visit - she was from Oklahoma--so I felt I had to have authentic western boots, and asked the owner of the store, "where you could go horseback riding in New Jersey" and right off the bat he told me about a city slickers type vacation in Montana. I did that vacation for 4 years. So, for 10 days, we were in Montana and worked on a ranch for 7 of the 10 days. Not a dude ranch, open-range ranch. Slept in tepees in the open-range. I picked up a lot of horsemanship during the vacations. That's great. What was it about horses and riding horses and working with them that drew you to it?(Subjects: cowperson) Basically, in the genes, I guess. Even though I'm a Jersey boy raised two miles from the shore, we were the Garden State, there were horses there. My aunt married a gentlemen who trained trotters. They had a pony and a horse out on their farm and I would ride their pony because I was small and I was young at the time and I said, "I can't ride that big horse - he is too big." [laughs]. But it has just been something inside me that really loved horses and riding.(Subjects: cowperson) So when did you come out?(Subjects: comingout) Little a bit of a long story. I came out in college to a few people and then I finally came out to my mom at about 32. When I spoke with her she kind of knew, she just waited for me to tell her. Of course, I was the one that ended up bawling when I told her and she was fine. She said, "I love you no matter what," and then she was concerned I was getting on a train to return home with red eyes. So, she was very protective mom.(Subjects: comingout, family, parents) And did your siblings know?(Subjects: comingout) My sister and my mom came out to Oklahoma from New Jersey for my 50th birthday and I actually came out to [my sister] at that time. I was playing a softball tournament that weekend, it was co-ed team and the girls were very out, so I told my sister, "Just to let you know, by the way, I'm gay," and she looked at me and goes, "Hon, if I didn't know by now...". She had only met all my ex-boyfriends not as boyfriends but just as friends. [She's] very supportive, along with her husband and my neice and nephew. I came out to my father not too many years ago, we were not close. He just skipped over the subject and didn't really talk about it. My parents separated when I was in high school and I didn't have much of a relationship with my father afterwards.(Subjects: comingout, family, parents) And when you came out to some friends in college...that would have been the Reagan years, what was the culture like back then?(Subjects: comingout) Now my memory isn't that great about that time. I was still kind of isolated myself. I knew more about gay, lesbian things through the women’s center in Nebraska and knew more lesbians than I did actual gay men. But I kept it hidden, but I think people probably knew.(Subjects: comingout) Did you feel any difference between the culture in Nebraska versus New Jersey?(Subjects: comingout) Actually, I've been lucky that everybody’s been treating me fair. I worked at a YMCA which, the issue never came straight forward, but they said to just be careful, keep the doors open and windows blinds open, things like that. One parent or child did say something about my orientation apparently. My director said to just be very cautious, but was still very supportive. Nebraska had some support...getting kind of mixed signal. A college friend who learned late I was gay, mentioned to his sister not to long ago said, "You let him watch your kids, really?" It was a little heartbreaking but I understand people's feelings--they need education. And they know who I am.(Subjects: comingout, jobs) And was it a foregone conclusion that you would go back east after college? Did anything try to keep you in Nebraska? The only thing that kept me in Nebraska...I was there for 7 years, I stayed 2 years after graduation and started the 2nd degree, I started to be perpetual student. There was a job opportunity back east. Plus Mom having a little bit of influence. Being a mama's boy you know. She asking when you're coming home and getting a real job. Although I worked for the Easter Seal Society and I mentioned summer camps. She might nat have thought that was a full-time job and only part-time, but I also did fundraising during the year for the society and then did the summer camps. So I ended up going back home for 10 years. Worked in and around New Jersey for 5, and then in New York City for 5 years. The first year I was working in the city I met a boyfriend and introduced me to the IGRA Rodeo circuit, ASGRA, Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association in Washington, DC and then a 2nd boyfriend--you know I sound like I've been around [laughs]--he said if you really want to rodeo you need to go out to Oklahoma. So I went to Oklahoma, loved it, and went back for 3 years before I decided to move there.(Subjects: jobs, parents, family) Wow. Can I ask, were you living in the city as well as working there?(Subjects: jobs) I lived in NJ and commuted to NYC and worked in the Chelsea section of NYC. I now live in Oklahoma City and I work in Norman at the University of Oklahoma.(Subjects: jobs) What do you do there?(Subjects: jobs) I'm a senior academic counselor. I counsel petroleum [engineering], geology, and geo physics majors at the Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy. I've been there for about a year and a half but I've been doing higher education for about 15 years. (Subjects: jobs) What did you do prior to that?(Subjects: jobs) Prior to that I was a recreation therapist. I counseled senior citizens in their housing for support, so more social service type jobs. Recreation therapy and nursing homes and YMCA's in New Jersey. In NYC, I worked for the Village Center for Care - AIDS Day Treatment Program and I was a rehabitation tech and also weekend cook, which was unusual, but they loved my food.(Subjects: jobs) How did you become involved with that and what did that feel like to be helping these people?(Subjects: jobs) I had moved back to New Jersey and a very good friend of mine, Barb had connected with 2 facilities who served persons with HIV/AIDS. I also worked at an AIDS foundation for children as a weekend caregiver for children whose families were in the hospital or sick with HIV or drug abusers. So we took care of the kids while they were in the hospital and she then connected me with the Village Center for Care. She has been a good friend of mine since 1986. I was a rehab tech with Village Center for Care. We did a lot of support for clients. We were their day treatment program. I'd take them to emergency rooms, psychiatric emergencies, medical emergencies, doctor appointments, housing appointments, etc. I was the case worker with them to help them with clothing out of our clothing bank, and again cooked their meals on Fridays and Saturdays and just provided day-to-day support for them.(Subjects: jobs, community) That's amazing. So I did that for 5 years and decided to move to Oklahoma. So can you tell me about that first gay rodeo you went to and what it felt like? It was amazing because I'd never seen a few of the camp event that differ from the "straight" rodeos. I've seen rodeos, but not the community of gay rodeo and was hearing all these terms, slack - asking contestants to volunteer to go earlier in the day when they have too many people in one event and may extend the time of the afternoon performances late or fill in time prior to Grand Entry - presentaion of rodeo officials, associations and flags, US & Canada & Associations. I was going to volunteer, but learned it was only for registered contestants. Thought they meant any volunteer from the audience, truly a rodeo virgin. I had no clue of the rules and regulations in the rodeo and that was my first experience. Then going to the Oklahoma Rodeo my second time, my ex-boyfriend's friends were officers with the Rodeo association and I started learning what went on behind the scenes. I watched the events and learned the rules. My 3rd Rodeo, ASGRA - I started to compete and then next OGRA rodeo I went out and assisted the rodeo director in getting it prepped and everything. Learned about officials and timers. A lot of times you start as a timer at a rodeo and then you work your way up to be a certified official if interested. It just takes some time commitment and everything, but the community that meets up at the rodeo, the support of the community is just wonderful and that's why I've done it for 20-plus years.(Subjects: community, jobs) Did you start to get involved and actually competing? Yes. My actual second year in ASGRA I decided I was going to compete. I did goat dressing and I pulled my hamstrings--both of them--running in boots. I do not advise anybody to run in boots. [Wear] tennis shoes or cleats, and stretch before you run if you haven't done it for awhile. I did chute dogging, and it's all technique. I don't have the technique down, don't have the ribs to kind of support my twisting. Those are the two events I started in and I've progressed to steer deco and wild drag. I did steer riding, which has gone by several names--steer riding, junior bull riding, back to steer riding.(Subjects: events, injuries) How was that experience?(Subjects: events) That was awesome. You're there for 6 seconds if you make it that long. I didn't quite make it, but it was just the experience of being on top of a steer and trying to have that control.(Subjects: events) What are you competing in today?(Subjects: events) Today I'm competing in calf roping on foot. It's less harsh on the calf--we're doing it on foot, so we're not pulling the calf back after he's running and trying to tie him down or anything. That's what our rodeo is all about, you know, safety for contestants and safety for the animals.(Subjects: events) What other aspects of rodeo, other than the rodeo proper, maybe the dancing or things like that, brought you in and got you involved? There're some [rodeos] that have a lot more horse contestants in their rodeo, there are some that people watch and then go for the evening dances. The dances are a good time and fun because you get to meet new people when you're dancing. You have strangers who come up and ask you to dance. After a while you're like, "Ooh, a new person." But yeah, your community just keeps growing from the rodeo. New people every year.(Subjects: community, events, dance) So, back in the '80s and '90s when there were a lot more country western bars, did you see any of that in New York? Yes. We had one big place called Yellow Rose in New Jersey and I started dancing there. My dance partner Cindy and I, danced every Thursday night for a year, and then we went on the cattle drive together. Then we were asked to join a dance group and through them we started teaching country western dance. Since working in New York, I was able to connect with a group whose name escapes my mind. It used to be Gotham Rodeo and I started teaching there...Big Apple Ranch is what it's called nowadays. They've been in existence this week for 20 years. They were involved before I left 20 years ago when I moved to Oklahoma, but their new name Big Apple Ranch started 20 years ago.(Subjects: jobs, community, dance) And what all do they do? They do a lot of basic dancing, socials, fundraisers. They have a group called Prairie Dogs, Manhattan Prairie Dogs. And they go around and perform. They are a part of Iggly Wiggly which is the International Association of Gay and Lesbian Country Western Dancers. I hope I quoted their name correctly. I had been part of going to SoCo southern country music down all in the south, part of the south-east, part of the states, and they would have yearly conventions for country western dance and we would teach and just participate in socialization. Ever since I've been in Oklahoma I haven't been doing as much dancing, so I do it when I come to the rodeos.(Subjects: jobs, community, dance) Can you explain country western dance? Are there numerous types of dancing? Country western dance is a style. It's two-stepping, it's West Coast Swing, it's line dancing, some places do more line dancing--regional--than others. Big social dancing. Mostly country music, but the dances can be mixed with updated music, contemporary music. But it's a pattern.(Subjects: dance) So, you've been doing this country western dancing, do you think that it's as popular as it used to be in general in the U.S.? I think it's lost some of its popularity. The music has expounded multilevels. But I think with the changes in society in general, people like the music but just don't go out as much as much as they have in the past. Some do, it's just regional, pretty much state by state I think.(Subjects: dance) What do you think drove that western bar boom in the '80s and '90s? Of course we have to talk about Urban Cowboy with John Travolta. That was a big thing and it was out in the movies. It got out there, not just localized. It got out into the country, into the world and everybody saw how much fun it was. And of course the outfits people were wearing. A lot of people started enjoying those outfits. And was there a pretty good space as a gay man to fit into that western [scene]?(Subjects: community) Not as much. Basically I started in the traditional straight bar or whatever. Cindy knew, I came out to her a little bit later, but she was so accepting and we talked about the hot men and stuff. But, they were accepting. It's one of those where some still do have an issue with hearing the word "homosexual" or anything and feel uncomfortable with it. But a lot of them may not even know. You know, it's just how the other person is.(Subjects: community, comingout, dance) So when you had danced in New York you had a female dance partner. When you danced at the gay rodeos could you dance with same sex partners?(Subjects: community) You can do either. Occasionally we would go to some of the dances and we would go same sex. Not often. It just depended on the atmosphere and who was there and if you felt comfortable doing it so.(Subjects: community, dance) How did you get into the entertaining side of rodeo? As I mentioned earlier I was introverted to an extent. I'm one of the introverted extroverts. I found that our rodeo system had been losing some associations and I felt strongly about the rodeo and the community. I wanted to add as much as I can to pull people back who have left. Sometimes you get tired over the years, but you try to get the community back together and still try to grow it. So, I put my bid in for Mr. GPRA and won the title and started getting some people back a little bit. A little at a time. Like I mentioned also, they created a monster sometimes. I get a little wild and crazy on the floor while entertaining. I was not an entertainer prior to that, but I love to dance so I added the dance with the lip syncing. If I live sang I probably would have cleared out the rodeo. Would be a good ending to the rodeo, time to go home folks.(Subjects: jobs, igra, highlights) So what are your duties as first runner up?(Subjects: jobs, igra) Duties of a first runner up is to support the rodeo itself, IGRA. Support our royalty team. If Mr. can't be present I would step in as a representative. We go around and promote the rodeos, help organizations if they need any kind of advice, educate the community, fundraising is a big thing with royalty. We fundraise for IGRA itself and we have charities that we donate to. We've donated approximately $4.3 million plus in the 30 years that IGRA has been in existence. The 3 charities that we have are Stupid Cancer for adolescent cancer, Equest horse therapy program, and Joshua Tree, an HIV AIDS pantry who supports the individual and, if they have pets, their pets and everything.(Subjects: jobs, igra) That's wonderful. So we are a big fundraising Organization for charity. Over the last 20 years, have the efforts of the royalty changed or stayed the same?(Subjects: jobs, igra) I think they've changed because of new gender issues. We're trying to educate the community on gender issues and the equity of everybody being treated equally, to be recognized, to understand the person is the person and not to look just because they've changed their appearance or anything. So that's the big thing, the educational aspect of the rodeo. Charity work has gone on for years, and it continues. It's hard work, I'm not going to lie about that. It's hard work. You have your local community that you work with, you work within your state, there's regionals, region areas, or divisions that you have all across the United States. We had Canada. We have a representative from Australia. (Subjects: jobs, igra) So how many rodeos are you looking at going to in this one year? I have to keep looking at my work schedule, too. I'm looking at approximately six. Standard is four for royalty, and then finals and Convention. So we have a pretty busy schedule. Yeah. And unfortunately I started the new job a year-and-a-half ago, so I was limited on how many I could have done. Now I'm adding up my time so I'm able to get to some of the other rodeos.(Subjects: jobs) What really dictates which rodeos you can go to and can't? We have 4 divisions and they would like us to attend at least one per division. Some of it is of course crosswise for us getting to and from the rodeos whether it's air fair or driving. Time off of work. A lot of associations try to help us out by giving us a room--or the royalty-- a room for the night, helping us get back and forth from the airports for the contestants if they let them know they need to.(Subjects: jobs, igra) As royalty, what do you do you while the rodeo is going on if you're not competing in events? What do you spend your time doing?(Subjects: jobs, igra) We are basically the spokespersons for IGRA. We go through the crowd, meet the crowd, we do fundraising, so that's a little bit of what we do throughout the day. We're basically the upfront representatives. They see who we are and people start asking questions and we educate them on what the sash means, what our title means, what IGRA means. And a lot of times it gets personal and sometimes gets teary eyed going through it and realizing how amazing it is.(Subjects: jobs, igra) Can you tell me about a couple of your pins, your broaches? Each of the other contestants give us pins to [represent] who they are. Several of course are of the AIDS ribbons; my horseshoe is from my Mister--the actual title holder--for luck; the beautiful horse pin is from the president of my local association, Jeff Germany; and this heart is for my husband and of course it's right over my heart. The angel in my right shoulder...this is where it gets teary...is my mom. Passed away 2 years ago and she was a big supporter. She loved to hear about what was going on every weekend. They just represent who people are in our organizations. They're kind of their "icon" I guess nowadays--I'm not a techy--but who they are and what represents them.(Subjects: community, igra, parents) Was your mom ever able to make it to a rodeo?(Subjects: parents) No, she didn't. I was able to show her some of the videos that are on the IGRA website and YouTube and everything so she got to see some of that. But I would call her after if I got hurt or anything and she would go, "Not again."(Subjects: parents) So it seems like you've had a lot of female friends over the years--how do you think IGRA does with gender equity as far as women being involved in the association? And has that changed over time?(Subjects: igra) They've always been supportive of women being involved. It's an open organization. We don't discriminate against gay, straight, lesbian, we are all inclusive. Yes we do have gay in our name, but it's all inclusive. Women can be in the same events as men--we do compete against each other, not against the opposite gender, but in the camp events they can combine and some team events they can have male/female. But in a lot of the others it's females against females and males against males. Also with transgendered people we recognize what they identify as. We don't say, "No, you're born a man you're competing with them." Whatever they identify with we respect that.(Subjects: igra) And how does drag performance operate at the rodeo? Do you see much performance as far as drag queens and royalty or as entertainers?(Subjects: igra) Well our Miss IGRA is a drag queen. And she represents drag queens very well. When they come to registration they are either in face or not. When they compete they can be in face or not. When they perform they actually are in face, or what we call painted. When they're in public with their sash they usually have their face on. The men are lucky, we're just natural beauties [laughs]. Yeah, exactly thank you for laughing too. We also have the new Mster--it's not new, it's been around--where it's a female to male representation.(Subjects: igra) Do you currently have a titleholder for Mster?(Subjects: igra) We do not for Mster. Hopefully we will have a couple next year. We have a Mr., Miss, and Ms., which is a female as a female, but we do not have a Mster yet.(Subjects: igra) What about other forms of diversity. Has the association been predominantly white? Do you have a large group of people of color participating?(Subjects: race, igra) We do have several participants that are African American, Asian, but generally still mostly Caucasian.(Subjects: race, igra) Why do you think that is?(Subjects: race, igra) Opportunity I think. Just getting to the place, the openness of the person, feeling comfortable. Oklahoma has a big black rodeo. They started...well it's been around for decades--Oklahoma's Boley Rodeo. Just depends on the area that we're at, and how many are interested. It all comes down to the interest in rodeo, country music, things like that.(Subjects: race, igra) That's great. As far as the experience of the rodeo, how has your day-to-day of what you do at the rodeo changed from the '90s 'til now? In the '90s I was just competing, or I was working the rodeos as a certified official. I actually did secretarial a lot--that's usually an all-day process. If you time, you can time so many of the events, or you can have some time off. In secretarial we have usually a secretary and a secretary assistant, so we kind of rotate duties. If you're competing, sometimes you're there for your event and then you can hang out or leave or whatever. Now, as [royalty] title holders, pretty much we should be representing the rodeo all day long, from morning to night. We perform the shows to do the fundraising for the rodeos. Tonight, we have an Oklahoma tea party where Great Plains Rodeo Association is doing a show for Texas. The money is going to go back towards Texas for the charity of their choice. We feed them, we provide the entertainment, we bring auction items. During the day we have silent auctions that are available for fundraising also. Again, we just go throughout the crowd and socialize and promote the rodeos.(Subjects: jobs, igra) That's great. Do you miss the wilder days of all day competition? Yes and no. The older I get no. But it's the adrenaline you get when you come back to the rodeo. You feed off of everybody's excitement and their positiveness for the rodeo. So what do you think the future of gay rodeo is?(Subjects: igra) I'm looking bright for it. It's such an inclusive community to be involved with. We're trying to get the young whippersnappers--which is what I used to be called when I was starting out--involved in making it grow, because our population is growing and it's for a worthy cause. I mean if you can do it for a worthy cause, it should be growing.(Subjects: igra, community) Now, you mentioned you have a husband.(Subjects: family) I have a husband.(Subjects: family) Are you legally married?(Subjects: family) We are legally married. We got married 3 years ago--March 22nd this year. We went back to New Jersey and then in October, Oklahoma pass the same-sex marriage law. We've been together for 21 years in October. We didn't meet in the rodeo, we met at volleyball in New York [laughs]. He limits his time on rodeos. He is a performer. He's performed for me in my fundraising and been very supportive of the whole issue of me being rodeo. And does his theatre and shows.(Subjects: family) How many rodeos would he make it to this year?(Subjects: family) He usually makes it to the Oklahoma Rodeo. They changed the rodeo to a barrel and pole event this year. He was hoping to make it down to Texas but we also have furry children at home that he's taking care of.(Subjects: family) Can you tell me about those furry children?(Subjects: family) We've had Bullwinkle who is a 16 and a half Jack Russell Terrier. And then we have a new one, Herbie Husker. Yes, I'm a die-hard Nebraska fan and alumni. And he's 7 months old now. He's a handful.(Subjects: family) That is a handful. We usually take them to Lance's moms to babysit, but Herbie is still too much of a handful for her. And Lance is originally from Texas so when we met and I told him I was moving to Oklahoma he's like, "I'll be closer to family." And we saw them as much as we did mine in New Jersey which is only 40 miles away and we saw them maybe 3 times a year. [Laughs] Rodeos came first, then family. Oh wait, rodeo is family. Which we haven't talked about. You build a very strong family with rodeo. We're like brothers and sisters in arms.(Subjects: family) Has there ever been a moment when your rodeo family has come to your rescue and helped you out?(Subjects: family, igra) I think every event. Every fundraiser I do they are there supporting me. During the competition for Mr. IGRA they were there, just saying, "Be yourself, go out there and do it, you can do it." When a contestant gets hurt, we rally around the contestant. In Arizona, we had a couple people hurt and contacted them to keep the support and get them back in the rodeo.(Subjects: family, igra, injuries) So would you call yourself a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) Inside, yes. Outside people are like, "You do what?" [Laughs](Subjects: cowperson) Would you wear Wranglers and a cowboy shirt to work?(Subjects: cowperson) I don’t as much, because we have to wear professional dress. I have worn my jeans but of course--this is bad--if you notice, they're a little tighter than usual so I really couldn't wear those to work.(Subjects: cowperson) What does "cowboy" mean to you?(Subjects: cowperson) "Cowboy" is, which I forgot to mention is what we also promote, is country western lifestyle. It's basically having...well, for me it's really the country inside, and then I bring it out to the rodeos. It's a lifestyle. It's a way of life. It's being there for your family. It's just down deep. For me it's kind of hard to explain because I didn't grow up on a farm or ranch or anything like that, but I know the passion people have for that way of living. I see it in the people with their horses.(Subjects: cowperson, highlight) If you could own horses, would you? I would. I would. I was hoping to have one in the 20 years that I've been in Oklahoma, but I had to adjust to a new lifestyle in Oklahoma. Well, is there anything else you want to mention? It's been a wonderful 20-plus years in the rodeo circuit. I'm so proud to be part of it. It allows me to be who I really am from the inside out.(Subjects: igra, community, highlight) That's wonderful. Thank you for your time. Thank you. If you notice it's getting a little teary here, a little watery eyes. [Laughs] Thank you so much. Thank you.

Amy Griffin Click to filter

Hello, this is Revulai Detiv. I’m here with Amy. We are at the IGRA convention on the 22nd of October—(Subjects: igra) —November. Oh, sorry. 22nd of November. Thank you. [Laughs] In Denver, Colorado. And so, I guess just to begin, where’d you grow up? I grew up in San Francisco. I was born in Michigan. But…marriages and divorces and so forth, and ended up in San Francisco when I was seven, and stayed there until after college. What was your childhood like?(Subjects: childhood) [Quiet laugh] It was pretty chaotic. My father was the, uh, marrying kind—and also the divorcing kind. So, he was married quite a lot. I have one brother who’s two years younger. Nothing unusual, really.(Subjects: childhood) Okay. Do you feel like talking more about the kind of divorce/marriage thing? It's whatever you want. —Oh. —I mean…my parents were married for six years, and my dad did something pretty unforgivable. And my mother picked my brother and me up (and she was very tiny, so it was like, I don't know, if she got like Incredible Hulk strength or something) and carried us out of the house in the middle of winter and pretty much never looked back. She remarried, they moved. We moved with them to Dallas. And then at some point, I guess I was about six, she decided she was going to leave her second husband and wanted my brother and I to be safe when that happened. (Subjects: childhood, parents) So, she called my father, who was then in Minneapolis and said, “Hey, can you come and take the kids for two weeks, ‘cause I need to take care of some stuff?” And we woke up the next morning, and my dad was sitting there. We hadn't seen him for three years, and it was sort of like, “What's he doing here?” We went back to Minneapolis with him, found out he had a new wife. Then he wouldn't let us go back to my mother. And we moved to San Francisco. He got divorced. He got married again. He got divorced. He moved to Texas. I stayed in California. He got married again. He got divorced. And by that point, I was in graduate school. So, it was sort of—I was kind of out of the picture. But he spent, I don't know, the last 15 years of his life in Texas. But San Francisco, that's where I consider home. I don't live there now, but that's where I grew up.(Subjects: childhood) You mentioned graduate school, what did you study? Uh, art history. Oh, great. I…funnily enough, went to PhD school. Oh, nice. Did that, and when that was done, I…Well, I lived in Scotland for many years. Most of the 80s. And then I moved to Los Angeles, where I’ve lived for almost 30 years now. Wow. What was life like in Scotland? It was fantastic. It was beautiful. Very cold, very damp. But the people are magnificent, and it's just a different…In my experience, people have a greater appreciation of the little things in life and are less…socioeconomically competitive. And I would still be there, but, at the time, all the things that one would think would make me an attractive candidate for permanent residency actually worked against me: being from an allied country, native English speaker, highly educated, Caucasian. They were all negative marks. So, when I finally gave up and said, “You know, OK, this is—I'm gonna have to leave.” And so, I moved to Los Angeles and started a new career, and I've been there now…yeah, it'll be 30 years on December 1st. Oh, wow. Well, congratulations. Thanks. [Laughs] What kind of career? I work in legal administration. I'm an administrator for a nonprofit law firm. And I've been in my current job…I'm in my twenty eighth year. So I'm, you know, reasonably stable.(Subjects: jobs) For sure. I don’t jump around. [Laughs] So, I guess, how’d you get involved in IGRA? That's, like, the big question.(Subjects: igra) [Laughs] Yes, of course. Well, I mean, I grew up in the city. So, rodeo was not something that was on my radar. And I had a couple of friends in Los Angeles who did camp events: wild drag, steer decorating, goat dressing. And they had been trying to talk me into becoming their wild drag partner for about two years. And I thought, you know, “You guys are just crazy.” And they acquired a Golden State Gay Rodeo Association—that's the California Association—membership for me, forged my name, paid my dues, and signed me up as their partner for the L.A. rodeo in 1993. I found out about it about 24 hours before the rodeo. I was absolutely terrified. I'd never even seen it before. I mean, I'd been to a couple of rodeos, but I was really young, six, seven years old. But this was, you know, I mean, completely sight unseen. And one of the guys got hurt on Saturday in steer deco and ended up being out for the season.(Subjects: igra, events) So, all of a sudden, the other guy, Mark, said, “Hey, great. Now you can be my partner in all three of these events!” [Laughs] I'm thinking, “OK, you want me to partner you in an event where our friend just got hurt?” He's like, “Oh, yeah, it's fine. We'll be fine.” And that was the start of it. I mean, we just had so much fun and I…I wanted to…I wanted to participate, and I wanted to learn about different areas that I could be involved in. You know, in terms of the larger picture. Because it occurred to me pretty early on that being an all volunteer organization, people are always very happy to show up for the party, but getting people to do the work is a little more challenging. And I thought, “OK, you know, how can I gain knowledge in a bunch of different areas and make myself more useful?” So that's what I did.(Subjects: igra, events) I was a contestant. I served on the board of both (at the time we had two) L.A. chapters. Different positions on both of those boards. Got the royalty program. Did a couple terms as state vice-president. I was on a royalty team for IGRA. Served a couple terms as IGRA vice-president. And I chaired a number of committees over the years, chaired judges, co-chaired judges. Rodeo growth and planning. Health and safety. Hall of Fame. I think that's it. I don't know. I would have to, like, really think about it, you know? I was a scorekeeper for five years, and at the time we had two auditors. And that’s…we have scorekeepers who report to secretaries who report to the auditors, and at each level somebody’s checking your work. And the auditor is where the buck stops. And it's a very critical position. (Subjects: igra, royalty) Well, we only had two. And at the time, we had a lot of rodeos. I mean, we had, I don't know, 20, 22 rodeos a year? We were much bigger. You know, we had a lot more members. We were much younger. I mean, not just the organization, but, like…as individuals, we were much younger as well. And one of the auditors got very, very sick. This was 1996. And I thought, “Oh, shit.” If we lose him…we…I'd better learn how to be a secretary so I can learn how to be an auditor so that, you know, if we lose him, then we have two auditors, but hopefully he gets better, but then we might have a backup. And so, I went through the secretarial program—hated it. And I think I was one rodeo away from being certified, and this gentleman—thank goodness—got better. And he's still here. And, I thought, “OK, well, then, I'll just go back to being a scorekeeper and a contestant. Great! Everything's good.” And I went through the judges program a couple of times in the mid 90s, but I wasn't really ready to…commit to it pretty much full time as opposed to… You know, I'd been a contestant, I liked being a contestant, and when I was approaching 40 and hadn't been hospitalized for any rodeo injuries, I thought, “Okay, maybe this is a good time.” And I got certified as a judge when I was…right before I turned 39, and I've just completed my 20th year of judging. The first few years that I was a judge I competed as a contestant sporadically, but was primarily judging. And now…I probably haven't competed in…at least 10 years. And here we are. What kind of stuff did you do when you competed? I started out with what was just supposed to be wild drag race. But, back then, we had divisions. We had geographical divisions, and the way to earn points for finals was to compete within your own division. This was actually a brilliant system because whether you had a small rodeo or a large rodeo, it didn't matter where in the country you were holding an event, you were guaranteed to have contestants, because they could only get points in their own region. So, at that point in time, the Division 1, which was the Pacific Coast and Nevada, the first rodeo wasn't until April. So, what was supposed to be one event turned into three events on the very first weekend.(Subjects: events, race) So, it was wild drag, steer deco, goats. And not long after that, I added calf roping on foot. Because, back then, everyone, 100 percent of the contestants had to be present on Saturday morning for a mandatory contestant meeting. Calf-roping on foot was usually held immediately thereafter. And I thought, well, if I'm going to be here…you know. And I think it was the next year that I was trying to decide between steer riding and chute dogging, and I ended up going with chute dogging, because I figured, if I think I'm going to get hurt, maybe if I let go, the steer would go away and not try and kill me. And yeah, that was it. That was enough. Five events.(Subjects: events) So, how do you identify in terms of, like, gender and sexuality? I’m sorry, what? Oh, I said…[Repeats question.] Female, gay. [Pause] Sounds good, yeah. Whatever. She/Her/Hers. Oh, yeah. So, I guess, what was it like for you coming out?(Subjects: comingout) You know, I never really came out.(Subjects: comingout) Oh, OK. I never…I was never really in. I grew up in San Francisco, which…it's very different now, but in the 60s and early 70s, it was an absolutely magical place to grow up. Very diverse culturally, very diverse ethnically, sociologically… There was everything there and…I wouldn't say—I mean, my father was very strict. He was former military, not the least bit progressive. But, I was in a very progressive, highly academic school, and…it was just no big deal. I mean, just, you know—you'd see gay people, and it was like no big deal. And, you know, it was until…I guess a couple years after college that I sort of…I don’t even know how to put it. I mean, I dated men for quite a while. And…you know, I had a long-term relationship when I lived in Scotland, and when I moved back to the States, I only dated women. Who knows now? I don't know. I'm a widow, so anything could happen.(Subjects: comingout) Did you ever face any discrimination for that? Yes, and…yes. There was political discrimination at my graduate school, and it was not pretty, but I'm not one to back down, and…things could have gone better. But I'm glad I made the choices that I did. And, you know, I’m fortunate. Aside from the times that I lived in Scotland, I've always lived in a very cosmopolitan area. I mean, you know, San Francisco—nobody gives a shit. It’s like, as long as you don't frighten the kids or hurt the animals, you're okay. Los Angeles, you know, when I moved there, there were a lot more gay bars than there are now. And, you know, it was different for people of my generation back then. To some extent it was a safety issue to be segregated, as it were. But it's just different now. It's totally different now. We…I mean, I think the last time I intentionally went to a gay bar in Los Angeles, I had friends that were visiting from Australia, and they were staying in West Hollywood, and they wanted to go to gay bars. And I'm like, “I don't even know what to tell ya.” And they found a place they wanted to go, and I'm like, “OK, I'll meet you there.” This was probably seven or eight years ago. You know, occasionally when I'm at a rodeo, maybe I'll go to the bar with some friends. But generally, at this stage in my life, I’d rather just get something nice to eat for dinner and go back to the room and relax rather than go out partying, you know? That makes a lot of sense, yeah. We used to be able to do this, y’know? I mean, when I was in my early thirties, we would start at the big rodeos at 7:00 in the morning and we'd finish, like, 11:30 at night. It was insane. And then we would go directly to the nearest gay bar, close it down, go back to the hotel, crash for a couple of hours, and get up at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning and do it all over again. It's impressive. There aren’t many of us that have the stamina to do that anymore—or the inclination. Yeah.You think the larger LGBT community supports the rodeo at all?(Subjects: community) That's a tough one…I think less so than it used to. You know, it's a very expensive sport and…we need younger people. Honestly, if we change the ‘G’ in ‘IGRA’ from gay to geriatric, it would be fairly accurate. But it's difficult for us to recruit younger people, partly because a lot of them don't hang out in bars and have grown up not having to feel threatened the same way that we did. And, just, not thinking it's a big deal to be gay, and who cares what other people think? And, you know, it's…how do we reach those people? Also, younger people are…it seems like it's taking longer for them to become financially independent adults.(Subjects: community, igra) So, there's the issue of the…increasing cost of living. And do they have the seniority in their jobs to be able to take Fridays and Mondays off several times a year? And do they have the cash or the available credit to do it? And it's, you know…even for we old people it's not easy. I don't know. I've been saying for years and I think we should approach the extreme sports people, because we already know that they're adrenaline junkies. You know, these, like, motocross guys and gals, and the base jumpers, these sports that are adrenaline fueled. But, you know, I feel like the people in their 20s and 30s these days, by and large, just don't see any reason to be segregated. So, we have—it's the greying of IGRA, y’know?(Subjects: community, igra, jobs) That makes sense. Yeah. [Long pause] Do you see IGRA eventually just morphing into normal rodeo?(Subjects: igra) You know…we have an increasing number of…I don't know the right language, I don’t want to sound politically incorrect… Non-gay contestants. For example, here, there's a couple who—I won’t mention their names, because I don’t know if they’d want to be mentioned—but it's a heterosexual couple who happened to move in next door to two of our oldest members—longest time members—and said, “Wow, that would be fun.” And they started coming to our rodeos as contestants, and they're just part of our family, y’know? They have a little boy who is…I think he just turned six in September, I want to say (no, he can't be 7 yet. He must be six.) And [coughs] it's like, they bring him…when we come to Denver in the summer, we do a junior rodeo on Friday night.(Subjects: family, igra) He competes in that. He knows everybody. He loves everybody. His parents know that if they're both competing at the same time, that this little boy is going to be well looked after, you know? That there's no danger whatsoever and he's got a couple hundred uncles and aunts that'll keep a close eye on him. We've got a bunch of speed event—horse speed event—women, here, in New Mexico, and Texas, particularly.(Subjects: events, parents, igra) You know, straight girls that are local girls that like to do barrel racing, and they come down. We have some rough-stock men that are straight. And [clears throat]…I think some of them…are a little resistant to telling their friends what kind of rodeo it is that they're going to…But the ones that are particularly secure with their masculinity or whatever don't seem to have a problem. And some live in places that are, you know, smaller places in Wyoming, in Oklahoma, here in Colorado. But they're…they keep coming back. And our people—we don't give a shit, you know? We don't care if you're gay or straight or transgender or whatever, but it's…if you want to come and have fun, please come and join us. We’re open. We're open to everybody.(Subjects: igra) It sounds like it's a really supportive community overall. It is. And, you know, years ago it was very rare that we would have a contestant come along who was straight, or was transgender. And…it's just different now. It's like…it's just…you want to come and have fun and play with us? Come on down. We welcome you. [Pause] I don't even know if I answered the question. No, no, you absolutely did. I think I made a statement. It’s morphing. So, have you experienced any protests, or any kind of homophobia at the rodeos?(Subjects: homophobia) [Laughs] You know, not for quite some time. It was very, very common in the 90s. You know, the PETA protesters, and the religious people with their big signs—and more often than not they had small children with them, with big signs that say GOD HATES FAGS. We had…three rodeos in Washington state in…I want to say ‘93, ‘94, and ‘95. I believe it was. And the rodeo was in this little town called Enumclaw. And it's really a little town [laughs]. And, I don't know, it was probably…it seemed really far away from Seattle. It was probably 45 minutes outside of town. And…we did our registration and stuff on Friday in Seattle, and then we drove out to this place for Saturday and Sunday.(Subjects: homophobia, peta) And on Saturday…one of mornings, I think it was Saturday morning, there were all these ten penny nails in the parking lot. And some extremists had targeted the parking lot because, you know, the fags are coming. But I think there’d been some sort of straight event there the night before, and they’d put the nails in at the wrong time. And…that was a little threatening. It was a beautiful arena, and it was just surrounded by, you know, Washington State. It was just surrounded by all these massive big green trees. And what we didn't know at the time was that there were police sharpshooters in the trees keeping an eye on us. Which was pretty radical for 1993, in a little town, in Washington state. We haven't…it's been quite a while since we've seen a lot of more PETA protesters. .(Subjects: homophobia, peta) We went to Florida for four years, I think it was, four or five years, starting in…maybe 2008-ish… 2007 or 2008…and there were a lot of protesters outside the gate, but we also had, like, 5000 spectators over the course of the weekend. So, the protesters did really get very far. You know, we have a PR spokesperson, and we have very, very rigid rules dedicated to the welfare of the animals. You know, the stocks that we effectively rent for the weekend for our contestants’ own animals. We are very, very big on animal welfare. And in the past, when we've tried to explain this to those people, they don't want to hear it, because… it's just not what they want to hear. It's been…yeah, it's probably been 10 years since I've seen protesters. So that's good(Subjects: homophobia) Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. So, when you were doing stuff in the rodeo, did you ever get injured?(Subjects: injuries) Not horribly.(Subjects: injuries) Okay, that’s good. You know, I got a lot of bumps and bruises, but I never had to go to the hospital.(Subjects: injuries) That’s good. That's definitely, definitely positive. Do you feel comfortable talking about the racial diversity of the rodeos? Sure. Have you been to any that were, I guess, exceptionally racially diverse? I have not. There's…I don't even know if it's still there…there used to be a black rodeo not too far from where I live. And…I refer to it as black rodeo because that's what it's called. It's called the black rodeo, it's not called the African American rodeo. And it's held in a facility where we have held a number of Los Angeles rodeos back in the in the old days. And, you know, every time I drive past that place—which isn't very often—I think, “You know, I really should find out when that rodeo is, because I’ll bet it would be really fun to go.” I have seen some Mexican rodeos in Mexico, but just at a distance, not as a paid spectator. But, you know, that's it. OK. [Pause] So, when you’re at the rodeo, do you, like, have Western wear? Or is it, like, 100 percent of the time kind of deal? Do I wear Western wear a hundred percent of the time? Yeah. Or, at the rodeo. No. I…I'm a California girl. This is me. And if I wasn't in Denver, I'd have on shorts and sandals. You know, as a judge, we have uniform requirements, and it's basically the same uniform requirements that the contestants have. I used to have lots of boots and lots of fancy clothes. And travel has just become so…it used to be fun, and it used to be easy. And since 9/11 it is neither one of those things. I mean, for example, I used to dress up for Sunday night awards. Every rodeo. And I did it for 10, 15 years. And I had this really amazing, brand new sequined dress. And we were in San Francisco. It was the first time I'd worn it, and the drag queens are just like drooling at my dress. And I got home from…we did awards, we went to this bar, you know, kind of as an en masse, right? Because they were a sponsor. And I got back to the hotel—I only had this dress on for, like, three hours—I got back to the hotel, and there was a huge burn hole in the back of the dress. I'm like, “Oh, shit, my dress is burned. And I thought, You know, [squeak] do I really need to keep carrying stuff like this just to wear for a couple hours on Sunday night? And my answer was, No. [Laughs] No, I don't.” So, yeah, no. I'm…you know, I have lots of buckles, but I don't wear them at home. I mean, I'm very fortunate that I don't have to dress up for work—I mean, I can't wear shorts. But I mean, you know, if I wanted to wear jeans and a Western buckle, I totally could. I'm just too lazy, basically. Do your coworkers know about the—? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Years ago, they’d be like, “You’re going on vacation again?” And I was like, “No. I'm traveling Friday, I've got meetings Friday, I'm working Saturday, working Sunday, and traveling on Monday. No, I'm not going on vacation.” And now they know better. They're just like, Oh, yeah, she’s….yeah. [Pause] They think it's weird. Oh…yeah. Coworkers. So, what's it mean to be a cowboy or a cowgirl for you? And I guess, would you consider yourself one as well?(Subjects: cowperson) Well. Wow. That's actually a really tough question. For me, it's really more of a philosophical thing. You know, just. What do we value? I mean, we value honesty and we value integrity and…camaraderie and…being respectful and supportive of each other. Helping out, you know, when people need help. Whatever. You know, if the arena crew’s shorthanded and they need help drawing a line well, yeah, if they want us to help, we're gonna jump in and help them. I think…I don't know. This is a really extraordinary group. Over the years, I've participated in a lot of different sports and…this is—I mean, I've done racket sports, and I skiid, I rode—not here cause that's for rich people—and this is the only sport I've ever been involved with where more often than not, your biggest supporter is gonna be your direct competition.(Subjects: cowperson) And that's just…that's how we roll, y’know? And I mean, I remember…I think it was in San Diego, sometime in the mid 90s, and it was chute dogging. And I could’ve won the buckle. And it was down to one gal who could beat me, and I did my run and it wasn't very good. And then I jumped up on the back of the chutes, and I was cheering for her. And some of the other people back there were like, “Why are you cheering for her?” You know, and I'm like, “Well, because she's my friend,” y’know? And she won. Which was cool. I wasn’t, you know—didn't make me unhappy or anything. But…not everybody is the same, they're going to be exceptions, you know, ‘cause there's assholes everywhere.(Subjects: cowperson) But this is a really supportive group. And the contestants, but not just the contestants. I mean, the judging team I see at pretty much every rodeo, we will talk to people and say, “Hey, you know, if you try this, it might work better,” or, “Here's what went wrong,” or, you know, “Maybe if you look at it from this angle” or, whatever, or, you know, “Hey, if you do this, you’re costing yourself time.” And we want people to succeed, and we want them to be happy, and it's just…the level of support kind of across the board is…I haven't experienced it in any other sport. Ever. Y’know? And I'm 59, so…it's been a while [laughs].(Subjects: cowperson) Where do you think that comes from? I don't know. I mean, you know, in the beginning…we—the Big We, IGRA- we—got together to be able to do what we love in a safe environment. And I don't mean like safe from injury. I mean safe from people that…might threaten our welfare and…we—It's like a big family, y’know? And we look out for each other, we stand up for each other, and…it's very different than it was in…I mean, I don't know what it was like in the late 80s. I didn't live here. I didn't get involved ‘til 1993. But in the bigger picture of IGRA that's still, you know—I mean, that was 27 years ago. That's still relatively early days. I think there's a…I don’t know, what is it, like, strength in numbers or something? There's a sense of security that is inherent when you're with a group where you know you're safe. And I don't think it's, like, a conscious thing. I think it's like more like a feeling, y’know?(Subjects: family, igra) That makes sense. I don't know if I even can articulate it. I thought you did really well. I've been talking all day, so…[Laughs] It’s okay. [Long pause while interviewer formulates next question.] So, what are your thoughts on IGRA and trying to get more people involved?(Subjects: igra) I would love to see more people involved. We have been in a period of declining numbers: declining numbers of rodeos, declining numbers of members. Part of it is that people are aging out. People are dying. Some people have just said, “You know, if I didn't do this, I could have a really, really great vacation.” Sometimes, you know, people's interests change. It's tough because such a high percentage of our core membership are people in their 50s and 60s. And, I think it's a tough sell to be attractive to people in their 20s and 30s when they see all these old people. I don't know what the answer is. I think that as far as the number of rodeos go, that we're better off having a smaller number of rodeos that are successful than a larger number of rodeos that maybe aren't all successful. So, what works in Little Rock might not work in Denver, and what works in Minneapolis/St. Paul might not work in Dallas. And I think, you know, we have to continue to encourage our hosting associations to…structure their events in ways that work for them in their market. And, you know, it's not often we get new associations anymore. In fact, we've been losing them. But when we were going through a massive growth spurt in the 90s, I think that new associations felt—I don't think IGRA put the pressure out—but I think that they felt some sort of internal pressure to host a rodeo or host a convention, because, well, “We can't be in the club unless we do this.” But that's not true. And it's like—no, you can totally be in the club. You don't have to do this. And please don't try and run before you can walk, because maybe you're setting yourself up for failure.(Subjects: events, igra) Yeah And we had a…there was a suggestion from an external sponsor type person, years ago, that thought we should do away with small rodeos. Because they didn't—presumably—sell enough of his product. And there was one particular rodeo that was targeted and, you know, people like stood up and yelled and screamed and stamped their feet and said, “Look it, if you're in Peoria, Illinois, you're not going to have the population to draw from that you're gonna have in Phoenix or Dallas or Denver or Los Angeles.” So, if Peoria can get 400 people over the course of a weekend and they're holding an event—a gay event in a place where they've got lots of military bases—that's successful for them. You can't hold every place to the same standards because they're not dealing…it's not apples to apples, you know? And in fact, this particular organization—which is not Peoria—had a…I can’t call it what it’s real name was…they had facility. They had a facility that belonged to them 365 days a year. And they would hold events there and they would rent it out to other community groups. And they sold a lot of beer in their facility. (Subjects: events) And they made a lot of money in their facility, and it enabled them to have an event in a place with a low population, and not a huge number of attendees, and still be able to pay for it. So, you know, we've had…California used to have rodeos in Los Angeles, San Diego, Palm Springs, and Bay Area. Well, also Sacramento. Now we have rodeos in Bay Area and Palm Springs. So, San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento just closed this year. Los Angeles and San Diego, just, kind of…people weren’t interested anymore. Nobody wanted to do the work. Nobody wanted to be a board member. They've been closed for quite a while. And…that's fine. We have…I think we have 9 or 10 rodeos on the list next year—which for us is small. But it's sustainable.(Subjects: events) Yeah. OK? They can get the contestants. Minnesota and Arkansas now take turns. So, in the even years it's Minnesota, and in the odd years it's Arkansas. Because they know their market, and they know what they need financially to not dig themselves into a big hole. So, they've made they've made the decision to just take turns and do a rodeo every other year, and that has worked very well for them. Had they continued to try and hold rodeos every single year, you know, would they still be with us? I don't know. That's a big question. I think IGRA could do more to support the local associations. I don't know how we increase the membership. I just don't. I hope that we still exist five years from now. It has been an amazing experience for me. And, you know, back to when I started and wanted to learn different aspects of how things worked, trying to be useful, I still want new people coming in to be able to have similar experiences and be excited about this and want to come back and want to see it continue. It remains to be seen, right?(Subjects: igra) Yeah Yeah. So, how has gender inclusivity been during your time? Well, you know, we've always…I don't know what the percentages are. I would guess, I don't know, 70/30, 75/25. I'm not the person answer that question. It's always been at least two thirds men. Easily. It's at least two thirds men. But as a woman, I've never felt unwelcome because I was a woman. I mean, there are always fewer women than men that are competing. But, you know, a lot of things changed. A lot of things changed in in the 90s. [Pause] Before the AIDS crisis really came, like, slamming into us. I think that the genders were much more segregated. And I know an awful lot of women who were the first ones to step up and take care of our brothers when they got sick. And I think that the community’s learning to accept the help maybe went some way to break down some of those barriers. Maybe. I mean…just…things are very different now. You know, I don't even know how to articulate it. But I do think that, where there used to be, you know—I have never had a problem going into a gay men's bar—I grew up in San Francisco.(Subjects: community) So, my first bars were gay men’s bars. [Laughs] Y’know? And, you know, it was just sort of…I didn't really have to think about it. I just thought, “Well, I'm going to be friendly and pleasant and tip well.” And I've never, ever had a problem. But…a lot of people have. And…I think things are…there are still gonna be places that are very, sort of, I don’t know, exclusive or…unwelcoming, I suppose. But I think that the 90s made both the men and the women in the community break down some barriers. You know, for the better.(Subjects: community) Yeah. Yeah. OK. Did you have anything else that you wanted to…? No, I don't think so—I mean, this is a great project. I wish that there were fun things like this to do when I was in grad school. Yeah, this is…it’s…I didn’t know a whole lot about it when I started, and just the more I’ve been in it the more I'm like, this is really great…I think we went through most of these…I don't want to be like…going by a script, you know? No, it’s OK. Whatever you need to do. OK. [Long pause] I mean, if I could do anything differently, it would probably be to have not spent two years arguing with my friends Mark and Bill about coming out and playing in the dirt with them. Because I would've been involved two years sooner. And I mean, I've been very fortunate that, well, that I've been able to be involved for so long. And that my work situation is such that, you know, I can take a lot of long weekends—I mean, I'm always on. I always bring my laptop! I’ve got work to do. But I've only ever had to cancel one rodeo because of work. And I'm in the neighborhood of about 250 now. I feel very privileged that I’ve—first that I'm still here—but that I've been able to participate in so many different aspects of our organization. Yeah. And, you know, while we really want more younger people, I think it's important…I'm glad that that all of we old people haven't left. Because continuity is important, and a sense of our organizational history is important. And, you know, if you can get some voices of reason in the same room, you can do great things. Yeah. Well, great. You’re gonna be… Tomorrow's either gonna be very, very boring for you, or you’re just gonna laugh your asses off. Maybe both. I think we'll have fun. We were in a couple of the meetings, and it is pretty great. So, yeah, unless you’ve got anything else. No, I’m good. You good?

David Hallwood Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with David Hallwood. It's November 19th at the International Gay Rodeo Convention, 2016. So, would you tell me where you grew up? Pardon me? Oh, I grew up in...a small town in the middle of Michigan. I'm the oldest of five, oldest of two. I do have some step-brothers, or half brothers and sisters, and that stuff. Grew up in a single-parent household basically and stuff, in a small town. Grew up on my grandparents’ farm for the first part of my life. And then after my grandparents passed, we got our own place and and that stuff. Mom wanted her own house for so much, she finally got the money saved up and we actually built it ourselves, and that stuff. So, most of our time as kids was basically swinging hammers and that stuff. Yeah, it was a great experience because I learned a lot of stuff about repairing my own home now that I'm older, and all that stuff. But, yeah, that's basically my life in a nutshell.(Subjects: childhood, family, parents ) Did you go to college? I did about a year of college, and from there went into the military. Was in the U.S. Navy for about four years and was a hospital corpsman.(Subjects: jobs) When did you go in? What year?(Subjects: jobs) Back in ‘80, ‘82.(Subjects: jobs) ‘82. And did you like your time in?(Subjects: jobs) Oh, I had a great time in the military. A lot of ups, I think most people... it's like Israel. In Isreal you’re required to do military service, I think the same thing should be done in the United States. I did a lot of growing up in the military. Whereas I... I went in when I was 22. So, I was just wandering away not having any real direction in my life, and after that got out, I got started. You know, got back to getting my life on track.(Subjects: jobs) And did you go back to Michigan when you were out? Oh yeah, yeah. When I went out, went back home. Then started working in the automotive industry, or automotive repair. I've worked for car dealerships for 38 years now. In the service department, where you drive your car in and say, “My car's doing this.” And I write it all down. I'm the go-between between the technicians and the customer, and that stuff.(Subjects: jobs) So, good people skills?(Subjects: jobs) Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, it's like… Let's just say it's an interesting job, it's never boring. It's like there's always something new.(Subjects: jobs) And do you identify as gay? Mhm, yeah. When did you come out?(Subjects: comingout) Oh, to myself, back when I was like sixteen. To my... then I went through my “trying to straighten out my life” period, with the church and all that stuff. That didn't work. And then I went in the military, and then, finally, when I was in the military, I finally said, “Oh, hell with it.” But, that again, like Lisa said, that's back during Don’t Tell, and all that other stuff. So, you had to be, you still had to be closeted in the military. But I was out with my friends. I actually got thrown out of the military because I was gay. Someone had turned me in, and went through a couple months of hell and that stuff, and finally it was all over.(Subjects: comingout, homophobia, highlight) Were you already out to your mom and siblings?(Subjects: family, comingout) Oh yeah, my family knows and has known for years. And those in the family that don't know, oh well. I'm not going into the priesthood like Grandma wanted.(Subjects: family, comingout) And when did you find out about the gay rodeo? Oh, it was… A friend of mine was moving to Denver and they were putting, and Denver was putting on the rodeo that weekend. So, I rode out with Jody when he was moving his stuff and we went to the rodeo. Well, I sat and watched and it was a lot of fun. And then a buddy of mine, named Jim Brown, I got back home, he came back from LA, and he was involved with the LA rodeo. So, we decided to start the Michigan group. And there was probably about nine of us all meeting in this one bar, this one night, and said, “That sounds like a great idea!” Little did I know it would take over my life. It's like, I still see those people, too. You know, we still keep in touch and that stuff. But I've been doing this, oh, since 2004. So, when we first got started in that stuff, and we put on about six different rodeos throughout the year, and that stuff. It's kind of hard up in Michigan, because it's getting the money together and raising funds, and all that other stuff. And it gets expensive to do, but every time we have done it, we've always had a good time. And a lot of the same people come back and that's stuff and help. And I've made a lot of friends through the rodeo.(Subjects: ) Will you guys be putting on a rodeo in the next couple of years? Possibly. It's like, I won't let them do it until they have the money. That's probably a good idea. Yeah. I don't want anyone going into debt or anything like that. You know, and it's usually me. ‘Cause then I go, “Okay, here's a check, take this, take this.” And you know. But, it's, like I said, the comradery is the main thing. I consider these people my family. When I was, when I lost my job, because of the downturn in the economy and that stuff, flew out to Arizona, had a place a stay, had a job the next day. Had people helping me with whatever I needed out there, and stuff. Plus, people I knew, and all that stuff. I was also asked to come to Philadelphia, Washington DC, LA. All of my friends were saying, “Come out here, there's jobs out here, come out here.”(Subjects: jobs, community) That's amazing. That was, that's one of the good benefits of it and that stuff. Like I said, likely I've worked the chutes crews since I was... Well, I started out on the arena for a couple of rodeos, and then one day, a friend of mine she says, “Come work the chutes with us.” And I'm going, “Okay!” And from then on, I was hooked. So, you know, I don't get to travel, I don't get to go as often as I'd liked to anymore, because of the job, and that stuff because I work a very demanding job. And every other weekend. So, if it doesn't fall on my weekend off, I don't go. But, like I said, it’s... I'm the trustee now for my organization for the last nine years. So, I try to make all the board meetings and all that stuff and I've always worked the production end. I've never competed or anything like that. But still, there's parts, like when you're on the chute crew, it's like you have family. I mean, Minnesota, Lisa, Sandy, and I, we all share a room together and just had a blast. I learned a lot of things too. But no, it's like I said, it's hard to describe unless you're actually involved in it. People around here always want to know what's going on in your life. And we may not see each other for six months to a year, but it's just like old home week when you’re together and that stuff.(Subjects: jobs, community) Is convention a particularly joyous time? Convention is a chance where you get to bond a lot. You don't have the rodeo going on, ‘cause, like I said, when rodeo is going on you're busy. You're constantly going 90 miles an hour, all day long. Where, at convention it gives you a chance to sit back and discuss things. You may not agree with each other on things. But it’s just like any other family, you're still family. And we get things worked out and that stuff so.(Subjects: family, highlight) Do you like going to other types of rodeos or is this? I've only been to one other rodeo performance that wasn't a gay rodeo. And it's, like I said, I was sitting in the stands watching and I'm going “God, this is boring.” It's, like I said, I was used to being down in the middle of things and if you're not in the middle of things, it's kind of boring. I mean watching the first couple times, I watched, it was really fun. But then, once you get involved, you're... It's like I always say, it's hard to go sit and watch a rodeo for us now, cause we like to be down and get our hands dirty and that stuff. Be a part of it. Right. Did you ever want to to do judging or anything like that? I was a chute coordinator for about, oh, five, six years. I volunteered for quite a long time and then finally someone said, “Why don't you get certified?” So, that took about three years to get through the program, and once I got through the program and I was, you know. Another friend of mine from LA, Tom Brennan, he got in and he got his chute coordinator, too. And so it was basically we were, essentially we were getting invited everywhere. Either I would be assistant, and he would be the coordinator, or I would be the coordinator, he would be the assistant. So, we were a good team and we had a lot of fun. I used to have a lot of people from my own associations since we didn't put on rodeo's all that often. They would come and volunteer at the other rodeos around the country and that stuff, working chute crews and arena crews and that stuff.(Subjects: jobs) At any of the rodeo's you've been at, have you experienced any blatant forms of homophobia from the community at all?(Subjects: homophobia) No. Course, if I did I didn't notice. I'm kind of one of those big old happy guys that everybody's afraid of. I come in, I’m know I'm kind of scary. They’re not really going to say anything unless they have a crowd. But, no, I've never experienced that at all. (Subjects: homophobia, community, highlight) In fact, we've had some of the straight kids come in and compete. Like in Kansas City this year, we had a straight bronc rider and he got hurt and it was like, when he woke up on the ground, all the sudden there was all these people around him that are concerned on what's happened. We were up there blocking off from the audience while we were looking at him making sure he was alright and that stuff… He woke up and he was underneath Denise's knee, and Denise is like “Are you-” and stuff. And he just thought that was just so weird, cause usually at the straight rodeos if he fell off his horse and got hurt, they put him on a stretcher, roll him out, take him off to the hospital, and that would be it. After, cause he was injured quite badly, so after the rodeo a lot of the people from the Missouri association that lived in Kansas City were coming to the hospital to make sure he was okay and all that kind of stuff. And he thought that was just, so much different, you know.(Subjects: homophobia, community) I mean, we've got some girls from Texas that are straight women bull riders. And one of the women is here this weekend, and she says, “You know, it's really-.” You know, because they, she's faced a lot of stuff from straight cowboys. A woman riding bulls is just not done. And she says with our group everybody encourages her and cheers for her. And she thought that was just so different. Which, talking with other facilities that host rodeos and that stuff, they always say that we're you, they always like to have us come in because we're so much different and that stuff. We are sort of friendly you, we clean up after ourselves, we try to help out whenever we could. If something goes wrong we're not ready to fly off the handle and all that other stuff so. So, IGRA is a great group to belong to. Like I said, I'll probably remember doing this til the day I die. But it's like, I always know that I'll always have friends and family.(Subjects: community, gender ) Is there any other type of gay group that you belong to? I belong to the Meltantin Trailer Campers which is a camping group up in Michigan. I belong to other different small things, and that stuff. But it was like, this is the group… This is my vacation, my time, my hobby, my gets we away from my normal job so I can get my head clear and all that other stuff. It's like, I may go back a little exhausted but my boss is always glad when I get back because I'm so focused on everything that I do.(Subjects: highlight) And would you consider yourself a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) Not really. No. I'm just a person. I'm just you… I have cowboy friends that have ranches and all that other stuff. Not me, no. I live in a suburb. It's like, I do have a pickup truck and two cars, but… as far as…. I grew up on a dairy farm and that's, and I really didn't get to experience all that stuff of running it and stuff as I was a kid. It was a big playground for us. But when we, and when grandpa needed help, that's when we were there with what we could do. But as far as being a cowboy, no. No. I like to ride, but trail ride. I don't compete and all that stuff, but I do like to have fun. Let's just say, I'm a gay guy that likes to have fun with the gay cowboys. But like I said, I've been involved, like I said, when you're involved with the production side of rodeo there's a lot of different things you do than being a contestant and that kind of stuff.(Subjects: cowperson) Is there any particular production that you were involved in that you were just the most proud of? Well there's a lot of different things, and they all run together, okay. As far as being absolute, when I was a chute coordinator I loved the job. It was... I liked having my crew. It's like after the rodeo we'd all go out to dinner together and catch up and that stuff. And I knew of the people that were on my crew that I could ask them to do anything and they would, and that stuff. The hard part was worrying about them, that they were going to get themselves hurt or something like that, you know. You know, Aaron Couple in Palm Springs, last year, a stock contractor told me about this bull, it'll charge. And I saw it coming down the thing as I'm walking back to get out of the way, and all of the sudden it charged at me. Fortunately, living with a rodeo clown, I learned how to turn out from the bulls, and all that stuff. Something you do for your own survival and that stuff. But as far as being proud of things. I'm proud of the accomplishments that my association has done. The things they are doing now, the people they have in now, our association, since it's hard to put on rodeos, we do other social things together. They'll have picnics, they'll have dinners, they'll have, if we have a bar night, then pretty much everybody tries to show up and help out with it. We've got two miles of road in Westland, Michigan that we clean up, and there's a sign that has our name on it and all this stuff that we are responsible for, two miles of roadway. So they’ve become more of a social group and that stuff so.(Subjects: events ) And you said you had a roommate who was a rodeo clown? Yeah, that was Jason, when I was down in Arizona. He, Jason, works as a clown. Jason works as the manager of the trailer, people who haul their trailers down and stay in Arizona. Jason's also rodeo clown, he's announced, he does sound equipment and photography and all that stuff. That's his thing. So, he did learn a lot of stuff from the bullfighters, like how to get out of the way, and we always talked about it. So, where are you living now? Now I live in Fruitport, Michigan, which is between Muskegon and Grand Haven, right on Lake Michigan. So, I was in Arizona for eight years, then went back home, cause I'll always probably be living in Michigan sometime in my life. But, I got too bored with the scenery in Phoenix. It's all beige and I needed some color and that stuff. I'm one of those people, I don't mind winter, never have. So when did you move back? About three years ago. But my mom's getting up there, so I'm the typical gay son. Living at home with mom, taking care of her, but I think it's more the other way around. Cause she runs circles around me. Even though she's…. let’s see mom’s 87 this year, but she still gets out and mows the lawn and snow blows the driveway and all that. You know, she may not do it as fast as she used to but it still keeps her going and that stuff.(Subjects: parents, highlight ) Seems like a tough lady.(Subjects: family) Well like I said, she built her own house with two young boys... She's a depression era baby and she grew up on a farm. And you learn to do it for yourself.(Subjects: family) Well, is there anything about your experiences with gay rodeo that you want to talk about that I didn't ask about? No, pretty much I'd say that's about it you know. Well thank you for taking the time. Alrighty.

Charles Hancock Click to filter

Yep. Excellent. So this is Rebecca Scofield with the Gay Rodeo Oral History Project, and I’m here today with Charles Hancock. And is it OK to record you today? Yes, it is. Wonderful. So today is July 1st, 2021. It's about 2:00 in the afternoon in northern Idaho. What time is it there? 5:10 5:10. Nice evening time interview. And yes. So we'll just get started. Could you tell me what year you were born in? 1953. And where were you born? Holden, Missouri. Is that where you grew up? Yes, I was. We had a new hospital. I was the first baby born in that hospital Was that a pretty rural place? At that time, there were seventeen hundred people. It was the - it was the largest school district as far as square miles in Missouri. It covers a lot of farm ground, a lot of bussing, you know, going on. And can you tell me a little bit about your family background, about your parents or siblings? There were seven, there are seven children and mom and dad came from they had gone through the Depression as they were growing up. And my father was in World War II, the Battle of the Bulge and the Normandy invasion. He had a brother named Emery and he, he got killed in that battle. And so Dad found out about it while he was over there overseas. And my grandfather was my father's dad. He was in World War I. So we kind of have a history of military with that. Mom, she she raised seven kids. She cooked. She made things from scratch. She also worked as a kinda like a CNA I guess back in the 60s it was, and she would work nights. And so we're kind of left alone with our older siblings. You know, they would take care of us. But she wound up being a nurse for 40 years with three different doctors in my hometown.(Subjects: family, jobs) Oh wow. So she's kind of famous in that town. And where were you in the in the seven? I was number five. And there were there were six boys and one girl. Wow, what were those dynamics like? Well, going up on the farm, we did not have indoor plumbing, so we got our water from the well, pump it. We had an outhouse. We had a laundry building where we'd use the old and the washing machine that had the thing you put the clothes through and squeeze out the water and. You know, it was cold, it an old two-story farmhouse that in the wintertime you go to bed and you hide under the covers so your breath would warm up underneath there. I was I think I was probably about 12 or 13 when we left the farm but my job out on the farm was to carry the milk from the barn to the house twice a day, and I had to take care of the chickens. We had banny chickens. (Subjects: childhood) Oh god, I hated that rooster. He didn't like me either [laughs]. He was mean, but so that's. And we had fun, we were barefoot, you know, in the summer, we, one of our brothers had an old go-cart that he put together and got it from somewhere that was fun to ride around. And we would do hayrides. We would take it. We make our own sleds out of wood scraps and the tractor would pull us down the county road. You know, that was our that is our fun. One year the mom and dad got us all ice skates because we had two or three ponds on the property. And that was that was nice for about a year. And then we got tired of that [laughs].(Subjects: childhood) Did you get along with your siblings pretty well? Yes, yes, I did at that time [laughs]. And I guess if I was also the fattest baby. They all like to mention that, especially my mother and I'm the skinniest one now, but I was the fattest and my sister was at the age that she would take care of me a lot when my mom was working nights and stuff. So she would she was she was in the mother mode, you know she was in high school or ya know or even junior high. Yeah, she was, would help take care of me, I guess. And I think that we kind of were close to each other.(Subjects: childhood) And did you go to school in town? Yes, oh well, actually, my dad was a when he got out of the service, he went to work for Kroger Grocery. He was a manager. So we actually lived in Poala, Kansas, when I was like five years old. He managed grocery stores over there. This is back when Kroger groceries were not big stores, they were mom and pop type of things. And he actually managed two different ones that. So I moved here. I was born in Holden, and we went to Kansas. Then we came back, and I think I was in second grade, I showed up like October of my second grade year into a new school, new people, you know. "Oooh, looky there, tee-hee," ya know [laughs]. They're just hard to get, you know, but I guess they did OK. And I really I liked school, but I couldn't wait to get out. I was very good in math. I never did the trigonometry stuff or anything, but I it's funny how my skills that I learned in high school has transposed over to real life. As a contract remodeling contractor, I needed to know how to figure your square footage, just angles, slopes, different things like that. (Subjects: childhood, jobs) So my math was very important. Writing a contract for the customer to sign or to look over, to go over it needed to be a proper wording and sentencing and not some Yahoo that I wanted. I wanted to be [inaudible] I was a professional, so I knew I wanted to be a good thing. When I was a kid, I mowed yards. I had a push mower, I pushed it all over town, carried a gas can. I used that money to go to Boy Scout camp and to pay for my swimming pool membership. You could go all year long for thirty-five dollars [laughs]. And I guess I was an entrepreneur growing up because I used to go door-to-door selling garden seeds and flower seeds. One time I was selling greeting cards where you got your name engraved inside, but you don't see that much, and they had to pay for it in advance, you know, and they would I'm sure some of them would say, oh, here comes that Hancock kid again, don't answer the door. I used to sell band candy bars, you know, door-to-door. I worked in my dad's grocery store as we left the farm and a hundred pounds of potatoes. I got paid a quarter for bagging them up into ten-pound bags. I just, I was always, wanted to make money and do things, and be able to pay for things myself.(Subjects: childhood, jobs) So did your dad continue managing a grocery store once you moved back to Missouri? Say that again please? When you moved back from Kansas to Missouri, did he continue managing a grocery store? He started his own. That's right. We had been in Kansas and he, I guess, quit quit working for Kroger and opened his own little grocery store in Holden across the street from the big grocery store. I remember it had wooden floors and had a tin can lids covering the mouse holes in the floor. And once in a while, there'd be ones that would get into the sugar, the flour, or something. And, you know, we had to clean all that up and everything but he had, there was a butcher that you he sliced the baloney you wanted. He'd slice of cheese you wanted, you didn't have a big deli and all this you didn't have all that stuff. It was just a small thing. But then he opened up another grocery store or that one, ya know, he got a bigger one, bigger space.(Subjects: jobs) It was the first, first business in that town to have automatic doors open and close. And these were back when you, when you stepped on the pad and the door would open. You probably don't remember them, do you? Oh, you do? [laughs with RS] Yeah. It's not an electronic eye or anything getting your movement, you step on the pad and the door would open! And so then they would give it run by and step ya know, just for [inaudible]. I started running the cash register when I was ten years old. I got to run the cash register. That was the type of thing that if the electricity went out, you pulled the handle from underneath the counter and put it on there you crank it. [RS and CH laugh].(Subjects: jobs) That is so amazing. There are some people that didn't want me to ring up their groceries. They didn't think I was older, so. OK [laughs]. Did you have very close friendships at school? Yes, yes, it's funny, you have best friends in school, and then later you don't or they change. But yeah, there's a, Doyne Warren, he's deceased now. He he was a country kid like me. We went to the same church. Same age in school. And. In high school, my best friend was Jerry Bohannon and. And. I wasn't, well, I guess I was popular, sort of, I was on student council, you had to be elected to that and. You know, my last two years of high school, I just kind of got out of that stuff, I just didn't, I don't know. I think I was becoming a hippie at that time. [laughs] Yes. Yes. Yes. [continues laughing] So before I follow up on the hippie transition, I just wanted to talk about. So you say you're chasing chickens and doing that sort of stuff. Were you interested? I mean, did you ride horses a lot? Did you guys have cattle on your farm at all other than dairy cattle? We had an old nag for a horse. OK? That probably should have, they probably rescued him before he went to the glue factory and uh, well yeah. And now we have pictures us kids on it ya know and things like that. We had we had two-hundred and forty acres and most of it was row crops. There was corn, beans, milo and some hayfields. We had milk cows. And it's a small operation. Milk cows, pigs, sheep, chickens. I think maybe that's about it. Yeah, but every year that somebody will come out and sheer the sheep and get the wool. The, the cows were milked twice, twice a day, and the local creamery would bring their truck out and they would transfer the milk from the milk barn into their truck. Now, that was way back before they did all this pasteurization and everything, you know, I mean, we didn't get sick when we drank out of a garden hose. Oh, boy. Did we always wash our hands before we ate? Probably not. Mom would tell us to, but. And yah, I had I had a great time on the farm. I did. It was fun, I'm glad - I wouldn't have traded it for anything. And I think it gave me some life lessons as far as working for what you want - working to pay your own way - that type of thing. And was rodeo very big in Missouri? Not that I was aware of, you know, because we didn't - seven kids. I never thought we were poor, because we, we helped other families that were worse off than we were. But we, [laughs] we didn't have a lot of money. So, you know, there was no riding lessons, there was no, you know... There were band lessons, music lessons and things. But no, it was. I bet I've always thought I was either I'm either a reincarnated cowboy or an Indian, the thing is - I can't decide which it is. I'm thinking more along the lines of cowboy. I just oh, we had cowboys and Indians when I was a kid. The little men, the little figures, the little miniature - a hundred of them for a buck or something like that. We set them up and so we'd play cowboys and Indians. I loved the Westerns on TV, you know, Bonanza, all them. And living in the rural area, there was a saddle club, we had a saddle club, which people would go on trail rides and things and they would put on demonstrations. And once in a while, a rodeo, a kind of traveling type rodeo, or regional would come and uh, set up there in our town at the uh, the one with the stockyards. But it was the horse arena. That's what it was. Yeah. Horse arena. So were you in for 4H or FFA? No, neither one, neither one, but I was in Boy Scouts and I was in the band. The band I started in fifth grade by the time junior high came along, which was seventh grade, me and my buddy Gary Duncan, we both got to play with the high school band because there wasn't very many drummers in high school. So that was interesting to get to go to a state contest in district contest to be with the big guy, big upperclassmen. And, you know, we're just kind of very naive and scared and, you know, a seventh grader, you know, but I still have my medals that we won. I thoroughly enjoyed band. So we were in the marching band, the concert band. We used to, we used to go to the Missouri State Fair every year they had what they call band day. Band day, if you, if your band came, you got admission is free, and then you would do a parade in the afternoon. So and you got meal vouchers too, so that was pretty good. Our whole family played a musical instrument, I think, except maybe my oldest brother, Jim. I don't think he played anything, but mine was the drums. And my parents bought me a used drum when I started from somebody that they knew in the local area and I had it all, all them years, I finally gave it to somebody that wanted to be a drummer. So I just passed it on to him. We used to, we used to sell candy bars to raise money so we could buy new uniforms, and we did. We got new uniforms - they were pretty! And we had even had white spats and that were attached to our black shoes [inaudible] and that it was very blue and white colors. That was our, our school colors and stuff. And I had I had a pretty, pretty good time overall in school. My 50-year class reunion is coming up in September.(Subjects: family, parents) Exciting. Yah. Wow. So when you're talking about kind of growing up with that image of cowboys and Indians. What…what were the…what did you think of back then for a cowboy or for Indian? What was your image of them? Oh, John Wayne was a cowboy, you know, that was, then I was more like, I liked Hoss Cartwright. You know, he wasn't the most popular, but, you know, I thought he was the funniest and the and then that would have been me, I think, you know, him. I would'nt've been Little Joe, I would've been Hoss Cartwright. I [laughs] you know, it's funny how TV, when you're growing up, you're a kid, it seems to be real. And you know, it's not, but you, as a kid, it's entertainment and you don't get some of the lessons they were trying to tell you, or the point they were trying to get across.(Subjects: cowperson) But I watch TV now and about the only thing I watch is MeTV. They have The Rifleman, Bonanza, Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke. Uh, all those. And I watch the Grit, Grit Network, which has movies, you know, constantly. It's a, I tend to decorate my house country themed, not necessarily Western, but kind of a mixture of rural cowboy-type stuff. I got a horseshoe over all three of my exterior doors. It points up. And that's for good luck. You're supposed to have that on each exterior door and - going to the gay rodeos and stuff was very interesting, I got involved with a dance group and we would perform, it was a line dancing, kind of like cloggers, that type of thing, and there are certain dances, even nowadays, where you go to the bar and you learn that dance, called something - certain steps. (Subjects: cowperson, dance, performance) Well, we had a couple of guys on in our group that they were good at choreographing things from other songs and stuff. So we would go traveling around in the different gay rodeos at our own expense. And they would let us they would give us free admission to the rodeo if we performed. And of course. "Oh, yeah, we want to perform! We want to do that." The first group I belong to was called The Kickers, and then that morphed into the Spurs and we had a lot of t-shirts, different colored t-shirts. And, you know, you had to oh, tonight, we're going be wearing this shirt, you know, and that kind of thing. So it was. Yah it was fun, [laughs] but I wasn't too serious about it - some of 'em were. But uh, it was a good time.(Subjects: performance) So after high school, did you, did you really become a hippie? Say what? Did you really become a hippie after high school? No. During high school. Oh, during high school. [laughs] Yes. Um, I didn't get my first bellbottoms till I just graduated high school, but in high school, I would take my blue jeans and the seam down at the bottom, I would use a seam ripper out of my Mom's sewing thing, and remove the stitching and then sew in a piece of colorful material and that would make it kind of flare out. And, you know, the long hair came then. Actually, when I got married when I was 19, I had long hair that flipped up on my shoulder, kind of curled upward. And in that day and age, it was there wasn't a lot of, ya know we didn't had school uniforms and things like that. But the principal, he would tell you, you need to get a haircut. And I think we just defied him, just because we're good. I skipped a lot of school my senior year. I skipped first hour, probably over half the time. And I had two girls helping me [laughs] and I still have the same car I had in high school. And so [laughs] I'm hoping to drive that to the class reunion [laughs]. We, we had a list of excuses in the glovebox: flat tire, ran out of gas, ya know, just whatever. We we'd get to school in time for second hour and the principal would go, "Well what is it this time?" [laughs] You know. So was any of that rebellion part of a larger political things that were going on, or was it was it just the stage of your life? As I think it was, some of it was protest against the Vietnam War at the time, and we had the draft then. I remember when I was 17, you had to be 18 to get drafted, when I was 17, they they pulled my birth date first. First. Ugh. Then when I turned 18, it was number two-sixty-two, so I never had to go, I never got drafted, never got even letters that saying that. I went to a little bit of college, but I didn't care for it. But uh, yeah, I think that uh. You know, there was. We also we also have a lot of a race, race riots in the 60's, and we're out we're living out on the farm and we're watching our black and white TV with the antenna outside. (Subjects: race) And we're seeing these people burning up their own neighborhoods and things, I didn't understand all that. You know, really, we weren't. It's like we're we're just isolated kind of in our own because we were I mean, you know, if you if you worked in the city, you commuted maybe in a van, bunch of you in a van or you carpooled, you know, or you tried to find a job local somewhere around there. But I think that that that really opened my eyes. The race riots and then the the protests where. Kent State. Kent State, really. That was really, um. I guess emotional for me that they. You know, they opened fire. You know, college kids are protesting, they can go out there to die. So, you know, they kept going on and on and on and every- it's still going on. They're still out there that it's. Yeah, I -(Subjects: race) Did your - Huh? Go ahead. I think it's better as well. I know. How people perceive gay people, I think is somewhat better. I'm not sure about the race issue. I don't know. I can't imagine being. They persecuted for the color of my skin.(Subjects: race) Yeah, did your town have a large black population at all? No, but we had a black church. The there's out of maybe 70 people or 60 in the yearbook. There might be a couple of them in senior or are senior and junior. There was never, ever a black person in my class ever in grade school or anywhere. There was uh, one family was Shocklee was their last name, and Benny Shockley, he ran a trash service that was back in the day when he had an old pick up with these sides he made on it, so it could hold more trash. He's like, come to this grocery store and get our trash. We didn't have compactors and big bins, or - it was all hand loaded. And then it was taken out to the local landfill, which wasn't even a landfill, it was just a place to dump. You know, I liked going out there to pick [inaudible] [laughs]. But uh, yeah, the Shockleys. And there was there's Reverend Thomas and another black family. And he was the reverend of the church there. I think they still I think they still have a black church there. My own town actually had a black school at one time. And out here out here, in my other room, I have a box of books that were teaching books that they used in the classrooms. I have those from that school, a friend of mine, and she asked if anybody wanted 'em. And I said, of course I do. Yeah. I don't want them to get thrown away. I'm a very big history. I like to save things and collect and I've donated some things to the archives of the gay rodeo. And I have another box sitting over here that says, you know, my family - whoops, we there? I'm here. Oh, it disappeared, just a minute - there, OK. [laughs] All right. Yeah, my family won't know what to do with all that rodeo stuff, so I just have to have it go to the archives. And you said you got married at 19. Yeah, uh huh. I had, I married a farm girl, ya know grew up on a farm, and she had kind of a rough life because her mother was ill mentally, so she was one of the older ones, so she had to take care of the rest kind of, you know, and. Yes, this was not hard, not good for her. She had a job at the local Eaton Place for many years. And she was 18, I was 19, it was after she got graduated. We had one child, a son, he's now thirty-six. His name is David, and David knows all about me, everything. They, we were actually separated when he was two months old, so he doesn't he didn't have to go through the trauma of the divorce thing like a lot of kids do. And I always paid child support, I was always in his life. You know, he turned out to be an OK guy. So can I ask how you identify in terms of sexuality and gender? Oh, I'm gay. Uh, some people would say I'm bi because I fathered a child. Well, yes, but I had some - some things uh, go on with when before I became an adult that involved other men, most of it was not good um. And um, in a small town and I had I didn't - I couldn't go to anybody, I didn't know you didn't know where to go to ask - my gosh, if I would have told my friends or something, I would have been the town queer. We had a town queer. That's what they called him. And everybody knew it. And. [laughs] That was that was one of my bad experiences with that one, yah. And then mowing yards, I mowed a yard across from the Catholic Church, I was 14, so. Father [inaudible] came over and asked me if I wanted a cold drink of water, I said sure. He didn't have it with him, but we went and got it. That just took place over one summer. The other encounter was that it started out as a rape and he was a 30-year-old family friend who was known as the town queer. My parents knew what had happened. Nothing was done. And I get that I understand it's an embarrassment to a family back then, I guess there was no word pedophile but he was a pedophile. There wasn't even a term I don't think. Um, so. You know, it is very unpleasant but I would go back about once a month because. I don't know.(Subjects: parents) You have something going on inside of you, you can't help, you can't stop. You need to express that and. So and then there was the, [sighs] the I'm not going to say it was, but it was the, two of the elders in the Methodist Church in Holden. They had families both of them. There was [inaudible] was a little town, or not little, well, it was a college town about a half-hour from us. And out on the highway, they had a motel, it was called the Sky Haven Motel. And I was 14, 15 and - [pause] - there's there's, ya know I wasn't [inaudible] me and stuff. I still have not really told anybody what went on there. Um, craziness. It is not good. You know, I'm thinkin. And thinking, oh, this is me, this is what it's going to be like but they didn't need, they didn't need - they shouldn't have been - shouldn't have been like that. Um, so, ya know - it is what it is, and uh, I didn't have to go to counseling all my life, really, so so yeah, I'm gay or queer. Or ya know, [inaudible] bag of words. And I guess it, it really hit home. Well, I got a divorce, I told my wife it was because of men and she was actually OK with that. She would have said if this was another woman, because she was very she's very a good wife and homemaker and just was, a good cook and you know. I didn't know how to do laundry! I had to call her up after we split just to ask her how to run the washing machine! [laughs](Subjects: coming out) So how long were you two together? Uh, we were married for 12 years. And we didn't have our son 'til close to the end of the marriage. We didn't want to! She was on birth control. That was good. We saw some of our classmates, you know, out of wedlock, gettin' married all that - the babies and we saw them struggle and we weren't in that situation, so we didn't, we stayed away. We, we kind of built our careers. She worked the Internal Revenue, which she wound up retiring from as a GS14, which is pretty good. And I had my career in a remodeling contractor. So so we established our, kind of, income business stuff before we ever had had a child.(Subjects: jobs) And were you living in Holden still or had you moved? We when we got married, we rented what used to be my father's, parents' house. So my grandparents house, mom and dad had a lot of rental properties in town. So that was one of the property that had, ya know they owned it. So fifty dollars a month, a two-story house [chuckles]. That was all we had to pay for rent, and we lived there for seven years, and then we moved to a little place called East Lynne, which is near Harrisonville out in the country. And it was a house that had been moved on to a new basement because the homeowner, the original owner, built a new house and it was the old houses was in the way. So so actually my father-in-law wound up buying it and then we bought it from him. (Subjects: parents) But it needed a lot of work and I did a lot of work to it and we lived there for five years. Um, and at that time, I worked a lot in the summer, but in the wintertime, there wasn't a lot to do if you're doing roofing and painting. So I sat home and I did jigsaw puzzles, huge ones, 3000, 4000, 5000 piece jigsaw puzzles then I got tired of that [laughs with RS]. But yeah, at that point in my life, I was not doing all of the different remodeling things that I learned how to do. But we had our house payments paid up until Spring. You know, things like that, and we went on a vacation every year. And did you have a big social network, uh friends or anything? We had friends yah, from high school and stuff and her her family. She was she had brothers and sisters that she she was closer to them than I was to mine. So if we were hanging out, it was probably more more on her side of the family than it was on mine. Not that I didn't get along with my brothers. Well, we we just weren't a very, I don't think social family. We didn't do any huggin'. There was no huggin'. Now, mom and I hug, oh, yeah, we hug you know? And I see all my nephews and nieces there, they're hugging and all of this, and just oh, it makes me feel good that that it didn't get stuck in a rut where there was no emotional thing like that.(Subjects: family) So when you were deciding to separate from your wife, you said that was in part because you were starting to be a little bit more open about -? And I was experimenting. Uh-huh. And I felt guilty, um. She didn't deserve that. I was working I was doing some traveling, doing some commercial roofing uh yah know, like five hours away and stuff like that, so. I'd get a motel, these older motels where they had outside entrances and all that was maybe two-story, maybe. But uh, I stayed in them, and then once in awhile I would have an encounter. I, I didn't even know anything about gay bars or I didn't know there was one until I was thirty-one years old, I think. That was after her and I separated. Where did you go after you separated? Uh, well, I stayed in that house for a little while, but it had to be sold because I couldn't afford it, just my income, so we had to sell it. And I rented a place in a town about a half-hour away for about a year and then. I wound up meeting someone about 1987, '86. And we dated for a while and then we moved into a house in east Kansas City. And. Then he - [laughs] that was kind of strange. He he was a jealous person, but he didn't have anything to be jealous about. But I think what was going on was I think he was doing something on the side and figured I was too, so he would accuse me of it [laughs], so so that it'd make him feel good. I guess so. So we actually split. Well, I had gone to see a friend of mine over the weekend when I got home. All his stuff was gone. It's all gone, and I had no clue that - but then! Like six months later, we get back together again, go get another house. So, and then, so that was a kind of a three year, three year thing. Ya know, it wasn't really a partner or relationship. You know, we didn't share bank accounts, we did our names were on things together. It wasn't really that I've had two of those in my life. And now this is just more like a boyfriend. And were you able to be pretty out in the 80's? Oh, yeah! [laughing] I have here in my living room I have a, it's a - I guess they call it tintype. It's a it's a newspaper article that they made it out of out of something so that never fades and all that. So. And was the Kansas City newspaper decided they were going to do a series on gay parents. So, they did a three, three-part, so three days in a row front-page news, ya know. Well, one of those days, here I am, my tool belt on, I'm working on this kitchen cabinets, you know, and my name is there. You know, and everything [laughs outloud]. And in fact, just recently when I was in Holden, my friend Sharon, who is helping me with the reunion.(Subjects: parents) She was one of 'em that skipped school with me every morning. And she said that's how she found out, about me. Her husband says, "Look at this." And she looked it and she she didn't have a clue. She didn't know at all [laughs]. So I came out big time. I, since I had a convertible I would use it at the gay pride parades that we had in Kansas City. Maybe a councilman or a congressperson from Missouri would be in the parade and they'd ride in my car or the grand marshal. And of course, we had Fred Phelps gang protest this. And it was fun to go by them and honk and wave, "Hey! How ya doing Fred!" Ya know? [laughs] Ya know, antagonize them. Oh, man. But yah - Did your - Huh? Did your whole family know by the time the newspaper article was published? And I believe so because my, well, I don't know about I don't know about the whole family and the extent that they knew. Um, I was divorced by then, and so at least the immediate family knew, and I, I'm sure they never really talk about it, so you know they never really said. I'm sure [laughs] I'm sure they do when I'm not there, and that's OK. I talk about them when they're not there! [laughs] But, yes, I I've been - mom always made sure that if I had somebody in my life that they were invited to Thanksgiving dinner. And this guy's name was Dale, the one that, the boyfriend I was with first, or twice. Uh, he -I came across a picture the other day of him at one of our family functions, ya know? Yeah, so, oh, yeah, they they know, yah [laughs] And and I, I like that, I like that I don't I don't have to hide like I used to. I just wish everybody could have that luxury that they can.(Subjects: family) Um, and was your your sort of contracting business at all affected by having such a public, um - It didn't appear to be, as far as I know, I actually was a member of the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in Kansas City. It was a kind of a grassroots thing that some business owners got together with me. We had a float in the parade and things like that, you know, and. And I always advertised in the rodeo program, things like that, and I would get some business, ya know. And I would get I get the ones where they weren't really wanting me to do repairs, but they got me over there with that OK? But I, I am very I am very good at weeding out those that that do that. I can tell just by having a conversation with them beforehand. Then ask questions about their project, they kind of hem and haw around, and I needed to let these people know that this is my livelihood, you know? All right, I'll come over and do some work if we like each other, we'll go out to dinner or something, you know, or somethin' - somethin' [laughs]. Oh, yeah, there was a little bit of that. Some of them want to know if I would work naked. I said, no, no extra cost [laughs]. I very rarely did that because I always had to go outside to get tools or something [laughs]. [RS laughs] So there's a handyman fantasy, did you know that? [laughs] I was their fantasy, except, you know, it didn't go the way they wanted it! [laughs with RS] Now after I got the job done? After I got paid? Then we can talk about it. [laughs] So obviously during the eighties, the the AIDS epidemic was happening. Did that affect, you know, how you were treated by people or how the gay community was coming together at the time? I remember being a buddy for guys AIDS, AIDS - they're not victims, they're affected by the AIDS virus - that pertained to taking them shopping for groceries or to a doctor's appointment. And we were called buddies, you know. And I know there is so much and it's not the medical professions fault, nurses, they were afraid to go into somebody's room at the hospital, you know? They they didn't know what this was, they didn't know how to, you know, anything. So so and it's so sad that. You know, that so many people were left without proper care. But it's really nobody's fault, it was just the unknown. But they, they started having a, they formed a thing called Good Samaritan Project, and that started out finding a building or apartment building or something and turning it into affordable housing for people that were HIV positive, ya know, and that that would be rejected, in a regular, a regular place. You know, I remember that there's also a, it was an older nursing home, but it was bought and it was used for the end of life for the patients that were full blown, full blown, as it were. There was no meds and this in the late 80s, early 90s and I remember both groups, I belonged to the Kansas City Cave Bears and I belonged to the Missouri Gay Rodeo Association. At Christmas time, we would get a list from that facility and we'd go shopping and buy things and have a Christmas party and the Rodeo people did it and the Bear people did it. And then, other times, I'm inside the facility painting, volunteering to paint. I've always, been a big volunteer. I don't know where I get that from because I don't like my family is [laughs], but yeah, I been a volunteer with a lot of things. But doing that in the AIDS epidemic. Oh, now this is, yeah. This is kind of creepy. [sighs] There was there was something called viatical or something, people could take their life insurance policies and cash them in and then when they died, that company got their, OK, but they didn't get pennies on the dollar or whatever, you know, get the full thing. I was hired twice. Both times by a single male. Younger than me, actually, at the time. They were probably not even 40. And they hired me to come in and finish their home. They had maybe been working on it themselves. But just lost energy and could not do it. They wanted to see it done. They wanted their families to see it done. That - [long pause] doing work for them. Knowing that, the reason why we're doing it, was sad. It was, it was hard for me to go to work some days because they're in the next room and somebody's in there with them and they're throwing up and they're, you know, there's agonizing and… So, I'd do it again, if I needed to, I'd go fix somebody's house up. Is um, is this about the time that you're finding the gay rodeo? I found that in 1989. Yes, it was during that during my "out" period. The Missouri Gay Rodeo started off in Joplin, Missouri, and they used to have what they call roundups. And it was just a big party, you'd drink and eat, and play silly little games like the old stick horses, you know, they put between your leg and race and, you know, maybe do a blindfolded or whatever, you know, but I remember going down there. We were in the dance group. And we went down there for the roundup and performed, and that's when I joined the Missouri Gay Rodeo Association. That was in 89. I'm still - it's been thirty-two consecutive years. So, I'm pretty proud of that. And I give him a hard time! I say, when are y'all going to give me a free membership? It's cause I'm old. Ya know, lifetime membership, come on! [RS laughs] I have another friend that maybe he'd been in the rodeo just a little bit longer, we're about the same age but, you know, we're the same way - we're still around, you know? [laughs](Subjects: dance, race, performance) And do you remember, um, so, so you were going to the kind of roundup events, when did you go to your first rodeo with them? Well, then so, Kansas City formed a chapter. So and at one time, there was Springfield, Joplin, Kansas City, Columbia came in there a little bit, St. Louis a little bit, but then they formed their own, so. We, we weren't really big enough. Felt confident enough to put on our own rodeo, so we joined forces with Kansas and Oklahoma, and we became the Great Plains Regional Rodeo. And our first regional rodeo was at the American Royal Arena up there, and we lost a lot of money [laughs] that was very expensive. And that was that was the first one I attended for the Missouri. But I had been to some others probably a year or two before performing around and different things and. Yeah, it was, and then later Arkansas joined us. So there was four! Four states, but we realized that if you're going to have a rodeo in Kansas City, it's almost always the work is done by people that live there, but yet the other three states wanted part of the cut. Well, in the same way, if we went down there for their rodeo, same thing. So we had gotten our feet wet and all branched out into our own, own rodeos, which was good.(Subjects: events, performance) What was it like going to those types of events then? What did, what would you spend your days or nights doing at a rodeo? If I was just visit - I always worked at ‘em, at the Missouri. I had a job, [laughs] but I did, once and awhile, I'd get to go when we traveled with that little dance group and we'd watched rodeos, we watched the rodeo, you know, and go, go dancing at the bars at night and have parties, you know, and just, just be gay cowboys. Is what it was. And the contestants that we had, they had difficulty in mainstream rodeos, at that time, discrimination and things like that, you know, and you didn't - if you were a cowboy, you didn't want the others to know you were because they would, they'd give you a hard time about competing in their events and things. You know, we don't want none of you around here. There are no gay cowboys or whatever, you know. Yeah. So uh, they had vendors at this place. I remember buying a money clip. I still have that money clip and that I take every day with me. There was uh, I met a lot of nice people. I did. They were contestants, they were officials, they were vendors. And it was very, overall, a good experience, everything has a little bad once and awhile, but overall, I'm still there [laughs]. I started out, I had a pickup truck, so it was easy for me to go get the trash barrels, put em in the back of my truck and go to the dumpster. So that that was when I did my second year. (Subjects: dance, events) My first year I was security. I was way up in the nosebleed section, at Kemper Arena, where nobody was, but I wasn't supposed to let anybody in [laughs]. And so that's where I started off. And then I just I worked myself up to, you know, we had a rodeo director, Bobbie St. Jeor, is a lady but she looked like a man. She could crack three eggs at one time. She she was a cook also. She was killed in a car accident, going to a rodeo in 2004. But I used to shadow her, I guess. She'd send me off to go do something and I'd get it done, and I'd come back, "Now, what do you want me to do?" So by doing that, I learned a lot of stuff. We used to have these Wyandotte County Fairgrounds where we were able to sell food and keep all the profit, sell alcohol and drinks and keep all the profit, these other places like Kemper, we weren't allowed to do that. So it was nice out there. But the the arena, out there. Our rodeo was usually a couple of weeks after the demolition derby. So. We'd get out there on a Friday and we'd have buckets and we're all going in a line across the arena, pickin' up car parts. Because you don't want the horses to, ya know [laughs]. Yeah. And then there were stalls. Kind of tiny and crowded, and they had to be cleaned out after each rodeo. You had to scoop it out to the aisle. That was part of the deal. And. That was probably the worst job you had to do, especially on a Sunday morning, or no, a Monday morning. Monday morning, and you've been, if you've been partying. So, yeah, that was one of the jobs people disappear. And did you ever have any romantic relationships with anyone on the rodeo circuit? No, and you know what, I've been in several things in Missouri, I've been barn manager like 13 or 14 times? Well, that means that I'm around all of the contestants that have the horses and things, you know, and you hear stories about what may have happened and in a stall somewhere, somebody said or whatever. Honestly, honestly, I would swear, never, ever, ever did I even kiss the man in a stall! I mean, I guess I was professional. I was, I wasn't out to, to hit on somebody that you know, that's a contestant- and they're, they're really focused on the horse and the rodeo and making a buck, getting the buckle that, you know, I'm sure things have happened with people and things that I can say that. Now, maybe if it would've somebody would approach [laughs] but anyways, yah, that never happened. But that's OK, I didn't really, I liked talking to the horses, like going up there and talking to them, the horse whisperer [laughs]. And what did the association look like, I mean, was it mostly men, lots of women? It's always been mostly men or was. But there were several women, too, you know, and some of the guys tried to be in charge and didn't think the women should, ya know. But currently we have a woman director. Hopefully she'll get to do that next year. She's been director before, you know, some guys had a thing that, "Oh, women can't do that." But I think the horse people, and I mean the rodeo people, they're more accepting and tolerant, and know that, know that a woman can do just as - we have, there is a bull rider that goes that's in our IGRA circuit, the rodeos. Man, she is somethin', she does really well. Really well. And she's been interviewed, you may have even seen her, she's African-American, just a little small gal. But she gets her gear on and protective equipment and everything, gets up there. And, yeah [chuckles softly].(Subjects: igra) Do you think the it's changed since…in the 32 years you've been a member? How has it changed? I think it's I think it's, I - it seems to be going by the wayside. And there's not as many associations, there's not as many rodeos, and we're not counting the Covid thing, but even before then. And I, you know, back in the day when the first gay rodeo started, the charity was muscular dystrophy. Well, when the AIDS epidemic, that was in the late 70s. In the 80s, it was more, they were raising money for AIDS charities. So all the gay people would come to the rodeo and help support the bar owners would support saying people go buy buckles, sponsor buckles. And it was like, "Oh, there's a gay rodeo. Oh, wow. What's it like? Is it like a [inaudible]?" Well, yeah. They have the same events, but they also have a few other fun ones, you know? And. I think it was important then for the community.(Subjects: charity, events, community) I don't think our government was doing anything or enough. We had to help ourselves. We had to do things for people that, you know, they weren't getting any other help. So I think that was very important to a lot of people. And nowadays, I've noticed that some of the charities they choose may be the animal shelter or you know, that type of thing. They also do, Missouri, I think, is always doing the, the youth, youth organization. You know, I'm a big supporter of that also because if I would have known, you know what - it could have been me, I could have been kicked out, you know, but I didn't I wasn't blatant about it. (Subjects: charity) I hid in the closet. If I would have come out, at that time, I may not have been able to be home. So I think it's sad, that it's, it's going. Going away, it may not completely, but also I think the mainstream rodeos is fragrant with people being more accepted than some of our people are more comfortable going to those rodeos and competing. And, I know there's some, there's always drama somewhere in the rodeo, except in Arkansas. Arkansas has no drama [laughs]. They put that fire out quick [laughs]. But uh, yeah, there's there is always conflicts things and it's never good, you know. But it is what it is, you can't you can't take a bunch of people and everything, the same personalities and yeah. You're not going to please everybody, So you mentioned you know the, younger people might have more opportunities because of a shift in the larger culture. As someone who was born in the 50s till now, you know, for you, what was it like experiencing some of those large cultural shifts around LGBTQ rights? I went to the march on Washington in 1993. I had a boyfriend that we lived together, but not his partner-partner, but we were pretty close. We flew out there, we stayed out of the suburbs with some friends of his. And I remember riding the train into, into D.C., that day of the protest. And each stop, more and more people were getting on the train. You're all gay, lesbian, you know, the pride colors, and you could just see. The enthusiasm and excitement on people's faces. And we marched right in front of the White House. It was awesome. I have a poster in my living room of that event and. Yeah, it's. Do you ever hear of ACT UP? Yes. OK, yeah. I wasn't a member, but I would support them, you know. They were doing the more hardcore protest, trying to get attention for funding and stuff like that. So, yeah, that was a very kind of activist group that was out there. And I've seen, ya know, somebody is always going to get beat up, somebody is always going to, whatever - you know, the Matthew Shepard thing is this awful. But we don't know what we don't know all the sides of the story either. We don't know [sighs] did, did he go too far, or? I don't know. But anyway. I think society is more accepting. And until Pulse, until that happened. That's 50 miles from where I live and. A day after that, I took down my rainbow flag. And I took my bear rainbow magnet off my vehicle. And it was like going back in the closet. But. I didn't want to get killed, I didn't want to get shot just because I had that symbol or they and my neighbors know our here, they know that, they knew my second partner and everything so, but I don't. I don't, I don't uh. How do I say it? I don't hit it, I don't try to be, I'm not a - that much of worry wort, I mean but I would never do that so and so we get along really well. Do you think the last couple of years has been sort of - step back for…? Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, well, when the Cheeto was elected. And. My whole family's Republican nephews, nieces. I think I think my youngest brother is a Democrat and his wife. Cause she says something once in a while at our family gatherings. My older brother that's living, the oldest one living, I wasn't allowed to wear my Hillary hat. But he was allowed to wear his MAGA hat. So that appears in all the pictures of that event. It was suggested to me that I'd not wear it by a sister-in-law. She knew something I didn't and he's that type of… And, you know, I never really got along with him. He tried to be my boss when he got back from Vietnam. And I was I was running around with some people doing acid and smoking pot. He tried to keep me from that. My friends were terrified of him, so they didn't even want to be around me. I remember one night, we met him on the street driving by, and I had already ducked down where he couldn't see me, but he was looking and they said, hey, if I was in their car, they turned the corner and I got out at the alley and I got out of there and I walked home that night about a mile to go home because of my brother wanting to keep me away from friends. And we still have conflicts. Still. He's the power of attorney for Mom.(Subjects: family) How do you think they reconcile some of their political beliefs with having an openly gay brother? Well, I wonder that, I wonder. Why? Why would someone support a platform or a person that would just as soon ship all of gay people out on a deserted island and treat us as lepers? How can family members vote for someone like that? But also my partner, Bud, for 11 years when he died, I had a memorial service. Some of the rodeo people came some of the Bear, Cave-Bears come. And. Every one of my brothers and their wives came. Now that. Them coming there was more important to me than any of my other friends that came there that night. I was flabbergasted that. Just totally I had no idea that. Bud was a very nice person. He got along with everybody and, you know, so I guess in that way they supported me. But boy, I don't kn- and, you know, I don't really talk much about it, because we know we're on opposite sides and there's nothing. You know, my brother campaigned for Donald. Actually campaigned and sold MAGA hats and then he'd say he was gonna put a sticker on my bumper. I said, "Yah, go right ahead, I'll put one on yours." I don't put up with it, I'm not going to be bullied by a, by my brother. And I think that makes him more [inaudible] [laughs].(Subjects: family) So how did you meet Bud? He lived in the St. Louis area. He was divorced and had a partner, he had three children, boys and I lived in Kansas City area. St. Louis, there's a bear group over there called Show Me Bears every year they have what's called a run is a big party where everybody gets together. So I just thought I'll go over there. So I went over there and [huffs] I'm not really a bear. A bear's usually bigger or hairy and all this, I'm kind of like the complete opposite, but that is who I'm attracted to physically. So I'm in this bar and I'm in front of the cigarette machine wit my arms folded because I'm not really having a good time. Nobody wants to talk to me. Maybe I appeared standoffish. But he came up to me and said something and I'm not going to repeat it, but I said, OK. And he had allegations because he was a member there. But after two o'clock, he came to my room. And it just, I did the I-70 shuffle for about a year, and both of us from Kansas City to St. Louis. Dating and I finally I gave I gave up my business and moved to St. Louis. So how does bear culture compare with the rodeo culture? There's similarities, there's always drama, there's always pretty people, there's always ugly people, there's always big, always little. The rodeo there, they're the people, the contestants, and they're more focused on their competition and the winnin' and it's very expensive to have all that and to travel you know, so they need to be making their money when they compete and things. The bear groups, they're kind of just kind of laid back and just want to lounge around, you know, and eat honey or whatever [laughs], but both groups are very charitable organizations too. I belong in the Cave Bears. I was one of the founding members in 1994 and I stayed for. Probably, 16 years before they disbanded. So you said you kind of found, I mean, to some degree, you started going to rodeos to dance. Did you ever do any of the big, like, two-step dances or big dance competitions? Not really a competition. I know there were some groups that had competitions like cloggers and things like that. And I think you would have them at finals rodeo. But we didn't get into the competition part. But just the regular dancing, tow-stepping. Oh, yeah, I did that a lot. That was fun. It's great to be dancing with a man with your arms around each other. Comfortably. You don't have to worry. You know, I do think we're getting a little bit better in society to where things are more acceptable. And people find it, find that gay relationships are really not that much different from theirs. If they think about it.(Subjects: dance) So you know - All they see on the news is the drag queens, the leather guys with their ass sticking out, you know, that's what the news is. They want that sensationalism. What about the rest of us just walking with our kids and things? Did you. Have a lot of Leathermen or drag queens as part of the rodeo circuit? Not so much leather, but drag queens because of the royalty, the know each association, if they want to, they will have a competition to where these people win titles and then they go on to international rodeo and compete at finals and win that title. If not, but there's a Mr. for a regular guy. There's a miss for a guy dressed in drag. There's MsTer, which is a woman dressed like a man. And, I think there's maybe a couple others [laughs] in there that I can't remember, it's kind of like the LGBT, then it gets longer Q, X, Y, Z, plus three [laughs]. So but there's I think there's…I would say five, five titles in that, and, you know, I'm not really, I understand the drag queen thing and stuff is. But these you know, I just it's not for me, but they raise a lot of money for the rodeo association there and there, they even have requirements. They have to raise so much or they'll lose their title. So ya, know.(Subjects: royalty) And are they, are they pretty visible around the rodeo grounds? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They got their sashes on and their nails done or whatever and they're, they're usually together. And one year a few years ago there was these three guys that were just hilarious! They, they'd show up at one of the rodeos and they'd be dressed as donkeys. Or rabbits or. You just didn't know it was so funny, entertaining, entertaining, um [chuckles softly]. So I know you said you haven't really done the competition side of things, but have you ever competed in anything? Once, once [chuckles] I still have my number, I still have the safety pins that held the number on. Uh, it was in Chicago, Memorial Weekend. Not sure what year it was, but. For whatever reason, I decided that I would be the enter the wild drag race. The wild drag race is a man, a woman, and a man dressed up like a woman. Well, guess which one they wanted me to be? Yah. They needed somebody, so I was like alright, I'll do it. Well, I'm the one that has to get up on that steer and stay on it till you get across the line. Well, I got bucked off. I hurt my shoulder. We didn't even place [laughs] it didn't go over the line. So that was my one and only and last final. Because I couldn't be injured with swinging a hammer and running saws and ladders, and so I thought, OK, that that hurt when I hit the ground [laughs] that ground is hard! So so, yeah. And I tell everybody that too, I says, I'm not really a competitor - I work behind the scenes. And I do, I like to do that, I like I like to run things back in the background. I don't need to be out there. I'm behind door number two.(Subjects: injuries, race) So as barn manager. Do you ever get to watch the rodeo or do you help competitors get ready? What does that job entail? Barn manager entails, pretty much 24 hours a day starting Thursday morning. Until Saturday morning. Then your job is pretty much done, everybody’s been checked in, they've got their stalls, money's been collected, if there's money and they've all registered Friday night at the rodeo so but they'll come in all times of night and day. So that's why somebody needs to be there on the ground. I slept in my vehicle many times and that's my choice, my decision. But I didn't want them calling me up and I have to go 30 miles to get there because there's a problem. So and I, I liked that. I think they liked me, too. I think they liked me because. I just. (Subjects: jobs) I treated them with respect and uh. I treated them like if it wasn't for you all, we wouldn't be having a rodeo. That's true. If you don't have the horse contestants, that's not going to be a very good rodeo. So you got take care of them. You got to take care of their horses. And I think that was my, that's my best job ever in the 32 years is being the barn- uh, Arkansas is having a rodeo in, I think it's April of next year, 2022. And it's possible I may be the barn manager. I know, a couple of my lady friends there want me to be, but it's not up to them. It's up to the rodeo director to choose, ya know, and I don't live there, you know, and if they pick someone local, I'm not going to be hurt by it, ya know. (Subjects: jobs) That just means that I can antagonize them all day long and I don't have to do anything [laughs]. Yeah, I'll do, I'll do something when I'm there. I'll do something. But, I've always sponsored buckles and I was a presenting sponsor in 2007 at Kemper arena it was Hancock Remodeling. I gave him a hundred bucks [later recalled it was $3,000] and I bought my sponsor [laughs], you give 'em, and I was the grand marshal that year too. They put that sash on me, and I just was, ugh. And I said, "Don't do that," and they said, "Yes, we're going to do it." I'm not a sash person [chuckles]. I still have it in the closet [laughs]. It's being donated to the archives. So you said you moved to St. Louis to be with Bud, did you guys stay there? No. We stayed there maybe two years and then we went to north Missouri to help a friend of ours run his properties and stuff up there to Jamesport, Missouri, which was Amish country up there in Missouri. Horses, buggies, black, all dressed in black. And you go by their houses at night and there's no electricity and things. But somewhere they do have a field where they park their vehicles and they'll commute, they'll commute to Kansas City to work. Yeah. So, the that's not very well known. That's really interesting. So how long were you there? Oh, a couple of years, and then things went sour with Max. He decided that he wanted me and he was going to push Bud out of the way, and it actually turned out the opposite. That made me angry. So, Bud and I moved to Harrisonville, which is south of Kansas City. And that was in 2001. And then he died in 2006. And I waited a year and then I moved to Florida. Why Florida? Bud died in August and then January of '07, I went on a three-week driving vacation to Florida. I went down the Gulf side all the way down and then back up the East Coast. And I had met somebody in Clearwater, which is near St. Petersburg. So on my way back, I stopped to see him again. And then, so we dated for several months, about a year. And then he wanted me to, he was retired from government. He used to work in embassies around the world. He was the one that when they'd get a new ambassador, the wife would want new draperies, so he'd arrange for that. She'd want this painted or that chair done something with, so he would arrange that. So he had that career. So I retired and moved down there. Again, retired again [laughs]. I think it's three times now. Yeah, are you retired now? [laughs] My Facebook says I am, and it says, call someone else. And you know, I have - I'm booked up till October [laughs], I'm supposed to just be doing part-time little bitty stuff. My, a customer of mine, I went over there today, and she, I thought she was just wanting me to go over with her again what I looked at last year and, you know, cause she's ready to do it. Then she showed me all this other stuff. I'm going, Sheila? She says, "That it?" She's going, "well no, you know there's one more-" "Um, Sheila?" [laughs] So she says, "You're going to be over here for months, aren't you? I said, "Yeah." I mean, that's what the pandemic did, right? We all had to sit in our houses and saw how we could improve them [laughs]. But I didn't, I traveled actually. I was, by the end of August, I was gone a total of four months last year [laughs]. Yeah! Did you go and stay with friends or? Yeah, and if I stay in motels, I get points and bonus points. And this trip, on my way back, I had seven free nights accumulated. It's mostly staying with friends or, or my mom's house. You know but then there's sometimes I, like in Birmingham, Alabama, I had a hotel for nine, nine nights in a row, but part of that was a job I was working, and they were paying for my hotel. And like uh, this one hotel group they're offering, if you reserve two nights in a row, you get bonus points. So I'd make my reservation for two nights. Then I'd make another one for two nights, all at the same place, same room, so you got, you got like three thousand bonus points each time [laughs], so. Usually on your big trips, are they usually in the US or do you ever go abroad? No, I've never. I have five states left to see here and I'm not interested in going to Europe unless somebody's paying for it. But I've been barely into Canada, barely into Mexico. I want to see the Dakotas and Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. And I, that is, I'm actually planning that trip for next year and it's going to be a driving vacation, I believe. Part of it I may take the train and then come back and pick up your car or something? Not, not quite sure. But that will be, well, I'm not going to be gone as long, probably, but it will cost more money. Yeah, yeah. What are some of your favorite places you've visited? Colorado is my favorite vacation state, but only in the warm weather, and I've been to the Garden of the Gods and Royal Gorge, the Rocky Mountains of Pikes Peak. The Four Corners um. Um. I've been to New Mexico to a bed and breakfast up in the mountains. I like the Missouri Ozarks a lot, and that spills over into Arkansas, Kentucky's nice. My wife and I used to go on a trip every year somewhere. We be gone two weeks. Bud and I used to take a vacation every year. We had two incomes. Then, when he passed away, is like, oh. He did have some life insurance, which. I got some new vehicles, but other than that, you know. It's really, it's really hard when the income just stops, you know, and you don't have much warning. They, they said he had a year to live and he died in six weeks, so. But, but we already had our power of attorney and financial stuff already in place uh, since we'd been together to an attorney, you know. His kids tried to take the house. I get a letter from their attorney, yah, and you know, his oldest son calls me up. About 10 hours after Bud had died, he calls me up and says, "Did my dad leave me anything?" [chuckles] Yeah. And I said, "Yes, he did Kevin, there's a shoe box here of his mementos that he wanted you to have." Kevin, I never saw Kevin again. So I still have those, these things, yah. I still, I still have some things of Howard, and. Sometimes I put their pictures up somewhere. Sometimes I take them down, they're down now I just they're part of my life, but I don't. Not going to go back there, yeah, and I know you don't want to bring that baggage into a new relationship. Was Howard your first partner? No, second. Bud was first. Bud was first. So I didn't really have a partner until '96. I had some boyfriends, but not a partner. Not, you know, an actual move-in, our own place, and he didn't like financial stuff, so he let me take care of the checking account and the bills and I did the cooking and he did the clean up. So that worked out pretty good too - and I was that, I was the repair person, but he was there getting me tools or holding the other end of the board or, you know. Just don't turn him loose with a screwdriver, he wasn't very good at it [laughs]. How did you meet Howard? I met Howard online on a website. We had a date. And he asked me to come back the next day and spend the night. He had never done that before. He didn't do that. He didn't have overnight - he didn't have relationships, er - Howard. Howard has, Howard used to be a really big man, like over 400, but he lost a lot of weight and he was like 260 and it never bothered me what size a person is, what they looked like or what they did for a living - None of that ever bothered me. He was kind of self-conscious of it. But uh, he didn't, he didn't have a great life growing up either. His sister was pampered and he was kind of pushed aside like a crazy one and. But he got married with, to a woman that had three children. And he raised those kids as his own. And then he had two biological children from that woman, two boys. So. Howard was, Howard was a carnie. Do you know what a carnie is? As in Carnival. Mmhmm. OK, sideshows. He, he had a Jaws exhibit, a sideshow. He got a letter from whoever's in charge. You can't have this show. That's copyright, ya know. Well, he'd do that just barely changed something but it would associate with something, you know. So, it was the Jaws of Death, with a big shark? OK? But, that was before I met him but I've seen pictures and stuff, but he did food trucks and things like that. And his family was in it, in the business. They drove vehicles when they had to jump to another location, they ran the fish pond or you know, I am actually a card-carrying carnie now [laughs]. I have a card. Uh, the, the carnival association is just about a half-hour from me. Um, and I should go up there. His daughter, his daughter bought a memorial brick and had it placed in the, ya know the sidewalk up there. And so I see that when I go. And uh, yeah. And she she, he was cremated, but she had a headstone created for him and it's etched in marble. It is a carnival scene. The merry-go-round, the ferris wheel and stuff. I remember going up there, um, it was one-year anniversary of being dead, and I had a little party. He was a big fan of SquareBob, SpongePants or whatever that - so I got, [laughs] I got a balloon, and hats and, I still have a pointy hat over here that, that theme ya know and. And I got some streamers and, yeah, we had our own little party. So did you guys live together in Florida? Did we what? Did you live together in Florida? We stayed in each other's house, but, when I met Howard, he had just purchased a new home that was in a bad area. But it had special financing and stuff because of the location and Howard's income and stuff. So he was just into that, getting started. I'd had my home for a year, about, so we were both of new homeowners, so we didn't. But we, yeah, we spent a lot of time together. And did either one of them go to rodeos with you? Were they involved with the rodeo association at all? Yes, yes. Uh huh. Bud would go to the rodeo things. Um, you know, if we lived in St. Louis and I was doing the rodeo in Missouri and Kansas City, he would definitely be with me, ya know that weekend and things like that, you know, and he'd you know, he didn't do too much as a volunteer, but he is good at sitting in the stands and yakking with people, [laughs] things like that. And that was OK. That was fine. And Howard, he went with me down to Fort Lauderdale for a rodeo down there. I was, I was the treasurer of the rodeo in Florida. So he went with me and he helped me with the money side of the thing and counting it, and transporting it so nobody would mug us. He was kind of a mean-looking sucker, big. So I liked him, having him around, but he liked ice cream too. So with this last year, with all the rodeos being canceled, did, did that. Was that difficult to deal with for your year? Not as difficult as it was for a lot of people. I think we've lost momentum. I think we've lost because we were we're somewhat declining as it was, just naturally, and then just to have it shut down for a whole year, year and a half. Well, what are there, three or four this year is all they're having? Ya know? So all the points from last year and this year they're going to go to next year. But, you know. People, ya know, this covid thing has changed a lot of things, the way people do things. So we'll see. We'll see what comes out of it. Maybe it made people realize what friendships they have in the rodeo, and maybe they'll come back in full force and really be a fire under 'em. That would be great. That'd be great. I wish the best for em. I'll be there somewhere. Yeah, do you know which one you're thinking you'll be able to attend next? The next one? Yeah. The Arkansas. Yeah. In April. Uh, Missouri may have theirs in May, may have it in Labor Day like they always did. I'll probably be barn manager again, because I know the rodeo director, [laughs] Angela, but um. You know, yeah, I'll go to that one and I'll buy a buckle, or sponsor buckles. You know, I do that. I usually, I usually spend about a thousand dollars when Missouri has their rodeo and that's just on buckles and [laughs]. One year I sponsored the porta potties. [laughs out loud] That, there's, Charles Hancock Remodeling on it and this is sponsored by [laughs] and I loved it! I - [inaudible] I'd get a kick out of it. And you know 50 bucks a porta potty and there was three or something like that. Ya know [laughs] that's good advertising! You can get a lot of people coming and going. Those are the most necessary things at a rodeo ground! Well, yeah, they should be sponsored, right? So and, and you know that thousand dollars is, in addition to what I spent getting there, paying for my room, and everything associated with being out of town. You know, the more, the more money that Missouri would spend on somebody like me to pay me to do that or to give me perks, that's less money going to charity. So, they already had to fly in the officials, officials, you know, provide them in hotel rooms and things, so. Oh, and I've complained, you've got to complain but. They know, they know I'll still come.(Subjects: charity) Well, I've kept you for a long time. Is there anything else we haven't talked about that you really want to talk about? Mmm? No, I don't think so. II have a rodeo resumé. It lists everything I've ever done [laughs]. You know, all these years and stuff. If you wouldn't mind sharing that, we would love to incorporate it to include that with your transcript. Well, I tried to find it right before the call, but I didn't want to miss the call. So it's here. I can send that when I send you the forms I have to sign, which I got new ink for my printer today. It ran out right before I went on my trip. So, I'll go back and download those things, get them signed and do whatever I got to do and scan them or whatever and get them back to you. That'd be great. Yeah, we just want to make sure in. Ten, twenty years when researchers are going in that they know that you were one hundred percent on board with this and you're OK with it. I want to be. I want that to be. Yeah, because I'm comfortable in doing this. And if it helps or whatever other people. [laughs] This is wonderful. Thank you so much for your time and we will transcribe this and we can always chat again if you if you think of more things. So I'm going to stop the recording.

Frank Harrell Click to filter

So, I'm gonna go ahead and introduce us, I'm Rebecca Scofield and today I am here talking with Frank Harrell about the International Gay Rodeo Association. And, really just doing an oral history, today is July 7th... July 7th, 2017. And we're in Denver, Colorado. To be very precise we're at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden Colorado which is just slightly north of Denver. And tomorrow will be the Rocky Mountain... ...Regional Rodeo. Excellent. So, what year were you born? I was born [in] 1952, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. What was it like growing up? Small town boy, Rocky Mount at the time had about 25,000 population. Didn't really go very far, I had to walk to school... I don't remember a whole lot about that time in my life. I'm now 65 years old so it's, it's been a while... ... So what did your parents do for a living? My father was a professional portrait photographer, as well as his father. He had a small business, my grandfather, I don't know too much of the story about how he got started in it, but about 1920 he had a studio in Wilson, North Carolina, and for some reason he was in Rocky Mount for business, and the streets were just jammed with people. The next week he moved to the studio in Rocky Mount. Grandfather died in 1945 and dad took over the studio. In the late 1950s, [started to rain a little bit], in the late 1950s we went through a recession and his studio pretty much dried up and he had no income. I learned many years later that the entire year, and I'm not sure which one it was, the entire year his gross income was $15. He was living off his life savings, or we were living off his life savings. He had to do something, so he put out applications to every place he could think of. First one came through was with the Smithsonian Institution, as a photographer, so we moved to northern Virginia where he started working for them. That's where he worked for the last 20 years of his life. Lot of interesting stories and came from that, that's what dad did. ... And did you have siblings? Yeah, I have 4: 2 brothers and 2 sisters, I'm the oldest. [rain.] I came along and then my next sister came along 9 years later, and then they all came about a year apart, so essentially when I was growing up I was the person who took care of the family, cause mother was never around to do it, and dad was working. I hate kids [laughs]. I think anybody that's listening to this understands what I mean by that, I don't really hate kids, in no way do I have any of my own. You have a lot of experience with child care. Exactly, Exactly. How long were you in North Carolina? We left North Carolina when I was 11, so [when] I had my first 12th birthday we were already in Virginia. I lived in northern Virginia from then until 2010, when I my partner and I moved to Colorado. So was there a big change between culture at all between North Carolina and Virginia? Or landscape? Landscape [was a ] major change. We moved from a small, single-family, brick house to a duplex in the middle of Arlington. ... We lived there for about 2 years, and I found out later that both my parents realized I was an unhappy kid. So we ended up, they ended up, once dad got better on his feet, he purchased a new house in a suburban neighborhood. It was built '62, '63 right in that period, have to try and figure out the exact date. Went from basically being the middle of a metropolis to an area that had lots of trees and open space and woods all around and so I fell in love with the outdoors, and I enjoyed growing up in that area. What were some of the things you would do outside? Oh, I loved to build trails, we had lots of woods in the area and I would go out with my rake, and build a trail for people to walk on. One of which actually ended up, even after all the woods were torn down and houses were put in, still is there as a paved walkway, because the position of it was so perfect, goes in to a lot of wooded areas that, park areas its right next to those houses. That was my favorite thing, build trails. Go camping. We went camping a lot up in the Shenandoah National Park. And then in 1967 we took our first trip west. Dad piled the family into the car. Had the, let's see dad, mom, grandma, me, Sally, my sister and my latest brother Charlie--we were all in a used black Ford, middle of July, temperature 110 degrees crossing the prairies, no air conditioning. That was a hot car, black. And our first stop, I think we spent three days getting across the major part of the country and our first stop was in, just west of Denver at Echo Lake, elevation of 10,000 feet. I remember dad telling one story about that trip. Mother kept--she had never been west of North Carolina and dad was going as hard as he could travel, almost 2,000 miles across--and she kept saying, 'Slow down. Slow down. I wanna see the country." Until we got to the Mississippi river and it was on the interstate system was brand spankin new, it had only been opened a few months, and there was this sign across the top of the road that said Denver was 500 miles. Mother grew up in an area where the next town was 3 miles apart, and she never bothered to complain after that. The other thing was going on when we were leaving dad was shoving blankets in every nook and cranny in the back of the car he could find and mother couldn't understand why he was putting blankets in the car in the middle of July, well that night, up at Echo lake, we froze our bippies off. That was cold, it was. We spent 2 weeks out here, and that's when I fell in love with this area.(Subjects: highlight) And were you very much into cowboys, when you were young? ... I'm not quite sure exactly why the cowboy thing kinda came in. Course when I was growing up the big thing in the motion pictures and television was westerns. I remember Sky King and Cisco Kid, and I grew up with those TV shows, Roy Rogers, although for some reason I didn't like him as much as I liked the others, maybe because Sky King had an airplane, you ever heard of that show? So my generation was absorbed with cowboys and the West, from theater and television. I think that maybe one of the reasons that ... the rodeo is starting to fade is because... the group of people from my generation, they grew up on the cowboys. We're now getting old, and the kids and the younger people who are now at the point that they are the ones who are getting involved in the rodeo, they didn't grow up on the cowboy stuff, so they didn't have that kind of direct influence. Between seeing it in the TV and the movies and our trips out West, we did go to a couple dude ranches a couple years, I think that probably sealed my interest in cowboys. ... What was high school like? High school was kind of interesting. I've always been technically minded. And I've also been very shy, and it's very difficult for me to start, or make first contact, to somebody I don't know or some function. Always, dad was a, he was a professional photographer but his hobby was movies, 8 millimeter movies. He kept encouraging me to try to get involved in motion picture film stuff, and equipment that they had in high school. And finally one day I worked up the courage to go to the librarian and ask if I could get involved in working with the AV department. Well, probably about 3 weeks later I found myself of the president of the AV club for the high school. So I was very much involved in that equipment, and managing and taking care of it. ... As far as school itself, I was not a very good student. I did not like school. I've always had trouble with school and learning. I find it pretty easy to learn things if I'm working with it, but I don't learn well from reading books. ... When, you were in high school and immediately out of school, was there any sort of technical education about computing or computers? Computers in school was just beginning to start when I was a senior in high school, I think that when I was a junior, the school got its first terminal, which I now know was being connected to the ARPANET, which was brand new at the time. They had a, I don't remember what they called it, but it was a room that people would go into when they didn't have a class to attend. And they had this teletypewriter terminal set up in there, and there was a group of 4 or 5 that were big into that. It was way beyond my reach because they wouldn't even let you touch it unless you were a straight A student at that time, but we did have a connection to the ARPANET in my high school. I didn't start getting involved in computers as such until, about 1979 or '80, when radio shack came out with their second computer. I didn't get the first one, but the second one, which was called the radio shack color computer, was the first one available where you didn't have to buy the TV set along with it. So I got my first computer for, I think I paid about 300 dollars for it, and I could use my own television because at that time I couldn't afford the one that came with the TV. And I learned basic, fooling around with that computer, but I didn't really learn it too terribly well, because the only storage method that it had was a cassette player, or recorder that you would try to store your program on. Half the time it didn't work. So when I tried reloading the program it didn't load, so I had to type the whole program again. ... Jumping forward a few years, in '96, 1996, I was a volunteer in Manassas National Battlefield Park, which was the first major land battle of the American Civil War in northern Virginia. The park was only 11 miles from where I lived, so it was a convenient place to be volunteering at. ...I had been there for a few years, doing this, and one day I brought in our Notebook computer to show them this new thing we got hooked up to at home called the internet. And I was showing them how websites worked and stuff like that, and I typed in NPS.gov which is the National Park Service.gov, and to my surprise the page popped up. I found out later that the site had only been online for 2 days, so it was very coincidental that it happened at that time. ... So I emailed the webmaster and said, 'This is fantastic but you need more information up here.' I'm a volunteer at one of the parks, so he wrote back and asked, 'How would you like to get your park online?' That's when learned I had to learn something called HTML, which I hadn't heard of before. I went down to the local computer store and asked them, 'What do you have in that?' [They] said, 'Well, everything we got is over here in the book department.' Because at the time there were no programs to create web pages, you typed it in manually. ... I still write raw code, I do not use wysiwyg programs at all. So I started putting together a page for the park, and it took me about 3 months before I got something that the superintendent liked, and it got posted. ... In '96 there was an article, not an article, an advertisement for a magazine called Roundup. I looked at that and here was an advertisement for gay rodeo. Well we had already scheduled some vacations and I wasn't able to make the gay rodeo that was occurring in Washington D.C. that year, but we did make the one in Denver. So 1996 Denver rodeo was our first gay rodeo. So we came to that one and continued going to every one we could get to, especially since there was one in our backyard in Washington D.C. ... I think it was in 2000 got me involved, I became one of the stable volunteers. But when I got there with my camera, also the first year I had a digital SLR, [a good friend Terry] didn't put me to work in the stable. He said, 'You go around shooting pictures.' So rather than simply being able to take pictures from behind the stands, I got to go behind the scenes and take pictures everywhere. Boy did I shoot a lot of pictures that year and those pictures went on my website. After, I guess it was another year; Terry made the proper connection, because I've always been shy about trying to make an initial contact, I wanted to do a website for a gay rodeo. He made the connection and I went to see the guy who had been doing the website and he basically turned it over to me. So that's when I created the Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association website as it is still there right now, as of this year. In 2006, I went to, well I had actually gone to several of the IGRA conventions at this point, in 2006 Brian Helander was elected as president. And, again, I was shaking like a leaf because I was scared making this first contact, after convention I went up to him and said to him I'd like to do the website. I told him my ASGRA website had won the award the previous year. He said come see me when I get into office. That's when I became webmaster for IGRA. In between then and now I have also been webmaster for several other associations, most of which are no longer in operation. I really like the rodeos, I like disseminating information, I love teaching, and by building a website like this, it's a good way to teach people not only what gay rodeo is about, but to get the information out there, I get so frustrated with websites that don't have the stuff you're trying to find on it. So I'm always trying to add anything that I think will be useful to people.(Subjects: gettingstarted) ... Now, did you know when you were a kid that you were gay? Not really. [...] When I was about, I think I was about 12 or 13, my dad gave me the talk, about the birds and the bees, and part of that talk he, without actually saying it, he visual gave me the clue of looking at my private parts and my face and back and forth, if i was ever out on the street and any man would come along and asked to you know, I needed to stay away from him because he was mentally ill and I could catch it. [...] I had no clue at the time that I was gay [...] but that kinda threw me into the bowels of the closet. One day [...] I grabbed a couple of copies of, that had been thrown in there, of the Advocate, which is a gay newspaper which is still in operation, by the time I finished reading that I had come to the conclusion that yes I am gay. But I was still 100% in the closet because I was scared to death, cause even at that time, if you were discovered to be gay you could be imprisoned, you could be sent to correctional facilities, so I didn't tell anybody. Wasn't until after my father died in 1983 that I actually began to come out. And oddly enough I ended up having to move apartments, [...] so I put an ad in the Advocate for a roommate, which took care of the financial problems, but I also got a telephone call from this guy from the name of Tom. He didn't want a roommate but we got together, and after about 2 or 3 weeks, we became very much attracted to each other, and after about a month or so, I realized that I was falling in love. So we have been together ever since, we actually moved in together about a year after that, and have been living together, been 34 years, it will be 34 years next week.(Subjects: comingout) And was Tom out at the time? Tom was not out, he was in the army. This was even before don't ask don't tell, so you did not come out in the army. After a few months of us being together, Tom had reached the point of possible retirement, and I convinced him, you got to get out, because if anybody, we were both pretty sure that a lot of the people realized he was gay, but if anybody had decided to push the issue, he would have been out and completely lost all his retirement, 20 years' worth of work. Cause that's the way things were then, it was easy to get kicked out of the military if you were gay. All someone had to do is point at you and say you're gay, and you're gone, and you lose everything, so he retired. Few weeks later he went to work for a private contractor pretty much doing the same thing we was doing in the army. He worked for that company about 23 years before he finally retired from that, so we're pretty well set. And you were still in Virginia? Yeah, we were still in Virginia at this time, it was a number of years after that, I lost track of a lot of the dates, I'm not good at that, I have to sit down and calculate when exactly it was, but he was retired for about 3 years before we moved out here, that would have been about 2008 or 9, somewhere right in there. And during the 1980s when you're sort of coming out and finding a partner and moving in together, what was it like living in Virginia at that time? In reference to being gay? Mmhmm Okay, I didn't talk too much about it, the people that I worked with at the time, before the park, I don't know if they had any clue I was gay or not, but it wasn't discussed, so it was basically I was in the closet. During that period, when I actually, I guess you could say, came out of the closest, in a permanent and major aspect, was...Let me start the story at this point: In 1991, I found out I had full blown AIDS. The doctors gave me 6 months to live, I'm still here. At that time that was the normal life expectancy for someone who was in my condition, I managed to make it through; thankfully the drugs, the protease inhibitor drugs came out just in time to save me. However when I started volunteering at Manassas battlefield after I had been there for maybe 6 or 8 months, some lady came in, she wasn't an employee of the park, she was somebody that came in with a special purpose, she came in with the flu, which I caught, I was in bed, close to dying, for about a month, it really hit me hard. I didn't feel it was right for my boss ladies not to understand what my situation was, and that I could be gone at any moment. So when I had recovered enough so that I could move around, I went in and said we got to talk, and that was probably the most difficult talk I think I've ever had. They were very accepting, they had no problems with it, which made everything easy, and from that point on, I didn't blurt out about being gay or all that stuff, but they knew that Tom was my partner and they knew I went to gay rodeos and the whole kit and caboodle, to use an old fashioned term. But they had no problems with it at all, so that made my life much easier. One short little clip that I think is probably the funniest thing that I had happen when I was at the park. My office was just off the reception area for the headquarters building, and the assistant superintendent lady was out in the reception area talking to the other people about putting together the Christmas party, and she made the comment fruit, we gotta get some fruit, that triggered my mind, I jumped out of the office and said, "I'm here." She turned beat red, and everyone else couldn't stop laughing, that's probably the most blatant thing that I ever did like that. But over the years I have become more and more open, and especially the last 4 or 5 years, things have become much more relaxed about gay people, so I've become more and more relaxed in my presentation and my being out in the world. I never had the "coming out experience" that is talked about so much today cause I just sort of, seeped out over a period of many years. It didn't happen that way to me, and it wasn't something that I had to sit down with the people and say, "I'm gay." It didn't happen that way, everybody pretty well understood it.(Subjects: comingout) And when did you and Tom start traveling again? We've actually been traveling ever since 1988. We bought our first travel trailer which was in 1988, and we did some camping. And, in '89, we Tom took a 2 year sabbatical from his job. We sold the houses that we had, and we lived in our travel trailer for 2 years. The only reason we quit, well 2 reasons to quit, 1 is because at that time, if you sold property you had to put the money back into property in 2 years or else you lose huge to taxes. I don't think that is a problem anymore. The other one was we saw all of the great scenes, all the great, one of our goals during that trip was to visit as many of the national parks as we could get to. All together we've been to about 300 national parks. When you go to the Grand Canyon and look over the edge and say, oh that's nice, you have reached the point of where you're saturated. And that's when we said, okay let's cut this out and go back to work for a while, but we have continued to go on short trips since then. The longest trip we've had since that is 6 months, and that was just before leaving Northern Virginia and coming to Colorado. ... Was your volunteer position [at Manasses] full time, part time? Well, it was supposed to be just come in occasionally, but before it ended, in the slightly more than 6 years I was there I put in more than 6,000 hours' worth of time, I don't generally make too big a deal of it, but Tom likes to. When I was probably at about 4,500 hours, the superintendent wanted to do something nice for me, I didn't know what was going on, I didn't find out about it until the presentation actually occurred, but he managed to get me, I'm an official honorary National Park ranger, that's the highest award the National Park Service can give. At the time, I got that because of the work I had done not only on the website but on all the computer support I had given them, at the time that I got the award there had only been 160 maybe 120 people who had received it, such people as John F. Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Queen Elizabeth, Arthur Fiedler, people like that. I honestly believe there has been a lot more of these given out since then, but I think I was the first non-famous person to ever receive the award, which I'm kinda glad of, that was the biggest thing what came out of that operation. I didn't know they were gonna give it to me, and they told me to come over to the other building, and Tom was there, and the head of the National Park Service was there to give me my award, so it was kinda a surprise. It kinda funny too, I have, they gave me as part of the operation one of the park hats, so it's a Stetson made out of, high quality beaver felt, beaver and rabbit felt, it doesn't fit me, it's too big for my head. They didn't know what my hat size was so while I was out of the office one of the ladies went into my office and I had left my hat in the office, and they picked it up and they got the measurement for that, trouble was that day I had grabbed the wrong hat the hat was too big for me, so the park service hat doesn't fit very well, but it hangs in my study today.(Subjects: highlight) ... [In your] unique position as webmaster, you're sort of helping get a lot of this information out there, have you had any sort of digital connections with people who were upset about gay rodeo? Not the rodeo. My website, cowboyfrank.net has been in operation since before I got involved with the gay rodeos. In all that time I have received 2 nasty emails, out of the tens of thousands of emails that I've gotten, I've only gotten 2 nasty ones. One of them, I actually wrote a little piece on--which is on the website. He was complaining about me being a, "how dare you call yourself a gay cowboy" and "cowboys don't carry pride flags, they carry guns," etc., etc. just ranting on. Basically my little blog, if you wanna call it that although when I wrote it the term didn't exist, pointed out that the places where he was wrong: There are a lot of gay cowboys; there always have been; at the time I actually owned a gun--I never used it, I just simply owned it, cause it was a colt 45, I used it a few times during Halloween, not firing but in the holster. There was an interesting response after I had posted this thing. A real cowboy wrote me. He said he wasn't gay but he had lots of gay cowboy friends, and he actually made me feel very good, 'cause he ended his little speech with something like, "You may not be a real cowboy, but you certainly act it." That's not what he actually said, what he said was much better than that [...] but it made me feel very warm inside. The other negative email I got I deleted immediately so I don't even, I didn't even finish reading it. So I don't remember what it's about. But that's all, I've not gotten anything negative, the emails that I've gotten that you might consider to be partially negative, weren't really, they said, they don't agree with the lifestyle, they used that term, but they didn't complain either. Several of them asked specific questions, not about gay but about cowboys. Several of the others just simply said good luck to you. So I've received almost no hate mail at all, which I don't know if that had anything to do with the timing or the way that my website is put together, hard to tell.(Subjects: highlight, homophobia) And what do you think it was about the gay rodeos that sort of kept you coming back. The comradery, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. We're one big happy family. I had been to, not to a whole lot, but a few straight rodeos, they are nothing like ours as far as friendship is concerned. All of the straight rodeos that I have either been involved in or watched either on the TV or YouTube, that is a massive competition against the other guy. There is no way that a straight rodeo cowboy will actually advise, another contestant as to methods of improving because they might beat me. 100% different in the gay rodeo. One of our contestants who passed away from ovarian cancer a few years ago, I think put it very well. Ty Tygen said, I want you to do good, I will loan you my horses I will loan you my equipment, I will tell you how to do better, so that you can go out there and do the best you can and then I'm gonna go out and beat you. That's the feeling between most of us. We would rather see the other guy do a good job than for us to beat them, cause we're all trying, this is a serious competition. That is one of the things that I don't see in hardly any other sporting event, of any sort, is that kind of family. We love going to the rodeos because we see our friends that we haven't seen in a while. I first, I first got interested in coming to the rodeos because it was a fun event to come to, and at least in the earlier days, you don't see it quite as much now, the eye candy is terrific especially in the stands, Florida, when they were going, they had some of the most hunky shirtless guys they could find, cause their rodeo was held just outside fort Lauderdale, and Fort Lauderdale is a big muscle beach area, so the muscle boys would come out and it was wonderful eye candy, some of the others were too. So that was a good draw. When we were running the Atlantic States [Gay Rodeo] out of Washington D.C. when our rodeos we're going, we were famous for our parties, we would have an average of around, between 2 to 4 thousand people, half of which would go to the rodeo, some would go to both the rodeo and the party, but then you had a lot of people that just went to the party and half the people that just wanted to rodeo. And our dances were, incredible, you'd get 300 people on the floor all doing the line dance, nothing quite as exciting as watching something like that or I'm not sure what you would call it cause I don't dance, but where 2 people holding onto each other spinning in circles around the floor, 250 people all out in a big pile, doing this trying not to run into each other and still having a great deal of fun. Used to be in some of the earlier, Atlantic States rodeos when I first began to go the parties when I got involved with the association, everybody wore their best outfits, they would go out and buy new outfits, it was like going to a black tie party, just gorgeous outfits, both ladies and the guys. And you'd find the ladies dancing with the guys and vice versa. That is really what it, other than just simply going to the rodeo and enjoy the cowboys riding their horses, cause I love these little cowboys on horses, seeing the people and seeing how they interact, in a big family environment, which you don't find, hardly any kind of other organization, I'm sure there are other types of events out there that have that kind of connection, but I've never seen any. That's the reason I keep coming. And now, I have reached the point, I would love to, I'm not gonna compete anymore, I'm past that capability, but I would love to like, be a rodeo judge but then I think so many people are relying on my photography now they would hate me if I didn't shoot pictures instead, and I enjoy shooting the pictures so I stick with that, I and I think I do a fairly good job of it. And what did you used to compete in? I started out, once I hit net, my friends in Virginia, I started out barrel racing, I spent about a year and a half learning to barrel race under the, tutelage of a very good barrel racing instructor. I admit I've never been very good at it. But after the year and a half I finally, tried competing at it, my partner Tom did not want me to compete because he was afraid I was gonna get hurt, the one time I tried competing in barrel racing I got hurt, so that put an end of that. I didn't make a score, this was in Washington DC, and I didn't have enough practice with the horse I was riding, and when he went around the first barrel he decided he wanted to leave, and I was so tight and worried I let him. Second day I said I'm not gonna let him do that, so we went around the first barrel and he started to go that way and I started pulling him back and got him pointed back, I got him pointed towards the second barrel and two things happened, I lost my left stirrup, and the arena crew was standing right smack in front of me. They were against the fence, but where I was headed I don't have proper control of my horse, and I was headed for them, so I lost it, and the horse turned and went out, and in the process of going out, I'm not sure exactly what I did wrong, but he ended up running into the fence, this was an 8 foot chain link fence, the whole fence fell down on its side, and because of the way it was constructed it pushed us back up, and I came off and landed on the dirt, and he wandered off and started grazing on grass. But it wasn't a serious injury just pulled a muscle in my arm, but that was enough of that, so that ended my barrel racing. After that I took a few lessons and I competed in what we call calf roping on foot. Which is a fairly simple little event where you throw the rope, I've got a couple ribbons, a couple of, 4th place ribbons. Actually the first place I caught was in Chicago, which was actually the first time I was actually doing competition, I caught on Sunday, and I was so surprised at the fact that I actually got it, I forgot to let go of the rope, which got pulled out of my hand, and because I forgot to let go of the rope I ended up in 4th place instead of 1st place, you're only talking about 2 tenths of a second that was enough to throw me out of winning 1st place for Sunday, but I got my 2 ribbons and that made me happy and now my arthritis is to the point that I can't hold, I can't control the rope anymore, so I just do the back behind the scenes stuff.(Subjects: injuries, events) And when you were barrel racing, did you ever own a horse or did you? I've never actually owned a horse, thought about it a couple times and decided horses require a lot of maintenance and they're very expensive to take care of, and I didn't have the proper property to take care of them, and I decided if I ever gonna own a horse I wouldn't be boarding somewhere where I would only see it once a week or something like that, so we just, we would have to live in a place where we could have the horse there, some of the other people who lived in the area did have horses, at least they had them when their children were growing up, but our property wasn't conducive to it, but I was content to ride other people's horses and as long as they were content to let me it was fine. Terry, the guy I was talking about that got me involved in the rodeo, he had, and still has a farm up in the mountains of Virginia. And when I went out there to ride the first few times, I guess probably about the 3rd ride when we finished it, I asked him if he would teach me how to tack up the horse, which apparently floored him because he had taken hundreds of people for rides, but nobody ever asked how to do it, so we became very good friends, and after I had been taking lessons for quite a while he got to where I knew what I was doing on a horse, he basically said you can come up any time you want even if we're not here and take the horses on a ride. So I did that probably about 7 or 8 times before we ended up moving out of the area. I just absolutely love horses, they are extremely intelligent, I believe that most animals, at least the higher animals, are just as intelligent as we are, what we have that they lack, is our incredibly complex language. I point to one of the horses that I used to ride, poor Sam, I'm sure that he's long gone now, but this horse was smart, he figured out, a lot of horses will figure out how to open their stall gates. I don't know what you call it but they have these little, things on the end of cords and stuff that you have to pull the little leaver down in order to slide the little thing so you can get it off, he figured how to open those, and he would let the other horses out of the stalls. Terry ended up putting padlocks on the stalls cause Sam kept letting them out and everything else. If you look at our civilization, this is totally off on a separate subject, but when you look at civilization, ask people what makes us better than the other animals, and the first thing most people point it is our opposable thumbs, and I look at them and say well why isn't the raccoon, there are lots of animals that have opposing thumbs, there are other animals that have bigger brains than we do, it's our language, I've got a little blog on my website that says, horses in nature have about 160 words in their language, its mostly visual clues. Most of those are involved in, day to day living, like I'm hungry, or I'm scared, or help me, something like that, or get away, leave me alone. Our civilization couldn't exist if we only had 160 words to work with. That's what makes the difference between us and the other animals, is our ability to communicate in extremely complicated fashion, and get the technologies and everything we have and everything we do is built on what previous people have discovered and we keep discovering, without our language that wouldn't be possible, that's the difference. What do you say to the, I knows there's been groups like PETA, that have protested rodeo as cruel to animals? Most of the time, I have seen a few PETA... what's it called when they're standing out there? Protesting. Usually they're not there the next day, the biggest problem seems to be that the people who actually go out representing these organizations, they don't really know what they're protesting, none of them have bothered to go look, they're just simply taking the word of somebody else, we have very little trouble with those organizations now cause I think they have finally realized we treat our animals very well. There is still a lot of anti-rodeo stuff out there, and anti-gay rodeo stuff out there, primarily from people who haven't bothered to research what they're protesting. Anytime they actually sit down and take the time to take a look at it, they realize they aren't protesting anything that's real. We used to get those protests quite a bit back in the 1990's, almost nowhere now, I think that's the reason is because we, all the IGRA rodeos have to follow the IGRA rules, and we have a large number of rules that are geared specifically for ethical treatment of the animals. I think, occasionally we do have accidents, that happens out in the field, occasionally a cow will break a leg because they step into a gopher hole. We have had a few animals get killed and any time that happens, the stuff hits the fan at the next convention trying to figure out what happened, and how to keep it from happening again. I don't think we've had a single incident that was caused because of a repeat of something that's happened before, it's always something new.(Subjects: peta) And can you describe some of the duties you now have, the photographs you take and things like that and your main form of involvement with IGRA? Well besides being the webmaster for the international association, which means that I have to keep up with everything that's going on and keep the website updated, and design the website from scratch which I did a few years ago. The non-official, basically I'm the unofficial, unofficial or non-official, I'm not sure which one's proper, photographer for the gay rodeos. In whatever year it was that Brokeback Mountain won the academy award, that was kinda an interesting period for me, between the time that the awards were announced and the time they were actually presented, I received several hundred telephone calls from news media all around the world wanting to know about gay rodeo, because my phone number was the only one on the website. It was there because if an emergency problem came up I had it there so that people could call me and tell me that there was something that needed to be fixed, but mine was the only number there so I was the one getting all these phone calls. After about a month I managed to talk the president into letting me put his number on there and that quit, but when these people found out that I had this huge collection of photographs that I'd been shooting for 15 years, they all wanted me to pick pictures out that they could use in their, whatever their TV show or magazine or newspaper or whatever it was and sell them. I had about 30,000 pictures at that time, trying to go through those and pick good ones, was a nightmare. So what I did is I developed a little private website, call it a private website, where I took every single picture, that I've ever shot at a gay rodeo, run it through a little program that generates a gallery, and all I have to do is point people to the gallery, take whatever you want just give me credit. So you will see my pictures pop up all over the place, and that's where they're coming from. Newspaper can go to that website, not only see a gallery of the picture I've got, but they can get the original camera image from that location to, all the instructions are right there it's pretty straight forward. So that really, creating that really kinda changed people's outlook on what I can do, or what I have made available. And now in the last few years I've started doing videos and putting them on YouTube, I think the contestants really like that because I've had so many compliments and comments that they like that cause they can go and study what they did wrong and try to improve on it. You can't really see what you did wrong from a still picture, unless you fell or something like that, but the video. We had one fella I felt so bad for him, I'm not gonna say who it was, one of the rodeos when he went around the first barrel he did something wrong and I'm not gonna say what that was either, but I took the video and slow it way down so he could see what he did wrong. The horse ended up flipping head over heels, luckily neither one of them were injured except in the mind. But he was able to figure out what he did wrong, and keep from doing it again and that would have been impossible otherwise, cause when you're on the back of the horse, unless you're really really really good at what you're doing, most of the time you don't know what you did wrong. And you've also acted, sort of in your capacity as webmaster, also as sort of archival role of creating the history website. Yeah, that was kinda an interesting situation in itself. Back when I first started doing the website for Atlantic States, one of the first things I tried to do and it took my several years to accomplish it was to get copies of all there previous programs onto the website. I have dreamed of being able to do the something for all the gay rodeos, but at that time I lived in Virginia, and the archives, I had no idea what the archives consisted of at the time, was in Colorado, so I didn't have the opportunity of being connected with it, all a sudden I live in Colorado. And that same year, the position of the IGRA archivist changed to another particular person which incredibly is back with it right now as we speak, Brian Rodgers. He learned about our house, where it was located and we got this big cellar, and at that time the archives were being stored in the basement of Charlie's bar, or some of it was in the basement of Charlie's bar which flooded, and some of it was at the rodeo grounds in a storage container, which could be a 150 degrees in the summertime, and below 0, not to mention the dirt and dust from the rodeo equipment that was there, not a good place. So Brian convinced Tom and myself to, at least temporarily store the archives in our basement, whoa all the stuff I wanted to work with for all these years right here in the house. So that's how that came in to being the gayrodeohistory.org website. It continues to grow. I'm actually a little frustrated with it at the moment because I need help and I can't get any, the further development is kinda in limbo at the moment, because I already... catalogued and posted a lot of material that is currently sitting on a table waiting to be sorted and stored. And it has to be inventoried as its being stored and I can't do it myself. I have a problem with dyslexia, and looking at a computer trying to put information in, and then go over here and handle the physical product I get mixed up. It's too much, it's too hard for me to do both those jobs, and I can't get anybody at the moment to come out and help me, and I keep hoping and keep promising and so far nothings happened. And that's a, not a small amount of things its tens of thousands of items. No, its not. This year the San Francisco rodeo, I keep calling it the San Francisco because that's the nearest large town, will be our 500th gay rodeo, so we don't have all 500 programs but we've got about 480 of them. The archives have now grown with hundreds of pamphlets, newspaper articles, magazine articles, we even have clothing, T-shirts, jackets, hundreds and hundreds of contestant past badges, pass badges, pins. Since I've started creating the gay rodeo history website, the amount of material that was in the archives when I took them over has quadrupled, it is a huge project, not as big as a library but it's still huge and it's one person trying to do the whole thing, it's too much, so kinda takes away, you lose interest after a while and it's hard to... get going when you can't get anybody to help you out, I'm hoping that's gonna change. Now for you, why is it, why has it been worse, hundreds of thousands of man hours to do this, what do you hope preserving this history will create? I think it all comes back to education. I very much...I like collections, I like collecting things. My current major collection is computers, but I also like teaching, and building a website, an informative website is one way that I can teach a lot of people without going to a whole lot of effort, compared to what it would be if I had to have classes. In a classes you can teach 15, 20, or 30 at a time. A website can teach thousands of people, with one effort. So I really enjoy making this information available to the public. I also get pride in, I see so many newspaper articles, there was one in the Washington Post a couple days ago, and... stories and other things that are coming out of the information that I have on the history website, a lot of times I can read a newspaper article or magazine article and I can see what is almost a quote of some of the stuff that is on the website. So it's a way of educating the world about what we do, why we're here, what we're trying to do, it's a way without having to go out and contact individual people to do it, so it's a different way of teaching. And I love it. I love helping people and I love teaching people so this is one way I can do that.(Subjects: highlight) Now you touched on this earlier when you were saying that this younger generation didn't grow up with cowboys, obviously there's been a sort of decline in membership, what do you think the future of IGRA is? I think that in the future, I think that gay rodeo will be around for a long time, because there is enough core members who, who have this lifestyle as part of their life, they're dedicated. Looking at google earth this morning at one of our competitors homes, the whole thing is geared around rodeo, you just look at it from the sky and see there's nothing there except a house with rodeo, so there's enough of us around that gay rodeo will continue for quite a few years, there's no one reason why we're fading, there's a whole slew of reasons and they're all coming together at the same time. One of them is that the core people who created the gay rodeo grew up in the 1950s or 60s when cowboy TV shows and cowboy movies were all the rage, so we grew up cowboy. The current generation didn't grow up cowboy. So that's one thing, the people are losing the interest. 15 years ago, country western dancing was all the rage. Well a lot of those people have gone onto, either aged and gotten to where they can't dance, or facilities for the dancing has faded or they just got tired. And new dance styles come in to replace that. When gay rodeo first started especially the Reno rodeos of the 1970s at that time there was really no place that a large number of gays could get together to be in a public facility to be completely open, they just didn't exist. The best you could do would be to visit a bar or possibly be involved in something like a... gay pride parade. [*Man comes into room and interrupts*] So the dancing has moved away, the cowboy being, the movies have gone away. We have begun gay people have become more accepted in, I was saying that there was no place to go in a large group but the gay rodeos allowed that so it was a congregation. Now you can walk down just about any street holding hands with a same sex partner, the most you might do is raise a couple eyebrows, back in the 70's that wouldn't happen you couldn't do that, so we're more accepted, we don't have to congregate the way we used to. There's a whole slew of reasons we're fading. Another reason which, I believe is poor management. When gay rodeo started people and most of the individual associations got started even the one that just began, the people in the base of the association were go-doers. They were the kind of person who could go out, and find people and convince them this is what we need to do and get the other person excited about doing it. Over the years since I first started doing websites, I have worked with, a large number of nonprofits, and I've seen the same thing happen in a lot of those associations. When an association gets started you've got go-doers and go-getters, people who are excited about whatever the project is, they sometimes get burned out or they serve their term, and other people come in and eventually in a nonprofit, unless it's really well structured, you end up with people in charge, who aren't that interested in perpetuating the purpose of the organization, they're more interested in having the power and the prestige of being the president or, being on the board with the association, and as a result the association falls apart. This is different than a lot of businesses where you've got a profit margin you have to deal with and you've got, investors that you've got to please, although I've seen the same thing happen in some businesses. But I've seen more associations fall apart because of management that doesn't have the get-go or go-getters whatever the proper phrase is there, and the association just kind of flounders and eventually dissolves away. So, all of these things together, is why we're seeing, I think, why we're seeing gay rodeo fade. Something will probably take over in its place at some point, not as far as rodeo is concerned but some other type of event and after a period of time that event will suffer the same I think it's part of human nature part of the operation of the way things happen so it's not any given thing it's a lot of different things. For yourself your involvement in rodeo for 20 years now all of your the fact you've worn a cowboy hat most of your life, do you really identify as a cowboy? I think I do in a way. I appreciate what the real cowboys do, and there are still a lot of them out there, as one song that I like, cowboys still there, he just can't be seen from the road. I think being a cowboy is, more than just simply working cattle or horses. It's a, way of looking at life, and I try to uphold that as much as I can. I try to help the other person and I try to take care of what we have to take care of, our horses our facilities our organization. Anything you can do that is positive towards that, that's my feeling. Well we've talked about a lot today, is there anything else you want to mention? To be very honest with you I had been thinking about this for several weeks and I think I've covered all the little interesting tidbits that I thought were important to fit in. Well thank you so much for your time.

Brian Helander Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofiled and I am here with Brian Helander and it is October 21st 2017 and we are at the World Gay Rodeo Finals in Albuquerque New Mexico. So could you tell me when you were born?(Subjects: childhood) I was born [in]1954.(Subjects: childhood) Where?(Subjects: childhood) In Teulon, Manitoba, Canada.(Subjects: childhood) And, what was it like growing up there?(Subjects: childhood) Well... I didn't know any better so it was pretty good.(Subjects: childhood) Pretty rural?(Subjects: childhood) It was, we didn't, we ultimately moved to the the big city, Winnipeg so we moved to the big city. My dad became a milkman, the kind that carried milk to your door.(Subjects: childhood, parents) And when did you make that move?(Subjects: childhood) I guess that was 3 or 4.(Subjects: childhood) So did you spend most of your youth in Winnipeg?(Subjects: childhood) Yes.(Subjects: childhood) And what was it like growing up there?(Subjects: childhood) Well, I didn't know any better so it was pretty good. I thought it was completely normal. It was a rough, a harsh life, winters were harsh. My mom and dad had 5 kids and my dad was a milk man so, it was not an easy life. We didn't have a car. I still to this day don't know how my mother got groceries to the house, enough for 7 people without a car.(Subjects: childhood, parents, family) So where are you in the 5?(Subjects: childhood, family) I'm the second oldest.(Subjects: childhood, family) How big were ranges there in ages?(Subjects: childhood, family) Well they were pretty close together, older brother a year older, younger sister couple years younger, and a couple years younger, and then a couple years younger.(Subjects: childhood, family) So did you help raise any of those babies or?(Subjects: childhood, family) Well I wouldn't say that. My mom was pretty good at that. She was a stay at home mom, so she did a pretty good job of raising the kids.(Subjects: childhood, parents,family) And, what was school life like for you?(Subjects: childhood) I was not a very good student. I was distracted by other things. I tell people--I teach now--and I tell people that are my students I was a D student on a good day, an F student on most days, except when the teachers took pity on me and made me a D student, just to pass me along. And that continued until I found my current profession and then I became an A+ student.(Subjects: childhood) What were you distracted by?(Subjects: childhood) Just the family life. 5 kids, and no money, and all the stuff that goes along with no breakfast, and no lunch, and hopefully dinner.(Subjects: childhood) Did you work at all when you were young?(Subjects: childhood, jobs) I started to work when I was about 14.(Subjects: childhood, jobs) What did you do?(Subjects: childhood, jobs) Well, by that time my father was a bus driver. And I actually got a pretty good job counting. Sitting on the corner, basically on a trailer box, counting empty seats on buses, or estimating number of passengers on buses. It was actually a fairly good paying job. So, I did that.(Subjects: childhood, jobs) What was the purpose of estimating?(Subjects: childhood, jobs) So they could plan the routing, see if they needed more buses to come by or if the buses were overloaded or underloaded. So I manually tallied up. I knew that a bus was...maybe held, say, 30 people, and if I saw 3 people standing I estimated 33 people on the bus.(Subjects: childhood, jobs) And Winnepeg is it a very big city?(Subjects: childhood) Yeah it's a big city, capital of Manitoba, Canada.(Subjects: childhood) Where would you have lived right in the center of the city or out in the suburbs?(Subjects: childhood) We lived in the suburbs.(Subjects: childhood) After highschool did you go to college?(Subjects: jobs) I did go to college. I wanted to be an astronaut. I... didn't have the, mathematical skills to... really do that [chuckle]. So I took a job as an orderly in a nursing home they had built right behind our home. And that got me into the healthcare field and I've been in the health field for over 30 years. I'm working now on my doctorate in global health sciences, and I'm a registered nurse, have been for...since 1977.(Subjects: jobs) And as an orderly, what would you have done?(Subjects: jobs) I took orders from the nurses. And it was a German Mennonite nursing home that I worked in and a German Mennonite hospital that I worked in. And I took orders, I mean, took orders and if it wasn't done right, I heard about it, and was instructed to do it again and, if I didn't do it right, that's it. The Friesen sisters were two nurses that worked together, we're talking 40, 35 years ago whatever. Typical starched white hat, duty shoes white, uniform, stern, perfectionist, they taught me alot about work ethic and doing things right, doing it for a reason, taught me alot about compassion, caring, and taught me a lot about life.(Subjects: jobs) So the people who would have been there, did their families seem involved?(Subjects: jobs) Yeah, yeah, great relationship with most of the families, with all the families really, patients. Stayed there about 7 years, and then went to nursing school. I applied for nursing school and they kinda laughed at me, I didn't have the right grades for nursing school, so I was rejected. I went back the next year and I literally begged the head of the department to let me in, based on the work I was doing, not on my grades. And, she took a chance on me and let me into the program and I went from a D student to an A+ student. They would tell me they would literally design exam questions with me in mind, I wonder if he'll get this one? I was in a class of 99 women and me, so back in 1977 it was still a rather unusual thing for a guy to be in nursing school. But, you know, when I talk to my students, you may not know what your passion is now, but when you find your passion you will excel at it, and that's what I've done with my nursing career.(Subjects: jobs) Where did you go for your nursing degree? I went to Red River Community College in Winnipeg. And then I moved here to the United States about a year after I graduated. There was a big nursing shortage here in the United States. I had a nursing license and a reason to get out of town. I packed up my Honda Civic and headed south. Got a job at the Phoenix General Hospital, working night shift in the intensive care unit. Told my mother, it was just a year assignment, I'd be back, not to worry. Never came back, that was 40 years ago. But it turned out well for her because she would come and visit us, and get out of the winters and stay with me for 3 or 4 months at at the time.(Subjects: parents) What was it like moving from Winnipeg to Phoenix? Well, it was moving from the coldest capital city in the world to, probably, the hottest capital city in the world. And suddenly, you know... there was gay life in Phoenix, there wasn't any in WInnipeg. How young were you when you started to grapple with your sexuality?(Subjects: comingout) 5 years old. I knew, I knew I was different from age 5. And I also knew it was probably something that I shouldn't talk about. I just knew instinctively that there was something different about me and it probably shouldn't be talked about. And I tried, I tried dating girls and it just, wasn't there. I tried.(Subjects: comingout) Throughout high school or, in your working at the nursing home were you dating? Did you have relationships?(Subjects: comingout) Yeah, I dated. I dated girls, I was a good looking young man. I had no trouble dating girls.(Subjects: comingout) What about dating men?(Subjects: comingout) No, no.(Subjects: comingout) Did you have anyone you could talk to?(Subjects: comingout) Not at all.(Subjects: comingout) Was that one of the reasons you wanted to leave Winnipeg?(Subjects: comingout) Yeah, I think it was. I wanted to get as far away as possible. I moved to Phoenix for a woman I was living with at the time. But, when I got down to Phoenix and found my way to the first gay bar and got the courage to go in I realized: oh, okay, this is, this is what it's all about, this is who I am, this is the real me.(Subjects: comingout) Were you living with her at the time?(Subjects: comingout) Yeah, she was an American and her parents moved to Phoenix and she wanted to be closer to her parents. And I said, 'sure let's go to Phoenix.' She was a Vietnam draft, or draft dodger, supporter who moved to Canada from the United States to support the American draft dodgers who moved to Canada. So she was a hippie, so I moved to Phoenix to be with her. (Subjects: comingout) When you broke up did you tell her why?(Subjects: comingout) Yeah(Subjects: comingout) How did she take it?(Subjects: comingout) Fine. She had a lesbian sister, and we talked about it quite a bit. Better than to carry on, carry on and pretend.(Subjects: comingout) What year? That was 1980, 1980. Around circa 1980. So you really started to get involved in gay life in the early 80s?(Subjects: community, highlight) Yes, I was.(Subjects: community, highlight) What was that like?(Subjects: community, highlight) Well, I was a young nurse... and I was darn cute, and I had a blast.(Subjects: community, highlight) What were some of your favorite clubs?(Subjects: community, highlight) Well, you couldn't be gay and not be seen at Connection on Wednesday night or Saturday night. You had to be there. If you weren't there, you weren't cool. So Connection on Wednesdays and Saturdays--it was the place to be and I was there.(Subjects: community, highlight) Did your experiences change as the AIDS epidemic hit?(Subjects: community, highlight) Well, yeah, it did because, I was... So HIV started in '81, '82 in that area. And I was working in the ER and one of the gay doctors came in one morning and threw down MMR article on the 5 guys that had Kaposi's sarcoma in New York and said to me, 'We got a problem here.' And I read the article and like, okay. And then suddenly we started seeing guys in the ER. So, even though I was an ER nurse, I was suddenly also an HIV nurse because I was out in a Catholic hospital. I was the one they called because nobody else would go in the room. So I was that guy, they called down and said, 'Brian you need to come up here because we aren't going in, you're one of them, you go in there, we're not going in.' And I...the women I worked with because at that time it was largely women, I instinctively knew, I knew 2 things, I knew several things. I knew either A: I was infected with HIV, and would shortly die. Or B: that the mode of transmission was not casual contact because I had been casually, my friends... I was in casual contact with them, I was eating with them, I was shaking their hand, I was around them. So I instinctively knew that, that there was 2, there was really just 2 choices. This was before testing and so on, and I was healthy and so on, so I kinda erred on the 'this is not casual contact sort of thing.' I remember saying to myself... to the women who had children, young children... my fellow, my peers, my fellow nurses, I remember saying to them, 'One day, you will come crawling to the gay community, to ask us how to deal with this issue, for your children.' And today young heterosexual, and gay kids are at risk for HIV, and they ultimately did. We had set up the infrastructures, we had set up the programs, the treatment, the outreach, the doctors who left their practice to become HIV specialists. The nurses, for a large part, were gay, and we set up the infrastructure for the treatment of HIV in the 1980s. So, it did come to us, and I, you know, I'm still involved, it's why I'm going back to school... to finish my degree in global health sciences. I want to finish this work. We're on the brink, the brink of fixing HIV, we could stop it today if we had the political will, if we had the political will. So there you go.(Subjects: community, highlight, jobs) So being out at work would you get discriminatory comments from peers or from patients or anything like that?(Subjects: homophobia, highlight) I wouldn't, I was a very... I know I've said this too many times, I was a handsome young man. I wasn't effeminate, not that there's anything wrong with that, but looking at me, when I was 26, 27 you would not know I was gay. So I didn't experience any of that. At Saint Joseph's, at the hospital I worked at, which was a Catholic hospital, the hospital had a female CEO. Hope I can swear on this because I'm gonna swear in a minute. She had a big donor come to her, and the truth was that, in the emergency department, we could run an entire shift, from doctors to secretaries to techs to other nurses, lesbian, gay--we could run an entire shift with just gay people--okay, and it would be, it was the best of the best, and... and the Chief Financial Officer that they hired was gay also and that created a big kerfuffle. And one of the big donors went to the CEO--her name was Mary--and said to Mary, "I hear there's lots of gays here, and this is a Catholic hospital and I'm not gonna support that." And Mary said, "Well, that's fine because if I didn't have the gay people here I'd have to close down the fucking hospital." So Mary knew and she was right, she would have had to close down the fucking hospital. So, that was 1984, '85 and you know, before we found that, by then we knew how HIV was being transmitted, we started to develop interventions and drugs and in '96, of course, we started with the real treatment for HIV and so on and so on. That's was what it was like in the 80s. There were heroes like Mary. There were hereos that were lesbians who weren't infected by HIV but they were there for the gay boys. There were heroes...like those of us who weren't infected who went into the homes of the dying and cleaned up after them, and took care of them, and held their hand, and were with them when they died, and with their partners, when they died.(Subjects: homophobia, highlight, jobs) Did you have close friends?(Subjects: highlight) Yes, absolutely, I would say that because I was such a handsome young man, I had a lot of gay friends. And, you know, I was a nice person--not just handsome. I was a fun, fun guy. I had a lot of friends. And I can say that of probably 100 people that I would call friends, probably 3 of those survived. Probably 2 of those were HIV positive and they're still alive today, long-term survivors of HIV for whatever reason. And 1 was like me, did not become infected with HIV. But I lost every friend I had. Then, suddenly, really didn't have any friends, you know? (Subjects: highlight) How long did you work at that hospital? 10 years. So through most of the 1980s? 80s and into the 90s, yeah. What did you do after that?(Subjects: jobs) Well, I was a flight nurse for a long time, and then I went on to manage a HIV service organization over in Phoenix, I became the CEO of an HIV organization, where we did clinical trials on medications and so on.(Subjects: jobs) And what was it like trying to get medication at the time? What was it like working with pharmaceutical companies?(Subjects: jobs) Well, it was difficult, prior to '96 there really wasn't really any medication. Then after '96 there was medication. It was hard to take and ineffective and almost worse than the disease. The cure was worse than the disease in many ways, but it was all we had. It got better and better and better, as... things come out.(Subjects: jobs) During this time did you have a particular partner? Yes, I did. I did. I've had three partners in my life. The first one was 5 years, the second was 10 years. And the third one I told him, 'Well, you're good for 15 years.' And at 15 years he was gonna re-up, and he said no, he wasn't gonna re-up. But changed his mind and he re-uped and on 21 now, 21 years together. So, growing up in Winnipeg did you have much contact with horses or stock?(Subjects: parents, family, cowperson) No, no. We worked on the...my dad was a farmer, a bad farmer. We had cows and my aunt and uncle had dairy, but we didn't really have horses that we rode. I'd been on one... I didn't really get into riding until I came to Phoenix, Arizona and said, 'You know, you're in the southwest. What should your new identity be?' And it was like, 'Oh, you should be a cowboy, that's what we do in Arizona.' So, I set out to be a cowboy at age 40. (Subjects: parents, family, cowperson) So, how did you... become a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) I found a friend and I said, 'Teach me how to ride.' And bought my first horse... and from there.(Subjects: cowperson) And were you living in a place that you could pasture your horse right next to the house?(Subjects: cowperson) No, no, no I was the boarding the horse.(Subjects: cowperson) And what did you like about riding?(Subjects: cowperson) I liked everything about it. I liked the connection with the animals, and just the skill that's needed, and so on. (Subjects: cowperson) ...Would you have gone to country western bars as well?(Subjects: cowperson) Yeah, Charlie's was the big bar in Phoenix, of course. And I would go to Charlie's on Friday, Saturday night. That's where I met my current partner by the way, good old fashion way. But, I wanted to be, I wanted to learn to ride, and I learned to ride actually before I knew about gay rodeo. So, certiantly that was a good thing. I knew how to do events and learned to ride.(Subjects: cowperson) Growing up did you... idolize cowboys?(Subjects: cowperson) No, no, no. I wanted to be an astronaut and idolized astronauts.(Subjects: cowperson) So it was really promoted by moving to the southwest?(Subjects: cowperson) Yeah, it really was.(Subjects: cowperson) Did you find it pretty easy to find other gay men who wanted to be cowboys? No, not the first couple years, not really. Not until I met my rodeo partner, Chuck Brown. I think he and I, if I remember correctly, I went to the gay rodeo in Phoenix, and he went to the gay rodeo in Phoenix, and we, independently, without even knowing each other, decided that, 'Hey, that's something we are going to do.' So I decided, "Well, I'm going to enter the gay rodeo in Phoenix.' So... I did, and he did. What year was that? Gosh, that's a tough question. I would say it was probably '95. And, did you just see the rodeo advertized? I think so. Yeah, I went by myself. Had you known of its existence prior? [head shaking] What was that first walking into the arena like?(Subjects: highlight) Well, for me it was another discovery. The smell of the dirt, the animals. It just harkened back to my childhood and my grandparents' farm and my aunt and uncle's farm and it just... it just meant, it felt like it was meant for me to be. I didn't understand before but I got to the gay rodeo... smelled the dirt and smelled the animals, and the competition, and like, ahhh, this is, this is me.(Subjects: highlight) So you would have been about 40 at the time? I was 40 at the time. Yep. What was it like getting into such a physically demanding sport at, you know, not in the first blossom of your life? Well, I was at the prime of my life, I was at my best condition ever in my 40s, so... Yeah, I did really well. What did you compete in?(Subjects: events) Competed, to start, I competed in the ground events, chutedogging, calf roping on foot, goat dressing, wall drag race, just the entry level things...and did really well. And then Chuck had some other partners in the rodeo that he'd been working with and they kinda dropped out for one reason or another and I decided to partner up back then. And we've been partners ever since, we've been together.(Subjects: events) Did you mainly do team roping with him?(Subjects: events) No, we do goats together, we did wild drag for many years together, we did steer deco together, team roping. We compete against each other in schute dogging and calf roping on foot.(Subjects: events) Have you ever done rough stock?(Subjects: events, injuries) I did. I did steer riding, Chuck taught me how to steer ride. That was probably not so wise to do at age 40, because it wasn't the riding it was the falling off and the hitting the ground. And I broke my shoulder and it's like, that's probably not for me at this point. But there are pictures of me, floating around, riding a steer. (Subjects: events, injuries) Have you ever been involved of the leadership aspects of IGRA? Yeah. I became involved locally and I even became involved internationally. I ran for president and I became president of IGRA. At the time, things were kinda shaky. There was...the organization was going through a rough time by my estimation and I became president and I served for 2 years and then I served for 2 more years and then I served for 2 more years after that. Wow, that's dedication. That's dedication, I loved every minute of it, it was not easy, I lost a few friends, but... I... ... it was a great 6 years, and the organization seemed to flourish, there was a lot of fun things including, the build up to the gay games rodeo in, Cleveland, so, ya, we had a goal, and it just all seemed so much fun. And what years were those for? Ahhh, gosh... I'm not good with years. I can't remember, I'd have to look it up. Was it late 90s, early aughts? Yeah, late 90s, early oughts. Sounds fun. Yeah. What sort of galvanized you to get involved in the side of things rather than just competing? Well, at the time I was a trustee and there was some big issues occuring, and I felt I had some leadership to offer, and that it was my responsibility to offer it, and... I did. What were some of those issues? Well...Some of those issues were related to how we interacted with our sponsors and what our mission was. I helped clarify the mission. On the back of our members, you see, the mission statement which I helped the organization through, 'supporting associations that support the communities,' that was an initiative of mine to crystalize our mission statement into something that we could, when people said, 'What do you do?' That's what IGRA does--supports member associations that support their communities. And we do it through the rodeo. At the time, I was in the right spot at the right time. What were some of the challenges of being, IGRA president for 6 years? That's a lot of dedication. Yeah. What would it have looked like on a day to day basis?(Subjects: jobs) Well, it was a day-to-day job. When you've got at that time,probably 5,000 members, don't anymore, probably like 2,500, you're dealing with a lot of personalities and a lot of drama and stuff. I dealt with a lot of personalities and drama in the ER, and I knew how to deal with personalities and drama. And I just brought those leadership skills to direct us away from the drama and personalities and get to the facts and the task at hand and the things that needed to be done and all those things. I'm actually pretty proud of those 6 years.(Subjects: jobs) Did you travel a lot as president? Yeah, travel to, at that time, the all the rodeos and all the meeting and so on. I think, I would still say to this day that, one of the trustees --they were a statistician--did a summary of miles traveled and hours spent and--I've got it in my briefcase--it was probably done 6, 7 year ago, and I was the most traveled contestant, at that time, and probably still am to this day. And you're still living in Phoenix? Yeah, still living in Phoenix. So when you were president was that also the time you were running the HIV care organization?(Subjects: jobs) Correct.(Subjects: jobs) Did those blend well together or did you have to find a balance?(Subjects: jobs) No, they blended well together because you were leading an organization that has personalities and drama and another one that has personalities and drama. Mission issues at the HIV organization: 'Why are we here?' Mission issues at IGRA: 'Why are we here? What are we doing?' And I just brought that thinking to the boardroom of the IGRA and tried to keep it focused on factual things, and things that could improve the organization, and things that would be helpful, and be more business-like, and so on. (Subjects: jobs) Sort of helping to professionalize? Yeah. And after you stepped down as president, were you pretty ready to step down after your 6?(Subjects: jobs) Nope, I would have been just happy to go on, but there just comes a time when you just really need to. I also stepped down as CEO of the HIV organization because in a non-profit, you have a shelf life right? I knew it was time.(Subjects: jobs) And after stepping down as CEO what did you move on to as far as your career?(Subjects: jobs) I went into consulting... I started my own business and did well with that.(Subjects: jobs) Has that been fulfilling?(Subjects: jobs) Very much so.(Subjects: jobs) And when did you start your program for your PhD?(Subjects: jobs) It's a doctoral degree in health sciences with a global emphasis, and I started a year ago, so I'm half way through at this point. I want to use it to help our community get across the finish line with wiping out HIV. We can do it, we have all the tools right here today to wipe this disease from the face of the earth and I want to be part of that. Even at the ripe old age of whatever it is because I don't really tell people that. (Subjects: jobs) What about as far as IGRA after you stepped down as president, did you take a different leadership position? I stayed on as trustee, public relations, that kind of thing. I tried to continue to bring my own independent thinking, my best independent thinking to the organization. And voice my own independent thinking on issues. Yeah, so I'm still involved and still a trustee for New Mexico right now. So in the, 20+ years you've been involved with the rodeo how has it changed?(Subjects: igra) Well, I think the HIV epidemic had a great impact on rodeo. If you look at pictures from the early days the stands were packed with guys and that audience was decimated by HIV and we've really struggled to get that audience back. They're not there. That audience, the people of my ilk, my age, the western cowboy kind of lifestyle, I'm not sure we're there anymore. So HIV has played a big part in my life, not personally, like I said I'm not infected by HIV. I don't know how but, I'm not. I'm one of the lucky ones but, it continues to play a big role in all my life. And maybe we'll get, maybe there are younger kids that are coming back, maybe it's a cycle, maybe we'll see the next generation of young cowboys and cowgirls coming up, but the dramatic impact of HIV on IGRA, it's been slow to dig out of.(Subjects: igra) How do you think you can approach younger people to try and get them involved?(Subjects: igra) Well, I think we need to make it fun. I think the organization is a little stuck in what we were doing 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And, I take a lot of criticism for it, for voicing this opinion. But we still perseverate on HIV in our grand entry, kids don't want to come watch that, it doesn't mean anything to them. We should be doing that privately at some other private event with just IGRA people. We don't need to have some public display of grief, just because those folks don't remember, they don't, I dare say, they don't care. We do, we can do it but we just shouldn't be doing it here. It tends to keep people away, and we can't seem to let go of that. And I've been a big advocate of letting go of that, it hasn't gone over well. [laughs] But I'm right.(Subjects: igra) Were you ever involved in the dancing aspect? No. Weren't a big two-stepper? Well, yes, I was a great two-stepper. Chuck and I were great two-steppers back when there was 3,000 people at a dance on Saturday night. They're all dead now and we don't do much dancing anymore. Do you think that could be a way? I guess it could, do kids dance anymore? I don't know, I'm not a kid. Don't two step anymore, I don't know. I'm not sure, they definitely dance somehow. I guess they do. What do you really think is the future of IGRA?(Subjects: igra) Well I think, I think we need to retool. We need to build a new IGRA. We need to take a new trajectory. All nonprofits are on a bell curve and we've allowed ourselves to slip down the y-axis of the bell curve a little bit too long. And we need to create a new trajectory for the organization. And it's a struggle to point that out to people, but we need to take a different trajectory. And it makes me not very popular. But, I'm right.(Subjects: igra) What about changes in the larger gay community over the last several decades--has it changed? Being just an out gay man over time?(Subjects: igra, community) Well, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, when when rodeos were popular, it would be where you would go to meet people. You don't need to come to a rodeo anymore to meet people. So we have to have something different. We have to re-encourage people to use their electronics to come and meet people at the rodeo for a while. So there's lots of things that we need to do. And it's a slow moving organization and we're a little bit slow to change.(Subjects: igra, community) You said earlier that we're lacking the political will to really see the fight to end AIDS, what do you think could happen to change that? Well, there's lots of policies that need to change here in America in relation to health care and access to healthcare and providing people with antiretroviral drugs and PrEP for those that are at risk. And those two things together can wipe out HIV, we know that scientifically today. That the combination of those 2 treatments, treatment as prevention--for people that are HIV positive treat them to a negative viral load will stop them from spreading HIV. And then, treating people who are at high risk, treating them with the PrEP--a once-a-day pill, a cheap, once-a-day pill, will prevent them from getting HIV. And once we've got a critical mass of that going, we've got the disease and we can stop it. Why do you think we are lacking that political will? Well, because... don't even get me started on that. There are still many prejudices, homophobia, and stigma against gay people in general that... Unfortunately, in in this country, the HIV epidemic took hold in the gay community, in Africa it didn't, it took hold in the heterosexual community, so our experience here is tied to homophobia and stigma and stuff like that. So I'd better go check on the next event cause I've got chute dogging coming up and I've got to win that one. Well, good luck, and thank you for talking today. Thank you.

Kevin Hillman Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Kevin Hillman it's November 20th 2016 and we're at the International Gay Rodeo Association Annual Convention. So can you tell me about where you grew up? I grew up on a farm in a little town called Driggs, Idaho. My mother’s family were Hereford breeders, my father’s family were potato farmers so when they merged we ended up with a small registered breed of Herefords, and of course we had milk cows and horses and chickens and pigs and then our cash crop was potatoes. Me and my brothers as we got older had a small herd of sheep that we raised. That's where I grew up with seven siblings and my mom and my dad on this about 800 acre farm.(Subjects: family, childhood) And what year were you born? I was born in 1957, so a few years ago. And what were sort of…what was your sort of average work life like on the ranch growing up?(Subjects: childhood) Well, we had a dairy herd so milking cows. About the age of eight I started learning to milk cows. Even before that I was on the tractor driving through the hay fields while we harvest the hay crops and things like that. Doing other odd jobs when I was younger, and then as we got older we moved into moving sprinkler pipes which were hand lines, so we carried these aluminum pipe across the field and that's how we made our summer money to buy our clothes and do things like that for school year. And then we just did all the other little farm things you did, driving tractors, sorting potatoes, and any time we had an opportunity to go milk the cows and not work in the potato fields I volunteered to go do it. I hated working in the potato fields. I swore I would never be a potato farmer.(Subjects: family, jobs, childhood) And with the registered herd did you do a lot of travel? We traveled a little bit with them but mainly our focus was breeding stock so we raised bulls and we sold most of our bulls on the farm. And then we did have a couple of bull sales we went to each year and sold our bulls through that called the Six Point Hereford Association, which I'm surprised I remember. And my father was the secretary of that, so we had to make all the folders and mailers and everything twice a year to send out and that was a big family thing. And then I got involved in FFA and 4H and that's where a lot of my involvement with other livestock and animals was. I grew up riding horses and going to rodeos with my family. My grandfather was a horseman from way back, I know my grandma once said when my grandfather went to a horse sale was how many they going to bring home not are they going to bring any home. So, it was always exciting to see grandpa pull up with his herd of horses. His brother were known to be quite good with training horses, which was never really my father’s interest. So it's kind of interesting there.(Subjects: family, childhood) And what was school like? You know I was just your typical high school kid. I was friends with most of the kids in my school. We had a small class of fifty at the most. Most of us started our elementary school together and went all the way through high school together. And if someone weren't a friend they were my cousin, so, I was related to a lot of the people. My mother's family are some of the first white settlers in the valley and my father’s family had been there for...since the 1870s, so I was related to quite a few people. I participated in track. There was a rodeo team. I played the saxophone very poorly. But I loved doing it. I participated in dance classes. Gymnastics. And of course FFA which is Future Farmers of America, which I was heavily involved in and enjoyed that greatly. I always say I had some good friends and then I was friends with pretty much anybody in the school. I got along with a lot of the people. And high school for me wasn't a bad thing, I enjoyed it and I enjoy getting back together at my class reunions with those people. It's a lot of fun.(Subjects: childhood) Were you ever openly gay in high school? Well let's put it this way, I didn't even know what a gay person was when I was in high school. I think Milton Berle on TV dressing as a woman was the closest thing, or Flip Wilson, that I even knew what drag was. Identifying as a gay man, I had no idea. I wasn't...I just assumed that, you know, you grew up and got married. (Subjects: comingout, religion, family, childhood, highlight) I was raised in a Mormon family. I call it a very liberal Mormon family because my family was very inclusive of anyone. My mother was raised Methodist most of her life. So I had a very diverse family. My father's family moved away from Utah, to get away from the Mormons because he felt his family had been treated poorly. And since then some of my relatives have come into the Mormon faith, but...so I grew up with this thing that we accepted everyone for who they are and we looked for the best in people. I had a mother that was…I didn't mean to get emotional there. I think a great example to me and my siblings, and my dad, of what it meant to be inclusive, to treat people fairly, and to...reach out to those who may need an extra little bit of a leg up. And she always ruled with an iron fist, so...she was the head of the household in a lot of ways! So I have a great family, I have four younger brothers and two younger sisters...and, so, it's pretty good. Pretty good group of people. So what did you do after high school? I thought about going to college, and I did for a while and found out that it wasn't really for me. I had opportunities to do other things and I chose not to do them. And I also ran for a major office with the FFA to be a state officer which I profoundly failed at because I was putting on the convention for the FFA that year and missed an interview and so they assumed I wasn't interested which was probably a heartbreak to me. I participated in high school in public speaking and was considered very good at and debate, parliamentary procedure. (Subjects: religion, jobs, highlight) So I like I said, I dropped out of college, my family really couldn't afford to help me. So I went to work full time and worked in banking and things like that. And when I was at college, I went to a Mormon owned college, my roommates kind of influenced me and I decided to go on a Mormon mission. So, I spent a two year mission at the Oakland, California mission first part of my mission was in downtown San Francisco as my first experience of being dumped into what made me start to think, “Oh, gay…maybe I identify with something here.” I was still at that point didn't really identify as a gay man, but I all of a sudden started to understand why things felt differently to me. And why my interests were different and probably why my high school friends were female...I looked at them as friends as much as anything as I did with my male friends no more than that. But there was never any “love interest” or anything, it was just...it just was an eye opening experience for me. And I think to be honest with you, my mission opened me up to the possibilities of being able to be whoever I wanted to be. When I was on my mission I met doctors, I met street people, I met drag queens and I met a lot of different people who you don't meet in a little town in Idaho and so when I started dealing with being gay, and who I was, I wasn't feeling pigeon holed into being a drag queen or a hairdresser or something like that. I realized I could be whoever I wanted and I think that was a wonderful experience for me. Do you think you would have had that if you hadn't actually done your mission? If I hadn't gone on a mission I probably would have done what a lot of Mormon men do in small Mormon communities and I probably would have made the mistake of getting married. Even after my mission, I got engaged. We were close to having a wedding when I experienced some things that made me realize I needed to deal with my sexuality. The young lady who I was engaged to was a wonderful, wonderful person. Most understanding person you could ever meet, and I haven't really met her since, or I should say haven't seen her only maybe once since we broke off the engagement. But I wish all the happiness and everything in the world to her. And like I said she was a great lady. She had to put up with me through a very rough time of my life. And so...I think my life would have went in a much different direction if I hadn't went on a mission, so.(Subjects: religion, comingout) How old were you when you broke off your engagement? Oh let’s see...I was probably 23. So, somewhere in that neighborhood. I'm trying to think how old I was when I got home from my mission but it was probably about 23 when that broke off so…it was probably the best thing I ever did for both of us. And after your engagement ended where were you living at the time? At that time I was actually living with my family. We had...my folks had moved into my...grandparents house...and I was kind of living in their house. I was working in a bank and helping out on the farm. But, because of that, and what had happened earlier before the engagement was broke off I told myself that it was time for me to find out who I was. I had been working in banking, I was offered a job to work for a bank in California that job fell through as I was headed to California. I was in northern Utah. A good high school mate was working in a bank and she told me that they were looking for a head teller and asked me if I wanted to come and interview for the position. So I took a job in Logan, Utah as a teller at a bank. And so that's where I ended up for a while. (Subjects: family, jobs, religion, comingout) While I was working for them, I chose to basically force the Mormon church to excommunicate me. Because of the belief system in the church they believe if you are a Malkestick Priesthood holder, one of the highest levels you can be as a lay person, had more responsibilities and that you had to act differently and if you weren't a member of the church you didn't have those responsibilities and you didn't have to live up to those things. So I felt for me at that point in my life was time to move away from all of that. Move that responsibility away from me so I didn't have that guilt part and basically went to the church and told them that I kind of liked boys...I don't know if you want me to tell you what I actually said! What? What’s that? Of course I want to know. [Laughter.] Well the Mormon bishop in the ward that I was working in asked me why I couldn't take a leadership role and I says, “Well, it's ‘cause I like to suck pee pees.” And at that point he said, “Maybe we should talk about this in private.” And so that’s...that was my way of saying to them that I think I need to leave the church at this time and explore who I am and this part of my life and find out if that's really who I am. And it was a good thing for me, and it made me. (Subjects: religion, jobs, comingout, homophobia, highlight) I stayed in Logan for a while. I worked for that bank for a little while longer. When I was ex-communicated I was discriminated against. I was told that of course this would always be a court of love and there would be nothing said outside of that meeting. The first day I was back at work, everybody there knew I had been ex-communicated because somebody had gone home from that court of love and told their wife who told their wife of my co-workers. And I was actually put on probation for no reason at work and I said to them, “Why is this happening? You need to give me an idea of why I'm being put on probation, what I can do to improve my work schedule or my work load.” I says, “If this is just because of the fact that you've now found out that I'm gay, it's wrong.” Of course we had no rights at that time, they could fire me for just being gay. The board of directors had met that night at the bank and basically said we’re not going to go down that road. One of my good friends who worked at the bank’s father was on that board and said we need you to only judge him on the merits of his job. But because of that I actually told them I would be looking for a new job and I ended up working in the medical field then after that for a hospital chain. In Logan? In Logan Utah, whose corporate offices were based out of Salt Lake City. So… Did you have a better experience with them? I had a wonderful experience with them but it was still...I was pretty much closeted. I hadn't really come out. Some people knew. I still talked about going partying and always used pronouns instead of his/her, she/him. If I went to party I drove to Salt Lake City, Utah weekly to go down to the gay bars. Right after I was excommunicated I went to my first gay bar. (Subjects: jobs, comingout, community, family, highlight) And the second gay bar I went to the bartender and I were chatting and we got talking about family and being from Idaho. “You look so much like my uncle that my mom had raised her two youngest brothers with us.” I asked him if he knew my uncle ‘cause they would be about the same age. He said, “No, but I have family by that name in Driggs, Idaho.” Well if he has family by that name they’re related to me! And so I said to him, asking what his was, and he told me so I asked him if he knew who would be his grandmother and he said “Yeah that's my grandma.’ And I told him who my grandfather was without saying that and he says “Yeah that's my great uncle.” And I said we're second cousins. So the first alcoholic beverage I ever drank in a gay bar was served to me by my second cousin. And he and I are very close in some ways and he still lives there in Salt Lake City and so we keep in contact. So, it was kind of a...it was really good to meet somebody who was family, and not only in the sense of my gay family but actually blood, and his friendship has meant a lot to me over the years. Was there a very big gay community in Salt Lake?(Subjects: community) Salt Lake has a very vibrant gay community. It's quite a large community and probably one of the most politically powerful groups in the city of Salt Lake. I always believe that no mayor will be elected without the support of the gay community. Right now they have a lesbian mayor and I helped serve on the Pride committee from ‘91 through ‘94 as a co-chair or something, and then I was involved with other things. I was asked to serve on what is now called Equality Utah's Board, when they first formed which was a political organization there in the valley. But with my involvement with gay rodeo and other commitments I had with the Ryan White Fund and county things I realized I didn't have the time to put into that...that it required and it needed...so I chose not to be involved with that.(Subjects: community) I got involved when I got in Salt Lake with the Royal Court of the Golden Spike Empire which is a drag-based social organization and does a lot of fundraising and in Utah a lot of the organizations can trace their roots back to the Royal Court system. Rodeo, as well as many of the other organizations that are in Salt Lake, had maybe some seed there. Even our community center has some seeds that came out of that. Our Pride Day does and things of that nature. So how did your family respond when you when you came out and were excommunicated? Did your family take that hard?(Subjects: comingout, religion) The excommunication thing was difficult for some. I actually kept that pretty close to the vest. I probably have relatives who really don't know that I've been excommunicated yet. But it's never something I really hide. I didn't even try to come out to my family until…oh, I was excommunicated in ‘82, so ’91, is when I actually started coming out to my family and friends and...and kind of said, “I'm over it. I'm not going to be in the closet anymore.” My sister and I had an experience in Logan where some guy was sexually harassing her on the phone. He first called her thinking it was my wife and was going to tell my wife that I was gay. And it was actually my sister, and she was quite flustered with it, but she handled the guy really well. She told him that she didn't have time to talk to him and if he called back in a couple of hours she could talk to him then. He never called back after that. I did confront him about it but he was someone that I really didn't want to have anything to do with anyway, and so, that was kind of the first family member who actually knew and who I’d actually confirmed it to that I was gay, so...other than my other gay family members. And...pretty much lived my life kind of in the shadows you might say.(Subjects: comingout, religion, family, homophobia, jobs) I got involved with some gay organizations on the...in the shadows, I guess is another way to say it. I moved to Salt Lake City and while I was there I had an opportunity to go work for a medical software company who had bought the software away from the corporation that I was working with and it gave me an opportunity to travel around the country and then in that process I got to see a lot of people, see a lot of country, learned a lot of places I don't want to ever live, and places I liked. And I was able to deal with my sexuality by going out and seeing how different communities handled things and how things were different. The one thing I will say about Salt Lake City is that our female and male community have always worked very closely together and I didn't see that in some other cities. There was a definite divide. I went to a bar once and was told that I was on the women's side of the bar and that I needed to move to the men’s side, which kind of shocked me, because the gay bars in Utah...everybody was on the dance floor with each other and everybody was welcome to be there. I quit that job after about a couple of years. I got tired of traveling, which I didn't think I ever would, I went to work for the US Postal Service. I tell people I'm a local street walker but I have to deliver mail to get a paycheck. So...and I've done that now for almost twenty-eight years, so I enjoy my job. It keeps me in good shape and when I moved back to Salt Lake and started with the post office is when I found gay rodeo again and started getting involved with that. Now because that was a state, or a federal job, did you have to remain closeted at work?(Subjects: jobs, comingout) That was the one thing about the post office. They already had a non-discrimination policy in place explicitly stating sexual orientation. Now gender identity is, I think, also in place now but it wasn't when I first started. So it gave me the freedom to be who I was and to be out. And so because of that involvement with the Pride celebration, my HIV status, and my co-chairs at Pride, Brenda who wasn't able to be my co-chair and I started what we call the DIG Awards, which stands for the Diversity is Great Awards, to do a fundraiser for the community center and recognize people in our community had done things to improve the lives of gays and lesbians. Whether the person was an ally or whether they were a gay or lesbian person. I also got involved with the National Labor Union movement and was a member of their board for a short time. They were called Pride at Work and they were part of the FLCIL. So I had a very broad, very fast indoctrination in the early 90s of being a gay man. (Subjects: jobs, comingout, family, community, highlight) And because of that I got involved with the Community Council of Utah which is an organization of gay and lesbian groups and clubs and businesses in Salt Lake, because they put on our Pride Day. And I was so enthusiastic about it that I went in and, I'm a go getter and want get involved, volunteered really not knowing what I was getting into to be chair of Gay Pride for 1991. And, my co-chair was Brenda Voisard but Brenda had to resign and so I ended up with Deb Rosenberg for my co-chair. And so I had two wonderful gals that I got to work with for a while. We took Pride and moved it to a different location than they had been having it. We brought in the first outside entertainer, which we caught hell for doing, but our Pride celebration started to grow from there. We probably had about 3,000 to 4,000 people show up. And I did my first television interview and before I did that interview I called my mom and talked to her on the phone and told her I was going to be doing it. And I called a couple of siblings and they're like, “Okay, well, basically do what you have to do.” My mother never said I love you, my siblings did...that I spoke with...the ones that I felt I needed to talk to. And so I did this television and in the interview I invited everyone down and because of that the local skinhead organization took that as an invitation and showed up at our Pride day. Pride day was very eventful for me in more than one way. I had been asked by my co-chair and her partner if I would father a child with them. So I went and was tested for HIV and other things and I got so busy that I forgot to get my test results. So Pride day was coming up that Sunday. I got a call asking if I'd like to come get my results, I had done this before, I went in on a Wednesday and they took me, I call it “on the trail from Nauvoo to Salt Lake back through the building to a back room,” and before we got back there I knew the results were going to be that I was HIV positive. I had worked in medical enough I knew enough about HIV to know it wasn't a death sentence at that moment but that I probably, at that time, only had ten years to live. I knew that I had zero converted back in November of 1990 and so HIV was something I was going to have to live with and try to figure out how to survive. And I literally at that point in my life looked at my life as being a ten year experience because people were not living much longer than that. And so that was kind of funny because the gal that told me, I told her, “Well okay, well I'll deal with that later I've got to put on a party for 5,000 people on Sunday. I'm doing Pride day!” And she thought I was in denial. I went to my personal doctor, he said he would take me on as client, as a patient still, and so Pride day came around and I literally had no time to think about the HIV. I had to get one of my close friends and say listen if I fall apart today I need you to step in. And about the time I was ready to fall apart, because of the song the entertainer was singing, the Skinheads showed up! So I no longer had time to feel sorry for myself. So, I was able to move into that and move forward with that and had a hoot. I had a wonderful Pride celebration and I've really never ever mourned my HIV. I have been able to wear it with a pride on my shoulder and that I decided when I came out as gay from...I was also coming out as HIV ‘cause I wasn't going to come out of the closet twice. So I got involved with the speakers bureau at the Utah's AIDS foundation to go talk to people about living with HIV, and also became an advocate in other ways for it, and had the wonderful opportunity for ten years of speaking to high school students and middle school students, different groups, community organizations, and church groups about living with HIV, the dangers of HIV and other STDS and sharing my experience and talking about what people were living with then. Half...about five years after that is when they came out with new protease inhibitors which has caused us to be able to live a full and successful life. And I have never ever had any real problems because of my HIV. Now my other health issues, like diabetes, is a different issue! But HIV never has. And so because of that involvement with the Pride celebration, my HIV status, and my co-chairs at Pride, Brenda who wasn't able to be my co-chair and I started what we call the DIG Awards, which stands for the Diversity is Great Awards, to do a fundraiser for the community center and recognize people in our community had done things to improve the lives of gays and lesbians. Whether the person was an ally or whether they were a gay or lesbian person. I also got involved with the National Labor Union movement and was a member of their board for a short time. They were called Pride at Work and they were part of the FLCIL. So I had a very broad, very fast indoctrination in the early 90s of being a gay man. And I enjoyed everything, made friends all over the country. And because of that my involvement in gay rodeo gave me an opportunity to have family in rodeo and be able to do the farm stuff you might say and some of the stuff I liked to do….being around livestock and animals and things like that. So it kind of came full circle from leaving the farm, to the 90s, to being involved with gay rodeo and the other things I was doing. My fingers were in a lot of places during the early 90s and then I started focusing more on gay rodeo in the early end of that time. How did you hear about gay rodeo? I actually attended the gay rodeos in Reno, Nevada when they had them there which were the first rodeos they had. I remember our grand marshal was, um, oh shoot. Bette Middler was it one year but when I was there it was Joan Rivers. So, I had a great time. So I knew there was something out there. (Subjects: igra, royalty) When I moved to Utah, one night at the bar with the royal court system, somebody was saying that the Golden Spike Gay Rodeo Association was doing something. I went and introduced myself to them. That was before I had quit working for the medical software company. When I quit working for them I looked that group up again and they’d changed their name to the Utah Gay Rodeo Association. And they were seated that year at the IGRA convention and I became involved with them and in ‘91 I ran to be their “Mister UGRA.” And so I was Mr. UGRA 1992 as a representative and fundraising director for the Utah Gay Rodeo Association. And I actually ran for Mr. IGRA, and made enough mistakes in my presentations at the IGRA royalty level, but I still ended up fourth out of ten men who were running for that title and made some life time friends from that and so that was how I got started with gay rodeo. Grabbed my horses from my family, loaded them in a horse trailer, and hauled them to the Phoenix Rodeo with my royalty team and my friends and we went down and competed at the Phoenix Rodeo and had a great time. And that’s how basically I got heavily involved with gay rodeo and became totally enthralled with being a part of it. Which rodeo events did you participate in? Only thing I haven’t done at the gay rodeo level is bareback bronc and bull riding. I rode enough broncs in my life growing up that I really didn’t want to get on a crazy horse, and bull riding doesn’t scare me, I just feel I didn’t had the skill set to do it so I didn’t do it. I tried steer riding. I found out I probably didn’t have the skill set to do that either. So I haven’t done that. But the other events I’ve competed in all of them. Oh, I haven’t completed at a gay rodeo in team roping. But I have done some team roping with my little brothers and they think I’m awful. My family is involved in rodeo heavily now. I have two siblings that raise livestock for rodeos. My one brother produces a small family rodeo on the weekends in the summertime and so I’m able to go to that so it’s a lot of fun to see them involved with that. And my other siblings have been involved in rodeo quite a bit.(Subjects: events, family) Do they ever come to gay rodeos? They never have, so it will be interesting if I can get them to come, when we have another one in Utah. My sister and her husband came and did dutch oven cooking for us for one of our fundraisers one time at one of the bars. Um, but my family has always been accepting of who I am. In 1994 my mother passed away. In ‘95 I met my life partner. We’ve been together almost 22 years. I got married in September of 2013. My family have always accepted him for who he is, whether they like our lifestyle or not, that’s not as important to them as whether or not they treat us with respect. My nieces and nephews are great. I had to laugh when my, once, little niece and nephews were younger they came to me and said, “Ryan’s your servant, isn’t he?” And I had to grin at that. (Subjects: family, religion, highlight) And then a few years later they come over and said, “Oh, Ryan is your boyfriend.” And they thought that was pretty cool they had figured that out. So my nieces and nephews are very supportive of me in the sense of my relationship and who I am, regardless of their religious affiliation. Some are Mormon, some aren’t, and so they’ve all been very supportive of me. I’m sure some of them don’t totally understand or agree with it but they have never really said it to my face. We disagree on politics and religion more than we do on my lifestyle. How did you meet your partner? We met in a bar. And if I tell the story he’ll call me a liar! [Laughter] But the story’s true! We, ah, I actually went there to meet someone else. And we sit down and start talking and he asked me for my phone number. Well, I didn’t have any pen and paper but because I was doing gay rodeo my phone number was the contact number for gay rodeo. Because I was doing the Diversity is Great Awards my phone number was the contact for that and we were putting them on in a month, and because of my involvement with Pride my phone number was the contact number for that as well. And, so, I said, “Well, here let’s grab one of the gay newspapers that we had and my phone number is here, here, here, and here.” Of course at that point his friends and he said, “Well, he’s really kind of arrogant. I don’t think you want to spend any time with him.” So my partner basically said I threw the water on it when my friend came over and said, “Am I interrupting anything?” and I said, “No.” (Subjects: family) So anyways the story is, is I found out where he worked, I went to his work, he didn’t remember who I was from two or three nights before. He’ll tell you it’s because I didn’t look the same. My husband is not someone who pays that much attention to someone in the sense of how they look or what they are, he looks for certain things. So he asked me to write my name and phone number down after I had asked him out, and I think we were going to go to a bull riding only competition, and that was when I wrote my name and phone number down it still I don’t think clued him into that he had met me at the bar a couple of nights before! So that’s how we met and that’s when we started dating and that was on January 14 of 1995. And that was our first date and after that our friends were like, “You two? That’s not something we would put together.” And we did have a rough go to begin with, like a lot of gay couples. But we’ve been together now twenty-two years almost and I don’t see it going anywhere real soon. He puts up with my idiosyncrasies and that’s all that’s important. [Laughter.] Where did he grow up? What’s that? Where did he grow up? He grew up, actually, in Santa Maria, California mainly but his family is from Preston, Idaho and Smithfield, Utah. So when he went on his mission they had moved back to Utah and he’d actually gone to college in Utah, so his ties were quite heavily to Utah but his schooling and his youth was in Santa Maria, California. And that’s actually where we got married, we went back there to visit his schoolmates and so while we were there I woke up one morning asking what he wanted to do and he didn’t say anything so I said, “Well do you want to get married?” So we went and got married that day. [Laughter.] And I’m usually the cool and calm and collected one. He was the cool, calm and collected one. I was pitted out! The poor lady who sold us the marriage license twice came out and asked me if I was going to be okay. And, I made it through the marriage ceremony. I told the minister we wanted it short, sweet, and over with and that’s what it was. And that was in September of 2013 and so we’ve just celebrated three years of actual marriage.(Subjects: family) And was he ever involved with the gay rodeo, too? I made him. I’ve actually had him in the area. He’s done goat dressing. He’s not an athlete. [Laughter.] He’s an academic. He’s an eye doctor. And so, that part of my life he supports and is happy for me. He’s involved with the rodeo association now as a member and is supportive of me and of the organization but when it comes to the rodeo part and the competitive part he’ll sit in the stands and call himself a rodeo widow. He’s not going to get in the arena again, he said, so, but I got him to serve on the board of directors for a while and I got him involved with our convention. And so he’s very supportive of me, but, this is...this is my thing and so it just makes me grin.(Subjects: events, jobs) And you were re-seated as Utahs... The Utah Gay Rodeo Association closed its doors. They were seated in ‘89 and closed their doors in 2006 and a little over a year ago some kids in Utah decided they wanted to start it back up again, and I got an invitation to come and get involved and so as of the convention here in Austin, Texas in 2016 we have now been re-seated as the Utah Gay Rodeo Association and can move forward on putting on rodeos and convention and other things that IGRA sponsors. So why did it close? I wasn’t involved the last three years so I can’t really say what the reasoning was behind...for them dispersing. And they didn’t really invite me in to be part of that when they were dispersing. And, which is fine with me, I needed a break. I’d been so active in the community for so many years that me and my husband were on a hiatus you might say. It lasted a lot longer than I planned on it lasting, but, it was something I think I needed. (Subjects: community, highlight) When I started that hiatus a good friend of mine who had gotten involved...who was involved in gay rodeo and also with other things, I tell you, put me in a very bad spot. In Salt Lake City we have the Dr. Kristen Ries Community Service Award which is probably...Dr. Ries was the first doctor in Utah to start serving HIV positive patients and she had gone on, her and her partner, Maggie, would be two of the top HIV care patient specialists in the world. Both of them have now retired. I had the opportunity for her to be my doctor for some time. Every year at our Pride celebration the community hands out the Dr. Kristen Community Service Award. So, I’m going to toot my horn a little bit, and I was actually honored with getting that award. Again, I didn’t expect to get emotional. Having it named after her and having her ride with the gay pride parade was probably one of the highlights of my life and probably the second highlight was when we had our rodeo in Utah the sons of bitches didn’t tell me that along with Aunty Dee, who is...we call her “the mother of gay rodeo” in Utah, our grand marshal had snuck in me to be a co-grand marshal with her and I didn’t know until the night of the award ceremony so those are two of the biggest highlights of my life when it comes to actually my gay life you might say. Those two honors and especially them being given to me by my peers who I feel I couldn’t have done anything that they’re honoring me for without their support and without them doing the work they did and I got credit for it. So those are two very humbling, humbling, moments of my life. Sorry about the tears. In this new generation in Utah, are they young? Are they energized? Do you think it’s... The people involved with gay rodeo are very young, most of them. There’s a couple oldies, but they’re very energized, they’re go-getters and I hate to say it but sometimes I feel I have to put the reins on a little bit. I like to be a voice of reason with them. And when it comes to the gay community as a whole I lost so many of my peers and compadres to HIV and so many of my compadres now I’m looking at a generation of people who didn’t have to do the fights like we did, didn’t have to face the discrimination, so a lot of them don’t understand the need or the reasoning behind gay organizations like gay rodeo, like the royal court, and those types of organizations because their friends are so accepting of them and will party with them. So it’s going to be a difficult outreach to get these young people to understand the need for these organizations and the camaraderie and the family that they could be a part of, so we have a lot of work ahead of us as a gay rodeo and as an organization in Utah, to bring those young people that word, that information and try and get them involved so that all these organizations can survive.(Subjects: community, homophobia) Do you think that young kids in Utah, who sort of grow up in this predominantly LDS culture, do you think that something like gay rodeo can give them a place?(Subjects: religion) Oh it definitely can give them a place. One thing is that most of us who come into gay rodeo, and who live in Utah, moved from small rural communities. We grew up on farms. We grew up on cattle ranches. They moved to Utah to get away from all of that and the discrimination, so, you gotta give them five or six years to, as I say, come out with a cigarette in one hand, a drink in the other, and flame at the bars. They’ve gotta go through that identity and hopefully it’s a positive experience and that they don’t fall into some of the pitfalls that can happen with that, and once they get through that they’re going to be a little older and they’re going to start looking for places to spend their energy and a lot of them come back to their roots. (Subjects: religion, community, highlight) They come back to that family farm thing and I think because of the devastation that happened in our community that generation now is just starting to mature to the point where they’re going to start looking for something besides the bars and besides partying and gay rodeo is a great place for them to land. It’s a healthy, athletic sporting type event and it’s a great family. It’s a great group of people to be involved with and I’m hoping that we can reach out to them and bring them back in. We do have a lot of support outside of our organization. A lot of people don’t want to be part of the organization but they will support us and I’m looking forward to working with all of them over the next few years. Do you plan to get back into the arena? I want back into the arena so bad my teeth ache! The first rodeo I go to I will complete, if I have to drag someone screaming and kicking. I love chute dogging. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s where you climb into a bucking chute with a steer and you hang onto until its nose is ten feet out from the chute and then you dog it to the ground just like in a steer wrestling event. It’s an adrenaline rush, I love it. I enjoy the other events...the camp events and things like that...so, find some partners and get involved. (Subjects: events) Some of the guys in Utah know that I know how to ride a horse. I won’t say I’m the best horseman. I’m a great critic but I wouldn’t say I was the best horseman. Or roper. I know how to throw a rope. But I’d love to get back involved in all of that and at my age, which is almost sixty, there aren’t very many rodeo associations or any athletic organizations that you can get involved in and still complete at the highest level. And I’m in good health and good physical shape so hopefully I can get back in there and do what I used to do when I was completing in the ‘90s, so twenty years later, we’ll see! So do you consider yourself a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) You know I think of myself more of a country boy. I call it “cowboy drag” when I dress up in my cowboy clothes. So I think of myself more of a country boy. I don’t think of myself so much as a cowboy because that’s a fantasy life to me and I kind of like to keep that fantasy life. I don’t have a problem putting on a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of cut-offs and a baseball cap and a t-shirt and being comfortable and going to a rodeo or an event but I also like getting dressed up and putting on my boots and my hat and going out, too, so. Does that answer that question?(Subjects: cowperson) Yes. Yes I think so. Do you think you’ll do anymore entertaining? I have been, ah, entertaining at Salt Lake. When I was involved with Pride the royal court was putting on their first pride competition for a Mr., Miss, and Ms. gay pride. At the time I didn’t know it was their first. My co-chair Deb and I found out they didn’t have any contestants, so we went and ran for this title and we ended up with it. So, I have the honor of being the first Mr. Gay Pride of all of Utah, and so I do perform as Mr. Gay Pride and as Mr. UGRA 2002 and 1992. So I don’t mind getting up and performing. I’m kind of a ham anyway, so I enjoy lip synching and doing that stuff. So I’m sure I will. This is an awful thing to say but...we’re going to have a royalty competition in Utah in January and I’m not so sure...I might not run for Mr. UGRA again. [Laughter.] What’s your favorite thing to lip sync to? Oh I love country. Older country. 80s country music. And I like songs that are a little different or maybe a little story telling or things like that. I’m not into the new country sound of Florida Georgia Line or Keith Urban or some of those. The George Straits, the Neil McCoys, those people is who I probably lip sync to more than anything and probably my favorite person to lip sync to is a gentleman who was named Chris LeDoux. He...even sings the songs that other people have done such as George Strait, “Amarillo by Morning,” or...oh...I can’t think of his name now! But “Rhinestone Cowboy,” which both Chris LeDoux has recorded and I have recordings of...I actually prefer to perform that version of it than the versions that Glen Campbell or George Strait do, so. [Laughter.] Do you, like, costume and everything? Oh, I’m not much of a costume person. I will do a little thing. I did a number by Tim McGraw and, “Something Like That” is the song, and then there’s a line that says “I had a BBQ stain on my white t-shirt” so I wear a shirt and I take a BBQ stain and put it on my shirt. That’s about as much costuming as you’ll see I do. And then the only other thing I’ve ever done is we had a group of guys and we called ourselves “Ugly Girls Really Are,” U.G.R.A., and there was “Wildebeest” and “Utahna Montana,” and my name was “Blanched Trampoline” and we would do a camp drag where we would wear our cowboy boots and pull our pant legs up and put on a skirt and a wig and lipstick, and as you see I have facial hair and it was still there, and that was our way of just kind of having some comedy added to it and that’s the closest I’ve ever come to drag. What do you think the relationship is between the rodeo and the entertainment wing is today? I think both are important. Mainly because as rodeo people that’s an event, the entertainment side of it, as you hear them talk today about dance, I think that’s important too because gay rodeo wants to be inclusive and being inclusive means accepting everyone for who they are and having an opportunity for them to be involved. So those who do not want to be in the arena they have the opportunity to not only serve on committees that put on our conventions, fundraising, or they can be an official at a rodeo so that would put them involved...but there’s also those who don’t really want to do any of that and yet the royalty system, being able to do fundraising by lip synching and entertaining and using their talents in that area. So they can kind of go hand in hand, and they should, and again we talked about dance, which is a huge part of the country lifestyle, and getting that back involved and I agree totally that we need to get...blend...all three of those so that everybody out there has a place they feel they can find and fit in gay rodeo and give them an opportunity to participate and be a part of that family.(Subjects: community) So moving forward what do you hope to see in the coming years? I hope to see gay rodeo grow again. I remember when we used to have about twenty rodeos a year. And I hope to see Utah’s association grow and be able to do what we did in the past and put on some successful rodeos and events and become a major player on the gay rodeo circut. I have big dreams and so do the kids that I’m working with so I hope we can put them together and make them come true.(Subjects: igra) Is there anything you want to talk about that I didn’t ask you? I can’t think of anything right off the top of my head, other than maybe the political climate we’re in now but that maybe is the worst thing we could ever talk about. [Laughter.] No, I, this is important. Do you think that’s going to affect, especially in a place like Utah... You know, LDS people are good people to be around and they don’t want to hurt our community but at the same time they’re not sure how to go about things without doing that and so yeah they do hurt it. I feel the leadership of the organization doesn’t understand who we are. I think they’re so out of touch, just like our government doesn’t understand what’s going on in the cities and streets of our country, and that makes it hard for organizations like us who are on the fringe to be able to do the things we’d like to do without having to come up against some resistance a times, however, as long as we respect one another then I think can always work together, and...that’s always my hope is that we can have mutual respect for one another and move forward. (Subjects: homophobia, highlight) At the same time I’m not afraid to yell once in a while to get the attention of those that I need to get the attention of to get that mutual respect. I have been at protests where I’ve been a little out there. [Laughter.] And I haven’t been ashamed of it but at the same time it never was meant to hurt it was meant to. I’ve been attacked when I’ve done booths at different organizations. An education fair, when I was doing an HIV booth, I was attacked verbally for a good four or five minutes by a gentleman before they finally came and removed him. So, I have had those opportunities to see what it’s like. I have been fearful at times. I had a guy pull a gun on me once and it wasn’t the most awful thing but it wasn’t a pleasant thing either. It turned out to be something that I could get away from and not have to deal with. I was much, much, younger at the time and much, much, more stupid and naive. The situation probably wouldn’t have bothered me at all now if that same situation had happened. I would have handled it differently. But, ah, I see the world growing not only on gay rights but on women’s rights, on other rights that all people are to be treated equally and I’m hoping that someday our world can get there. Me, too. Thank you for your time today. No problem. [Recording ends.] Note: This transcript has been reviewed by the interviewee who made edits to portions of the interview. The transcript no longer matches the audio interview in the edited sections.

Dan Iverson Click to filter

Hello, this is Revulai Detiv. I'm here with Dan Iverson and we are at the AGRA Rodeo, and today is February 16th [2020]. So, to start off with, what year were you born? 1954. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Murdo, South Dakota. What was your childhood like? I grew up on a farm and a ranch, and I knew at the time I did not want to follow in my father's footsteps. The ranch was homesteaded by my grandfather in 1904. Fortunately, I had a brother that wanted to take over the family place, so I was happy about that.(Subjects: childhood, family) Was it an apprehension with continuing farming? I wanted to be in the city. I wanted to be around people, do something different. So, I just didn’t want to be stuck on the farm and have to do all the chores that farmers and ranchers have to do.(Subjects: childhood) Makes sense. So, how do you identify in terms of gender and sexuality? I am a gay man. Did you ever end up coming out to your family? I went to one of the International Gay Rodeo Association's conventions in 1987 and I won an award there. And the convention was in Albuquerque, and after I left Albuquerque, I went to South Dakota to spend time with my folks, and I had my award. So, I showed my mother the award and it said “International Gay Rodeo” on it. And that's how I—she said she already suspected it anyway, but that's how I actually showed her. And that was in 1987.(Subjects: comingout, family) Were they pretty supportive? She was very supportive. I do not know when she told my dad. I never, ever had the conversation with my dad about it. But my mom and dad had been married for almost 60 years so—not at that time, but before my dad died, they'd been married for about 60 years. So, I'm sure that they—he had to have known about it. But I just didn't have that conversation with him.(Subjects: comingout) Did you ever attend college? I attended Black Hill State University in Spearfish, South Dakota. And I was on the five-year plan. Just ‘cause it got me off the farm, and there was college kids, and it was a small, friendly, beautiful campus. And so, I was on the five-year program, but I did graduate. What did you study? I was in travel industry management—hotel, motel, restaurant management. That kind of stuff. Did you have any favorite experiences from college? I was a member of a fraternity, and we had a fun bunch of guys, and we did the usual fraternity things and football games. We threw keggers and fundraisers and I was president of the fraternity my junior and senior year. So, yes, I enjoyed it very much. And that was another reason to do the five-year plan, because I didn't want to go have to go back to the farm. Makes sense. My folks were probably not very happy about that. It’s a once in a lifetime thing. That's right. Yeah. No, I enjoyed my college days very much. So how did you first become involved in rodeo? I was going to a bar called Styx in Phoenix and they had a Country and Western Night. Now, I always made sure I went to that. And they had a group going to the National Gay Reno Rodeo in Reno one year and I decided to go with them. So, we all got on a school bus, went to the airport, flew to Reno, and I attended the National Reno Gay Rodeo. And I'm not sure if that was ‘82 or ‘83, but it was either ‘82 or ‘83—I kinda want to say ‘83—and I had so much fun, and then I heard that Colorado had a gay rodeo association, so I made arrangements to go to their first rodeo or their second rodeo, whatever it was. And I just met a bunch of people, and became interested, and kept track of where I had been and who I'd met. And that's how it all started. And one of my friends from Phoenix won the gay pageant. She ran for the pageant, and she was Miss Reno Gay Rodeo the year I went and that was—she was one of my friends. So, between her and I, we were able to keep track of what was going on. Nice. When did you get involved with…in the ring? Oh, in the arena? Through my contacts with the Colorado Gay Rodeo Association and Charlie's Denver, I found out that Charlie's was opening a new bar in Phoenix called Charlie's Phoenix. And I stayed in touch, and I went there, and I heard that they were going to—John King and his staff—was going to form a rodeo association. So, I went to the first meetings, and I am one of two founding members of AGRA that's still involved, myself and John King. And I've just been hanging out ever since. So, how would you compare the gay rodeo versus the straight rodeos? The gay rodeos, I enjoy the events that they have. The camp events, the wild drag, steer decorating, goat dressing. I really enjoy those. And when straight friends of mine know that I'm part of the gay rodeo, they ask me the same thing: “What do you do?” And I tell them about how much fun we have with camp events versus the straight rodeos that I grew up being around. And I have several straight friends that always say they're going to go to a gay rodeo because they want to see how the camp events are done. And they like the idea that we do chute dogging from the ground, running out of the chute and grabbing the animal. Taking the animal out of the chute versus getting down—catching it off a horse. So, they're curious. So today, I've had probably ten friends that have showed up, straight friends who have been to a gay rodeo.(Subjects: events) Did they really like it? They enjoy it. And there was always some questions about whether they wanted to show up, ‘cause they thought maybe…you know, being straight people with all the gay people. They've all said it was absolutely no problem. They were very comfortable with the gay crowd. Yes. That’s good to hear. How has being involved in the gay radio affected other aspects of your life? I worked in Tempe, Arizona, for many years. I left South Dakota in 1980 and moved to Arizona, and I was working in Tempe, Arizona. And…I was able to schedule, for many years, all my vacation time and all my weekends that were available were to go to gay rodeos, gay rodeo events, related events, and/or anything gay. Not just rodeos, I'd do gay prides around the country, gay square dance exhibitions, all kinds of stuff. And I worked all my vacation—scheduled all that around all those events.(Subjects: events) Was your work community supportive of that? The manager, the general manager, of the hotel I worked for for many years came to me and asked me if I would help write a sexual…whatever you call it, to the bylaws of the hotel. And so one of my other friends that worked for Intel, we sat down, and we wrote up a thing and the general manager accepted it. And that was in the employee handbook for the hotel I worked at.(Subjects: jobs) And that was in the 80s? Um, 90s—early 90s. That sounds pretty ahead of its time. Right. And I had never had the conversation with him, but since I was heavily involved with AGRA, one of our local gay publications had rodeo pictures on the front cover, and I actually seen one of them at work one day, and I didn't take it there. And one of the house—I worked for a hotel—and one of the housekeepers was carrying around this gay publication and there was a picture me on the front page. And she was carrying it around, and I'm not sure what was said, I never questioned it or anything, but I'm assuming that everyone had figured it out by then. Did you ever experience any harassment at the gay rodeo? I've been harassed out in the general public, many years ago. Nobody at work. None of my family members. No one here has hassled me. But back in the 80s, early 90s, on occasion, I've been hassled. Currently, I'm a winter visitor in Arizona. I go back to South Dakota to my business during the summers, and the little town I grew up in (it was 1200 people when I grew up there, now it's 400 people) and everybody in town knows that I'm a gay man and I'm not hassled by anybody. So, yes. What kind of business do you do? I have a little motel. A little motel called Iverson Inn, and it’s listed in the rodeo program. [Laughs] And I advertise in all the gay websites and everything, gay community pages, and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, if somebody’s traveling across South Dakota and needs a motel room, I'm there.(Subjects: jobs) That’s good. Yeah. Do you think the larger LGBT community supports the rodeo? Yes, they do. Yes. Since I've been around, since 1984, there's—I can't tell you how many people that I've met over the years. And this is the big event for me, ‘cause I like to see—I don't see ‘em—with me spending winters in Phoenix and summers in South Dakota, the only time I get to see people is at the rodeo, and I just look forward to rodeo weekend so I can see all my friends. And not just from Arizona, but from other states. Because as a contestant, I used to travel all the rodeos, and I've met people, and some of my best friends are people that I've met at the rodeos that I don't see but once or twice a year. And I just look forward to rodeos so I can go and see all these friends of mine.(Subjects: community) That’s good. Yeah. Could you speak a little bit more to that, that strong friendship bond? Yes. I just love some of these people to death. And we get together and we hug and kiss and do—not in a sexual way, you know. And it's just so nice to see them. I'm just so happy to see them. And I consider them among my best friends ever, some of my rodeo friends. I just really look forward to seeing ‘em. And I'm not one of these ones—I don't text, and I don't call, and I don't write. But I know in my heart that they're my friends. They know in their heart that we're friends and that we love each other and everything. So. That’s pretty strong. Yeah. Have you ever experienced any protests at the rodeo? Yes, yes. In the early years, we had PETA people and protesters outside our gates. It hasn't happened recently that I know of. I went to the Sunshine Stampede Rodeo in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I believe that's where it was—I don't know, five or six years ago, could have been longer. And there was a large crowd of PETA people and protesters across the street from us.(Subjects: peta) Oh, wow… [unintelligible] I haven't seen anything recently. Oh! Every year for gay pride in Phoenix, a huge group of protesters with megaphones screaming at us as we're marching down the streets and going into the Gay Pride Festival. That's really sad. Really is sad. Yes. [Applause and cheering in the background.] Something good must be happening. Yeah. Have you ever done any rough stock events? Yes. And I don't remember what year I started, but I used to do chute dogging and steer riding. Never won any buckles, but I was a really close runner up several times in chute dogging. But I gave it up a long time ago. Did you ever get injured? Yes. In 1988, in steer riding, I don't remember exactly what happened, but the steer threw me off somehow and I landed on his horn, and it was in my groin area. And so, I got stabbed by a steer in my groin area. And it took several months to recover because it would never heal. And I finally had to go into the doctor, and they had to open it up, and they found that a tip of his horn was still in there, and that's why it wasn't healing properly. So. And trust me, all my friends got a big joke out of that for years.(Subjects: injuries) How has the gay rodeo changed over the years? I think we’re…when I started, everybody seemed to be the same age. Now we're getting to be—a bunch of us are getting to be a lot older, by 35 and 40 years. And I don't think the younger crowd has quite the interest that us older people have. And I would sure like to come up with a system where we could encourage some of the younger generation to be involved. Yes, there's a bunch of them. I don't think there's as much interest as I would like to see. So, I encourage younger people that I know. Fortunately, I get a bunch of free comp tickets for the rodeo, and I try to pass them out to my younger friends just to get ‘em here, to let ‘em know that, you know, there's another whole lifestyle. So. And I just think we need to do something to get younger participation. So, I encourage them when they're here. Why do you think that is, that lack of interest? I don't know that. I don't know. But I would sure like to figure it out and come up with a way of getting ‘em here, getting' ‘em involved! And every now and then we get a few new members, and I really enjoy it. And I make a point of talking to them, ‘cause I want to keep them involved. I've even offered to pay people's memberships if they would just join and come to the meetings and do some of our functions. Sometimes people take me up on it, sometimes they don't. So. What does it mean to be a cowboy for you? I don't know if I consider myself a cowboy. I only wear my cowboy hat when I'm going to a rodeo function or at the Gay bar. Country bar. When I go home to South Dakota, I do not wear a cowboy hat and I work on the fa—even after I got older and my folks are still on the farm, and I'd go home and spend a couple of weeks with them. I would work, I would never wear a cowboy hat. When I was growing up, seven or eight or nine years old, I had to work in the hay field and my dad would always want me to wear a cowboy hat to protect myself from the sun. And he would say, “You need to wear a cowboy hat,” and I refused, and now I'm paying the price with dermatology problems. I just, I don't consider myself a cowboy. I mean, I just—I consider a cowboy someone that wears a hat and boots all the time. And I have them on now, and I'll have them on tomorrow for the rodeo stuff. But I don't really consider myself a cowboy. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just, yeah. I'm more comfortable in tennis shoes and a baseball cap.(Subjects: cowperson, parents) Are you active in any religious communities? I am a Lutheran. Missouri Synod Lutheran, and I go to church in South Dakota every week when possible. And when I'm down here, there's a church three quarters of a mile away from where I winter, and I go there as often as possible. Here today’s Sunday, and I didn't make it, but. No, I'm a Lutheran.(Subjects: religion) How has that kind of influenced your time at the rodeo and your life in general? My folks were dedicated Lutherans and we had to go to church, we had to go to Sunday school, we had to go to Walther League, which is a thing within the Lutheran church. And I just, I think it's important. And I—my folks are both gone now, but I want to, you know, I just think church is important. And I feel better when I go. See, I'm not real…If somebody asked me to recite a scripture or something, I could not do that. But, you know, I listen to the sermon, and I go as often as I can.(Subjects: parents, religion) That makes sense, that kind of maintaining dedication. I think that's right. And my folks, I was baptized in a country church clear out in the middle of South Dakota. And it's been—they haven't had a membership there for 40 or 50 years, and we've been trying to restore the church. And I've been behind the project because I knew how important it was to my folks. And so, I'm helping get this church restored and up and running again. Just because, you know, it's a Lutheran church that my grandparents helped build back in the ‘20s, and I just think it's important to keep that kind of stuff going.(Subjects: parents, religion) How is restoring the church going? It’s going very well. Very well. It's expensive for a little church that doesn't have any congregation anymore. But there's a group of 10 or 15 people that are interested in restoring the church. So, we're working on it. I don't know how I got off on that. [Laughs.](Subjects: religion) Could you tell me about your experience building up the AGRA? We had our very first rodeo here in 1986, and I did not compete, but I was part of the administrative board of directors, and I remember that we were trying to increase liquor sales. So, I volunteered, as did several other people, and we carried a tray of beer around and sold it through the stands. Well, nowadays, we don't have to do that anymore because everybody understands where the beer tent is and where the bars are. And the crowds are much better now than they were back in those early years. And, I'm just hoping and praying that we continue to get the crowds that we get. I am not into new technology stuff. I'm the old school. And I'm just thankful that we do have some people that understand all that stuff to keep it going. But the crowds are much better now than they were in first few years. How has the showing been this year? Yesterday it was wonderful. I was kind of concerned because I was in the dance hall. But people tell me that the stands were full and there was a lot of people out on the patio and people in the dance hall. So, I'm very happy. I do not know numbers about yesterday, but the people that I talked to would tell me if there is an issue and they were very happy. So, that makes me very happy too. Even though, again, I don't have any numbers. That’s still good to hear. I'm always happy to hear that we're having a good rodeo. Is there is anything in particular you would like to go over? I just would like—one of my experiences was, many years ago, I think it was 1992, my rodeo partner Greg Olsen and I went to the San Diego Rodeo. And on Monday morning after the rodeo, as everybody was there, all the other contestants were loading up their horses, and cleaning out their stalls, and doing everything. We all sat around, and it was a beautiful day in San Diego, and we decided to go to the Washington, D.C. rodeo, which was the next weekend. So being from Phoenix, we left San Diego with the intention of going to Washington, D.C. We got back to Phoenix Monday night. We did the laundry Tuesday morning, at noon on Tuesday I called work and asked if I could have another week off. They said yes. We loaded up and took off for Washington, D.C. with horses in a trailer and three of us in the pickup. And we drove all the way to Washington, D.C. and we went to the rodeo, had a wonderful time. It was just quite different. I had been to New York City before, but I had never been to Washington, D.C. and we were there for the gay rodeo. And that's where I met one of my very good friends. We needed a woman for our wild drag team, and my friend Jen [last name redacted], didn't know her at the time, she was standing there, somebody knew her and says, “Hey, they need a lady for their team.” She joined in and we won the wild drag buckle that day. She's been a very good contestant ever since. She's winning all arounds, and she's [won], I don't know, probably 100, 150 buckles. And, you know, we just got her started because she was standing there at the right time. And we just—that's what’s so enjoyable about gay rodeo. It’s the friends you meet, and the travels, and the fun you've had. And people keep telling me I should've wrote a book. Well, too late in my life for something like that. But, you know, we came home from a Texas rodeo one year, back to Phoenix, and we ran out of fuel in the middle of the night at 3:00 in the morning and, you know, it was just one of those things. That's life. I went to the national finals, the IGRA finals rodeo in Reno, Nevada, the year that they canceled the rodeo. And we were in a motel room in fall in Nevada, and when they found out we were part of the gay rodeo, they kicked us out in the middle of the night, and we had to sleep in our truck. And so, I've got wonderful experiences, good and bad, about gay rodeo. And I just, I have every intention of being a member of AGRA until there is— ‘till I'm gone, or there's no AGRA. And there had better be an AGRA for many years to come! So, that's just some of my experiences. They've all been good, you know—bad things, but you just got to look past the bad part and turn it into a good experience.(Subjects: igra) Are there any good experiences you’d like to share? No. I'll probably think of 20 of them after we're done here. But no, those are some of the good ones. Is there anything else you’d like to touch on? I really appreciate you taking the time to interview me and I'm sorry I was dragging my feet. I just was concerned about not being able express myself. I think you’ve done a really good job. OK. Well, thank you very much.

John King Click to filter

So, I'm here with John King and it's July 8th, 2017, and we're in Denver, at the Rocky Mountain Regional Rodeo, so can you tell me when you were born? Sure, March the 6th, 1941. And where did you grow up?(Subjects: childhood) On a farm in Iowa, southeast Iowa.(Subjects: childhood) What did your parents do for a living?(Subjects: childhood, parents) Well, my father was a farmer, but he also ran an insurance agency, and my mother worked as a nurse receptionist in a doctor's office.(Subjects: childhood, parents) And did you have siblings?(Subjects: childhood, family) Yes, three.(Subjects: childhood, family) And what did an average day look like when you were growing up?(Subjects: childhood) An average day? Starting at age 10, or age 9, I had to learn how to milk cows. And, so that would mean that I would have to get up at 5 o'clock, and so in between about 8 or 9 and age 18 when I left for college, almost every day of my life my father woke me up and I got dressed and went out and milked cows, and fed hogs, and chickens, whatever else it takes to make a farm run.(Subjects: childhood) And did you like school?(Subjects: childhood) Did I what?(Subjects: childhood) Did you like school?(Subjects: childhood, jobs) Yes, most of the time. Did you like college? I ended up, I hated school when they used their, they used their, aptitude tests and put me in the engineering school, and once I found out what an engineer did, and what that would entail, I wasn't interested and so I didn't like school at all. And I was of draft age and so I quit school and worked on the farm until I was about ready to be drafted and then I signed up, to work in the finance department, because I enjoy that. I've been treasurer of just about every organization cause I know the money. And so then when I got out of the service, I knew by that time I wanted to go into business and I got straight A's all the way through and I loved school I loved my professors; I loved bantering with them; I loved preparing challenging reports for them; I loved developing cash flow concepts; I loved all that part, so the answer is: No at first and yes second.(Subjects: childhood, jobs) That's what we want to hear. Was being in the service hard at all?(Subjects: jobs) No, for me, well, the first four months, being away from home, since our family farm was forty-four miles away from the university of Iowa, I literally, would save up my dirty clothes and then every three weeks go home and my mother would wash my clothes and I would go back and so, I really didn't learn how to live on my own until I went into the service, and the first 3 months they were a shock. But then after that I had money saved [Phone beeps]… Excuse me, I don't know what he was trying to say. Anyway, excuse me just a second...So, can you imagine. I have rebelled, I do not know how to turn on a computer, I own approximately, to my knowledge I own somewhere around fifty computers stretching from Puerto Vallarta to Chicago, but I do not know how to turn on a computer I had people do that, but when it came to an iPhone I had to learn. [Silence while he types a text message]. Excuse me just a minute you might turn it off. [Pause in recording](Subjects: jobs) So you said you were getting interested in owning a business?(Subjects: jobs) I, even in the service, I was one of those go to people, and so whenever my company commander needed something, I was able to find it. All the way from army green paints to liquor and cigarettes, and I did everything but pen. So I really had an easy service because they trusted me and after a few months they just let me come and go and long as I delivered what I was expected, they didn't bother me and so I knew that that wouldn't last forever and Vietnam was coming up, and last couple months I was in the service, we had gone over three years, sending like six people on the military aid and advisor group called the MAG assignment, and we were sending six out of the division, last few months we were sending like three hundred a month. And that was still in 1964 and so Johnson, I mean Kennedy had been killed and Johnson was starting the real buildup, and, of course, at that particular point, there were people we sent over that we were closing out their records because they were dead, and so it encouraged me to get out of the army as soon as possible.(Subjects: jobs) Seems smart. So once you got out and you started looking at businesses, did you know what type of businesses you wanted to do?(Subjects: jobs) No, I just that I wanted...my father, my grandfather, they were all farmers. It was essentially the businessman. There were four of us children we all, none of us were able to work for somebody else, they always had to be in charge. My sister just died, she had a [inaudible] business that made her a millionaire. My younger brother is a millionaire several times over in a small town, just by buying, holding, fixing it for the state. My older brother had a small chain of convenience stores with gas stations and he sold them and retired and lives in Suprise, Arizona. And I have 5 nightclubs.(Subjects: jobs) Did you ever think you would do nightclubs when you were young? No. Did you like nightclubs when you were young? Actually, I would say, yeah, when I was in the service I was out at a nightclub probably four nights out of the week. Did you like dancing? Yeah. What kind of dancing did you do? Mostly western dancing, at the time there was a couple line type dancing but they were rare, but it was mostly that, and of course western dancing crosses over into the jitterbug rock-and-roll a little bit, whatever it took to get the girl I was dancing with to say yes the next time I asked her. And did you know you were gay at the time?(Subjects: homophobia) Since you're younger, you have to understand how the world was at that time. The world, society told you that you would have sinful thoughts, but that if you were married to the right person and you were really in love then those thoughts would go away, and so, of course, I knew I had those thoughts. I was...I had an intimate relationship with somebody between age thirteen and age fifteen. And then I decided that if I didn't stop I would end up being a homo, so I literally abstained from any intimacy from two weeks before I got my driver's license, til I met my wife, my ex-wife. So all the way through the service, I went to bed with people but nothing happened, other than cuddling.(Subjects: homophobia) And how did you meet your ex-wife?(Subjects: family) I went back home and she was two years younger than me in the same class that my highschool sweetheart was in, and she was the valedictorian and I knew of her. We were not in the same circles, probably because she was standoffish and kinda snooty, but when I came back she had dyed her hair red and put it into a bob and changed her appearance and become the officer in a sorority and come out quite a little bit, and she caught...and plus I learned a lot more about what...this is the advice that I gave my son and just gave the same advice to my thirteen year old grandson. If you marry somebody who's intelligent, don't be surprised if you have intelligent kids that challenge you a little bit, and if you marry a bimbo, don't be surprised if you end up raising a bimbo. But my three years in the service have me time to think about that, and I decided I didn't want to be raising bimbos.(Subjects: family) And how long were you guys together?(Subjects: family) Fourteen years. We were really together for ten years, and that's because before we got married we agreed upon the parameters. And after ten years we had accomplished all those, and we sat down to redo the next ten years and there was nothing in common. She had like seven things in which I was not interested in the slightest, and I had like seven things in which she didn't want to do at all. We never had an argument because we always went back, this is the agreement: "You know what the agrement is." "Yup, this is what we agreed to." But we could never redefine our relationship, and so she's the one, I refused to file for a divorce so she's the one who filed for divorce, but in hindsight I was maybe subtly encouraging her to.(Subjects: family) What did you do for work during those years?(Subjects: jobs) I used my education and was a loan officer for the small business administration and then, of course, because I believe in my product I bought a restaurant, and within two years I had four restaurants. I sold them out when my franchisor I felt was going backwards and not keeping up with the competition. And became a real estate broker, and then, during the real estate crash of 1979, 1980, that's when I got my divorce. So we split our estate in half, and I took the risky ones and they sort of went to pot. So with what resources I had left I scraped together and opened up a bar, and opened up a gay bar, and I had been out less than a year. (Subjects: jobs) Wow, and when did you come out to your family?(Subjects: comingout, homophobia, family, highlight) It was in, it was about two months after I opened up Charlie's. Charlie and I were together for a total of nine months, he was much younger than me and a good dancer, good dancer. And after...but he, I found out that he was starting to do drugs, and he was not...our value systems were completely, even though he was from Missouri and I was from Iowa, our value systems were completely different. And so I was starting to squeeze him out and he gave me an ultimatum, and listed eight things that he would do if I broke up with him. And I lived under that for two weeks and decided, I'm not, I lived a false life for thirty-nine years I tried, I denied myself any kind of intimacy all the way til age twenty-four when I got married, and I was not going to, I was not gonna start over. So I called his bluff. Well he proceeded to do many of them. And one of them was calling my father and waking him up at 3 o'clock in the morning and not only telling him about my sexual, in those days we called it preference, not your orientation, and described some explicit sexual acts and how much he enjoyed it. And my father never got over it. He cut me out of the will, and put a provision that I could not stay in the family farm house, I couldn't sleep over night there. So I thought it was the end of the world, cause not only was all my stuff going, but Charlie was going and so on. I thought that was the end of the world but within a couple of days I realized I was walking around with a bounce in my step, it was like having a mill stone removed. And he did naughty things, I worked for the SBA, he ran through the SBA shouting I was a faggot, and describing, "I used to be his lover and that he knew how big my dick is," screaming at all those people down the hall I had worked with for six years. The director called me up, we were good friends the district director, he said I know you well, and I don't care who you sleep with, I don't care anything about that, but I really question your judgment on whether or not if this is the class of person you wanna be around, I thought that was funny, and I said, "I can agree with you totally."(Subjects: comingout, homophobia, family, highlight) And so Charlie's initially a country western bar from the beginning?(Subjects: jobs) All country, the first dance song I ever played was late in 1982 and it was "Gloria," and we played it at midnight. We played it at midnight, and it filled the dancefloor and, of course, I had several country people come to me and beat my bees. But I had some other come to me and say it's a fun change, but we were country. I actually, I would, Charlie's would have been a lot busier a lot sooner if I wouldn't have held onto country as long as I did, but I opened up from country, I felt like that community supported me and I wanted to do everything I could, but when it came to the choice of closing or changing, I changed.(Subjects: jobs) Was the first one here in Denver?(Subjects: jobs) Yes.(Subjects: jobs) And what had brought you to Denver?(Subjects: family) My ex-wife had wanted to live in New York and Washington D.C. or Boston, the furthest west she wanted to live was Chicago. I wanted to live in Albuquerque or Phoenix, and we struggled over that, this is one of the things we agreed to. So I went to Boston I went to New York, went to Chicago, went to Phoenix, went to Albuquerque, went to Denver, we went to Kansas City. And we agreed that we would live in Denver that would be, I would give up my feelings but she wouldn't give up.(Subjects: family) Were you happy in Denver? Denver has always been good to me, but I belong in Phoenix, because my blood gets thick and I get so lackadaisical in the wintertime that I don't really care, but in Phoenix my blood is thinner, I remember arriving in Phoenix on July the th 1984. And Wayne Jakino was in charge, left him in charge of Charlie's Denver, and arriving in Phoenix, and it was hot and Kenny and I were having a hard time finding a place and on the third day, I said to him, "I gave him the keys to the car," and I said, "I don't care where we live, I want you to be happy, here's the checkbook, here's the thing." And I said, "I'm gonna go climbing," and I went to south mountain and I got up on top of that mountain and I felt wonderful, absolutley wonderful and I got back and he was a little concerned because it turned out it was 114 degrees that day. So I'm the one-in-three people who can go to Phoenix, and it thins your blood and makes you feel more alive. Before going to Phoenix did you think of the Southwest as a place? Always, always. When I was in, because when I was stationed in Colorado Springs, although I went to TDY, I went on temporary duty to Washington D.C. to Carmel outside San Fransico, I went to Dayton, Ohio, I went to Indianapolis, I went to Washington D.C., and a three day stint in South Carolina, so I had a lot of things to break up those three years, but essentially I lived in Colorado. I didn't like to spend money, I liked to save money, and I discovered the mountains and they were beautiful, and it cost nothing to go hiking. Nothing. At first I used to sleep outside, later on I would carry a flimsy tent with me, but I would just go hiking, I usually made friends and I would usually hiked with somebody, but if nobody wanted to climb with me I would just go. I climbed Pike's Peak twice, I climbed Longs Peak one time, and I'll never do that again. I'll never climb Pikes Peak again either, I was twenty-two one time and I was twenty-three the next year at Pikes Peak, I don't think I could climb it now. But I climbed Devils Head, I never did climb up Mount Evans, Squaw Peak, I don't know I've been over several of the mountains there. So you're living in Denver and you had a gay western bar, country bar, when did you hear about gay rodeo? About three to four weeks after I opened up Charlie's, and that's part of the history I can send you, in fact I can read it if you want. Or you can send it to me. Alright, well it's on the Charlie's Denver facebook page, friend Charlie's Denver facbook we'll find a way. And that's because Brendon said, "I can crack this for you," and I said, "How?" and he said, "We can put it on facebook," and I said, "That will correct it?" And he says, "I'll call you back in half an hour and I'll tell you how many hits we have, probably as many hits as ever read Out Front." So he called me back in half an hour and said 586 people have already clicked on to it, and I said, "Oh."(Subjects: jobs) That's amazing, so yeah, you heard about it and thought they were doing something cool?(Subjects: jobs) My best friend was Wayne Jakino and we turned out to be, and we kept it as quiet as we possibly could, and we turned into bitter enemies. But now that he's been dead for seven years, or eight years, or nine years, whatever I can reflect back on what happened. When we started it's almost the same thing as happened with the marriage. When we started we had various things in common, and we had a relationship over twenty-five years, and for the first fifteen years, everything we touched turned to gold cause we were on the same page all the time. Then we made natural changes, he was unmarried and his number one love had attempted suicide and he had decided what he wanted to leave a legacy in the gay community, the problem was he only owned 10% of Charles and he was using 100% of my money to build this legacy. And I wanted to build an estate for my kids and grandkids, so we started pulling in different directions. And so when he would make, we would have a really good week in Denver, he would say, did you realize we made this much money that's obscene and he would do something to give the money away in terms of charitable work, or foundations, or raising the wages, or various...or hiring, putting people on the payroll that had AIDs when they really couldn't do anything, all that stuff to build up his name in the gay community. Whereas to me, I was a natural businessman and I wanted to change Charlie's in a way to make more money so I had more options to make the estate. So as it turns out, when we reflect, I kept it pretty hidden, but our close friends knew that those last few years we could hardly stand each other.(Subjects: jobs) In those, 1980s when gay rodeo was sort of happening in Reno and starting to happen in other places. Yes, I've got that in this, go ahead. Did you feel like this is something that you should be involved in like personally, like out rodeing or was it more from a business perspective of this might draw customers to to Charlie's?(Subjects: jobs, highlight) Well, when I was in the service I refused to make friends with fellow servicemen. I went out in Colorado Springs and made friends with the native people, and they were all cowboys, so that's when I started picking up my cowboy vernacular and I loved it. But there was a couple nights, one night in Woodland Park, Colorado, we had square danced, and we called ourselves "the gang," there was about 12 of us, men and girls, women, actually they were girls because they were young but, young women, and remember in Woodland Park we would dance and then we would all go out to the tailgate and we would mix orange juice and put vodka in it. And I was so thirsty, I remember being so thirsty and they were taking so much time, and finally I got my hands on a bottle of vodka and I thought well I'll just take a sip just to wet my whistle well it tasted like water and I was thirsty so I drank about half the bottle. And we went back in and my dance partner, I remember her name was Jannet I woke up the next morning I woke up in her bed and she said nothing happened you were passed out it was all we could do to get you here, and I said, "What happened?" and she said, "We were dancing and we started doing the dosey doe and you just sort of screwed yourself right into the ground. And so I had real good memories of rodeos. Well, obviously when you're pioneering with cowboys dancing together and so on, the oxymoron of a gay rodeo to me seemed to me like a natural extension and so I, was just breaking, this was August so I was just breaking up with Charlie, so all I could do was hold onto the reins of Charlie's. (Subjects: jobs, highlight) So my best friend Wayne Jakino who didn't own any of Charlie's at the time loaned me money to open and I gave him the option to convert that to 10% when I got ready to pay him off if he wanted to, and two years later when I got ready to pay him off he took that. And they were just literally overwhelmed by the thousands of people mainly from San Francisco that were there, this was in 1981 and the feeling that everybody had something in common because it didn't make any difference...all the Guchi people all the people who sat around gay bars who sat around singing showtunes, it was all the people who grew up in rural Kansas, and Phillipsburg Kansas, and Sheridan, Wyoming, little towns in Iowa and Nebraska and so on, we almost all had the same value system, same vernacular, and so on, and so it was a very euphemistic aura and of course they brought that back. So I'm gonna answer that, I can't tell you exactly for certain which was the most important motivator, the fact that I already loved rodeo and the fact that I could bring, the possibility of gay rodeo was there, but I was always a businessman, so having a 501c3 arm that promoted rodeo which indirectly promoted Charlie's was part of it also. And the fact that of the people who were involved in gay rodeo, and maybe cause I lived longer than anyone else, and probably in hindsight probably made the most money off gay rodeo.(Subjects: community) And what was the reaction of the gay community to gay rodeo?(Subjects: community) Well, that's in my, that's the way I finished, I finished saying: Well, first of all, we went back to Reno because we were challenged by Texas, and there was about 300 people in Colorado in matching t-shirts, it was a wonderful success. Except our royalty didn't win. I acted like I was drunk and stood back there by, it was a semi trailer, and on the platform there was two judges from Las Vegas and Joan Rivers. And Joan Rivers had seen Tish Tanner perform at the Forum in Phoenix, Arizona, and she was funny and she was good, but Scotty Lockword or Miss Kitty from Colorado in terms if you were gonna judge a contest: applause, money, and money, personality, she had back up dancers that did "little bitty pissant country place," and she just simply won hands down. And Joan Rivers insisted and they argued and said "I don't know what you want to do. I've never hear of this so and so." She just went out and mouthed this Tish Tanners a real talent and finally the MCC guy said, "Well, if you feel that strongly then I'll change my vote." And so they made Tish Tanner Reno Miss Gay Rodeo. And of course I heard it, I acted I was some stupid idiot. There I was within ten feet of them with my hat down like I was asleep. And we were disappointed in that, and then we had thirty rodeo contests we had a guy named Tony Jordonelle who came in first in two events and he came in second in two events and he came in three in like three events, and then we had a guy from Dallas, Texas, who had entered in the rodeo two or three years before who came in first event and second in two events and third in no other events and he was awarded the All Around Cowboy and it was like, this. (Subjects: community) And we confronted Phil Ragsdale and he said I don't know what you're complaining about and he said, "It's basically your rodeo. You've basiclly taken it over, but you had fun everyone had fun and that's what you're trying to do." And so Colorado retired from there and they went to the basement of Charlie's and the rodeo committee, they argued, and compromised and essentially set up what the rule book is now, most of the rules have been refined and so on but the basis of the entire rodeo rulebook was worked out by CGRA on a committee of about twelve people, men and women, Johnny Van Ormen and Casey Jackson were right in the middle of it writing the rules and so, we went back in 1980..., we presented the rules to them. Well, first of all we decided to do our own rodeo, and we went by those rules, everybody understand and we had like forty contestants I think, and we made a thousand dollars, we didn't have as many people as we wanted out there but we made a thousand dollars and we promtly gave it to charity. With that we sort of got the attention and the start of acceptance by the rest of the gay community, which had just sort of marked us off of that but when we gave a thousand dollars to the community centers and that sort of opened up doors for us and after that, as I put in my thing, the rest is history because the doors were opening and we went on to form IGRA out of Colorado but you know almost the rest of the story. What was the biggest differences in the feeling of the rodeo between Reno and once you started having more and more rodeos all around? Well, when Reno rodeo was going on, we had one gay rodeo in the country so if you wanted to meet with all your friends, you could schedule that weekend and you went to Reno. So from '76 to '82 Reno had no competition. Starting in '83 you could go to Denver, or you could go to Denver but Denver had no other big metropolitan area around it, it's sort of an island into itself, where Reno had San Francisco and California to draw from. So Colorado's rodeo started off smaller, but Reno's rodeo, but between IRS and the Clark County supervisors they got the Reno closed, and 1984 was their last rodeo. And so Colorado, we tried to convince Texas cause we thought they'd have a bigger rodeo but Texas wanted Colorado to try it first. Well the Texans came up and supported the first rodeo majorly, in fact if they woundn't have, I'm not sure the balloon would have actually lifted. And so, so in that first, once they did that first rodeo in 19.... In june of '83 we held the second rodeo outside of Reno in June of 1984 and then the third gay rodeo held outside of rodeo was held in Simonton, Texas, which was about an hour outside of Houston. Simonton, Texas, there was 5,000 people showed up to it and the town was only 1,200 people so it just inundated the town, I mean it was fun but it was out of control. But the Texans then realized that they had something and so, California announced that they would do their first rodeo in March of 1985 and Arizona, by that time I had moved to Arizona and we had our first Rodeo in January of '86. And did you move to Arizona to open another Charlie's?(Subjects: jobs) Yes.(Subjects: jobs) And did that go well?(Subjects: jobs) There was a lot of drama, the neighborhood hated me, they hated...well, it was right in the middle of the AIDs crisis. 1984 right, right when everybody was scared to death, we had a hearing in order to get my liquor license and there was a blind man that lived in a neighborhood and he had to cross a street in which there were 57,000 cars that went up and down that street per day, alright its called 7th avenue. And he could navigate across that to get to the Safeway but he testified that he will no longer go to the Safeway and shop he has to have his daughter come because he's afraid he will accidently wander into Charlie's and get AIDS. And he was like 80 years old or so, it was hysteria, it was hysteria. So, I bought, I bought a corporate, I did the same thing that I did down in Denver, and that is, I bought a corporation that had a lease and had a liquor license already that was bankrupt, and then opened up under that and they couldn't do anything.(Subjects: jobs, homophobia) What other acts of homophobia has Charlie's suffered through?(Subjects: jobs, homophobia) First of all homophobia is as insidious now as sexism would be. And so the fact is you'll never know, you'll never know. But, there are very, there are various things, sometimes I'm not certain whether it's not homophobia or just simply fear of AIDs cause what happened in the 80s and the early 90s was...I think that somebody was straight and they had AIDS they would probably have been treated the same way if they were gay and they had AIDS so it's hard to really know. We raised 5,000 dollors, Miss Kitty our representative to go to Reno gay rodeo, we raised 5,000 dollors so we had a check made out from us to the Muscular Distrophy Association, and so we went, we went down to their anual fundraiser to present it to them. And they refused to accept it. MDA refused to accept in 1984 a check from the Colorado Gay Rodeo Association. So, and the same thing happened...we thought, I said it wouldn't work but, you know, we lived by voting system you know, and if fourteen vote yes and twelve vote no, the answer is yes. So somebody voted to, made the motion to donate a thousand dollars to the Arizona Humane Society and they sent the check back. And so that, so that's, and of course there was the first Jerry Springer show in which they, he was supposed to have been...we were encouraged to go ahead and use Springer because he was supposedly friendly, gay friendly and I think he was and is, however he's a bit, he wanted rating so he got the straight people in there and they argued back and forth and it was a disaster. [Phone beeps] Somebody else that wants to talk to me again, I'll talk to them in a second. So that was another classic case in rodeo. As far as Charlie's is concerned, somebody went through the neighborhood and collected 680 some signatures, urging the council, the councilmen to vote against. But I'm a politician, at least I used to be. And I went to Pheonix and I new nobody on that council, and when the vote came it was still five to four. I lost, but the fact that I got four votes was an eye-opener to the council, so I closed down and I reopened up about a month later at another location and I didn't get any...there wasn't a single council person that voted aginst me the second time. So.(Subjects: jobs, homophobia) When did you open your other locations?(Subjects: jobs) Well, I tried to open up a California; I love California; I wanted to be in business in California. But through a fluke of five different attempts, some of them were very embarrassing. I mean I had a contract for 50% down for a bar in Silver Lake and, it was, and they were gonna carry the other 50% and they sent me to a credit reporter. Well, they ordered a credit report and on the credit report it showed I owed...there was a judgment against me for $75,000, and I said to them, "It's a mistake," and the real estate agent, even my own real estate agent was extremely arrogant and said, "You told me this. You told me that you had clean credit. You told me this you told me that. I can't waste my time." I said, "It's a mistake, it's a mistake." I could have screamed and yelled at them but I didn't. I said, "It's a mistake." So I went back and I got it erased off and I said, "How did you do this?" And of course it belonged to some other King and not to me and they issued me a letter which was nice it took me three weeks to do. And back out to California and the real estate man wouldn't even talk to me and the owners of the bar sold it to someone else. I was at the closing table with a bar in San Diego and the silent partner I didn't know anything about walked into the closing and said I just sold my townhouse for $60,000, so I have enough money and were gonna remodel and keep it open. (Subjects: jobs) And so there was a nice San Diego, I said in the council, in the aldermens, in San Diego, right where Kickers opened up cause I liked the location and I wanted it, and I made my presentation about Denever and Pheonix and he says, "That sounds good but your gonna have to find another location because I garuntee you that not even God could get a dance permit in that location." So I took him for his word and, of course, west coast production company partner opened up the...now they did have to set there for eighteen months without dancing, they had a bar without dancing. So I still love Califonia, meanwhile an aldermen came in from Chicago and said, "I love this. We need this, if you just come to Chicago belive me I know how to grease the wheels." So I went to Chicago and I tested it and talked to so and so and he greased the wheels I had a late-night-hour permit, I had everything there wasn't a thing that he promised that he didn't deliver so I have a bar in Chicago. It's your I don't know maybe it was meant to be I don't know. And you were the... only founding member that's still around, is that correct, of IGRA? Well in...during the grand opening on November 9th, 1984, there were four people that met in the kitchen of Charlie's, Al Bell from California who would be the trustee, Terry Clark from Texas would be a trustee, myself from Arizona who would be a trustee, and Wayne Jakino who would serve initially as a trustee even though he would become president. We're the ones that set up the Janurary convention the pre-convention what do you call, it's the, it wasn't a true convention because it was the convention that set up the rules for the convention, alright. So I consider those four the founders. Now there are people, I had a lover named Kenny Koonitz, who followed along with me, but he wasn't in the kitchen, but he was at the convention and Kenny Koonitz is still around so could be that he's a founding. Al Bell's lover, Al Bell's dead and Al Bell's lover dead. Wayne Jakino's dead. Terry Clark and Walter they both died, so the only possible one that could claim that they're a founder was my lover at the time but he didn'... so probably most people would agree I'm the only remaining founder. And did you have leadership positions like president or treasurer through the years? I've been a trustee for eleven of those years, the trustee from Arizonia for ten years and a trustee from Illinois for one years. And chairmen, the initial chairman for the initial board of trustees and served as chairman for two years. And in the period of those two years, we, I learned that good people with good intentions can make some really silly decisions [laughs]. And so it was sort of a relief when we reorganized that part of IGRA, because initially the trustees did't trust anybody with anything, so we got in the middle of any dispute between contests, any disputes between judges, between all that stuff. And in the third convention we switched over to a rodeo protest committee with one trustee being in charge and changed it around to a more logical position and that was about the time that I moved out from being chairmen of the trustees. And, so I was the auditor, and I was acting treasurer for two times when Eddie Klein ended, I took care of the books until we got Jeffrey Coon in and then when he screwed up I took care of the books for another six months until we got David Hill, but I was never official treasure but I was acting treasurer. Have you ever compete in the rodeo? I've never competed in any of the official rodeos. Is there- They started out when I was forty, and the last thing I needed to run Charlie's Denver and Phoenix was to have broken bones. So, no, I had to live vicariously that were riding. Now I had a horse, Ken and I had two horses, we had a pair of Colorado, we had two horses. I remember one of them, her name was Lady something and we renamed her to First Lady and down...it was interesting cause down in Arizona, I had a horse for about a year and his name was Butch [laughs] but he was half thoroughbred, and Lee Cattleson wanted him and I couldn't, and I had a horse but I was paying somebody to ride the horse because I was too busy going back and forth between Denver and trying to hold things down. Becauase when Wayne took over he made some really silly decisions so I had to come back and take over Charlie's, actually twice. But one main time I had to come up for five months to take over Charlie's but, and so, so I haven't owned a horse since 1988. But you still come to them to watch?(Subjects: highlight) Oh yes. Although I am still considered a rebel. And I'm also considered a... Almost everybody has an opinion about me cause I've been around for a long time. Some people suspect that I'm really in gay rodeo for profit motive, others think I'm in gay rodeo because, I'm more interested in gay rodeo because I've been trying to spearhead balancing out rodeo which has been a constant tug. There were two things, in gay rodeo, since we started in Colorado: we got Texas interested and we got California interested, so here was Wayne in Colorado and I was Arizona. Well Texas would thow a fundraiser and they could raise $40,000 just like that, California would have a fundraiser and raise $25,000, and we would do a fundraiser and it was wonderful if we could raise $2,400. So I convinced Texas and California to rule IGRA on what I would call the senatorial basis, in other words it didn't make any difference how many people were in your state or how big your organization was or how much money, each organization had the same. That was a fatal mistake in my opinion, now other people think that is great. People from smaller associations who get five votes and get their opinions and so on. But rodeo producing states have had to live with that rule. It was our intention, to set up the thirteen events, and set up a convention to adjust to the market every year. (Subjects: highlight) But for some reason, we set up the thirteen events, and they're like, and to those people who come to convention they're like the ten commandments carved in stone and they can't be changed. And so in my opinion, gay rodeo, many of the people's thought proceses is stuck in the latter part of the twentieth century and our market has moved on and gay rodeo hasn't. And so, but because it would, because in order to adjust to the new market you have to discard some of the things you really love, we don't have the political will to do that. And so because of that, I'm really happy that Denver and Phoenix--Well, first of all, there is a core in Denver that's gonna keep Denver strong for the next ten years. And as long as I'm alive, Phoenix will be strong. There is a core in Texas that will keep Texas strong. California has been pretty iffy but it seems like they can all agree on Palm Springs. Palm Springs is a small rodeo but anyway it works. The other rodeos are hanging on by a thread. Albuquerque is never really profitable, Ohamaha is wayside, Wichita wayside, Oklahoma City is struggling, Detroit's out, Chicago hasn't had one in years, Minnesota tried one and lost their ass again, Calgary disbanded and I could go on, Florida used to have one, Washington D.C. used to have one, Atlanta had one, and so on. The problem with gay rodeo now is essentially we have not been providing enough incentive for what we consider classic rodeo events. And we're providing, instead we're providing incentives for what's the name for the people with the horses, people think that I hate horse people, I don't hate horse people it's just that I want to pay money to those events that are dying out that are considered classic, so because of that people think that I hate horse people. I love horse people, but we have hundreds of them, how many do we have riding steers? Six? Five? How many people riding bulls? Two? One? I mean if we were a horse show we oughta be the International Gay Horse Association. If we're a rodeo we should do something to encourage people to do rodeo events. So I'm putting my money where my mouth is and as David Lawson, the All Around cowboy from California put it, he said, "I'm a part of these people. That despite the prize money, I'm an FHP, one of those fabulous horse people." And, of course, I knew that was a slap against me because I am doing added money for roughstock. But I can't...since there's not the political will to try to adjust, these young people, these millennial young people they come to a gay rodeo and they'll sit for five hours watching these horse events, and they said that's nice but next year are they gonna pay to come in? Right, but if we had bull riders and steer riders they would come back because it's a sporting event where somebody wins and somebody loses. And why do you think that a lot of people mention the membership itself is getting older, what needs to happen to draw not just young people to come watch but to participate?(Subjects: igra) We have to change the ten commandments. To skew them toward the people who would enter, alright. And we really have to skew it for the following reason, in 1981 gay rodeo was first getting formed we had 3.6 million farms, family-owned farms and rancheses in the united states, in 2015 according to Successful Farming, the magazine, we have 595,000 alright. Of those, half of them are owned by people who are fifty years old or older, so they're not having kids. So we have maybe a quarter of a million family farms, from Vermont to San Diego alright. So if one out of ten, and I think it's more out of twelve, or one out of fifteen, but if one out of ten is gay, we don't really have a chance. So that means we have to provide enough incentive for those dreamers that have grown up in the city, for those dreamers to go ahead and take a chance and learn. And if we don't do that, we're not gonna have a rodeo. But as I was introduced, I'm also by those people I'm called a visionary, the way you survive is project out how are things gonna be ten years from now and then make your adjustments now. You don't have a curve in the road like this and come up on it eighty miles and hour, and say, "Oh, jeez," and come flying off, you come up to the curve and slow up and make adjustments, you make adjustments for the new direction. (Subjects: igra) And do you think, what do you, hope for the future of the association?(Subjects: igra) I hope that, I hope that we're able to reach out to the one community in which there are young cowboys still coming out, which is the Hispanic heritage and we're able to adjust our events enough that they feel like they're included. What CGRA is doing is absolutely wonderful, but the problem is that nobody on the gay rodeo circuit is thinking about adjusting any of their rules in order to really incorporate them. They're only thinking in terms of: "You're welcome, by the way here are the rules," and stamp the rules on you. And so, we've always, I mean even back in the very early days we've always had 20 to 25% of our contestants that were Hispanic but that were almost all second generation or third generation, we didn't have people that spoke English as their second language(Subjects: igra) And as a country western nightclub owner are you still pulling people, in young people, in to both country western and specifically gay bar, do you still have the same-(Subjects: jobs) No(Subjects: jobs) enthusiasm?(Subjects: jobs) I have enthusiasm but it's because I changed the music over to dance music cause I have to be relevant to the twenty-one to thrity year olds cause if I'm not those are the ones that are out looking, well maybe twenty-one to thirty-five, they're the ones that are out looking. They are the ones that are going out five nights a week cause they're the ones that are producing hormones fast, alright and they can't help it, I mean that's the way mother nature made us. And so if you go to the graduating class in Colorado high school graduating class in Arizona, I don't care even if it's a real rich town if you go to that class it's gonna be 80% Hispanic, that means that if you want to be relavent you have to get 10% of the 80% and not 10% of the 20%, alright. People say that I'm a Mexican lover and I have a house in Mexico and so on. And, yes, I am but I don't love Mexicans more than I love Americans. I love them equally. After all, it's just that if you're in business and you don't undersatnd how your markets changing, a bunch of people drying on the vine just ask the VFW or the Elks Club, have you ever heard of the Odd Fellows, well do you ever hear of the anymore? Kiwanis is almost dissapeared. I mean how many people under age thirty-five will go to a Kiwanis Lunch in, I mean, I went to one of those and I was board even back, even fifty years ago you know? Put a tie on and go to Kiwanis and they were the best, they were better than Elks, and I don't know what all there is. They didn't adjust, they had their rules, they lived with their rules, they died with their rules, so.(Subjects: jobs) Well, I know you're a busy guy so I'll let you go but is there anything else you want to say about your storied history with the International Gay Rodeo Association? In retrospect, I have made, through gay rodeo, probably one-hundred excellent friends, half of which are dead now, maybe more than half of which are dead now. I've had friendship and love and acceptance through gay rodeo that I could never have imagined when I came out. And I consider myself extremely lucky to have been a part of it, and no matter what my motives were, which I'm not really clear at age 76, when you're 46 you know everything, by the time you're 76 you're not as sure as you used to be, but whatever my motives were, I think I'm extremely lucky to have been a part of it, I will not do a John Beck and get tears in my eyes. Thank You

Lorry King Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Lorry King. It's November 20th, 2016 and we're at the International Gay Rodeo Association Annual Convention. So can you tell me about where you grew up? I was born in Hawaii but I grew up in Southern California. Can I ask when you were born? 1948 And did you live on a ranch or in town? I grew up in the city in Los Angeles but my family has a ranch to this day in the central part of California. And because my parents were divorced and I lived with my mom, she, during the summers, you know, she worked, and had to do something with us. And so she sent my brother and I to her cousin’s ranch. So I spent every summer from the ages of five to fifteen on her ranch. And so I had my own horse there. And my cousins, I have cousins there who are older than me who were in rodeo. Girls—so they were barrel racing only. But I you know learned to milk cows and cause it was a dairy farm too and take care of the horses and all that stuff.(Subjects: parents, family, childhood) And when you would go out there for the summers I mean did you go until you were 18? I went regularly every summer from five to fifteen and then after that it was just from time to time.(Subjects: childhood) And did you do any equestrian events or barrel racing yourself at the high school?(Subjects: events) No, I didn't. I was just there in the summers. So I would attend the state, the county fair was always held in that city so I always attended. Or this close by town, she lived out in the country, so I would attend the local that rodeo every year. Like I said, my cousins, my girl cousins, were barrel racers so I learned from them and attended things that they were in. But I never competed myself.(Subjects: events, family, childhood) Were you interested in competing? I probably would have been if there was something available to me but it just never came up while I was there.(Subjects: events) And what did you do after high school? I went to college and I got a degree in Mexican American studies with a minor in Spanish. I lived in Mexico for a while. I became a Vista Volunteer which is like the domestic Peace Corp. I worked on the border and then I joined, I started working with the federal government as a social worker in a program for the disabled and elderly.(Subjects: jobs) And where do you live now? Now I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. So how do you identify as far as sexuality? Heterosexual. And are you married?(Subjects: family) I'm married. Forty years.(Subjects: family) Wow. How did you meet your spouse?(Subjects: family) We lived in the same dorm in college.(Subjects: family) Do you have children?(Subjects: family) No(Subjects: family) How did you become involved with gay rodeo? I had, when I was working, I had a…my sort of best friend in the office was a gay man. And my husband was working nights and so, you know, I would go home to an empty house every night, not having children. And my friend said, “You know, there's this country western bar in town, would you be interested in learning dance, you know, country, line dance and country western couples dance?” And I said, “Oh, that sounds like fun. I'll go with you.” So we started going there one day a week and taking lessons, learning to dance, and we met people. We had a lot of fun. And then he said, “Did you know that there's a gay country western bar in town?” I said, “No, never knew that.” And he said, “Well, would you feel funny going to a gay bar?” And I said, “No, I'm going with you and I would be okay.” He said, “Because they give lessons on a different day of the week.” So we started going there and I realized there was some of the same people there from that other bar, some straight and some gay. And so we started going two nights a week. (Subjects: jobs, getting started) And pretty soon he said, “Do you know there is such a thing of gay rodeo?” And he knew I knew about rodeo, and I said, “No, didn't know that either.” He said, “Well there's going to be one in LA the next weekend would you be interested in going.” So I said, “Okay sure that'd be fun.” So we went and it was so much fun and when I found out there was a charitable aspect that appealed to me and so, just sort of couple things happened at the same time. He and I started going to gay rodeos, and we felt like well we should volunteer, we shouldn't just go and sit in the stands, so we started doing that. And at the same time, one of the people I danced with at both of the bars, a gay man whose profession was a dance instructor, he had been competing in different kinds of competitions, but one of the parts of competition that he had been competing was gay rodeo dance. And the partner that he had been competition with decided she didn't want to do it anymore, so he had asked me to be his partner. So now I was competing at dances as well as volunteering. (Subjects: events) And you know this as well as anybody, if you're a volunteer and you're have any responsibility, you know, you show up on time, you do your job, and, you know, are a good volunteer then you get asked to volunteer more. And then pretty soon you get asked to do more and more and, you know, next thing I knew it's like, “Well would you chair this committee? Would you do this?” So I sort of got sucked in, first to the Los Angeles chapter of the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association, which is California's member association. And then my dance partner and I started driving out to Palm Springs which was about a forty-five minute drive from where we lived—‘cause we lived east of LA—because they had a really good dance club on a different night of the week. So we would drive out there every Sunday night and we would dance. And we would see a lot of people who were members of the Los Angeles chapter of the Gay Rodeo Association but they started saying you know that's too far away and it doesn't really address our needs and we need to form a chapter out here in Palm Springs and so that happened. And I was one of the seven founding members of that chapter, it was called the Greater Palm Springs Chapter because it included two counties and so I became an officer of that board. (Subjects: events) And then I retired and moved to Las Vegas and the assistant rodeo director in Las Vegas had heard from the president of the Palm Springs chapter they were friends and he said, “Oh one of our members is moving to Vegas you really need to snap her up ‘cause she does a good job.” And so I was approached, “Well would you join the Nevada Gay Rodeo Association?” And I said, “Sure, I always intended on doing that.” Anyways and so I did. And within a year or so I was on their board. So it’s just grown from there really. You know, being elected to different positions and appointed to different positions and working behind the scenes on rodeos, I've never competed, never really felt interested in competing, but production: being assistant rodeo director; being the dance chair; being the rodeo secretary; all that sort of stuff. So how many years now have you been actively involved? So I think it's probably eighteen-ish years. So late 1990s. Yeah. Did your spouse ever get involved with you or was it pretty much just an interest of yours?(Subjects: family) Yeah, he never really was that interested. He, strangely enough, was born in Texas. And you would think…but he was born in El Paso and raised in Dallas and he's just an urban guy and isn't interested in riding, isn't interested in rodeo at all. He came to the Palm Springs rodeo, finals rodeo, because the finals rodeo is put on by the Palm Springs chapter and I was a big part of that and he wanted to support me in that and then he came to the Laughlin finals rodeo because I was the Grand Marshall and he wanted to see me and take pictures and everything. And he came to all my dance competitions. Which was interesting because they were all held in gay bars and for a straight man that's a hard thing, especially this was in 2000 and 2001, and you know a lot of things have changed since then. But he has totally embraced a lot of friends that I've made and we've traveled with them, we go to each other’s homes and so, I mean he absolutely never had any kind of a problem with “gay,” so to speak. I grew up, one of my cousins, my barrel racing cousins, is a lesbian. And my family always supported her and her girlfriends and there was never any problems in our family about it. So I grew up not having any issues, you know, and then and my husband, although he grew up in a pretty conservative Texas family, for whatever reason none of that was imbued in him. Maybe because he went to school—college—in California you know, he really has never had any prejudices or any problems whatsoever. It just isn't something he is interested in.(Subjects: family, homophobia) Did you always feel welcomed as a straight woman? I did, but, you know, to this day a lot of people don't even realize I'm straight. Just because they don't expect it. They don't—if someone is here, you kind of expect that they are gay, we aren't all. In our, in Nevada, for instance, we have quite a few contestants that are straight women. They came in through barrel racing which is a very “girl thing” sort of still. And as you heard in the convention, one of our new members of TGRA who brought a new event to us, she's a straight women and there's a couple of others in the audience and men as well. So, there aren't that many of us, but I think it's just you just kind of assume: it's a gay organization and so she must be gay. So along the line people get to know you and realize, “Oh you're straight? Oh I never knew that!” But no one has ever said, “Oh I never knew that,” and walked away from me, you know what I mean. There's never been…I never felt any prejudices whatsoever against me at all or any feeling that, “Oh well she doesn't understand.” Or, “She can't do the job.” Nothing like that, ever.(Subjects: community) Do you think there's more straight women than straight men? Yes, I do. Why do you think that is? I think because of the contestant base, the barrel racing brings in the straight women.(Subjects: events) That's really interesting. As a straight person in a gay sports organization do you think you have a good or a different perspective on potential discrimination people face? Do you hear comments from other straight people out in the world that you kind of want to protect people from?(Subjects: homophobia) Yes, in fact I tend not to say…I don't broadcast to people. There are a lot of people who know I'm involved in rodeo, and when I just say It's a charitable rodeo organization and I don't say “gay” ‘cause I don't, even if it's someone I know doesn't really have any kind of a prejudices, I just don't want to get into it. I don't want have to explain myself. I don't want to have to…Recently, for instance, in the Las Vegas newspaper the South Point Hotel and Casino and Arena, which is where we've had finals the last two years, every week they have a column, an add, where they list all the upcoming events in their arena. And so of course World Gay Rodeo Finals is listed. And I take an exercise class three times a week and one of the ladies in the class, just chit-chatting, I didn't bring it up, she said, “Did you know notice in the South Point list that there's a gay rodeo coming to town.” And I said, “Yes, I did.” “Well, I wonder why they need their own rodeo?” And she wasn't saying anything bad, she just honestly said, “I wonder?” And I so I said, “Well I think it's because they're not welcome in the straight rodeo, the PRCA rodeo, or the straight rodeos. They don't feel welcome there and this is a place where they can feel safe and welcome.” And she said, “Well that makes sense.” And that was the end of the conversation. She was fine. And I had that same conversation almost word for word with some very very good friends. My oldest friend, we've been friends since we were eleven years old, she lived in San Diego. When I was in San Diego for the rodeo, I said, “Okay, well, after the rodeo let me…” I stopped by and spent the night and visited with her. And at dinner her husband said, “Okay explain to me why is there a gay rodeo?” Exact same conversation and again I explained it and they understood.(Subjects: homophobia, highlight) Do you think, do you think there's a perceptible shift in American culture in accepting gay people and gay lifestyles? Absolutely. Absolutely, you know, when I grew up, there just…you just never…Well, for instance, the man that I was good friends with where I worked, when he came to work, he was not out and he and I tended to…we just happened to be where we had to work very closely together and became good friends. And so one day, he told me and he said, “Because I feel there wouldn't be any problem with you,” but he said, “Keep my secret. Don't tell anyone else in the office.” And this was in maybe, you know, ‘93 or ‘94 and he said, “You know, my last job I was open and I was treated horribly and I don't want that to happen again.” But by the time I retired from that job and he was still there, which was 2001, he was open and everyone in the office knew. And part of it might have been they had all gotten to know him. They knew him first as just a coworker and liked him and then they found out he was gay. If he had walked in gay, I don't know the difference. But the world has certainly changed. You know, it doesn't…you almost don't even see…even though there plenty of gay bars around, you see also bars that are not identified with plenty of gay people in it. A good friend of mine from Nevada, his company transferred him, he lives in northern California now in Santa Rosa, and I said to him, “Well have you found some gay bars in your area, places to go?” And he said, “You know what, there aren't any gay bars.” But he said, “Doesn't matter,” he said, “Any bar that I go to there's no problem. I see gay couples there and no one giving them any issues at all.” And the whole gay marriage, I mean that's just so monumental.(Subjects: homphobia, comingout, community, highlight) As a straight women in the early ‘90s not only being told by a close friend but also circulating in gay bars and seeing people what did it feel like to sort of have that responsibility? To have people secrets and make sure that you didn't accidentally bring harm to someone? What did that feel like to you then? Hmm, I don't, I don't know, I mean I just I knew from the news and from reading things how badly people could be treated. So I was just something that I knew I would never betray.(Subjects: homophobia) Were you ever with someone when a homophobic attack happened or anything?(Subjects: homophobia) No.(Subjects: homophobia) And you said particularly dance brought you in. As IGRA has developed, it seems like the dance part has sort of drifted away do you think that makes it harder for people to join or…?(Subjects: events) Well, it certainly excludes a group that we could get to join but I think part of it too is country western dance in the United States has declined. That whole urban cowboy movie thing really pumped it up. For instance the bar that I started going to was enormous and really really popular but even before or I guess about the time I moved away, it had changed. It wasn't even country anymore, ‘cause it didn't have the clientele anymore, and that was a straight bar. It's just, in general, in the United States there isn't as big an emphasis on country western dance or isn't as much interest in it as there used to be.(Subjects: events) Why do you think that is? I don't know. It was so sort of a fad, you know. And it's just like other things. Now, I think because of the shows on TV, ballroom dancing is kind of a fad. And maybe that'll go away, too. So there was a proposal for a new dance event do you think that will that'll help try to bring in people who might still be members of those of those hardcore square dancing, clogging, line dancing groups and try to bring them back into the sphere of gay rodeo?(Subjects: events) I hope so. I hope that and I think that's what the chair wants to do is use that not only as a great dance event but to use it as a platform to show… And, you know, I would hope that there would be some videos on the wall of the rodeo and plenty of information around and people wearing shirts that identify them. And I think it would be any IGRA member’s…it would be there job almost to not only be there to dance but also to talk about who's putting it on and, “You know you might be interested in coming to one of our rodeos,” and kind of doing some recruitment.(Subjects: events, igra) Was there a particular moment when you were at a rodeo or at a dance event where you were just like, “This is this is a place I want to be I want to invest, obviously a lot of your time in?” Do you have a particular moment you remember where it was just it just sort of clicked? I think it was just early on when I heard of the charitable part of it. When I saw how much money was going out to various organizations and not just gay organizations, you know health organization and cancer organizations and women's groups, and Planned Parenthood and, you know, all kinds of things. That's what made me want to say okay, I wanted to give my time to something here's one that combines my interest in rodeo, my interest in dance, and my interest in charity. This is perfect and the fact that it happens to be gay doesn't really matter.(Subjects: highlight) And what do you think that means for I mean these are people who at times have been rejected by communities and yet they just keep giving, what do you think that says about the people who are involved in gay rodeo? It says a lot, about their heart. Yeah. Have you gotten a lot of personal support from people in the community? How would you characterize your sort of the environment of gay rodeo?(Subjects: community) Very definitely very welcoming. And, you know if I run for an office it's not like anyone ever says, “Oh well don't vote for her ‘cause she’s gay, I mean ‘cause she's straight ‘cause she can't represent us.” Never, never. I mean I think I've won every election I've run for. And actually I've been approached to do things that I didn't feel comfortable with. I've been approached to run for president and I keep telling them, I don't think that's appropriate for a straight person to be president of a gay organization. I've been approached to run for royalty. And the same thing I keep saying that's the face of the organization that's the PR arm and I don't think it's appropriate. So that tells me that that I'm welcomed.(Subjects: community, highlight) Do you still dance? I don't, I hurt my back and I can hardly do it anymore. Do you try to at least have some of the fun at after parties as much as you can? Yeah, I still, I mean, I don't drink and I don't smoke so I don't go to bars. And unfortunately in Las Vegas, it's not like in some other parts in the country, the bars you can still smoke, so I kind of I try to limit myself. But to a rodeo it's different. I always attend you know the events after the rodeo and the dances and the listening to the music and that sort of thing. And some of the initial friends that you started going to the events with and getting involved with are they still involved? Yes, yes, yeah. In fact, that friend of mine, the colleague from work, he is a certified official. That's really fantastic. Um, is there anything you want to say that I didn't directly ask you about? I don't think so. Thank you so much for sharing your perspective I feel like you know it's a unique place to be in, and I'm sure everyone really appreciates your support. Thank you. Thank you.

Ann Kinney Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I am here with Ann Kinney, it's September 11, 2016 and we are at the Rodeo on the River in Duncan Mills, California. Can I ask what year you were born? 1996, I mean 1961, sorry, there we go. Edit! 1961.(Subjects: childhood, ) And where were you born?(Subjects: childhood, ) Bowling Green, Ohio.(Subjects: childhood, ) Is that where you grew up?(Subjects: childhood, ) No. I was only there for about 3 years. My dad sold farm equipment so he would get transferred every 3 years. And we moved to Minnesota, and then about 3 years later we moved to Sacramento, and lived in town for 3 years and then they bought 40 acres. 40 acre ranch in Harold, California and so I from about age 9 to 18 I grew up there.(Subjects: childhood, family, ) And you said there was about 40 acres. Did they do cattle or farming?(Subjects: family, ) Yeah and we tried our hand at raising some dairy calves and moved on to angus beef.(Subjects: family, ) Did you work on the farm pretty consistently?(Subjects: childhood, ) Oh yeah. Yeah. I had irrigation to do and chores to do before I went to school and when I got home. We had a lot of horses, did a lot of horseback riding and had a pony cart for my little pony. All of my friends and I would tear around the countryside on that.(Subjects: childhood, family, ) Did you have siblings?(Subjects: family, ) I have a brother who's almost 3 years older than me, and I have an older sister who is about 13 years older than me.(Subjects: family, ) And when did you first come across the gay rodeo? Well my first gay rodeo I went to was when I was living in Dallas, Texas. And went down to the Houston rodeo, and didn't realize then that I could be in it. And then it was '96. 1996 was the year I first got started in the rodeo. And had you done any rodeoing before that? No, none whatsoever. Did some roping on the ranch but other than that, never. I always wanted to try my hand at bronc riding. That was a thing I had a passion about for some reason, so that's what I was mainly focused on getting in to. Had you ever gone and watched a lot of rodeos growing up?(Subjects: childhood, ) Oh yeah, went to a lot of rodeos. I had one birthday when I was a teenager that my dad said for your birthday present we're going to go to the Del Rodeo and Comanche Rodeo and all these so every weekend we were going to a rodeo, so that was pretty cool.(Subjects: childhood, ) And why were you living in Texas? What had taken you to Texas? Had some friends that were going, and I, you know, was pretty young out of high school and just thought why not. So I went to Texas and lived there, I think, about 4 years I lived there. So after you saw gay rodeo were you pretty hooked? Well like I said I didn't give it much thought when I went to that rodeo 'cause I wasn't really thinking, "I could be in this, I could do this." I would have liked to have started then, 'cause that was probably 1983. I would have liked to have started then. It would have been a little easier on my body then. So that would have been great but like I said I didn't give it a second thought that I could actually be in it. When you went to your first one were you out at the time?(Subjects: comingout, ) Yeah. Oh yeah.(Subjects: comingout, ) Can I ask when you came out?(Subjects: comingout, ) Um, gee. I was probably at least 18, I knew I was gay when I was like 11, so before…well, actually before I was 18 because I was going out to bars that I had no business being in. So yeah, before I was 18.(Subjects: comingout, ) And did your family react well to that or was it a struggle for them?(Subjects: comingout, family, ) They kind of had denial issues about a lot of things. My parents were older. My mom was 42 when she gave birth to me, and she thought I could do no wrong or, anything that would disappoint her so…it wasn't really talked about…I had a little bit of a drinking issue and I've been clean and sober 26 years now. So even with that, there was denial that there was a problem. But probably in the '90s is when it really became more of an issue and at first my dad really had an issue with it. My mom just kind of went, you know, "it's okay, it's my baby" you know so. And then my dad got over it too. After my mom passed away my dad moved out to California and lived with me for a little over a year and he got a little okay with it.(Subjects: comingout, family, ) So you would have been in your 30s when you really started competing. How was getting into the sport at that age?(Subjects: injuries, ) As far as what? Physical fitness?(Subjects: injuries, ) Mhm.(Subjects: injuries, ) Well, we could always be more physically fit. I don't think I was in bad shape, but I could have been in a whole lot better shape to be doing what I was doing. And then, I think it was in 2000, at finals, that was the first year that I actually qualified in broncs for finals and went to Albuquerque. I made my ride on Saturday and, on Sunday, when I came off the bronc I came off on the left side and landed on my shoulder and I was sick. I had enlarged liver and spleen and had no business being there. So when I came off the bronc, I actually landed on my shoulder and split my spleen in half. I got up and walked out of the arena and I just had all this pain. I didn't know that was internal bleeding. I went over and watched a few more people ride through the re-rides and then when I went over to the other side to pack up my gear. It was Chuck Browning or…anyways I started getting faint, dizzy, and [Chuck] asked me if I needed a medic and I said I need something because I started feeling like I was going to pass out because I didn't realize I was bleeding internally. I spent at least a week in Albuquerque in a hospital. I had to get surgery and get completely cut open and get my spleen removed, so that was exciting. Didn't stop me—that was exciting.(Subjects: injuries, ) Have you had other injuries since then?(Subjects: injuries, ) Not too many, I don't think. I've had some bad bruises. I don't break real easy so that's pretty good. And actually getting my spleen out helped a lot of my health issues so, I don't know what was going on there, but I mean I've been banged up pretty good but nothing…nothing too bad. Nothing broken--we'll put it that way.(Subjects: injuries, ) So, as a woman was it ever frustrating that you couldn't bronc ride at mainstream rodeo?(Subjects: events, gender) I think that had I been younger, I would have been quite frustrated. Ssome of the women I know did ride 'cause there's the Women's Professional Rodeo Association and I know at least one woman who competed with us that also competed in that and it was always kind of my goal to ride as well as her. So, I always liked when she went out on her bronc first and I was like okay I'm going to do it like that. It really helped just, you know, when you watch something that's good and then you go okay that's how it's done. I think if I had been younger it would have been really frustrating, very, very much so. Because it was a lot of fun, and my mom asked me before she passed away to stop. And then after she passed away I started bull riding because she never said don't do that, so I started riding bulls. I didn't do that for very long actually, I don't even know if it was 2 years. So I did that for a little while just kind of to get a feel for it and see what it was like.(Subjects: events, family, ) Are you still competing?(Subjects: events, ) Up until about 5 years ago. I've been off work, I have a bad back and arthritis. I'm trying to get all that healed up, so I've done a little bit of calf roping on foot and some of the easier stuff. As far as any rough stock goes, I'd say those days are pretty well over. I just want to be able to ride my horses at home. I'll be happy doing that.(Subjects: events, ) And where do you live now? Up in Loma Rica, it's above Marysville. You mentioned earlier that you were married. Is your wife involved with the rodeo at all?(Subjects: family, ) Yes, yes, she actually loves it a lot. We have a long history, we actually were together in the beginning. She was 19 and I was 20, and because of my drinking problem that was on and off 3 times. She actually came to Dallas when I lived there, and then we moved back out here. Then, we were apart for probably 20 years and ended up getting back together. That was in 2008 and she jumped right in and she can throw the rope like she was born that way. She, like [in] her second rodeo, she won a buckle so that's really awesome.(Subjects: family, ) [Coughing] Excuse me. That's amazing. Mmhm. Do you guys travel to many of the rodeos now? No not for the last few years we haven't. We, well, one, I've been disabled and then she-both of us-got in a car wreck in June. Got hit by a guy who fell asleep at the wheel, so she's not here and probably next week she will be a timer--she's not going to do any roping or anything. And how did you get involved in the leadership of your local association in Sacramento? Cause somebody's gotta do it. You know it's too bad we don't get more participation, volunteers. We usually end up with a lot of volunteers but as far as year-round, some of the people who have been doing it a long time are kind of tired. I can't say that I've actually done a lot. I've volunteered here and there. I was the president one year, I think that was 2000, I don't know what year that was. Maybe 2009 or ’10, I don't know. We need more participation. A lot more people to get involved. We need some younger blood coming into the rodeo so that we can have some bronc riding at our rodeo again 'cause nobody's doing that anymore seems like, so it's very few and far in-between.(Subjects: igra, ) Yeah why do you think that it's such a challenge to get younger people involved?(Subjects: igra, ) I really don't know and I would like to figure that out. It's a rough sport, so I think that if you don't have it some sort of…[if] you're not an adrenaline junky or have some kind of country or farm life in your blood...I don't know. Maybe it's like me, I went to my first rodeo in ‘83 or ‘84 and didn't even realize I could be in it. I think more people need to know they can participate whether they have a horse or not. And really go out and have a good time, you know.(Subjects: igra, ) What are some of the changes you've seen happen from the late '90s ‘til now? I think just people getting older. We need some young blood coming in. 'Cause all the people here at this rodeo, the comradery between us is just amazing. And it's been great being friends with them on Facebook and getting to know them better, 'cause we don't always spend a lot of time visiting at rodeos. We spend more time working than playing, than visiting, you know, so that's been really nice too. Now as a woman in the association do you feel like it's pretty evenly split between the sexes or is it pretty heavily male-dominated? I think it's pretty even. There's a lot of women involved in it. I mean there's probably more men. I don't really know what the numbers are. I haven't really paid attention. There are a lot more men that like rough sports than women do, you know, so that would make a difference. Some of them try chute-dogging and wrestling a steer and go, “Oh God, no, I'm not doing that again.” Or bull riding and bronc riding and they get hurt real bad and go, “I'm not doing that again,” so yeah you know it's a rough sport. Even barrel racing and flag racing, if a horse goes down or something like that I've seen people get hurt pretty bad—so yeah you've got to be up for the challenge.(Subjects: events, injuries, ) When you were competing and winning, were you able to bring home much prize money? No. No but then again I've never had a horse that I used in rodeo. I have horses at home now and it's kind of like a "they're ready and I’m not" sort of a thing. So, I've never really gone out for all around cowgirl or anything like that. With bronc riding, when I was mainly doing bronc riding, and chute-dogging and calf-roping, I think the first time I went bronc riding I took home twenty dollars. You know, it wasn't much. If they don't have an added purse of money then you're you know...If there are less contestants in an added event then there's less purse money to take home. So the event, my favorite, always had just you are lucky to have 6 people so you know.(Subjects: events, ) Were you ever witness to any sort of displays of homophobia at a gay rodeo?(Subjects: homophobia, ) No, more so the PETA people, witnessed that…them protesting outside of our rodeos but, not too much usually. The people that come to the rodeo...I've never seen anyone protest, let’s put it that way. The people who show up are pretty open to it.(Subjects: homophobia, peta, ) What about at mainstream rodeos? Any comments you've received or anything like that?(Subjects: homophobia, ) You mean straight rodeos? No, I haven't. I go to them and watch them, but I haven't been in them. I think probably the one person...there was a stock contractor, his son, and I wasn't there, I can't tell you exactly what was said, but I heard that he made comments about the gay rodeo thing. Yeah, you know it happens.(Subjects: homophobia, ) Do you think that that sort of homophobia in general is dissipating since the overturn of DOMA and legalization of gay marriage and all of that?(Subjects: homophobia, ) No, I actually I've been paying a lot more attention to political stuff as of late and I think there is probably a lot more of it actually. But we don't need to get into that. You don't want all my opinions on all of that.(Subjects: homophobia, ) Well I probably do, but I don't make you I won't make you share.(Subjects: homophobia, ) We'll talk about it when we we're off the tape. [Laughs](Subjects: homophobia, ) Well, what really…was it mainly the ability to compete that drew you to gay rodeo or was it a sense of community? What was it that really drew you in and kept you here for so long?(Subjects: cowperson, ) Uh, because I've always been a cowgirl. My dad, when I grew up, he was farming on a ranch in Wyoming and my mom was a cook and I had always seen pictures of them doing their cowboy stuff and if there's that one thing that you ever wanted to be in life, that's it for me. So then, coming into this and actually being able to participate in the even that I choose...it's a freedom to fulfill dreams. I'm one of those people that, when I'm old and sitting on the porch, I don't want to be going, "I wish I would have tried that." And I won't be, I will have tried it. If it's something that I wanted to do, I will have tried it. It's the community that keeps you coming back. All those people out there keep you coming back because it's a big family and we're all real tight. You just know that they're there for you.(Subjects: cowperson, community, highlight, ) What does it mean to you to to be a cowgirl?(Subjects: cowperson, ) Oh boy, I'd say the first word is down-to-earth, honesty. It's a…it's a noble-ism in a big way to me, because when it comes to history the one thing that I was always drawn to in American history is the frontier. Everything about it. The struggles, the hard work, and I think you either have that in your blood or you don't. I think most cowboys and cowgirls are willing to work hard for everything they want and they are going to be honest about it and probably pretty upfront about what they like and don't like so you don't have to second guess. There are a lot of things [but] that's probably one of my main things in life. What I don't like is meeting someone and if I don't feel like they aren't real, I turn around and walk away real fast. Whether it's from bad relationships or whatever, I know it, I had a lesson. I learned it. So, I just like that the people are good. They're good-hearted.(Subjects: cowperson, ) Some other people have pointed to you as a person who is willing to teach when someone maybe showed up with less experience that you throw in and help them learn and I was wondering if you could talk a little about those experiences of working with people who maybe didn't have as much experience with stock.(Subjects: mentor, ) The experience of working with them, let’s see...if I look back...I'm not sure where to go with that. But it really feels good. I mean, I had people do that for me. I didn't know how to ride a bronc. I had people who took the time to give me tips and show me things, sometimes after the fact. I preferred beforehand. So I've tried to give information beforehand so that they know what's coming. To see them succeed and, you know, jumping up and down I mean it's thrilling. You can't even--unless you've been on a bronc or a bull or something like that--with the adrenaline rush, you can't really explain it. I guess maybe if you’ve jumped out of a plane and you could compare it somehow like that, just what it does for them. Like Joe, he just really dug into it and loved it. He was good at it, and it felt good to be a part of that.(Subjects: mentor, ) And were there many people who showed up who were raised in urban areas and had no experience whatsoever who were willing to jump in and learn?(Subjects: mentor, ) Usually on a less extreme event you know, which sometimes you go please don't do that but…I had a friend who actually decided to get on broncs and we were actually talking at the time and she decided to do one handed instead of two handed and flew off and broke her arm pretty good, um those are the kind of things you don't want to see happen. Plus another young women that rode broncs and got bucked off over the top of the horse and the horses back feet went into her back and broke her back. I've seen some bad things happen. I think that people maybe don't realize how extreme it can be. So it's much preferred for me to like yesterday we had two of our friends at our hose and we were teaching them how to work. We were practicing how to rope and calf roping--it's good though to, you know, watch them. To pick up the rope and be struggling and struggling and then all the sudden you seem them putting the rope back together and make a loop and know what they are doing. Yeah, I do love to teach and it doesn't really matter what it is--rodeo or not--I like to teach.(Subjects: mentor, injuries, ) That's great. Is there any other experiences you've had with gay rodeo that you would like to talk about that I haven't asked you about yet? [Thinking]…Nothing really off the top of my head. It's fun, whether you're getting drug through the mud or the dirt. It's fun. Thank you for talking with me. You're welcome.

Danny Lee Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Danny Lee and it's May 12th, 2017 and we’re at the Hot Rodeo in Palm Springs. So if you could just tell me when you were born and where you were born? Sure yes I was born in 1952. And I was born in a small town in England called Anfield just outside of London. And did you grow up in England primarily? Did you family move around at all?(Subjects: family ) Well, yeah we were in England and a little bit in Scotland and we have to be careful there's a definite difference between the two. My father was in the Navy and so when he was abroad or posted away we would live with my grandparents up in Sandalund a ship-building area up in the North of England and then the rest of the time we lived in London. So I grew up sort of partly in the South and partly in the North.(Subjects: family, childhood) What parts of London did you live in? Mostly the North of London a place called Infield. But also a place called West Hendon which is mostly famous for its police college and Clapham Common. Was moving around so much pretty tough on you or were you pretty used to it? I think since I was born into it, you don't really know there's anything different. We didn't move a huge amount of the times but sufficient for me to know we were moving. It didn't bother me at all. But it probably reflects now that I'm what they call a rolling stone, I think. Home is where is wherever I happen to be and with the people that I want to be with--it's not a place, so I don't feel bad. I moved to Palm Springs last year from Albuquerque and I don't miss Albuquerque in the sense that it was my home for thirteen years, you know, it just is. So that was my childhood. We moved and I met knew people that was it.(Subjects: family, childhood) Was it easy to make friends in new places? Did you did you ever feel a sense of loss leaving you know a young friend at all? At this point, I don't remember. I suspect at the time I probably, I'm sure, I must have had special friends in each place…but they are all kind of a distant memory. Some people have this wonderfully sharp memory of their childhood, you know on their third birthday they unwrapped seventeen presents. I'm sure I had a 3rd birthday but I don't remember anything about it and that's the same with a lot of people they are transient in my life so they were probably important at the time but very few stick and the memory doesn't really stick. The events do. We went to a fair or whatever but not the particular person you know.(Subjects: childhood ) So can you describe sort of decades what was going on sort of nationally in England while you were growing up. Was it a pretty conservative time? A pretty…time of a protest? Well, the 50s weren’t a time of protest particularly, they were a time of consolation in England from the war. And my brother was six years older than me so he has a slightly different view of it. When I was born I did have a ration book as a baby. And because a couple of things were still on ration, particularly sugar. And then in '52, just a month after I was born, the King died. So, I lived under George VI for a whole month and then ‘cause the Queen was crowned in her coronation was in '53. And although I don't remember, being one years old, that was actually when we got our first TV. A nine inch round screen TV. And all the neighbors came around to watch the coronation on the TV. So I remember that first decade really about time of our empire. The British Empire was still there, you know it’s funny at school we had these world maps the geography and huge areas were colored pink and pink meant that it was a British territory and I was talking to somebody the other day. I realized by the time I left college there was almost nothing pink left on that map. So I lived through that whole transition over a couple of decades.(Subjects: childhood) Wow. Can I ask, you know, was your family sort of aware--with your father being in the military--aware of this decolonization that was happening was it something that was being discussed or did it just sort of happen?(Subjects: parents ) Typically those things weren't discussed at home, you know. Clearly he would have been aware in terms of being posted to different locations but it was never a subject. In fact, politics in general wasn't a subject. I came from a working class family and the concerns were more about rent and food and getting the kids clothed and to school. Very little about politics at all, very different to where we are at now I think. But then news sources were much scarcer so my father took two newspapers a day and an extra one on the Sundays and that is where our information came from.(Subjects: parents, childhood) And as you sort of grew into the 60s and 70s how did that change, especially as you were getting older? Were you a little bit more aware of what was happening in the world or…?(Subjects: childhood) Yes, I was. I think the single biggest event I remember was the moon landing. And everybody seems to know that. My father made me stay up and watch it on TV. So, yes, those major events--JFK--those kinds of things certainly stick in your mind, even though we were in England they impacted us. But in terms of government changes at home or international events, they weren't really terribly important to me then. It wasn't until I got into college where I became “radicalized,” I think that would be the modern term. I got interested in politics and very involved so.(Subjects: childhood) And where did you go to college? Teeside University, although back then it was called Teeside Politechnic. Politechnics were a fairly new idea back then and of course education to your bachelors was free in England. So I benefited very much from that system I was still the first person in our family to actually go to college and I discovered college was a great place for parties, beer, food. Oh and learning! There was learning involved too.(Subjects: family) Hopefully lots of learning. [Laughter] Well, yeah it turned out okay actually. I took the first computer science degree offered there and then my subsequent career was all in computers, so.(Subjects: jobs) Wow. Can you describe what that field looked like at the time…obviously it's much different now.(Subjects: jobs) It's about like how I viewed cavemen when I was a kid. “Oh my god they did that?” Our computers were rooms and rooms full of big whirring metal cabinets, these strange tapes shuttling backwards and forwards at very high speeds and all these cards, these cardboard punch cards, being fed into hoppers. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. And the operators trying to keep up. And then the line printers would shoot paper out at enormous speed, out of something that was the size of an entertainment unit. That was a printer, one printer. And the computer itself had as much intelligence now as gas pump. It…so I've seen extraordinary changes go on since then.(Subjects: jobs) And what were you particularly interested in? Were you an operator? Did you fix them? Did you just…?(Subjects: jobs) Oh well, the degree was in computer science so I covered all aspects of computers back then, which fortunately was a lot smaller science than it is now. SO it was a very broad course. When I left I started out both as an operator and a programmer. I actually had two jobs, one in the evening and one in the day, trying to save up for a deposit on a house. And so I worked…usually I worked sixteen hours a day. [Laughter] And I did that for a couple of years, just trying to get enough money together to start, you know, buying a house. And I did eventually manage to buy a tiny house. It was actually a triangular house. Back in England they would, the factory owners would, build homes for the factory workers in Victorian times. And if a road curved around a corner they just kept building all the houses were row houses so they are all stuck together they are called terraced houses in Britain. So the terraced houses would just build around a corner which mean the one right on the corner was triangular shaped, it was a wedge. And I bought one of those it was my very first house. And I bought it for about $20,000. So.(Subjects: jobs) And where was that at? That was in a place called Reading. Yeah, just outside of London. Used to be famous for its jail, amongst other things. That's where Oscar Wilde was in jail. And were you single at the time? Were you dating? Oh yes. I was single for a long long time actually. Partly because I wasn't apt and, you know, my sexual orientation really formed the first decade or so of my adult life. Because I had to be so careful. One of my early memories actually is I was--think I was fourteen--and there was a huge murder case in the papers and a guy called Ian Brady and his girlfriend murdered a number of children and buried them on the moles out on the grasslands. One of them was a seventeen-year-old and Brady had promised him sex. Took him to his home that he shared with Marley Hendez his girlfriend. And then he’d beaten the boy to death with an ax. And when that term when that came out in the news, I remember my father throwing this newspaper in front of me and I was about fourteen something like that and he said, “that's what happens to those people.” So you know that I would never have been able to come out to my father. I did come out to my brother. But then I immediately went back in and stayed in as I went to college and started working and you know it just wasn't safe for me until we got to the beginning of the 80s when I finally came out.(Subjects: homophobia, childhood, parents, family, comingout, highlight) And did you know at a very young age? Oh yes. Yes. I remember just being in the thrall…we had, after my father left the Navy, we ran a pub--a public house--and we had letting rooms, so we had bed and breakfast rooms. And there was this young guy, he must have been thirty-something and he was a construction worker. And I saw him one day in the hallway upstairs with no shirt and, oh my goodness, I could not take my eyes off of him. So yeah, I was probably about nine at the time. So yeah I knew what I liked. I didn't have a name for it.(Subjects: childhood) Did you ever have girlfriends as a way to pass or to cover? I had some very, well two, transient relationships. One for about a week or so and the other one for about six weeks, something like that. And I feel very sorry for both of those women. Because you know this was not good for them. Although one of them came out as a lesbian later so that was okay. It was yeah a difficult time for me because I couldn't be honest about myself but I also had this bad feeling about being dishonest with them. So it was a double sort of whammy, really. But yeah that was kind of then…I could you know mark the little check mark you know had girlfriend. It was not good.(Subjects: comingout) When you got to college was the culture at all a little more freer could you find other people or community at all? No, not really. I the college I was going to was in the North of England which is more conservative. If you turn England upside down it would be the equivalent of the social views of America. So the North is much more conservative than the South. So I was at college in the North and…no they did not… There was an organization that started called the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, CHE, and one guy came out as a member of CHE. And he was vilified and he wasn't attacked or anything but people didn't want to know him and I eventually got to know him and he realized that I was gay and so he was pushing me to sort of deal with it and in the end I ended the friendship because I just couldn't deal with it, you know, so. I remember him saying, "Well you're not ready now but at some point you will be," and that was that. So.(Subjects: homophobia, comingout, community) So what year about did you end up buying your little triangle house? 1976 So really you sort of really came up in the 60s and 70s. And obviously you know in the United States that was a time of considerable social unrest, civil rights, black power, anti-Vietnam, counterculture, um did you did England or Great Britain experience those sorts of social movements at the same time. I mean, would a college campus or a young worker have experienced that sort of upwelling of youthful rebellion? So college campus were very active politically but not on the same issues. So the black issue was very much an American issue. By the 60s the black community wasn't well tolerated in England but it was to some extent integrated. I think that started actually just after the war. I remember I was about six and my mother took me on a bus and…So we get on the bus and there is some bench seating on the front of the bus and then two seats you know across the bus further back. And there was a black woman sitting on one of the bench seats and I, being a little kid, I just climbed on the seat next to her and my mother grabbed me by the hand and pulled me off the seat and said, “You don't sit next to them they're dirty.” And so for some time that's what I thought. And then I realized, you know, that my mother had inbred racism and, you know, I didn't need to subscribe to that view point. But that had lessoned a great deal by the time I got to college. Our racial integration was pretty good, there was no integration with the gay community. And most of the politic struggles and the marches I went on were about South Africa or about apartheid in South Africa, about the minor strikes when Maggie Thatcher was trying to get rid of all the mining unions, the attacks on the steel workers, and so on and so on. And one of my favorite chants ever was we walked through London after Margret Thatcher ended the free milk for children at schools. Everyone used to get a third of a pint of milk free to guard against rickets. And she ended that. And I remember marching through London going "Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher." That was the catch phrase so we had all placards and we were chanting. So those were the kinds of yeah, there was a lot of student activity which I don't see now which is a shame. I think in the 80s people became much more about me rather than us. And I think that's a tragedy both for Britain and America.(Subjects: parents, community) So when did you first sort of start dealing with your sexuality maybe with a relationship or joining more politically-oriented groups? I mean how did you really start to grapple with that? I mean for a long time it was secret and furtive and unpleasant. It was sneaked moments like um…um…what's his name? Guy from Wham? Trying to think of his name… Well, anyway it'll come back to me. George Michael. George Michael, you know his little trips to toilets in a park. This was literally the only way that gay men in England at that time could have ever met. And it was seedy and unpleasant and that's not a good basis for sex. So the first relationship, oddly enough, was with an Irish doctor in Iraq. So I moved to Iraq, I was project manager for a computer project there ‘81 through ’86. And I think it was in ‘83 that I met this guy at a party and we were both sort of loners. He offered a ride back to where I was living and we ended up in bed. And so then we saw each other for a little while that was quite an awakening for me. That I could actually not just sneak around having a little sex here and there that but I could actually talk to somebody. And you know there could be drinks before and after we could to for dinner. It didn't have to be without names and anything else.(Subjects: community) What was sort of happening in Iraq while you were living there? What was sort of moving there from England to there like, especially as a closeted gay man? Well, for me it was wonderful, as a foreigner. The Iraqi people are very very hospitable they love foreigners and they really can't do enough for you. And the project was paying all the costs obviously, they put us in nice hotels in Ishan and then rented housing. I was getting a huge salary because at the time Iraq and Iran were at war and so they considered it a war zone. And so I got double my basic salary and seven weeks vacation a year, so you know. I know you're at university so you’re always on vacation but anyways. [Laughter] So the lifestyle there was interesting because of the environment, the people themselves were very friendly. So food was short and if you wanted…we'd have somebody out scouting and they'd say, “There are eggs at the souk,” and so everybody would jump into their car and drive down to the souk and get a tray of eggs. Because you don't care whether you want them or not or need them you go get them because they are there. I remember cauliflowers coming to the market one day and everyone was down there and they were the best cauliflowers--you know they grew organic without knowing it was. Organic because nobody had ever told them about other stuff and these were huge cauliflowers, I mean twice the size of a cauliflower you get here. And really tasty not plain, same with tomatoes and things like that. It was more of an adventure living there and trying to plan all these things. And the work ethic is different too. Friday is the holy day and so nobody works then, but you work the rest of the week except where there's a need or it’s somebody's birthday, there's always some reason why nobody's working.(Subjects: jobs) ... Oh yes. I traveled a number of times to New York, just for vacations but never for work. If I traveled anywhere for work it as usually the West Coast, San Francisco.(Subjects: jobs) What was it like visiting America under Reagan? Yeah, well, I was aware of things. But it was peripheral to me because I was on a vacation visa, whatever. I think it was more interesting when I actually moved here in ‘96 because at that time the Reagan era measures were still enforced. I had to…before I could actually apply for a greencard had to go and have an HIV test. To make sure I wouldn't be a liability for America. And, you know so, that was the kind of thing that hit a home later. But back in the 80s, no I just came and partied with friends, visited monuments,…my very first visit to New York I knew nothing about America. Actually, it's funny because when I was kid the thing I saw about America on TV was a whole bunch of The Virginian, The Rifleman, you know, Gun Smoke. And so I assumed a whole of America was just like that. ...(Subjects: homophobia) ... So did you ever come out to your mother?(Subjects: parents) No, I didn't. But I rather think she knew. She actually died in ’87, lung cancer. And at the time I when I came back from Iraq that I changed career and become a nurse. And, well, it was this whole story that goes with that too but we won't go there. And, so when she became really ill with it, she didn't tell anybody that she was sick and by the time she did tell us that she was sick, she was living on her own and we didn't realize and it was too late really to get anything done and she was gone in three months. But I nursed her in those last three months. Well, towards the end, we was sitting watching some game show on TV and one evening and she looked at me and she said, “Danny, is there any point for me holding on to you to get married?” And I went, “No.” And that was all we said. It was pretty clever. She knew. And sadly, of course, if she'd been able to hold on, she'd been a hundred now, but, I mean, she would have been able to hold on, I did get married. So things have changed, you know, from ’68, well ’67, in Britain when it was still illegal when I was, you know, sexually active, I was in danger of being put in prison to 2017 and I legally got married to a man. So you know what a change in a lifetime.(Subjects: parents, homophobia, comingout, highlight) ... So how did you get into rodeo? Oh, rodeo! I knew we were supposed to be talking about something. So, well, of course, I'd seen it all on TV growing up as a kid all part of that Wild West thing, everyone had a horse. And I was always fascinated by that. When I was about I would say twenty-three, twenty-four, a friend of mine, well his wife, owned horses. And she offered to teach me to ride. Well, either she wasn't a good teacher or I wasn't a good student. I was not good at it. And but I did go riding with her several times. She picked out a horse you know that would be gentle with me. This horse was gentle with me until he figured out he doesn't know what the heck he's doing. And so he headed for the nearest tree at a gallop. So tried to get me off. I ducked, so I survived. And she stopped the horse and everything was fine. Anyway, so that was my earliest introduction of horses and then when I came over here, living in Cupertino there was annual gay rodeo there. And so I’d go along and, you know, with my then partner Gary. He and I would go along. And we had a nice time, we didn't really understand the rules very much of the events but we enjoyed it. (Subjects: events, mentor, getting started) When I met Bill, I moved to Albuquerque, and he was actually a member, just a supporter really not a rider or anything, he didn't compete but he was a supporter of the rodeo and I joined the local rodeo association, as well, just to support them. And then I started volunteering. So I did security, I did registration, I helped in the arena, you know, simple stuff. So I gradually, it built that it was becoming an interest of mine, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I didn't have a horse. There's a couple of events you can do on foot, but not much. So it was three years ago at the rodeo here that I met a real cowboy, well, real-ish. You know, he has a day job but he's actually, he owns a ranch, he has horses, so he's always been around horses, so he really is a cowboy, and he's an all-around champion, a bull riding champion, he's done all those things. And you know you may even be interviewing him, guy called Jody Capp, and so he got me further interested in it and he offered to teach me to ride. And I thought, well, yes, okay, I didn't do so well last time I'll try again. And he was a good teacher. And he got me riding pretty well and then I was staying with him, our condo was rented and I came down for a vacation and I stayed at his place on the ranch and um he was going to go some gymkhana and you know what a gymkhana is?(Subjects: events, mentor, getting started) You should explain. Yeah so a gymkhana is a…it's a sort of a poor man’s rodeo. It's mostly aimed at the more amateur riders and the kids. But it's a fun event, family event you go along and there are seven events altogether, some of them overlap with rodeo, some of them don't. There's like a potato toss. Where you have to pick up a potato riding around and then throw it in a barrel. So I went along and Jody took all three of his horses with him and we saddled them up and he said, “Well, you can ride them around, I'm going to compete in the rodeo.” And I said, “Do you think there are any of the events that I could do?” And he said, “Well there's one event where you just have to ride all the way up the arena and back again as fast as you can. You could do that.” I said, “Okay, well, I'll sign up for that.” And so I went up with him to the office and I, with some trepidation, signed up for that. And then we went back to the horses and Jody's friend Wayne who is also a real cowboy said, “So you're riding today?” I said, “Well, I signed up for one event.” And he said, “You're here now, you signed up for one, you might as well do them all.” I said, “Well, I've never tried any of them.” So he said, “Well what do you got to lose?” So, I went back to the office, I signed up for the whole event. And so then I was in seven events and I did them all and two of them I screwed up completely. I did the wrong thing so I was disqualified on those two but five of them I got times on. (Subjects: events:mentor:highlight) So I was very very pleased, particularly the key hole, which is where you have to guide the horse into a sort of it's like a key shape chalk ring and you have to go up the sort of arm with the key and into the head of the key and turn the horse around and come back again without crossing the line and I did that! And I was really really excited, so that was that. So after that, that was in January and of course Jody was getting ready for rodeo in May and now I was hooked. And I said, “Do you think I could do something in the rodeo?” And he was looking at me like now clearly this is not a good idea. So he said, “If you want to then I will help you.” And he did and trained me and taught me to do three events: the barrels, the poles, and flags. And so two years ago I did all three of those events. I can't say very successfully, but I did all three events at the Hot Rodeo and one of the great things about this was the support I got from the real cowboys. Everybody knew that I was just an amateur here for the day and just trying it out. Nobody cared, nobody worried. I paid my money same as everybody else, so I got the same. (Subjects: events:mentor:highlight) Everybody gave advice: how to do this how to do that. Even an actual national trainer who was sitting in the exercise ring the first day we were there. So today, Friday, people will be exercising and trying out the arena. And so I was trying to barrels and this guy I suddenly hear this voice going “[inaudible]”. And looking around trying to ride and hear this guy, this trainer actually telling me what I'm doing wrong so I tried to stop listening. He stopped me, brought the horse over, adjusted the reigns, and said: “You've got to hold here. I tied knots here so you know where to hold.” And off I went again, I did better, so yeah. I did that rodeo and then following week actually did the Vegas rodeo with Jody. Had a wonderful time did three events both times, second time considerably better. Although I was a crowd pleaser because I very nearly fell off in the barrels. And in fact you could hear this sort of oooooh, silence, and then I sort of relief as people realized I wasn't actually going to fall off, or maybe they were disappointed I don't know. So I got around the barrels I got a time on that and I got a time and came in ninth on the flags. You can only guess there were only 9 people but actually I got a time.(Subjects: events:mentor:highlight) But still. So I was really really excited. Took picture of the score sheet showing that I was actually and did have a time on it. The thing with flags is that the guys who are really fast they go in so fast they often will miss getting the flag in the bucket and so although their times would be wonderful, if you don't get the thing in the bucket you don't get…you know, it doesn't matter. And my time was pretty slow, pretty creaky really.(Subjects: events) But it was a time. Right. And most of what we did that day was entirely down to Bartender the horse, which is Jody's horse. Bartender is the most amazing animal. He's fully trained for these events. So literally I think I could have let him go on his own and he would have done it. He certainly would have done the barrels and he knew exactly where to go for the flags. It was only when I tried to interfere too much that things went wrong.(Subjects: events ) And will you competing tomorrow?(Subjects: events ) No, I'm done now. After that I went back to Albuquerque and I went to the Albuquerque rodeo since I don't own a horse and certainly can’t afford to you know buy one or rent one or whatever, I don't have a horse to compete and I don't really want to compete on foot. But I did do two events actually at the Albuquerque rodeo last year. One intentionally and one accidentally. So the first one I did was calf roping on foot and I went to the rodeo school to learn that, which again was great. There's all these people who are really skilled just giving up their time to help other people learn how to do this stuff. And in any field people talk some strange language until you know the technology and you know the language. So they teach you what it's all about too. So I did that but then while I was at registration that day two people came up to me who I shall never forget. It was wonderful, they said have you ever down wild drag and I said, “No, I haven't done it. I rode horses last year and I'm doing you know calf roping on foot that's me that's all I know.” And they said, “Would you like to do wild drag?” And I said, “Well, I don't know. That kind of looks complicated and dangerous.” And they said, “Nooo, it'll be fun.” And it turned out that there drag person had not been able to get to the rodeo and they couldn't compete without a third and so they asked me if I wanted to do. And I've always been game for anything frankly. I sky-dived, I scuba-dived, I, you know, anything that comes along, I'll give it a try. So, they signed me up and then again everybody back in the arena, you know, everyone’s all: “Danny he's never done this before he has no idea what he's doing. He has no clue. He doesn't have any of the gear.” And, you know, a jacket, protective jacket appeared, helmet appeared. A wig appeared because you have to put drag on, a wig and a dress and, you know, suddenly there I was ready to do wild drag.(Subjects: events) How did you do? Oh, terribly. [Laughs] A lot of wild drag as it turns out--as everybody now tells me cause, you know, I've done it once so therefore I'm an expert--but the other people tell me a lot of it comes down to the draw, you know, which steer you get. Ours was ornery he did not want to move anywhere. And so I kind of got on him--I was the guy who had to get on the back of the steer--I kind of got on a couple of times but then I was off the other side or whatever. I nearly got a hoof in the face at one point, so now I realize why you need that helmet. Umm, I don’t' care! I had a wonderful time! It's just, you know, a great activity and team work. That was great. So team work for that and then the horse events where you are in a team with the horse. But with the calf roping on foot no I can barely throw the rope in the right direction, let alone rope an animal. So I'm not doing that this year.(Subjects: events ) ... That's great. And how in, you know, so you've been watching rodeo at least for 20 or more years. That's frightening, but yes. How has the association changed over time? That's difficult. I think…well one of the things I've noticed is there is less competitors at least to the events that I go to. I think there's been an influx of the last few years of some of the people from the professional rodeos. And they come along for the prize money and of course they win. But they aren't gay and they aren't interested in the gay culture. You know like a lot of things like square dance, gay square dance, it's not just square dancing. Well gay rodeo isn't just gay rodeo--you know, it's the parties, it's the pool parties, it's the events afterwards, the two-stepping, the whatever. So it really encompasses a whole set of things which are in themselves a subculture. And I think that's fading, as I was saying earlier that the gay culture in general is fading as we are more…I was going to say accepted I don't like that word, really. Integrated. I don't think people accept us necessarily but they put up with us and I don't care really whether they accept me or not. I am who I am. I paid my dues growing up to figure that out. And now I'm sixty-five and now I don't have to give a damn. I think that's what's happened really with the rodeo just as much as it has with other organizations in the gay world. That it's become more mainstream, but less gay. So.(Subjects: events, community, highlight) Do you notice any differences living in the place like Albuquerque verses Palm Springs do you see any difference in homophobia at all between?(Subjects: homophobia) Yes. Well, when you're living in a city that's got maybe 8% population like Albuquerque which is declared gay or lesbian. Then you move to Palm Springs which on the last census had 53% gay or lesbian. Yeah, I notice a difference. I've been pretty much an activist all my life but pretending for some of that to be a straight activist. I think I was the only one who was fooled frankly, from what everybody tells me. My best friend, when I sat her down nearly in tears and said I've got something to tell you, “Yes, I'm gay.” And she said, “Yeah, but what's the news you know.” [Laughs] So, yes, it's very clearly different being here. I was always somebody who would get up in a public place and dance with a man, since I came out in the 80s. I would walk down the street holding hands or whatever and I would go in a gay club and not try and hide my face, whatever. That's just me. Now my partner, my husband now, is a more private person. He doesn't want to be in your face about his sexuality. He's not ashamed or in the closet at all, I mean he's an entertainer in the gay community but he doesn't want to be sort of breaking new boundaries. We went on a cruise about ten years ago. And it was the tuxedo night. Everyone’s in tuxedo and it was a straight cruise, so all the straight couples got up and starting dancing. And I desperately wanted him to dance with me but he would not dance with me. And then the other week here he did in a restaurant just got up and danced you know. It's good for him that we are in a safer place now, what feels safer.(Subjects: homophobia, comingout, community, highlight) When it comes to sort of western culture have you sort of as member you know of gay dance clubs, of the rodeo association have you ever experienced homophobic events on your way to a rodeo or at gay square dance event or anything like that? Have you actually seen homophobia there?(Subjects: homophobia) Yes. In limited quantities, so it's never been a real distraction. Obviously, interestingly you know we always marched in the Albuquerque gay pride and that always had a huge evangelical collection of people with hateful signs. You know, “God hates fags” and all that. And they were missing at last year’s rodeo, for the first time ever they weren't there, which was kind of interesting. I’m sorry the gay pride, not the rodeo. In terms of the rodeo, I've never seen anything. In terms of gay square dancing, yes, I've seen that occasionally because we have big conventions. There’ll be a gay square dance convention here in July. We take over the whole Renaissance Hotel here and about 1,000 dancers. And I remember a few years ago being the convention in L.A., which you would think would be okay, and there was a couple a young couple with a small child at the desk while I was there. And this woman was complaining loudly, “When we booked this hotel we didn't know you'd have all these queers in the hotel. We want you to do something about it.” The receptionist, without blinking an eye, said, “Certainly madam. I can help you rebook somewhere else.” [Laugh] So, you know, I know it's still there. It's foolish…I think some people think it's gone away, it hasn't gone away. It won't go away because attitudes of people certainly above fifty don't really change very much. They may be less expressive about them, but they're not going to change their attitude. I think our hope is that in future generations they won't learn those behaviors, you know.(Subjects: homphobia:religion:) So before you mentioned the sort of rapid pace of change in your lifetime to go from, you know, sexual relationships being criminalized to being able to be legally married. Do you think…has that process been very straight forward?(Subjects: homophobia) Oh, no. No, very convoluted and when you are within that process, when you are actually within any segment of history, as you live history, you can't see it from the outside in an objective way. So, for you, it's going to be very personal; you're going to feel the defeats very hard; you're not going to see the victories as being great victories; it's only when you can step back over the decades really, in this case, and see what happened that you can see that there is actual progress. [...] But, if I was still alive, I won't be, but if I was still alive in fifty years’ time, I hope I would look back and say, “Wow! What a precession of change in the twenty-first century, you know, how they moved from where they were to where they got to by the end of the twenty-first century.” We can just hope that that will be the case, you know, but no there's been plenty of steps forward and steps back and we think that we've won a battle. [...] I think overall we are moving forward.(Subjects: homophobia, highlight) ... So what do you think the future of an association like gay rodeo is?(Subjects: igra) Oh, I hope it's still pretty healthy, you know. It's like the gay square dance community. Those two communities and the gay bar environment, you know, those things have declined over the last decade of two. But they are still there, they still, in a smaller way, functioning very well. People enjoy the rodeo here and last year there were more people attending than previous years. So they struggle for funds, but I don't think they are really seeing a decline in the core interest in the activity, which I think is good. Whether it will change because of integration, I don't know, I think that's yet to be seen. We are still young in that process, really. We…nobody…you're not going to go to places like Texas, for example, and think you're fully integrated, that's not the case. You know, maybe California, maybe. I think there is a ways to go before we are in the integrated state and I doubt that the two--straight and gay rodeo—I don't think they will ever merge as activities, maybe they would in the future I don't know.(Subjects: igra, community) ... And you've mentioned the term “real cowboy” a couple of times. So I'm wondering if you can give me a definition of that.(Subjects: cowperson) Well, what I mean is there are people who are, like me, who are weekend cowboys. We go to two-steps and put on our cowboy drag. And then there are people who live out on a ranch, they have cattle, they have horses, whatever. They may well, these days, have a day job as well, so many of the guys who I would term as “real cowboys” have day jobs. But they also are very much in that whole genre. I might draw a parallel to the leather community in the gay community. There are some people who like to put on a bit of leather and go to a leather bar on weekends, you know. And there are other people living the life of leather and, you know, that essentially comes with a whole set of rules about their life. And I think that's the sort of division I'm going for really. The guys who are just weekenders and a lot of the people that you'd meet here are in that weekend thing, they like the look, they like the activities, they like to dance. But they aren't about to rush out and wrestle a cow or ride a horse..(Subjects: cowperson) Have you enjoyed being a weekend cowboy? Yes, absolutely. I've enjoyed everything about my life, even the bad parts because my view is always that, everything, every decision I made good and bad all my life has brought me to where I am now. And I would be somewhere else if I had made different decisions. So I like where I am now, so all of that must have been good. ... It's been amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time [to speak with me]. Alright, thank you.

Jay Lovejoy Click to filter

Hello, my name is Revulai Detiv. I am here with Jay Lovejoy and we’re at the AGRA rodeo. February 16th, 2020. And, to start off, what year were you born? 1939. Where did you grow up? I grew up in the Chicago area, the suburbs. And my father worked in Chicago and commuted every day. And I lived in the suburbs, in the Chicago area, pretty much in the same small town until I went away to college. I went away to college in Chicago, so I didn't go very far. What was life like growing up? Oh, it was a very small town. Everybody knew everybody. One school. And it was very fun. Felt very secure and free to relax and do whatever we wanted to do. Do you have any favorite memories from childhood? Um, I think my third-grade teacher knew that I was interested in automobiles from a very early age. And she had a friend in a different town who had an old Rolls Royce, and I got to go over there and take a ride in it.(Subjects: childhood) Oh, wow. At the age of eight. And going to the same school right through eighth grade. There was no junior high or anything and, actually, even high school, I had to go to the next town over. But we rode on an electric interurban railway to go to high school. So that was kind of unique and kind of fun.(Subjects: childhood) Did your family have any background in ranching or farming? No, my parents were city folks and moved to the suburbs. We just had a house on a very small piece of property, and we were just transplanted to the suburban life. And it was, like I said, a small town. And not very congested, very relaxing.(Subjects: parents) What kind of jobs did they do? Well, there really wasn't much employment. Most of the people commuted to the city for their work. Except the people who, you know, ran the local grocery store and the drugstore and the, you know, to support the people. There was no industry in the town other than the town itself. So, people that had serious careers had to commute somewhere else. Bedroom communities are different, you know. How do you identify in terms of gender and sexuality? Well, I'm a gay man. But I didn't really come out until I was maybe twenty-nine years old because it was pretty restricted back then and, you know, it was a private sort of thing. But I came out when—I had gone to work after I graduated from college. I had a management job in the telephone company. But I was subject to the draft at that time. And I went to the army draft because my number was called, but I had a chance to join the Navy and go to officer candidate school instead, so I did that.(Subjects: comingout) Did you face any discrimination? No, but I really didn't identify as gay ‘til I got out of the Navy anyway. And when I was, you know, away from home, man, I really didn't feel free to come out until I moved to Arizona. Which I did at age 31.(Subjects: comingout) Was your family supportive? Well, they've always been supportive of me, but we didn't have a real deep discussion about what I was doing or where I was going. But, you know, there was an awareness and they were very supportive. My family's always been very supportive.(Subjects: comingout) That’s good to hear. How did you first become involved in the gay rodeo? I became involved because I knew it was a group of people that were socializing and having fun, and I knew some people that were members. So, I joined the group. And I was not a very active member at first. But there came a point—we had a problem with a treasurer who absconded with some money and then there was a volunteer who came in and kind of straightened that out. But he didn't want to stick around so I volunteered to be the treasurer of the rodeo association and I became very committed when I realized we could raise a lot of money for charities by having the rodeo, and that we nominated charities to receive our funds. And we went by a vote as to where that money was going.(Subjects: charity) In fact, while I was the treasurer, we devised a plan of people voting for their charities and apportioning the money of their vote so they could divide it up into 10 percent for each. And that actually became known as the Lovejoy method that we used for a good number of years, well after I was the treasurer. It was a way of deciding who the charities were that got the money that we raised for the rodeo. So, I was quite pleased when that happened. And I saw that if we made twenty thousand dollars at the rodeo and there were 40 people who could decide where that money went, I had a voice in giving five hundred dollars to a charity – that I could give them without writing a check, which I couldn't afford to do on my own. So, I was very pleased with the way the rodeo association was able to do that.(Subjects: charity) What kind of charities did you donate to? At first there were a lot of AIDS related charities: Food for AIDS people and we supported the PFLAG Organization. Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays was an organization that we direct quite a bit of money to. And they didn't have many other fundraising sources, so they supported us and we supported them. So, I was particularly pleased with that.(Subjects: charity, parents) That’s good. Did you ever get involved with any of the rodeo events? No, I didn't. I'm more of a sitting in the stands sort of guy and running the organization and the rodeo events that took place in conjunction with the rodeo. One time I did use my car to bring in the grand marshal of the rodeo, when you have the parade for the festivities for the grand marshal event. I had been doing that, too. But, primarily, lately, I've been involved with running the AGRA booth inside each rodeo where we have information and we sell the T-shirts – the commemorative T-shirts – and we have prizes and raise money by spinning a wheel for luck.(Subjects: events) Oh, I think I saw that here. We've been doing that for a number of years. We raise $1,000 or more, maybe $2,000 doing it. That's been fun. Do you have any favorite memories running AGRA? Um, I think being the treasurer for a couple of years when we had two rodeos and we had rodeo finals in Phoenix where I was the treasurer for those events. That's the most important events, as far as I’m concerned. But lately, I've just been one of the team that's running the booth. But at one point, I was with a group that we were selected to be the grand marshal. We had four friends that kind of hung out together pretty much all the time and Claudi B designated us the “Golden Girls” and recommended that we be the grand marshal for the rodeo back in, I believe, 2010. And we enjoyed that very much. That's a big highlight of my time with AGRA.(Subjects: highlight, events) What did you like about being the treasurer during that period of time? I think it was just that that was my talent. I was a business and economics graduate with a master’s in finance, and my job experience was with the Greyhound Corporation where I was internal auditor and eventually system controller. So, I knew how to run the treasury without problem. It’s good that they had you there to do that. Well, that's why I volunteered to do that sort of thing. That was my talent. And that was where to apply it. I had very little experience riding horses. What are some of your favorite events in the rodeo? Well, I think I enjoy the camp events, just because they're fun. But I'm very excited when some of the men and women ride the horses very fast and do the events where they're going around barrels or weaving between poles and stuff like that – just seeing them control their horses very carefully and at great speed. It's a speed event. So, I think that's the most exciting.(Subjects: events) Do you think the larger LGBTQ community supports the gay rodeo? I think they do. I would like to see more of the general community here. We try to promote the rodeo. I wish we could promote it a little more. We're in competition with other events. You know, there's so much going on in Phoenix, Arizona, in January and February when we have beautiful weather and people want to come from different parts of the country to enjoy it. But we do get a good crowd out. And one thing, as I say, I wish we would promote it a little more to get people out. We try to give out a few free tickets, and we used to go to the different bars and have a promotion, you know, we’re all there in our cowboy outfits, saying, “The rodeo’s in two weeks!” or “The rodeo is in one week!” We do as much as we can to promote it.(Subjects: community, events) That’s great. Here comes the next one! [People talking in the background] Have you ever experienced any homophobia or harassment? In my life? Yeah. Uh, I have a bad memory of being in Dayton, Ohio, and having rocks thrown at me. Walking down the street, you know, with a group of friends to go from the hotel where we were staying to a bar. And people were aware that we were having too much fun and we had to get ahead of that stone throwing crowd. That's the worst discrimination I think I've seen. I've been really pretty lucky in my career. Nobody ever caused me any discrimination, but I had to play it kind of cool.(Subjects: homophobia) That’s good. Yeah. Undercover. Have you experienced any protests or anything at the gay rodeo? I have seen people protesting, not so much at the gay rodeo, but other gay events where they come with their microphones and say, you know, “God doesn't like gay people,” and things like that. But that's a very small minority and I tend to just kind of laugh that off. That’s a good way to deal with that. Yeah, that's their problem, not mine. Exactly! Are you active in any religious community? No, I'm not. I'm not. I belong to the American Humanist Society. Has that influenced… No, I just read their newsletter, and pledge, and know there's other people that think the way I think. And I'm comfortable with that. I guess, would you consider yourself a cowboy? No. I could get dressed up like a cowboy, but I'm not a cowboy.(Subjects: cowperson) What do you think defines a cowboy? Somebody who likes to live on a ranch and have animals around to take care of. The most animals I ever took care of was a cat – two cats. That's enough. I'm really a city boy or suburban boy at heart and the rodeo’s just fun.(Subjects: cowperson) How has your experience been with the AGRA growing over time? Oh, I think it's been very positive. There's always a couple of things that they decide I don't agree with but, on a majority, I can just go along. I don't mind that they don't agree with me 100 percent of the time. I can live with that. Do you want to speak any more to that? No, I think that covers it. I think that covers it. Do you have any other favorite memories of being at the rodeo? I think just being with a big crowd of people that are out for having fun is good. The crowd that we have standing outside, and just milling around, and saying, “Hi,” and people you haven't seen in a year sometimes say, “Hello” – things like that. It's kind of fun to go and watch the events, then come out and have a drink and look up old friends. That's the thing. I wouldn't miss it; I wouldn't miss it. I've been a member for a long time. I'm still wearing this badge they gave me a few years ago for 30 years. And I expect to be a member for the rest of my life.(Subjects: events) That’s great. That's a pretty good endorsement, isn't it? Oh, for sure! I believe in lifetime memberships. Let’s see… Is there anything else you’d like to go over? I think we kind of covered it. Thank you very much. I enjoyed it and I hope your project works out very well. Thanks.

Mahlon Lovell Click to filter

All right, so we're recording an interview. This is Renae Campbell and I'm here with Mahlon Lovell—did I say it right? Lovell. Lovell. Lovell. Um, and we—it's November 11, 2019—and we are at the International Gay Rodeo Convention in Denver, Colorado. And so, can you start by telling me where you were born? Well, I was born in Taipei, Taiwan, actually.(Subjects: childhood) Oh. Yeah. And my dad was in the Air Force, so that's where he met my mom. So, and then I’ve lived in the United States probably since I was one, if not right before.(Subjects: childhood) Okay. So, then where did you move to when you moved to the…? So, then my family—my dad and I—moved to Phoenix, Arizona, when I was three. So that's where I pretty much grew up. So, I’m from Phoenix. And, uh, yeah.(Subjects: childhood) Okay. So, did you—would you consider that more of an urban upbringing? Or a rural upbringing? Um, urban upbringing. I was more urban ‘cause I was in the central city. So, yeah. But I have friends who lived in the rural areas.(Subjects: childhood) And did you—were you around horses or cattle at all as a young person? Or was that later? No, it's—again, I have some friends and I did do some traveling when I was a kid. I got to go to camps and stuff like that. So, I—actually, ironically, growing up, there used to be a horse property around the corner from my apartment, which was right there in the middle of the city. Because there are still some areas in Phoenix that have horse properties in the city. And so, I’m familiar with horses. I wasn’t brought up with horses, and I didn’t ride them regularly. But I’ve had experiences with horses—a little bit.(Subjects: childhood) Okay. And did you go to high school there, as well, in Phoenix? For the year that I went, yes. [laughs] That counts! I got my GED. So, yeah. Where did you go to get your GED? At one of the community colleges in Phoenix. Okay. And then, how did you become involved with this? Ironically, I was kind of involved with, I—my first experience with rodeo was probably about twenty-five years ago. I went to Phoenix. Phoenix has—is part of the IGRA, so they have a rodeo in, back then, I believe it was January. And I went to my very first gay rodeo. I was probably about 23, 24. And then, later that year, I went to my second gay rodeo, which was in California. And that was really my big experience. Because the first one, I was just there and walking around partying and drinking but the next one, I was actually looking to see what was going on with the rodeo and everything else. But then, I didn't get reacquainted with the gay rodeo until probably about—probably about six or seven—no, it's been about nine years ago. I was part of a nonprofit organization in Phoenix, and the rodeo, and one of the other organizations that was attached to the rodeo. My organization was one of their beneficiaries. So, I would have to go and participate in those things. And so, when we would set up booths at the rodeo, I would volunteer. You know, doing the—watching the gates, opening the gates for the tractors and stuff like that to clean the fields and all. And then, later on, I was asked to become part of the organization that helped out at—ran the rodeos. And the Gay Games were in Cleveland a few years ago. And that year, they included the International Gay Rodeo Association, and so they included the rodeo in the Gay Games. So, I got to go and participate in part of that. And, yeah, ever since, I got more and more involved. Then I got asked to become—to try and be a royalty member. And this is—this was my second try and I got, I got on the team. And so, you are currently royalty. I am currently—I am current royalty. I'm First Runner Up for the Mr. title for the IGRA. Congratulations. Um, and… [Mahlon enters into a side conversation with an IGRA member, to protect privacy, approximately 4 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] …I will be current as of the first of the year. I’m 2020. So, I’m Mr. IGRA First Runner Up 2020. So, you’re the 2020? Yes. Yes. [Voice of IGRA member in background, to protect privacy, approximately 1 second was deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] Okay. So, I’m currently still a local title holder, which is Mr. Arizona Gay Rodeo Association. […] We had this contest last month at finals. And part of—part of this—part of the requirements to get this, we have to either participate in two events at the rodeo or work under an official. And so, this year—pardon me—this year, I did a few rodeos where I timed. I was a timer. So, we kept time for some of the events. Okay. So, yeah. So, we—we get involved as well. I have a knee problem so I can't participate in the rodeo, but I try and participate wherever I can. Yeah. So, kinda going back briefly to—what was your introduction to IGRA? You know, you said you went in Arizona. How did you find out about it? Or…what, um, what led you to it? Well, back then I was hanging out at the local bar that was really one of the bars that started—helped start the rodeo. And so, they had advertisements up. And then a bunch of friends were going out, so I said, “Okay, let’s go.” So, I went and that's pretty much it—just word of mouth. And then, ironically, the—when I went to my second rodeo in California, back then I guess they had community members that were just—did their grand entry. And they asked me, like, “Hey, do a grand entry!” and I said, “Okay.” So that was—I guess that would technically be my first introduction to actual—some of the… pageantry of rodeo. I don't know if you want to say pageantry, but some of the…. Performance, maybe? Extra. Extras of rodeo—not the actual events, but the recognition of the associations and so forth. I got to be a part of that and I was like, “Oh, that’s really not me.” And again, my real introduction to really get involved was when I was part of the nonprofit in Arizona, and it being a beneficiary, and then going out and volunteering, and stuff like that for that. It was—that was my real big introduction. And making friends with everybody. And what was the name of that organization? The nonprofit? The nonprofit that I was affiliated with was the Joshua Tree Feeding Program. And it's a—it's basically—it’s a food bank that focuses on the HIV-AIDS community. People living with HIV and AIDS. So, fully community supported and everything. Um-hum. And did you do that as a volunteer or was that your job at the time? Yeah, it's a volunteer organization. So, there are no paid—there is no paid staff—so I did that purely on a volunteer [basis]. But I was on the board; I was their fundraising coordinator. So that's how I got involved with the other organizations that were raising money for us. And you got to see what those organizations did. So that's why I started volunteering—to get involved. So, were you working at the same time as that in something related? Or was that just the…. Actually, no. I've been on disability for fifteen years. So, at the time, I wasn’t working and so I was just volunteering. So, I was always looking for stuff to do to keep busy and felt that it was also a good way to give back to the community and stuff like that, instead of just sitting there twiddling my thumbs all the time. So [laughs] so, I kind of have to be active, you know. It's—I couldn't think of any other organizations besides the nonprofit that I was part of. In fact, I got involved with a couple other non-profits, too, as well as Arizona Gay Rodeo Association and then, in turn, International Gay Rodeo Association. So, I'm very community focused myself. So, had you ever been to a rodeo, um, before? Before you went to the…. A regular rodeo? Oh, yeah. In fact, back when I was a little child, my dad was a member of the Phoenix Jaycees, which are no longer. And they would hold a rodeo every year. So, yeah, as a kid, I would go to the rodeo. I was, you know—every once and a while and watch the rodeos but not really involved in them, until I turned my 20s—is when I really started looking, and seeing them, and saying, “Oh, there's a place for us.” […] So not really. As a child, I would go to different rodeos, but not in that capacity that I do with the rodeo associations—gay rodeo associations. And can I ask when you—it sounds like you came out at some point in between there? When I came out? I came—really, I came out—I always knew when I was a child. I knew. But I came out when I was 17. But still didn't know anything about rodeos until I was probably about 23, 24—didn’t know anything about the gay rodeos, I should say—until I was about 23, 24.(Subjects: comingout) Yeah. And so, having been to both kinds of rodeo, is there a different feel for you being at IGRA? Um, only because, from a spectator’s standpoint—and it's been so long since I've been to a regular rodeo—I mean, I've seen a couple here—but I think most of those, from a spectator’s standpoint, it's pretty much serious. It's—the thing that I noticed the most is: in regular rodeos the men do these events, the women do these events. And our rodeos—in the gay rodeo association—it doesn't matter what event we have. Men and women can participate in all of our events. And that's something I really like, because we are very inclusive. And just because we're the Gay Rodeo Association doesn't mean you have to be gay to be a participant. So, that's the other thing I like about our association—the gay rodeo association—is we are truly all-inclusive.(Subjects: highlight) Nice. And so, can you kind of talk a little bit about some of the different roles that you said you were? A scorekeeper for a while? Well, I wasn’t a score keeper, but I was—so, I volunteered—I used to always volunteer. So, I’d either, you know, watch the—a gate for—the contestants’ gate. To make sure that no one went back behind the chutes or anything like that unless they had a contestant badge or were, you know, associated with the rodeo. And from there, from watching the gates or gates to open and let the tractors in and out. So, security basically. I would do that. And then, when I started running for royalty, I knew I had to volunteer under an official or be a participant in the rodeo. And I knew I couldn't participate in the rodeo, so I started looking at stuff, and I got into the arena crew the first year that I did it. And I had a—I learned a lot, had fun with that, and then over the last couple years, I did timing. Which you get to—that one I like a little more because you get to actually watch some of the events, but you have to also keep time, and make sure you're paying attention, and stuff like that. You also learn a little more about the events, I think, in timing versus arena crew. (Subjects: events) The arena crew, you go, you learn the events that you're setting up for, so you know certain things. But in timing, you actually get to watch the events, and then see and observe and see how it actually is played out. Versus, you know, “Oh, now I have to make a line this way and that.” But now you get to see what happens when because of that. So, those are pretty much it. And then I—I will go around selling raffle tickets, I’ll go and I’ll help the gentleman back here that was setting all these clothes up. He's—he takes care of all the merchandise for International Gay Rodeo Association. So, every once and a while, I’ll help with that and so forth. So, wherever I'm needed, really, is where I volunteer.(Subjects: events) Do you have a favorite event to watch? My favorite event to watch…. You know, I have to say that I don't have a favorite because I don't get to. I mean, I don't sit there and say, “Oh, well, this event is going, I'm going to go watch the event.” I'll go and, depending on my schedule, I may sit and watch. Pole bending is a fun one to watch. In fact, I find myself watching pole bending the most. And then, I think one of the—two of the most fun ones to watch—would be goat dressing and wild drag, which are camp events. Which is something else that our gay rodeo association has that the regular rodeos don't. Because, you know, I mean, they have mutton bustin’ for the kids and stuff like that, which we don't have. But we still have something to—to have fun as well. And, ironically, wild drag is fun to watch. But even though it's a camp event, it is one of our most dangerous events because people do get injured in that one.(Subjects: events) Yeah. So, you're a fan of the camp events being included in the array? Yes. Yeah. Because it's like, it's not—that's something else, you know. It's like in the regular rodeos, I know they have the mutton busting for the kids, but it seems like that's the only real camp event that includes others. Because sometimes, at some of our rodeos, we will do community goat dressing, which will allow anybody to come out and do the goat dressing event. So that’s the community event that we include. But the camp events, it kind of breaks it up, because it's not so—it’s not everybody's so serious. You got to make those poles, you've got to do the flags, you gotta rope—you know, get that rope around it—the animal. (Subjects: events) It's this is purely by fun, especially goat dressing. You got two runners. One has a pair of underwear on his hands and tries to get it—and they both try and get it on to that goat. I think that's—that’s fun to watch. Especially when, because we have—not only are the contestants involved as well as the goats, but we have one of the—one of the royalty members—one of the Miss Royalty members—they will go up there and they'll become the goat weight. So, they'll go sit on whatever apparatus that the rope is tied to, just to weigh it down so that the goat just can't take off and run off. (Subjects: events) And sometimes they get involved, whether it's, you know, the goat runs around them, and the contestants are trying to catch the goat, and they run over the goat weight. Or, they decide at the end of it that they're not even gonna get that goat, so they're gonna go and they're gonna—instead of putting underwear on the goat—they go put underwear on the goat weight. Michael’s had that happen once. [laughs] Or twice. Or twice. [Voice of other IGRA member in background, to protect privacy, approximately 1 second was deleted from the audio track and not transcribed](Subjects: highlight) You gotta be ready for anything, huh? So that's why that one's a fun one. Wild drag is fun because you've got—you've got somebody in drag trying to get on the back of a steer [laughs] and ride it across a line. So, those are the—those are two fun ones. The other camp event would be steer deco. And, really, that's just tying a ribbon to the tail—which is a is a difficult one—but the two fun ones would be goat dressing and wild drag.(Subjects: events) All right. So those are probably up there for your favorites? Yeah. I want to say, as far as camp, those are my favorites for camp events. And then I'd probably say Poles; Poles are the favorite for the regular events. Because it just—weaving through those six poles twice, you know, and seeing who can do it fastest without knocking poles over—it’s very, it’s very intense. And it’s good to watch the skills of both the horse and rider because that's the one where the horse and rider have to work as a team.(Subjects: events) Nice. And then, how did you decide that you wanted to become involved in royalty—or running for royalty? I've had, over the years, I’ve had friends that were royalty and so I was watching. I was observing them and everything like that. And then a couple years, they kept asking me, “So, when are you going to get involved? When are you going to run for royalty? When are you gonna?” I’m like, “I’ll think about it. I'll think about it.” And then probably about four years ago, when I was—it was four or five years ago—our former vice president of Arizona Gay Rodeo, Michael Brent, came up to me. (Subjects: mentor) And he knew me for years—since the first one I went to back in my 20s—he knew me and he actually sat me down once and he says, “So, you're running for Mr. next year.” And I said, “Um, that wasn't a question.” And he goes, “No, it wasn’t.” So, I was kind of voluntold that I was going to run for royalty, and I did. And I used that year—that cycle—as a learning experience to see what was expected and everything else. And there were seven Mr. candidates, and I came out in—I came in fifth out of seven. I was right there in the middle. (Subjects: mentor) And they said, “Are you going to do it again? Are you going to do it again?” I said, “Uhhhh….” Before the contest, I was like, “I’ll think about it. Let me go through this.” And then as soon as the contest was over, a couple people were like, “So are you going to do it again?” And I'm like, “Okay, I'll do it again.” And so, I did. And ironically, this year my goal was to come in the middle. There were four of us this year and I was like, “If I come in the middle, I'll have either second—I’ll be second or third, but I'll be on the team.” And so that's what I did. I accomplished my goal both years—both times.(Subjects: mentor) Nice! And can you talk a little bit about what the competition is like? The different things that you do? Oh, sure. Well, the competition—so if we if we start on competition day, […] Friday morning, we wake up—or we get up—and we go into this room with all the candidates, and then we get the rundown. And then we have to—we draw our numbers to see what order we get called in. And we sit there, and we wait. And when they call our number, that's when we have to be escorted into the room where there's a panel of judges. And we introduce ourselves. And then they—they allow us to sit, and we sit. And then they start asking questions. And, basically, it’s questions to find out more about us—find out our knowledge about rodeo and the organization. And then, also to just see our personality and see how well we interact and deal with that—being asked questions about this stuff. And then, they score us on that; they also score us on our—on how we—our appearance and everything. And then, after that's done, we go, and we relax for like an hour. And then we have to get ready and go—go to the rodeo grounds—and then that's when the rest of the competition is. Oh, I did skip out: there is an opportunity for—we have a, the option of—doing entertainment or horsemanship. And so, horsemanship—if you do a horsemanship—you submit a video, and then they will view that before they interview you. […] This year we didn't have any. Then, that night, we go and then we have two—we essentially have three categories, but it's in two segments. You've got Western Wear and Onstage Question—and Presentation, excuse me, Onstage Presentation. And you just come out looking your best. And then—then you pick the envelope and they ask you a question, and then you answer the question. And then, the next segment—or the final category—would be Entertainment. Then, basically, you just go out there, and you entertain, and try and get them to laugh. Enjoy yourself. And then they score you on all of that. And then, we have to rate—we have to make 75 percent of the total score in order to qualify to be sashed. Then, of course, then they go from there. Black sash would be the highest score, red sash is the next score, and then white sash, which is Second Runner Up, would be the third highest score. What was your entertainment like? My entertainment? I had fun. I was told, “Make it fun. Go out there and just have a ball.” So, what I did [laughs] was, I picked a Clay Walker song called, “Long Live the Cowboy.” It's a fun song in itself. And I came out wearing an inflatable horse with the little mini legs, ‘cause, you know, it’s like the horse and rider. And, I came out wearing that, so it was like I was riding a horse out on the stage. And I performed “Long Live the Cowboy” and had everybody laughing. Looking at the scores, I did score the highest, so everyone enjoyed it. [laughs] (Subjects: highlight) Ironically, that was the one category that I scored the highest, which is—and then I scored second in interview. And then, I guess my Western wear really wasn’t as popular as everybody else's. [laughs] I think part of it was it was the tailoring, because I'd been losing some weight, and so I didn't want to go out and get it tailored and then all of a sudden still have it either too loose or then all of a sudden I gained weight and then it being too tight. So, I was—it was a little too loose on me—and so I think that kind of marked against me. But, because I scored second in interview, and then first in entertainment, and then last in there, it put me—it kind of averaged out. So that's how I became—I got First Runner Up, which I'm fine with, again. Because I made the team. That was my important thing. Because that's the other thing I like about our royalty is: it doesn't matter what color our sash is. Because you're on the team and you work together with the whole team. And that's something I really, really enjoyed about it. And that's why I said I said, “Okay.” [Man approaches the registration desk with a question; to protect privacy, approximately 5 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] [Renae pauses tape] So, we just paused the tape, but you were saying that you like that it's part of a—being royalty is part of a team. Yeah, royalty is a team. And it's great. Even when I ran the last time and I didn't officially make the team, I was still part of the team because, you know, everybody that was royalty that year, I worked with that whole year and everything. And even though I didn't get sashed, I was still hanging out with them. And helping them out whenever I could, you know, and stuff like that. And to this day, they’re still—we’re still friends. (Subjects: community) And, in fact, ironically, the vice president of IGRA right now, Michael Butts (aka Mipsy Mikels), is also—was also the Miss the year that I ran for—she was Miss AGRA, Arizona Gay Rodeo Association, the year I first ran. I was First—ironically, I was—First Runner Up for AGRA for that year. And so, I was on the royalty team—the local royalty team—with him and worked all year. He actually got the Miss IGRA title that year, along with another candidate—or another team member—on our AGRA team also got a black sash, which is the main title of the category. So that was the MsTer IGRA. And then, ironically, her wife got the Ms.—the M-S—red sash. So, the Messrs. were the only one that didn't sash on that team. But we were fine with—we had a blast. And I learned a lot. […] And ironically, the Miss—the one that got the Miss IGRA, she is the current vice president, like I said, of IGRA. And so, she’s—he’s—I keep going back and forth because in face/out of face half the time—but he’s a big resource for me, helping me. Any former—that’s the thing—any former royalty that's still associated, still involved, which there are a lot of them, they are great resources, and we’re always here. And even when I'm done, I will always be there as a nice resource to help bring up the next people that are interested in royalty and stuff like that. And not even just royalty. The whole point of royalty is to go out there and promote the Gay Rodeo Associations, and then help each individual one with their rodeos and help fundraising. And spread the word so that, hopefully, we can be a viable organization for years to come.(Subjects: community, mentor) Yeah. So, then during the year, some of your duties as royalty are that fundraising aspect? A lot. I think the majority of our duties are fundraising, actually, whether it be for our home association or our other local associations. When we are—when we actually become the international title holders, we are required to raise money for the International Gay Rodeo Association first, and then…. But we still help out, you know, wherever we can. And it doesn't even have to be rodeo associations that we go and help out. We help out with, you know, the Imperial Court. Each state—a lot of states have Imperial Courts as well, and so we work hand in hand with them and do fundraising for them. In Arizona, I help out with a few of the leather associations and other groups that they have fundraisers. And, you know, again, the non-profits: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, some of the other non-profits that do fundraising. It's like we're always there to help. And it's also another way to help promote the rodeo association with other groups. So that's our main purpose—is to raise money. Not only for the rodeo association, but to raise money for the community and spread the word about the rodeo. And some of those—the people that you would raise money for—do you get to pick a few of your own? Like, do you bring with you, um, groups that you want to make sure to…? Yeah. Yeah. For Arizona—our requirements to even run for the title for Arizona—we have to do—we have to raise money for not only the local rodeo association, we also need to raise money for a nonprofit. So, we—so, when we announce our candidacy, we also announce who our chosen nonprofit is. Which, mine was always Joshua Tree. So, then we raise money and everything like that. So then, when we do get the title, we still raise money. We still raise money for the local association, and then our nonprofit as well. So, just because, you know, we become a title—an international title holder—you raise money for the International Gay Rodeo Association, but we still also go out and we, you know, we like to support whoever asks us. We like to try and be there as long as we can or whenever we can. But there are our own associations, or organizations, that we really enjoy raising money for. So, we're always looking to—if they have a fundraiser come up, nine times out of ten they'll say, “Hey, can you be a part of it?” And we're like, “Yeah.” If we're not at a rodeo, or another rodeo event/function then, majority of the time, we're like, “Yep.” We're right there. So, that's the other thing I like, is just being able to give back whenever we can. And also, it helps that I'm still on disability, so I have a little more free time than some. It sounds like it keeps you busy. Yeah. Because—and I find I have it easy—because I'm on disability. Because a lot of my team members, they have real jobs. They have full time jobs. You know, and they're constantly working, so it's great to, where I can, fill in wherever I need to, and stuff like that. So, it’s like, I have a feeling that—or I feel that this, this was kind of what was supposed to be for me because I had all this free time and I was able to do this. And whether I had the sash or not, I'd still be volunteering and doing it. Yeah. So, was that kind of the idea behind having a team? That then one of you fill in for the others? Yeah. And that's the thing. Because last year's team only really—they had somewhat of a full team, but their—they had some issues because a couple of them, they couldn't make it to all the rodeos and everything like that. So, having a full team, that means you can actually go in and split. And these people can go to these rodeos, these people can go to these rodeos. So, you know, it makes it easier. There have been years where there's only like three people on a team, or two people on a team. And it makes it difficult for those two or three people that make it to every single rodeo in the season. But we like to try and have at least one royalty member at the rodeo. Sometimes it doesn't happen. There have been times in the past where a rodeo didn't have any royalty members and, unfortunately, scheduling still is an issue. So, sometimes they can't make it or last minute they were gonna—they were supposed to be there and then, all of a sudden, they got called into work or something else happened. It happens. But we try to make sure that we have at least one or two royalty members at each rodeo to support. Do you know if it's always been a team approach? Or is that—has that—is that something that has evolved? Um, I think in certain aspects. It's a team, but then […] the thing about having a team of people is, not only—they’re individuals as well. So, they might have some personality conflicts or whatever, but we try to look past that and work past that because we're like, “This is not about us. This is about, you know, raising money for the community and for the rodeo.” But there are times where, you know, personal—personalities—just… they overpower the person. And then, yeah, I guess there have been times where, you know, certain individuals might not want to be a team player. But we try not to put it out there so that the public sees it. It all happened behind—behind the curtain, so to speak. But, for the most part, we try to be a team. And I think in the past it's always tried to be that. You know, that's the whole point of having a royalty team. It’s just: go out there and just be the best you can. It's not about—it's not about, “Hey, I'm Mr. and you're only the First Runner Up.” It's not about that. Because we are a team and that's something we talked about before the competition. And then it's something we restate after the competition. It's like it doesn't matter what color that sash is, it's a matter of what you do with it and how you move forward. And what you do with it, again. So, are there any things in the upcoming rodeo season that you're particularly looking forward to doing as a…? I'm going—I plan on going to a few rodeos that I haven't been to in the past. And we're really just going out there and experiencing a few new things. I get—one of the also benefits of becoming a royalty team member on the International circuit—I get to go to some of the local associations and actually judge some of their competitions. Even though we’re gay, we judge all the time. [laughs] [Renae pauses tape] We took a brief pause there, and then we're going to return to taping now. K. We are sitting at the booth. What is this—the registration booth? It's the registration booth. So, people are coming and going. Um, so let’s see, where were we? Oh—I think we are pausing again. [Renae pauses tape] So, I think you were talking about recruitment.  Yeah. So, part of—one of the other things about being part of royalty is, you go out and you not only try and recruit your—the people that take over next year for your, you know, your royalty, or to run again and so forth, but you also try and recruit by going out and letting people know about the gay rodeo association. You try and get more people interested. And, in turn, they’ll possibly be interested not in—not just into royalty, but as—interested in being competitors. […] Even if you don't have experience with horses, we have events that don't have horses, or even animals, involved. So even if you're scared of animals, we—there's team roping on foot. There is an animal involved but you have—the only contact you have—is trying to get a rope around its neck and then you let go of the rope. So, you don't even interact with the animal beyond that. And then […] there's the horse-riding events, which are the barrels, flags, and pole bending, as well as the mounted roping events. So, there's something for everyone, I think. Again, we have the camp events; we have the goat dressing. So, all you're doing is going to put underwear on a goat. You know, it's great. No matter what your skill level is, we have something for you. And then that's the other thing I like about the rodeo—this gay rodeo association—is that, even if you’ve never done any of it before, the other contestants that have been around, they're willing to come in and help you and get you involved. (Subjects: events, community) One of my team members from the last time I ran for royalty—that was on the royalty, that made it to the international royalty—one of them, the one that got the MsTer category, which is the female who dresses up like a male and entertains as a male, she decided to get into—involved in rodeo. So, she did chute dogging that year. And other contestants that have been around, they went in and they showed her how to do it. And that first year, she buckled. She buckled. And then, this year, she not only did chute dogging, she got into—she got into another event. Or actually, let’s see, so she did—oh, I think she did calf roping on foot. Yeah, so she did calf roping on foot. And that, as well as, I think, one of the camp events. And so, she's buckled. This is only her real—really her third year—second or third year—really get involved in competing in rodeo. And she's already buckled like two or three times.(Subjects: events, mentor) Wow. Yeah. That's something else, it doesn't take skills. But just getting anybody involved, that's the whole point of this is to go out and just—because if we don't, then it gets stagnant and people—people age out. Then what are we going to do? So, without the royalty team going out and promoting, there's—that’s, you know, letting people know about the gay rodeo. Because I still—gay rodeo has been around for… thirty-five years… [Mahlon enters into a side conversation with an IGRA member; to protect privacy, approximately 30 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] …so, yeah, about 40 years. And even to this day, I still have people like, “There's a gay rodeo?” [laughs](Subjects: igra) Uh-huh. And we’re like, “Yeah! And it's fun. Come out.” [Someone approaches the registration desk with a question; to protect privacy, approximately 3 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] [Renae pauses tape] So, what do you think about the future of IGRA… [someone reads a list of names in the background; to protect privacy, approximately 3 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] Do you think there’s a strong future in recruitment? Um, Yeah. We’re—we do get new people involved all the time. In fact, in Arizona, we have a member who just joined the gay rodeo this year. [Mahlon enters into a side conversation with an IGRA member; to protect privacy, approximately 10 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] And he got Rookie of the Year. So, he came in strong and showed. And, as Mike was saying, that we—we actually had two in Arizona that first-time joined. But the one who got Rookie of the Year, he came in strong. (Subjects: igra) We do get new contestants and new people involved with rodeo. In fact, one of the candidates in Arizona that is running for the Ms. (M-S) title in Arizona, she's—this is—she’s new to rodeo and everything else. And so, she's here this weekend as part of the Arizona delegates—the delegation—so she can learn as much as she can about rodeo. And she's interested and she's asking questions. And it's great because it shows that people are still interested. And so, that's—I think as long as we can keep the interest there, and keep the lines of communication open to the younger generations—to the people that, you know, find out about rodeo and they're interested—just show them that we're welcoming and open. And just saying, “Hey, what do you want to do? What do you want to learn? What you want to know?” Like you, you know, you're trying to find out—you’re asking us questions. Yep, I'll answer questions. That's what we're here for. But I think I—it’s one of those grey areas because, you know, rodeo is fun and everything else but, just like some of the bar scenes, people are getting stuck on their computers and their phones and it's harder to get them to look up and see, “Hey, there's an event going on here.” “Oh, yeah. Okay.” [laughs] You know?(Subjects: igra) Uh-huh. And it's just—it’s a matter of, not only are we fighting with all the other events that are out there, but now we have to fight and try and get the people—get the younger generation is, I feel like they're closing in and becoming more—not introverted, but they're more—because they're still talking to their friends, but it's not face to face, it's very computer oriented or phone oriented. And it's like, I know of a couple of people who’ll be in the same room and they'll just be texting each other or, you know, it's like, “Dude, you're right there. Go talk to them or whatever.” […] And I get it, because some of these people—we’re gay so we can be catty—and some of these people, they're actually texting each other because they're talking about somebody that happens to be over there. But still. [laughs](Subjects: igra) Huh. [laughs] But, you know, I think, again, rodeo has—gay rodeo has—been around for officially 35 years but really 40. I think in some aspects, it'll still be here. It may not be as big as it once was. You know, it is it has dwindled but it's—I think it’s just like everything. It’ll ebb and flow. It might not ever be as big as it was in its heyday, but I think, in some form or fashion, we'll still be able to keep it alive. Especially as long as we can keep the interest, and get people involved, and show them it’s fun—come out.(Subjects: igra) Do you think the demographics are changing at all? Either in terms of like, age, or maybe racial diversity, or ethnic diversity, or anything like that? Do you see that happening? Age? That's part of the—the age is part of the issue. Because the majority of our competitors have been there for 20 to 30 years—since the beginning. We have some members that are—have been here since the beginning. And, sad thing is, some of them are still competing but they're starting to age out. They’re getting to that—you know, being injured so many times and bucked off a horse, or a bull, or steer, or something like that so many times. They're like, “I can't do this anymore.” So, it's a matter of trying to get the younger generation. Fortunately, we are getting some younger people coming in, like the rookie of the year that I was talking about earlier, he’s like early 20s. […] And so, we are getting some younger ones, but not enough. We would love to be able to get more. The—our women demographics, the female demographics, I think is a large—there are some rodeos I think I see more women than men.(Subjects: igra) Oh. Some, not all. Or a pretty even amount. And the fact that our events, whether you're male or female, you can participate in every single event. So even if—I mean, one of my friends—one of the people I consider a friend, you know, a rodeo friend, she—I met her about four or five years ago—I met her, she was riding steers. And then she was gonna go ride a bull. That was the year I met her, was her first time. She was gonna ride a bull. Unfortunately, that Saturday she got injured so she wasn't riding much after that first event. […] So, she rides bulls and steers. I know some girls that get out there and they cover and the guys don’t. You know, and then there are some—so, sometimes there have been some events where, again, the women buckle and ribbon, and there's been a couple of times where the men don’t. And it’s the ones you would expect the men to get it versus the women. It's like sometimes the women outshine the men, and it's great. And it’s great because our association—our rodeo association—allows that. And the men don’t get jealous, you know. They’re like, “Yay!” They may get upset because they didn't cover, or ribbon, or buckle, but they're just as supportive of them and everything else.(Subjects: community) That’s great. That's the thing I love about this association. Uh-huh. Nice. Well, I think it's getting a little loud in here. Yeah, I think it is. So, I'm going to ask you one last question, if that’s okay? Okay. Sure. And this is one we're just asking to everyone. And this is: do you consider yourself a cow-person—a cowboy or a cowgirl? No. I consider myself somebody that wished they were—wished they were raised with horses and stuff like that. Because I am very envious of quite a few of them. Because, I do, I love horses; I love animals. And again, I have friends that do have that stuff. And yeah, I think—I don't know if I would be any different had I been raised with it or not. But, no, I don't consider myself a cowpoke, so to speak.(Subjects: cowperson) Okay. But I'm glad to have friends that are. Well, very nice. Thank you very much for… You’re very welcome.

Jack Morgan Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I am here today with Jack Morgan. It's September 11, 2016 and were at Duncan Mills at the Rodeo on the River. Can you tell me what year you were born? 1968 And where did you grow up? I grew up in Denver, Colorado. So, just right outside in Aravalli, so, but pretty much in Denver. Is that a very urban environment? No, not at all. I mean, it’s literally right outside the border of Denver, so I say Denver, but technically Aravalli. Easier to say Denver. I understand. Did you have a very large family? So, I'm the youngest of four siblings. I have my brothers ten years older than me and then two sisters older than that. So, kind of the baby of that, so pretty much grew up as an only child, you know.(Subjects: childhood, family) What did your family do for a living?(Subjects: parents) So, my dad owned a- my mom was a stay-at-home mother and my dad owned a general contracting construction business. So, grew up in a construction industry.(Subjects: parents) Did you do much ranch work or farming as a kid?(Subjects: childhood ) You know, no, actually. Until I became, we didn't at all. We did a lot of hunting and fishing growing up. So, pretty much every weekend I grew up either hunting and fishing up in Grand Lake and Grand Vere and my grandparents owned a cabin up there. So, spent a lot of time in that kind of environment. Then, as I got more into my teens, I became kind of familiar and acquainted with the ranch community, and a lot of farmers out in the area. So, that's kind of what my first attraction was. A lot of it was some other things, but that was kind of what first got me exposed western kind of heritage and lifestyle.(Subjects: childhood, family) Did you do any rodeo or 4H or anything like that in high school? I didn't, no. I didn't do anything until, except, it was probably my teen years, mid to late teen years, when I really got acquainted with it. And then, you know, when I was growing up it wasn't acceptable to be gay, especially in the western lifestyle. And so, I have the advantage of having a lot of history where Charlie’s, with Wayne Jakino, Jerry Cunningham, some of my great friends, Anthony Aragon. And so we were kind of the early stages of it. So, got involved because, number one proximity, the openness, the community, the family, the comradery between everybody. So, that's kind of what attracted to me, initially, and then I just kind of migrated through it.(Subjects: homophobia, community, highlight) Now, you mentioned Charlie's. Can you say what Charlie's was and how you were involved? Sure, so Charlie's is a gay country western bar. And with the old Charlie's, I think they just celebrated 25 years of their new location, but their original location was out on East Colfax. And so as I became familiar with, kind of, the lifestyle and some of the the younger gay folks, like myself, it was a place for us to kind of be ourselves, be around other country western folks and fans, and that lifestyle. And so I spent a lot of time just dancing, that was kind of my first introduction, right. Was on the Charlie's Cloggers, not sure if you know what clogging is, but so I was on the the Charlie's Cowboy Cloggers and we had performed across the country. And kind of initially, rodeos is where we started, but we always locally, Aspen's gay ski week, and stuff like that. So, it's kind of the bonds initially started of lifelong friendships.(Subjects: community, highlight) And when did you really get involved at Charlie's? So, probably 1988 is, 1989, somewhere in their, kind of familiar with it. And then really started heavily with it, ‘89, ‘90, is when I started heavily, frequenting the place. And it was my weekend hangout and dancing all night and every night. And then when did you make the jump from Charlie's to IGRA? So, in the early 90s was one of my first volunteers, and it’s when we brought in dirt actually, to make an arena. And because at that point it was difficult to find places that would rent to you, and the cost, and really the initial onset was to help our brother in the community, right. Because AIDS was a big crisis, that and there wasn't a lot of people and a lot of help doing things, and so that was kind of. [Emotional] Sorry, so yeah, it was us trying to help each other cause there was no federal funding, there wasn't a lot of help. So, that's kind of why we started, right, so that we could compete with something we do, safe environment, and help one another. I don't know where that came from.(Subjects: community, highlight) That charitable aspect of IGRA, is that still present today even after the end of the AIDS epidemic? Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's benefited that we've been able to expand because of federal funding for HIV and AIDS and all the rest of us, is that we've been able to expand our community to way past our community. So, we do a lot of pediatric things, animal care, animal welfare, breast cancer, women health. So, we've been really able to be a lot more broad in what are outreach have been. Which is, you know, that's really what an organization should do. I mean, we needed to be focused at a point, but we've been able to do so much more and accomplish so much more for our communities, and that's really what it is. Communities supporting communities right. And so, each association has, can kind of dictate and determine what's important to their community and their associations. So, you know, most associations give bids or allow people to come in and say, "Hey, you know, we would like to be a partner with you," or whatever. And so the associations themselves decided. Which is really cool, cause then it stays within the communities.(Subjects: highlight ) Now, when you first got involved, did you do some of the early dance competitions at the rodeos?(Subjects: events) I didn't do dance competitions. I always danced, but I wasn't that great of a dancer that I could do the competitions. Like I said, we were the Cowboy Country Cloggers, we performed kind of all over. Both at at rodeos and non-rodeos, but at highly sponsored events. We kind of represent, the cool thing about it is we were able to represent that country lifestyle, outside of just the rodeo. So it was always good cause it brought a widened exposure to us.(Subjects: events) Now, I know the dance competitions have sort of fallen away, do you think that's a big loss for the community or? I do. I think there is a lot of things that are a loss. I think that's one of them, right. I think that sometimes we've wrote our own challenges, because for so long, we wanted to be accepted, we wanted to be mainstream, and we've done that. But, by doing that, we've also lost some of our sub communities, which not just the cowboys out to see the western lifestyle is one of those sub communities, and so you know I count my blessings. It's funny a lot of us talk about this, us older folks, is that we had a really tight knit community, and we still do for the most part. But the younger generations is so accepted they, I think that subculture when we were growing up, because you had to identify with something. Were you cowboy, were you leather, were you circuit boy, whatever it was, right. And so, I think that the morals, the emotions, the friendships that developed, the family that developed, sometimes the older community is more dedicated because of that. So, there is good and bad to it, and that's the bad. The good is that we are much more widely accepted and can be a part of anything.(Subjects: community, highlight ) Yeah, do you notice it's harder to recruit younger people to the rodeo? Absolutely, absolutely. I think IGRA has done a great job of expanding its philosophy, and I don't even know if its expanding it's philosophy, so much us, as other people being more willing to come in. So, we see a lot more straight folks coming in, bi folks, transgender, whatever that looks like to be apart of us. And we didn't always have that before, so that's nice to see. That it's not a big deal. It's about who you are, not what you are. And that's been a big change and transition welcomed.(Subjects: community) What other changes have you seen from the early days when you were participating to now? You know, we used to be a lot bigger, back in the '90s, in the heyday, you know. One of my favorite rodeos was the San Diego, it was at Del Mar, a huge horse track. We had two arenas because we had so many people, or the early Phoenix rodeos that would start at seven in the morning and run til eleven or twelve at night. So, we've seen a trail off in that kind of community, in a sense. And I think a couple reasons, I think number one, because of the acceptance. You know, people can compete in other areas, as well. I think the other thing is that we, people have, again, I go back to what I said, I think people, our subcultures aren't as specific. And let’s face it, equestrian and rodeos are not a cheap sport, I mean it's very expensive. By the time you drive, you fly, you haul, you do all this stuff, you have people who don't have horses. I mean even to just come to some of our entry level events is expensive. So, I think that's a couple big changes. Have you yourself ever competed?(Subjects: events) I have.(Subjects: events ) What did you compete in?(Subjects: events) I used to compete in most of the camp events, so, the goat dressing, and steer deco, and wild drag. Wild drag was always my favorite, still my favorite. It's just, it's fun. It's one of our signature events, right. It's something that's kind of exclusive to us. It's a team of three people. I mean, it's just fun, it partnership, it's team, it's a little bit, you know, obviously the fashion aspect of it is incredible.(Subjects: events ) Yeah, what do you think those events sort of add to to gay rodeo, because they are so distinctive from other rodeos? Which events? The camp events. I think definitely wild drag. I think our dressing, as well, because you need no skills to do it, you go out there and put a pair of panties on. So, I think that's the one that opens up the most doors to people to allow them to expose it, to get exposure to it, and see that we are just here to have a good time. Generally, when people do that, they kind of get hooked, they start seeing bonds and the friendship. Ty, a friend of ours, passed away from cancer many years ago. She was amazing, cause she always said, “I will go out there and teach you everything I know. Then, I'm going to kick your ass.” I think that's kind of the arching overview philosophy, is that we are going to help each other as much as we can, gonna go out there and compete, and be friends after. Teach you everything I can and help you, as well, and then I'm going to compete against you, as well, don't forget that. And I think that's what makes it fun right, because it's not a hostile environment, it's loving.(Subjects: events, community, highlight) When did you become a judge? So, 2001 was my first rodeo that I judged. So, I've been judging for almost 15 years now, so, quite awhile. Is there any aspects that you enjoy more than competing? Wow, that's a great question, they are really different, right? Judging is, you get to see all the events, you get to see all the people. And it's funny because people come up and say, “Did you see me in this event?” or “Did you see me in that event?” And, “No, I was watching the process.” So, you, one of the things that is hard is that you don't get to watch your friend competes because you are kind of blind to that, right? You don't get to see that, but one of the really cool things is you get to create an even playing field and you get to make sure it's a fair environment for everybody. And I like that, I like that everybody has the same opportunity. You know, where as a contestant goes out and does an event one time, that's the one time. We may have 50 or 100, whatever, contestants when we have 30 people in one event or more. And every contestant has to be a brand new fresh set of eyes in the new event for you, so that you are fair. So, I think that's kind of one of those things that I like, is every time you have to kind of start, reset, and refocus your energy. Because to you, to them, that's their 20th time to you, then you've got to be focused as if it' your first time.(Subjects: events ) Yeah, that's a present a whole new set of challenges. It does. How many rodeos do you judge on average in a year? So this year I'm judging twelve of our fifteen, so I generally do between eight and twelve a year. And can I ask what you do for a living?(Subjects: jobs) Yeah, I manage a (?) supply chain.(Subjects: jobs) Okay, so how do you balance your rodeo workload with your work workload?(Subjects: jobs) I've been very, very fortunate. So, my job for years, being in supply chain, I have the ability to work from the road. So, as long as I have a laptop, and a WiFi connection, and a telephone I can pretty much do my job anywhere. And that really has freed me up a lot, cause planes even have WiFi now, so, I can pretty much work anywhere. So, that's the other one challenge, another one of the challenges with our contestants. It's not only expensive, but it's a lot of time off work. And the same for our officials, everything we do is volunteer. But it's a lot of time off work, to get here, and to do all this stuff. So, yeah, I've been fortunate that I've been able to work from the road a lot.(Subjects: jobs) Now, are you out, in terms of your work life and your family?(Subjects: comingout, family) 100%. I've been out since I was fifteen years old. I guess I'm one of the goal. I've never even been with a women in my life. Yeah, my family is completely cool with it, amazing supportive family, an amazing set of friends, It's always been very important to me to be out at work, and I'm completely 100% out. As a matter of fact, several of my coworkers have gay events, gay rodeos, gay other events. So, yeah, I'm 100% out.(Subjects: comingout, family, jobs, highlight ) Was that at all difficult for you to come out at such a young age?(Subjects: comingout, childhood ) Probably one of the most difficult things of my life. So, when you grow up, especially when you grow up in a blue collar family, you're supposed to be able do all these things. And I always dreamed of having kids, and growing up, a gay couple couldn't have kids. That just wasn't in the cards. Now, today, thank god through marriage and equality, all the rest of the things, marriage and kids is just normal. So, I always said growing up, I wanted the white picket fence, the kids, and one of the husbands sitting with his wife. So, one of the most difficult thing for me was that, the realization that in order to be true of who I was, that I would never be able to obtain that. At least not that, right. Today's times are different, and I thank God for the kids being able, the younger generation, I guess I should say, to be able to have that ability to really establishing that for a life. Not that we didn't before, but to be able to be publicly accepted for, you know. So, yeah, it was a very difficult thing.(Subjects: comingout, childhood, highlight) Now, Denver can be seen as a pretty conservative area. Did living there present any challenges for you, as an out gay man? And has that changed over time? Yeah, you know, and for myself, no. I was always true to myself. Did I always hear the faggot in the back, queer? Absolutely, I don't think it matters where you live, you're always going to hear that. Are you always going to have the prejudices and homophobia? Yeah. Was it much more prevalent then, than it is today? Yeah. Does it still exist? Yeah. Do I still hear faggot or queer behind my back today? You do, right. So, Denver can be conservative, but I think that society, in general, and especially Denver, has... I mean we have weed, that's legal, for god sake. So, yes, it's made a huge transition and it's a pretty hip cool area, anymore. But, I think it relates also, thank God, I never had deal with the gay bashing, or the fights, or getting hit, or anything like that. I stood my own ground. But number two, is that I never, I wasn't, I didn't put myself in those situations. I mean coming out so early, I mean my gay friends, that was my environment. And again it goes back, I think you had to choose your subcultures, where you stood, and so I was just never apart of that. And I had amazing gay friends that I'd met when I was a teenager, that are still just incredible friends that I've had for 30 plus years.(Subjects: homophobia) Did you ever run into any homophobia at some of the early gay rodeos that you went to?(Subjects: homophobia) Yeah, we've been protested at gates, we've had signs, we've had all those kind of things happen. As a matter of fact, we had a rodeo in Florida, I don't know, it was probably 2008, 2010, and it was when I first went in, and major letters of picketing, and “God hate fags,” “Out with the gay stuff.” And, for example, that rodeo was in Davy County, which is a pretty homophobic, traditional in a scene. And the association there did such an amazing job of outreach to the local communities. For example, they had some of the local communities come in and do their parking and they got to keep the money. In a couple instances, it was able to send some of the high school people to cheer camps and band camps and do things that they wouldn't have been able to do before. And by the third, fourth, fifth year, everybody wanted to do their parking. So, those kind of things, of being true to yourself, can really open up a lot of doors for people to see, you are just like everybody else. All you want to do is life, laugh, and love and eat dinner, and go play with your dog, right? I mean that's really what it is. And so, I think that one of the things about IGRA and gay rodeo, is that it allows people to see a different avenue that, “Hey, we are just normal folks.” We can go out there in drag, and dress in a wig, and laugh at ourselves, and have a good time, and get on a steer or a bull, and we allow the same equality for women to be able to get on a bull and a steer. And I think that's one of the educational pieces that's really important to us that we've been able to achieve and acquire.(Subjects: homophobia) Yeah, have you watched a lot of women do the rough stock riding?(Subjects: events) Absolutely. And I cheer every time.(Subjects: events ) What are some other big difference you've noticed between the atmosphere of a gay rodeo and the more mainstream rodeo? Sure. So, I think that mainstream traditional rodeo is a lot more tense, is a lot more uptight, a lot more competitive because there is much higher prize dollars involved. People here are amateurs, they have jobs, they do this during the weekend. It's a sense of community, it's a sense of family. And so I think that's important, as well, and that's one of the, that's probably the most significant difference that I see. You know, there's a show performance, too. I mean obviously when you go to rodeo it's a lot more show and a lot more fast. Our rodeos aren't fast, but they're fun and they create, not only inside the arena, the people that compete, but the spectators have come, that have never been to our rodeo before, gain new friendships. I think, so, the eagerness, the ability to gain new relationships and friendships is a big difference to me, that I've seen.(Subjects: events ) Do you go to many, like PRCA ? I do. You know, Denver's home of the National Stock Show, so I go to Finals in Vegas. So, yeah, I do a lot of traditional rodeos as well. Have you ran into any homophobia there?(Subjects: homophobia) Oh yes, absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, I think it’s again more prevalent. I mean, it's changing and less prevalent than it was, but it's much more prevalent twenty years ago. But I think that as it becomes more mainstream in America, it become more mainstream in some of the cultures. Western lifestyle is still a pretty conservative culture, and I think that we're nowhere where we should be, but we've made more strides in my lifetime then I every thought would be, in that aspect. I never thought in my lifetime I would be able to go to a traditional rodeo, have my arms around a guy, and I totally feel comfortable with that. You know, you might hear some comments, but I don't feel fear like I used to.(Subjects: homophobia) How about any sort of displays of other sorts of prejudice, like blatant forms of racism, at either mainstream or gay rodeo?(Subjects: racism) You know, I wouldn't say that gay rodeo I sense that. Straight rodeo I still think there's...it’s traditionally more from the males than the females at traditional rodeos, that's just what I sense. Yeah, you definitely see it, and the racism, the homophobia, whatever you want to call it, that it's just not… People have a hard time wrapping their head around that you can be gay and cowboy. That you can be gay and get your boots dirty, and your jeans, and hats dirty and that's okay. There's still that perception out there that gay people have to be stereotyped, so, I think that we have made strides, but have a long ways to go on that, yeah. I think those stereotypes still exist.(Subjects: racism, homophobia) Now, going back to your youth at Charlie’s, what was it about Charlie’s that sort of drew you into that community?(Subjects: community) Well, the guys. I mean, so obviously being a gay guy, right, I liked very masculine men and that was probably on it, honestly. That was one of the initial attractions. I was younger and I went to different types of environments and different types of bars, I just saw a lot of superficialness, maybe by their fault, or maybe by the environment. But what I found with Charlie's and the country western lifestyle, IGRA, rodeo is that people seem to be a lot more genuine, a lot more caring, and just plain real. And I established friendships from this avenue that have lasted forever, where the other avenues, you couldn't. It was always the very trendy and very fad, and I think that Charlie's, the Western lifestyle and rodeo, goes below the surface to really the core of who you are, in my opinion.(Subjects: community) And do you identify as a cowboy? Yeah, I do identify as a cowboy. What does that mean to you?(Subjects: cowperson) I think, first and foremost, a high degree of morals and ethics, honorbality, and a man of his word. So, I think that a cowboy can be defined as someone that's on a horse in an arena, roping and stuff, but to me, that's a part of it. But what it really means is who you are at your core, and I identify with that.(Subjects: cowperson, highlight) Have you ever, do you associate rodeo in any sort of way with any religious aspects of your life at all?(Subjects: religion) No, I don't. I'm not a super religious person, I said earlier when I came out at fifteen, I thank God I came out. I believe there's something greater than us, I think that I know there's something greater than us. I don't know what that is, so I'm not a super religious person. I do thank God that he led me down this path and down this journey in my life, but I don't, you know. I didn’t grow up as a hugely religious person, my family was, but that was always kind of a conflict, right. Because I never, I struggled with the religious aspect of of denying somebody love or equality because of the person they were.(Subjects: religion, family) Has rodeo affected any sort of part of your life outside of your sort of weekend family, in terms of work or relationships or anything like that? Sure, it's been very difficult. When you’re judging this many rodeos a year. And you know, it's funny, I was adding up my badges the other day and I've done, this year at Finals will be my 200th rodeo. So, I figured I've spent about 8,500 hours volunteering and over $16,000 of my own money to give back to my own community. So, that's a lot of, that's four years of a full time job. So yeah, things, you know, things suffer. I have an amazing supporting network, my sister's a photographer, every time we are in Denver she comes out, does all the photos and posts us and sends them to all the cowboys and girls, and so that's awesome. But yeah, I think there's things that are a struggle. It's tough to get on a plane and fly and drive and do all these things, and you know, after working a full day and then work remote for the full day. As a matter of fact, here we have no cell phone service here. So, I had to be at the parking lot in Safeway at 6:30 on Friday morning taking a conference call. So yeah, you make sacrifices personally and your family. My mom is a little bit older and more mature, and not in such great health, but to give you an example of the kind of support there is, this year in Vegas I got a call that things weren't so great on Sunday, and the rest of our judging team judged the rest of the event the rest of the day, and I was on a plane in an hour. So that's the kind of support you get.(Subjects: community, highlight) Is there any part of your experience that I haven't asked you about that you would like to talk about? No, I think we've been I think we've been pretty comprehensive. Like I said, I think that it's an amazing culture, that I wish still was as predominate as it was. And sometimes I think we forget where we came from, and that's why I think this is so important, and the reason we started because we were helping one another. We were helping out communities and watching out for one another.(Subjects: community, highlight) Do you still go to Charlie's? What's that? Do you still go to Charlie's? Of course I do. Yep. You know, one of my mentors was one of Jon Kino, we would play bridge at his house on Friday nights. He was, you know, he, I am honored to say he was not only a mentor, but he was a great friend of mine. And so, you know, that was an important relationship that helped me develop into the person and man that I am.(Subjects: mentor) If he were alive today do you think he would be proud of the association he helped build?(Subjects: mentor) Absolutely, absolutely. He would put his arm around you and in that deep voice tell you something that you could always do better, but yeah. I think that him and one of the other people, John, I don't know if you've talked to him, but John Beck, very old cowboy. Jon's a great friend of mine and has been for many, many years. You know, him and Wayne sitting in the bar of Charlie’s writing the rules of wild drag, you know. I mean it was somebody from Durango and somebody from Nebraska that did a lot, people sometimes forget.(Subjects: mentor) Well, thank you for talking to me. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I don't know why I cried.

Judy Munson Click to filter

I'm here on November 22nd with Judy Munson. This is Saraya Flaig at the Denver rodeo convention on November 22nd, 2019, and it's about 10:45. So, Judy, can you tell me what year you were born? 1949 And where did you grow up? Actually, I was born and raised in San Diego, California. Oh, wow. So not a very rural area. No, not at all. So, did you grow up there for your entire childhood then?(Subjects: childhood) Yep, my entire childhood and then I went away to university, to Utah, and then when I graduated with my Master of Science degree in Utah I moved to Canada and then to Calgary. Then I got a teaching job there and I’ve been there ever since.(Subjects: childhood, jobs) Did you grow up with any rodeo background or any agricultural experience? None, in fact, my first exposure to, well, my parents, we used to rent horses now and then do trail rides, you know, outside San Diego County. But that was kind of it. But my first exposure to large animals was basically in my 40s with my partner, who I'm still with. And yeah. So, she bought me my first horse and we live on a ranch now, we live in a quarter section, which is 160 acres and we board horses and have horses of our own. But I had no experience with rodeo or anything like that.(Subjects: parents) So what was your first exposure to rodeo? Actually, the first time we ever went to a rodeo, well, we were in Calgary, so the Stampede, obviously to watch and do that. But the first rodeo we participated in was the gay rodeo outside of Calgary at Simons Valley. We were retailers. We were selling stuff; we had a company called Queerly Canadian. And we sold pride stuff and that kind of stuff. After that year, we went to a meeting to explain some ideas that we had about retail, well then they appointed us as any volunteer organization. They appointed us retail coordinators, so we got involved that way. Then my first year competing, I was at a Friday night function before the rodeo and we were drinking and having a good time. And this gal from Texas, who was one of the IGRA officials came up to me and said, “Hey, I got a couple of guys that want to do Wild Drag, but they need a girl.” Because wild drag is typically two guys and a girl. “And they're from Montana, would you be interested?” I went, “What do I have to do?” So she says, “Well, all you have to do to hold the rope on this itty-bitty calf. And when the calf comes out, you hand the rope to your cowboy and then you're done.” I went, I could do that. So, I signed up. Well, we continue to drink that night. And later I heard, well, it wasn't a calf. It was a cow. And I went, “Ehh, that's probably still okay.” Well, the next morning we're having breakfast and we met this guy from California, and he says, “Oh, are you girls competing?” And we’re all excited and say, “Yeah this is our first time doing it.” He says, “What are you doing?” And we go, “Wild drag.” He goes, “Well, just remember this. Get the hell out of the way of the steer when it comes out of the chute.” So, I was like, oh, my gosh. So, it was completely different, but it was like such an adrenaline rush. And it was just so much fun. So, yeah, I got hooked. We got hooked and we've competed ever since. How did that first wild drag race go for you then? Well, it was good, actually, we got times both days and nobody got hurt. So that's a good thing. Wild drag is typically, even though it's kind of an it's a camp event, but it's one of the events there are a number of injuries because there's two teams running at a time. And so it can get pretty wild, crazy, but it's fun.(Subjects: events) Had you ever been to a gay rodeo before that? Just the one the year before when we were just selling product. But we hadn't really ever, we never even really watched it that much. So, we had no idea what the event was about or anything.(Subjects: events) Going back a little bit, what was your childhood and high school experience like?(Subjects: childhood) I don't know, it's typical for any city kid, I guess. I grew up in San Diego and participated in sports and, you know, did that kind of thing, and by the time I was out of high school, I knew I wanted to be a Phys-ed teacher. So my degree is in physical education, education and an emphasis in sports medicine. So, yeah. You know, kind of average.(Subjects: childhood) How do you identify in terms of sexuality and gender? I'm a gay woman or a lesbian. My partner and I've been together many years, thirty-five years. And we used to kind of resent being called a lesbian. It was kind of like, almost like a derogatory term years ago until gay women took on that title. We used to go to our parties and mostly gay guys they go, “Hey, here comes our lesbians.” But it was. Yeah. And so I don't know. You know, I've dated guys growing up. I did the whole, “Am I gay? Am I straight? I'm not sure,” you know. And I came from a very religious background, so that was tough, and coming out and determining which path I was going to take. (Subjects: comingout, religion) You don’t really choose who you are, but you choose whether or not you recognize who you are and embrace that. That was tough because, like I said I come from a religious background, so that was very difficult. But I guess I've kind of always known. When you look back, you look back and you go, oh, that's why in high school I felt like this or I felt like that or I was impacted by certain people in certain ways. But sometimes when you’re going through it, you’re not that aware of it.(Subjects: comingout, religion) When did you officially come out? I don’t know, I didn’t have a great big coming out thing. My family kind of knew that I always had friends that you know…but I was also in university, I was dating men or guys and still had a girlfriend. So, it was kind of like that whole I don't know, you know. I don't know, I think my family just gradually accepted who I was and that kind of thing. So, it was never really a big “I’m gay,” kind of thing.(Subjects: comingout, family) So are you officially out to your parents and family?(Subjects: parents) My parents are deceased. The rest of my family I’m out to. Interestingly enough, I have two nieces and they're both gay and they're both married to their partners down in the states. So, there's you know that whole thing. So, I went to actually my one niece's wedding about three years ago and she works at the Supreme Court. And she was married by her and her partner, were married by [Sonia] Sotomayor, the Justice. And that was amazing, yeah, it was really, really cool. And so, yes, so our family has a number of gay people in it.(Subjects: comingout, family, parents) You said you were really religious, what was that experience like grappling with what isn’t usually aligned with the church?(Subjects: religion) Well, yeah. You know, it's a religion that doesn't accept people who are gay, doesn't accept the gay lifestyle. I mean, they accept it, if you're not practicing or with someone, but it's tough because there're social norms. You know, you're supposed to get to a certain age and then you get married and then you have kids and those things are tough because that's the expectation and that's what you grow up with: here's what I'm supposed to be doing. So, to not be doing that, I kind of avoided that a little bit by going to university and going, “I'm studying and I'm, you know, working on this.” So, but eventually you have to come to grips with am I going to live this lifestyle that everyone expects you to live and not be who I am and not be happy or am I going to embrace who I am, and I think that that was for me, that was a tough thing and it wasn't really till I got out of university because I went to a religious university and so I couldn't really be out there, so, you know, it was a challenge.(Subjects: religion) When did you meet your partner? I met her my fourth year in Calgary. I moved to Canada; I didn’t know anyone. I just got a teaching job and thought this will be fun. I wanted to teach in California, but there weren't really that many teaching jobs. At the time there was a lot of teaching jobs in Canada and in Alberta. And I went up to the Calgary Stampede and I thought, this is fun, I could live here. It was like ten days of the year and the rest of the time was very conservative. But yeah. So, we met and started hanging out together and stuff like that. So, we just kind of met through friends of friends.(Subjects: jobs) Are you officially married? We're not married, but we've been together thirty-four years. So, but we've never, I don't know at the time, like when we first got together marriage really wasn't an option. You know. And so, it wasn't a thing. It was something you pushed aside because you thought, well, I'm gay and I’m with a woman, so I'm just never going to be able to be married. Well, Canada passed same sex marriage laws way before the states did. We just thought, “Well, we don’t need to be married,” and a lot of the benefits up there for same sex, they call it on our tax forms common law, doesn’t say “same sex” but they recognize your investments and all that would roll over to your partner. So, we never really felt the need to have a big wedding, it wasn’t really on our radar when we first got together. Do you notice a difference between how accepting people are in Canada versus in the United States? Well, yeah, I do, the same sex marriage thing is huge. But there's still pockets of non-acceptance whether you’re in Canada or in the US. I notice a big difference between being out and being able to be out, I mean, I have friends that are considerably younger than me that have always been out. They go, “Oh, I've never had to hide it from work or anything like that.” When I was teaching, even in Canada, I mean, I was not out. When my partner and I were together for about ten years before we ever let anybody know we were really together. We lived together as “roommates,” you know. (Subjects: teaching) Because I could have lost my job, because they would not have been able to fire me because I was gay, but they would have found some other reason or whatever. You just didn’t set yourself up for that, because it wasn't accepted. Now there's teachers that are gay and open. You know, everybody knows, and that's not a big issue, but yeah. I think probably in Canada, Alberta is probably one of the more well, we used to call it redneck, but they’re not really redneck, they're more conservative than some of the other provinces, much like some of the states down here are much more conservative than other states. But Alberta is loosening up, too, and they're getting considerably more accepting.(Subjects: teaching) Are you still a teacher now? No, I’m retired. We board horses now on a ranch and we have a business, we do a little self-storage business. We’re kind of semi-retired, get to tootle around. We get to do things like this, go to gay rodeos and gay rodeo conventions and that kind of things.(Subjects: jobs) You say you had a business with your partner. What was that business again? Well, we board horses on our ranch and then we own a self-storage facility.(Subjects: jobs) The one that you first found the gay rodeo with. Oh, that one, Queerly Canadian. Oh, that was just a little side business. I was teaching at the time and she was working full time. Yeah. We just, I don't know, we've always been entrepreneurial, and we've always had something on the side that we were doing right. It was really interesting because when we just had this little business, we would go to the Pride parade and sell stuff and then go the gay rodeo and sell stuff.(Subjects: teaching) How long did you have that business for? I don't know, probably four or five years maybe. And then we started doing land development and then we’ve done a number of different kinds of businesses. We’ve always done different things. Does your partner do gay rodeo as well? Yeah, she does. She's actually, she's more of, she competes a lot. I mean, I compete now also, but she competes more than I do. She's not interested in the administrative part of it. She goes I’m glad there’s somebody like you, that there are other people that will put it together and make it happen so I can compete. But she doesn't you know; she doesn't come to convention very often or anything like that. That's not her thing. So what events do you compete in or have you competed in?(Subjects: events) Well, in our home rodeo I’ve done all the horse events, which is barrels, poles and flags. I’ve done wild drag, steer deco, calf roping on foot. I don’t do the roping events. I’ve done pretty much all the events except the roping events, steer riding, and rough stock. Although my partner has done steer riding and won some buckles in that.(Subjects: events) Do you ever wish you would have tried to steer riding or any of the rough stock events?(Subjects: events) I kind of am still intrigued with chute dogging. That kind of intrigues me, but that's tough. You know, like standing in a chute next to a steer and then coming out and doing that. But it's kind of on my bucket list, somewhere down the road, I'd like to do that and at least try it.(Subjects: events) What's kind of holding you back from that? Well, usually I'm kind of involved in administrating and being rodeo director and you can’t compete if you’re rodeo director. But when you do compete it’s kind of out there, kind of a scary thing. And there's lots of girls here that do that, that do chute dog, and they’re very good at it. Maybe I’ll try it one day. Did you find it hard to kind of join the rodeo community, not growing up in an area that had it?(Subjects: community) Not really, because I find that, you know, we all think that gay rodeo is a lot of the rural kids that come in and get to compete. And that's true, they get to compete in an environment that’s welcoming and comfortable and they can be with their partner or whatever. But there's a lot of city kids that come out too, people that have grown up in the city that come out and go, I'd really like to try this. You know, also in the community itself, this is very, very welcoming and very warm and people want to help you. But I think that mainstream rodeo or straight rodeo, as we call it, that whole philosophy is the same there. (Subjects: community) You see, guys hazing for each other and loaning each other horses and doing all those kinds of things, it’s kind of a culture. And so, in rodeo, whether it's straight or gay rodeo, everyone helps everyone. And I think that that's a thing. All the gay rodeo does is allows us to participate with our peers and not be discriminated against or not have to worry about what anybody is thinking. You know, if I kissed my girlfriend before I go and do whatever event. So, I think that culture of rodeo is very typically warm and very welcoming and very helpful. I think we find that everywhere. Have you ever won any rodeo events? Yeah, actually in our last rodeo, which was the first Canadian Rockies gay rodeo that we had. My partner and I won steer deco and that was really cool. But I've also, I've got more awards than I have competitor buckles, but they're like, rodeo director and Grand Marshall, Hall of Fame, and those kinds of things. But they're kind of like, I kid with my girlfriend and I go, “Yeah, you go out, you run your horse for 18 seconds and you get a buckle. I worked for two years to get a buckle you know, like nonstop.” [laughs] But it's you know, I compete because I love it. And when I ride my horse, I mean, I'm not I'm not up there with the speediest or anything like that. But I just get the chance to ride him at our rodeo, which was kind of fun. It’s just something I like to do.(Subjects: events) How did you get more involved with gay rodeo after that first time you competed? Well, I don't know. You just kind of get hooked and then you think, well, maybe I could do another event, maybe I could do calf roping on foot, maybe I could do steer deco, maybe I could ride my horse, and so you just gradually do that. And then I was in, years ago for the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association, which started in the 90s, I was rodeo director for three years for that and then I was on the board for a number of years. (Subjects: events) I wasn't on the board for quite a few years, but it stopped in 2015. They discontinued it and then a few of us were in Calgary, and were just going, you know, and a few people came up to me because they knew I was involved, and go, “You think gay rodeo will ever come back to Calgary?” And we go, “I don’t know.” So, one night some friends of ours were over and we were drinking and talking and go, “We need gay rodeo back in Calgary.” So that was last year, was our first year our inaugural year for the Canadian Rockies Gay Rodeo Association. We started from scratch, set up a brand-new association and had to get accepted provincially and then had to get accepted through IGRA to be seated, and IGRA again. And so last year we were at the Stampede Park event center, beautiful facility, and it was our first year ever, so it was exciting, but it was a little stressful because we didn’t know what we would have for competitors, we didn't know a lot of things. It was just like a shot in the dark, and going well, I hope people show up.(Subjects: igra) Were you one of the head people organizing that association and getting them back? Yeah, yeah, I’m President of that association. What was that like kind of getting everything back together and reorganizing that? It was a lot. It was hard in a year's time, because it was like well, you’ll run the rodeo the next year, you know, no we're gonna do it this year. So last November, when we were in convention we applied, and they accepted us. And I mean, the delegates here were amazing and they gave us a standing ovation. They were so excited to have Canada back because like I was kind of kidding that we say we’re the I in International Gay Rodeo Association because we're the only one outside the states. But yeah, people were really supportive in IGRA of Canada and they love to come to Canada to rodeo. So, we're hoping to get more American competitors up this year.(Subjects: igra) Do you have quite a few people in your association now? We have five executive members and then we have a rodeo committee of about, varies between ten and fifteen people. So, it's a pretty good group and we progressed this year, we need more people on the rodeo committee to fulfill other areas so that we can kind of expand and grow a little bit. What's it like being president of your association? It's just fun. It's like, it's fun to see it grow and bring new people in. And we're really lucky because we have a number of new committee members that have no idea about rodeo. And last year was our first full weekend at the rodeo and so it was kind of enlightening for them. But they bring a ton of enthusiasm and they’re excited to be involved and that kind of thing. And we have on the Friday before the rodeo, we have a rodeo school. And so people that want to try out some of the events, we have instructors that show them how to do things like chute dogging or steer deco or whatever, and they get to try to actually experience that and then they can register that night if they want to. And last year we had twenty-one in our rodeo school, and out of that twenty-one, we ended up with fourteen brand new competitors. So that was exciting, that was really exciting. And I think that was the largest number in IGRA for the rodeo schools because a lot of the rodeos now have a rodeo school and a dance. (Subjects: igra, dance, events) And the rodeo school is for new competitors, if somebody wants to try it, or people who have competed before, it's kind of a practice. You know, you go and throw a loop, or you go and try chute dogging practice. It's a way of expanding our contestant base, but, you know, we're trying to get new people and younger people in and guys and girls wanna try it and sit in the stands and go I think I could do that, but I don't know what to do. So, it gives them the experience of trying it in a really welcoming environment, in a supportive environment, and lots of people mentor them and want to help them.(Subjects: mentor) A lot of people have talked about the future of IGRA, do you have a lot of younger competitors in the Canadian association?(Subjects: igra) We don't have a lot, some of us are aging out. But we're trying to expand into that. So our goal this year, for our association, is to expand into a number of the LGBTQ organizations and pull some of the young people that are in those organizations into rodeo and have them come and experience it and try it, because once you try it, you're standing down in the arena. Honestly, you're hooked, or you're scared to death and you never come back. One way or the other. But it's about that environment where there's people there to help you and having fun. You know, it's all about rodeo and having a good time and supporting each other's back.(Subjects: igra) How do you see the future of IGRA, do you see it growing more? I hope so, I hope that there's growth. Well, I mean, I just came out of Rodeo Rules, who were trying to change some things that make it easier for contestants to get involved and that kind of thing. And then I think part of it is PR, we have to really expand and explain IGRA to people. In 2014, we had the first ever gay rodeo affiliated with Gay Games and that was in Akron. The rodeo was actually held in Akron, Cleveland, Ohio and it was amazing. I mean, we didn't have any association there to help us do it. It was all my committee was, I was rodeo director and my committee was all across the United States and in Canada. (Subjects: igra) So, we all just communicated and then we'd go check out the site and all that. And then it was really exciting. I mean, we had 100 contestants. I mean, people hauled all the way to Ohio from California and everywhere. And it was really neat because the opening ceremonies was in this huge, big arena in Cleveland. And so, we were all wearing our red IGRA shirts, long sleeve shirts and white cowboy hats. So, we all walked in because it was like the opening ceremonies of any Olympics or Gay Games or whatever. And so, we all walked in, all these cowboys and cowgirls and all our volunteers and 100 contestants. (Subjects: igra) And it was just massive. It was just amazing. And it was a great PR for IGRA and that’s the kind of thing we need, is we need to let people know about IGRA. We need to let people know about gay rodeo, because you think people know. I mean, all the years the gay rodeo was in Calgary, I would still run into people and say, “You coming to the rodeo?” and they’d go, “what rodeo?” This is a gay community, and they didn’t know there's a gay rodeo. So it's like anything, it's like advertising and promoting it.(Subjects: community, igra) So have you participated in the Gay Games since? No. Actually, I'd never even been to a Gay Games before we did that. But they had contacted our President at the time of IGRA, Brian Helander. And they said, “We want to do an exhibition of an event that we don’t normally have, would the gay rodeo be interested?” Yeah, for sure, and it was a huge challenge. It took us two years to put it together so that we were ready for it, but it was like the highlight. Even the guys that organized the Gay Games said that everybody's talking about the gay rodeo, like it was kind of a highlight of the whole thing. So, I’ve been affiliated with that, but I haven’t been to it since then.(Subjects: igra, events) So what normally happens at the Gay Games? I'm not familiar with them. Well, there's like, oh, there's sixty some odd events and thirty something countries from all over the world. So there’s like, you know, gay competitors in swimming and there’s hockey and there's basketball and volleyball and individual sports and team sports and it just goes on and ballroom dance like everything, like everything that you see in an Olympic kind of thing you see in Gay Games. But they're just gay competitors, but they're from all over the world. It was really exciting. It's really neat.(Subjects: events, dance) You said that you've been rodeo director before, what rodeos have you been rodeo director for? I was the director for the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association way back in the late 90s and I was rodeo director for three years for that, so that was fun. How did you become rodeo director? Did anyone encourage you or was it just something you wanted to do? It's just one of those things because at the time the rodeo director before me was resigning and you basically get nominated and elected into the position. And I just thought it was something that was intriguing that I thought I could grab a hold of and really liked. Because I had that experience, when Gay Games came up and I was contacted and they asked if I wanted to chair the rodeo and I said, yeah. Then they asked if I wanted to become rodeo director, so I moved into that position. We've got a new rodeo director for our association, and she kind of came in really late last year like right before the rodeo. So, everything was all done in advance and so she just kind of managed things over the weekend. She said, “I think I need to go to convention and figure out and learn a little more what I should be doing and getting a little more information about things.” So, she and her partner are here. I was kidding with them that they’re Convention virgins. But so, they're hitting all the different things that are going on today and learning more about things and figuring stuff out. It just gives them more background and the more you learn, the more effective you are in what you do. What is it like being a rodeo director? What do you do in that position? Well there’s a lot of preliminary stuff you do throughout the year. We deal with the stock contractor and the stock contractor contract and the rodeo committee to make sure that they're doing whatever they need to for marketing or social media or, you know, there's like 15 different, there's a million different things that you can do and communications, all those kinds of things that you just basically can oversee and manage your committee, if you're lucky enough to have a committee. Last year, it was like we were starting from scratch, there was like three of us and that was kind of it, and we were doing everything. And then you're trying to draw people in, would you like to do this or help out with membership or would you like to help with grand entry or, you know, those kinds of things. So basically, it's like a managerial position where you oversee things and people don't do jobs and you have to pick it up and do it. And just making sure things happen and then on the weekend of the rodeo, making sure things run smoothly. An IGRA official comes in because you have your official judges and your timers and your scorers and your auditor and your secretarial and they come in and kind of take over and then kind of take charge of that whole thing and then you're kind of their little gopher and you're running, get this and get that. I remember my first year as rodeo director for the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association I remember, one of the officials came in and I said, “Michael, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do this weekend.” And he goes, “You just hang around and if we need something, we'll let you know, otherwise, we got it covered.” But, you know, I mean, IGRA is really good at what they do, and all the officials are certified, and all of your support staff are certified. (Subjects: igra) But the interesting thing is everyone there, with exception of stock contract, is a volunteer. No one gets paid. So, this whole thing you see all these people here for delegates and association presidents and all that, it's all on their own dime. They travel on their own dime. They pay for their own way. You might pay for the judges’ rooms for three nights and help them out a little bit with airfare as an association, but basically, it's all volunteer with their time as a volunteer. That's how that's how passionate they are about rodeo and about gay rodeo. Have you held any other positions within IGRA besides rodeo director and president? Well, that was a local association president. Well, the local association, I've been in practically every position except treasurer or secretary and I’ve done fundraisers, sponsorship, president, vice president, rodeo director. IGRA, I’ve been a delegate and I was rodeo director for Gay Games, chairperson for that and that’s basically it.(Subjects: igra) So what do you think is one of the big differences between gay rodeo and other rodeos or equestrian events? Well, if you look at straight or a mainstream rodeo versus gay rodeos, I always say one of the biggest differences is that in gay rodeo men and women compete with in everything. So, women can steer ride, they can bull ride, they can do everything. They can do whatever rough stock, chute dog and men can do all horse events. You don't see that in straight rodeo. Typically, girls do barrel racing and now in Alberta, they've changed it so women can do breakaway roping. But in gay rodeo, everybody does anything. And that's part of it. And then the other part is of gay rodeo, we have, I don't know if you’ve seen the videos, but we have camp events. So we have wild drag, which is a really fun event. We do goat dressing, which is really funny, but it's the introductory event. We get people involved, and then calf roping on foot. So, we have what we call camp events and so we have just kind of fun events, but they are pretty challenging. But it's a way to get people involved in, so you don't have to have a horse. You don't have to ride a steer, but you can still be involved in gay rodeo, and compete and get involved in it.(Subjects: events) Have you ever competed outside of gay rodeo? I've done jackpots, and barrel races, and that kind of thing. But I haven’t really ever done any other kind of rodeo events.(Subjects: race) You said earlier you are in the IGRA Hall of Fame, what year were you inducted?(Subjects: igra) I believe it was 2017, so like three years ago, it wasn't that long ago in Little Rock at convention. So that's the one convention my partner came to because she knew I was going to be inducted, so it's fairly recent. And let me tell you the people in the IGRA Hall of Fame I read their bios, I was just blown away by what they've accomplished and what they've done and how long they've participated in things. I mean, a lot of them have grown up on farms and been on horses since they were two, you know. But then there's others that have it that are just, you know that just committed a lot of time and energy.(Subjects: igra) What was that experience like for you being inducted? It was really an honor. It was just a huge honor, as I said before, before I went down to the convention I went on the website and started reading the bios, the people that were on the Hall of Fame, and it was just a huge honor. Have you ever experienced any forms of homophobia at the rodeo? At our rodeo? No, not really. Not really. It's interesting because this year, last year we were at Stampede Park, which is a stampede grounds for the Calgary Stampede where The Calgary Stampede is held. We weren’t in that arena, but we were in an indoor arena on that facility. And typically, stereotypically, the Calgary Stampede is like the redneck cowboys. You know, that kind of thing. So, when we met with them, they actually contacted us and said, “you know, we understand that you're bringing an association back for gay rodeo. Would you like sit down with us and talk about maybe holding it here?” And let me tell you, ten years ago or even five years ago, we never thought that would happen. We always thought, you know, when people said, “Really at the Stampede Park? “And we said yeah. They sat down with us and they worked with us and they kind of shaved down costs and helped us get through things and worked things out. And we were treated so well, so well. And at the end of it, we did the wrap up with the event managers and not only the staff and everybody just so positive toward us. They said that their staff loved working with all of our competitors and our officials, and everybody was so welcoming and warm. That's such a good weekend, it's a whole weekend given it starts on Friday night at Rodeo School and goes until Monday morning. I guess, you know, we can camp there in the hope we have a host hotel in downtown Calgary. You know, so but yeah, and I would think if we were going to experience it in gay rodeo, that might have been where we would have experienced it, but it did not happen. Everybody was just so supportive. I know and people go, Stampede Park, really? They're going to let a gay rodeo in Stampede park. Yeah. And actually, the girls that we work with, the event managers were fairly young, and they were going this is so long overdue. There's no reason we shouldn't have had gay rodeo here forever. You said the association in Canada went away for a while, were you still involved with IGRA during that time period? No…Well, let me think. Did I go to convention then? Because what happens is when the association stops existing, then they're taken off of IGRA records. And so, the new association that we started had to reapply and be reseated.(Subjects: igra) And how long did the association not exist before you brought it back? They canceled it in, I think the last year they had it was 2015 and we brought back the new association 2019. So, four years, so it wasn't that long, but it was long enough that people were used to the rodeo in Calgary. And were going, “We’re missing the rodeo.” So, it was just four years. And what does it mean to be a cowboy or cowgirl to you?(Subjects: cowperson) I don't know. Well, I guess I consider myself a cowgirl. I don't know. It's just being able to enjoy horses and livestock and rodeo and, you know, like we talk about our rodeo family. It really is it's like, I'm just talking to a guy last night who lost his partner earlier this year and he was saying what everybody was like around him. He said, you know, rodeo family was like, they just lifted me up. So I think that's it. I think that and being, you know, now that I live out the country, if you had told me ten years ago, maybe twenty years ago that I was going to be living in the country, on a ranch, I’d go, “Yeah, right, not going to happen.” (Subjects: cowperson, family) But, you know, it's just a lifestyle. It's taking care of your neighbors and helping them. We have elderly neighbors down the road, and we’ve fed his cows through the winter sometimes and his wife just fell and broke her hip and so we've been helping them out and helping her out. And it is it's a lifestyle, it's just part of who you are.(Subjects: cowperson) Have you ever experienced the rodeo family yourself or found that community?(Subjects: community) Oh, yeah, from the minute you get involved, you do. Just the minute you get involved and you see people you haven’t seen in a while, you know, like I didn't do any rodeos last year except ours because we're so busy planning it and booking it. And so, when I came back to the convention here and saw everybody, it was just like home and seeing everybody again, you pick up where you left off.(Subjects: community) Is there anything else you would like to add specifically about your experience in gay rodeo? No, just that I hope that the promotion of it increases. Because I think there's a real need for it even now when people are saying they don’t need gay stuff anymore because everything is so accepting. There's really still some areas where the gay lifestyle is not that accepted and not that welcome. And so, for people to be able to participate at this level and be accepted and come in and try something new and get excited and experience that whole thing it would be a shame for it to ever disappear. I think there's always going to be a need for it. I think that the people are what make it, the people you see around here are the ones that make it. And like I said, they're the ones that are getting here on their own dime. They’re spending their own money and their own time and their days off from work or whatever they have to do to get here. That’s the commitment and that’s the commitment that will keep it going. That makes it really important for people just wanting to hang out and be together. Do you see yourself continuing participating in gay rodeo for the foreseeable future? Oh, yeah. I don't know at what level or doing what, but yeah, I've got another year of my tenure for president of CRGRA, so I've got at least another year. You know, in some capacity, I think there's always room. I mean, if people want to be involved and don't really want to participate in competing, they could be secretarial or they could get certification for judging or all those kinds of things, there’s always people needed to run a rodeo. Well, thank you very much.

Patrick Cowboy Ram Click to filter

It is Saturday, November the twenty-third and it is 8:07 p.m. and we are sitting and visiting with Patrick. So, would you mind telling us about how you came to be involved with rodeo? So I came to be involved with rodeo when I first moved to Washington D.C. Prior to moving to Washington D.C. I was listening to a lot of country music and when I moved down I looked to see what kind of bars there were in Washington D.C. and I found that there was a gay country western bar called “Remington’s,” located on Capital Hill just about six blocks from the capital and after moving to Washington D.C. I went to Remington’s because being a listener of country western music I figured that would be a good bar for me to go to. And I walked in and saw the bar, saw the dancing and I thought “This is where I want to be,” so pretty soon I was spending five nights a week there. About two or three weeks after I moved to Washington D.C. the rodeo association had a table and I had seen rodeos before and I thought that might be something that I want to check out a little bit more. So they were promoting and selling tickets to the rodeo.(Subjects: music) I was very poor in those days so I kind of waited until the end of the night just to get a little bit of information, ‘cause I didn’t have money to buy tickets. When I went up, Mike Lentz, who was very involved with Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association - as a competitor, as president, as trustee - was one of the first people who I met and he looked at me toward the end of the night as they were packing their stuff up, ‘cause I figured you know I could swipe a newsletter and not really have to talk to anybody. But, he caught me, and he looked at me, and he said “Have you ever been to a rodeo before?” And I said, “Yes.” And he said “Well you should come to ours.” And I took the information and read the newsletter. I didn’t go to the rodeo that year but they were beginning to, after the rodeo, they were beginning to look for planning the committees and the board for the following year. There were a listing of committees and the contact information for them and I thought well this would be a good way for me to start making a social circle and getting some friends in a structured way and maybe I might date a cowboy or two. So that’s kind of how I got started with the association itself. I joined the Social and Entertainment Committee and I joined the Public Relations Committee. The Social and Entertainment Committee was in charge of planning the volunteer appreciation event at the end of that year and I got involved in that and started talking to the then president, Jason Hayes, and working with him a little bit on the event and he was a bull rider and I thought to myself, “Well that will impress guys.” You know, “What do you do at the rodeo?” “I ride bulls.” So, as we became better friends I asked him how he got into rodeo and that I wanted to learn to be a competitor. He gave me some instructions on where to look for frodeo schools, etcetera, etcetera. And I went and learned from some rodeo schools and a year later I was doing steer riding. So that’s kind of the start. That’s amazing. And were you hesitant to start doing the steer riding? I mean, you had no experience with it beforehand, is that right? I had no experience with steer riding or competing in rodeo beforehand. But I had done snowboarding prior to that and that was back in the days, you know, that was back before...that was back when snowboarding was looked at as the lazy man’s version of skiing, where it wasn’t taken seriously, it wasn’t considered a real event. It was basically, like, you were taking a skateboard and strapping it to your...a skateboard without wheels...strapping it to your feet with Wonder Bread ties and going down a mountain. So, I had done a little bit of an extreme sport beforehand. So doing rodeo itself and doing the steer riding my only hesitation was that I wanted to be good. What’s your definition of “being good?” The definition of “being good” would be somebody who was consistently placing, consistently earning ribbons, consistently earning buckles. That was kind of my definition of “good.” Do you remember your first ribbon or buckle that you managed to earn? The...I don’t remember my first ribbon or buckle. I actually do remember the first and only buckle that I have ever earned. So the first and only buckle that I had ever earned was with the Idaho Gay Rodeo Association. So they used to do an event every May and I would go out and participate in their event. They gave away one buckle, one buckle only for everything, one all-around buckle. Unlike some other rodeo associations or other rodeo events where they might have buckles for individual events or more than one buckle they had one and only one. And that was the first buckle that I had won by competing there. So, the first and only buckle I ever won. (Subjects: events) That was really something if they only had the one and you won it! Yes. My goodness. What year was that again? That was 2003. And how much time, then, had passed into that point from when you had started the steer riding to earning the buckle? Five years. Five years. Impressive amount of skill you managed to build up in such a short amount of time. And then was that still...you’re based out of Washington D.C. and you go clear out to Idaho to complete? Yes. Is that common? Yes. Actually it is fairly common for people to basically travel the country to compete in rodeo Would your home association send other folks or would you all travel independently and just happen to go to different...is it a coordinated event, I guess? It was more travelling independently but a lot of us would wind up at some of the same rodeos for the early, you know, late 90s early 2000s. You know, people would travel the circuit, like, a career, so you see a lot of the same people at the same rodeos and it’d be the same groups of people so, you know, kind of unorganized contingents that would be coming to the various rodeos across the country. But so good to have those familiar faces and the touchstones of “Oh yeah, I haven’t seen you since…” Yes. Yep. And so that’s how you got your start in rodeo and now you’re president of your association. Yes. And now I’m president of the association! [Laughter.] Thanks to Michael Lentz as well! So really he is bookending the story here for beginning and to your rise to where you are now? Yes. Yeah. Does he give more encouragement? More, “You look like you could use something else to get your hands into?” I’m sorry, say that again? So he invited you to get into rodeo to start with, and then did he also invite you to get into the leadership roles? Now, well, probably after about the first year after I joined the Social and Entertainment Committee the person who was head of the Social and Entertainment Committee, at that time, Tracy Hipps, actually he was the one who kind of encouraged me to be head of the Social and Entertainment Committee the following year. I did that, I did Public Relations for a little while, and those were the two positions that I held until holding the position of president. May I ask how that transition occurred? Sure! [Laughter.] So the way that transition occurred is we had somebody, Beth Brockleman, who had been in the position of president for probably, like, I would say four years. Maybe five years. And she was ready to step down and there wasn’t anybody else and we were having a membership meeting and what happened was I was on my way to the membership meeting, so I was on the phone, and you know they were talking about who was going to be the next president and how they were going to do nominations and blah, blah, blah, and at that point my phone lost signal and cut out. And so, about, you know, a few minutes later I called back when the signal was back and I said, “Hey,” you know, “Calling back in! What did I miss?” And Mike Lentz said, “Well, we just nominated and elected you president!” [Laughter.] And I thought, “Ha ha ha, he’s joking!” But when I got to the meeting it wasn’t a joke. They had nominated and elected me to be president. So that’s how that happened! Did they give you any kind of...did the former person give you guidance? Give you assistance into stepping into that role? Well Mike Lentz and a few other folks like Les Boggs, and Louis Vernado, and Andy Pitman, and other people who had been involved in rodeo have been really good over the years in terms of being a resource for questions, sounding board, being a pair of hands, being at the rodeo, you know...Sonny Kurner, Mark Larsen, Oscar Moschello, or other members of our association who’ve done a lot of hands on work and a lot of, you know, vocal listening and sounding board and that kind of thing. So you weren’t unsupported. Correct. It sounds like a good family watching out for you. Yes. Yep. What were some of the most challenging things that you’ve had to deal with in your tenure as president? Well membership growth is one of the things that is most challenging. For the area that we are in venues for doing events, whether they be rodeo school events or whether they be membership events. Another challenge is, you know, the membership who was part of the association in its adolescence is now matured into its middle age and maturing into the middle age they’re not as interested as they are in doing bar event when you’re like twenty-six and thirty-two when...you know, you’re forty-two and like fifty-six, you’re kind of interested in doing something else other than going to bars. So we’re trying to meet that desire and that need for the membership...is some of the challenges that I’ve had as president of the association. And you have some new ideas on how to grow membership? That’s something that we’re always looking at, yeah. And so that was the challenging. What are some of the most rewarding things for you in your time as tenure of president? Some of the most rewarding things...is, um, some of the most rewarding things...actually, the most rewarding thing is when people come up to me and they say...they either have really fond memories of the rodeo that we used to produce, or really fond memories of the dances, or really fond memories of our rodeo weekend, or they come and they say that they didn’t know that such a thing as gay rodeo existed. What makes that really rewarding is our last rodeo that we produced was in 2008 and our membership and IGRA’s membership has had a decline from, you know, the middle 2000s to now. (Subjects: dance, igra) But I kind of think to myself even though we may have a decline in membership, you know, how lucky am I to have been a part of something where, you know, people still remember it, like, ten years later. So that’s the thing that’s most rewarding and then finding people who are interested in country western and are interested in rodeo competition and they live in our area and they don’t know where to start or where to look, or that such a thing exists. So that’s the thing that is rewarding, is providing that for the people who...that has been their life, they want to continue that being in Washington D.C. and we can provide a way for them to do that. Do people in Washington D.C., especially when they just discover the rodeo community, do they have that disconnect of “Well, it’s not out West.” You know, these ideas about cowboys are out West and the “American West.” Do they have some incongruity with...over on the east side of the states? A little bit. The questions that they tend to ask is, you know, “Where do you do that?” and “How do you practice it?” So that’s the part that’s the disconnect for them. And you mentioned venues were an issue of just trying to secure the space. Is it that you have to go so far afield to find an appropriate one or one that will fit the size of the event that you’re running? A little bit of both. Finding a venue space that is in close enough an area of Washington D.C. that you’re not asking people to travel way far out and then finding something that would meet the requirements for what International Gay Rodeo Association is looking for in terms of your venue space. You mentioned that you had moved to Washington D.C., where was home for you originally? Were you a military brat and moved around? Or did you come from out west and moved east? Or... No, I came from New England. New England? Yes. Yeah. If you’ve ever seen the movie “The Witches of Eastwick” that’s my town. But Washington D.C. is now where the heart is? Yes. Yeah. It, well, no the heart is still in New England but the body is in Washington D.C. Most of my family is still in the New England area, so, yeah. And you have siblings? I do. I have two sisters. Are they older? Younger? They’re younger. Okay so you didn’t get picked on. At least they didn’t gang up on you? No, no. What was growing up in New England like for you? I spent most of my time at the beach. Like every summer. And where I lived was...so you know, it was south of Boston and for the time that I grew up it was actually considered a fairly big town because we had twenty-five thousand people which was fair sized but we were kind of not suburban. We’re probably “sub-urban suburban.” I like to tell people that we were so close to being off the map that there was literally a park called “World’s End.” Growing up there wasn’t too much that is unique or unusual about the way that I grew up. (Subjects: childhood) Most summers were spent at the beach, the whole entire day spent at the beach. Most winters were spent in school, or as I got older, working. Other than that the most striking thing is when I grew up, if we had any kind of storm that was slightly remotely bad, the power would go out and sometimes the power might go out for three days and that was just a very normal part of growing up. And it wasn’t unusual to be prepared for that kind of problem, so, you would get out your candles and light them and...(Subjects: childhood) So like a taste of frontier life, really? Yes. Yeah. You mentioned snowboarding and then time at the beach, so you were very much into the high...extreme sports activities as well? Maybe surfing or, um, things like that that drew the adrenaline out? I did rowing, rowing on my own when I was in eighth grade, so my parents bought me a small dinghy for going into high school. It was something that I’d wanted for a very long time so I spent like three or four summers rowing all around Boston harbor with me and my two cousins. So I did that, and then when I got into the latter part of high school and the beginning part of college that was when I started to get into snowboarding. And I went to college in Maine, so there was a lot of opportunity to do the snowboarding there. (Subjects: childhood, parents) Did you have a fascination with being a cowboy or the ideas about western life even then? Or was this more of a recent interest? So it was a little more recent. When I was really young we would listen to country music, so, Linda Ronstadt, Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, I had a huge crush on Irlene Mandrell ‘cause my father had told me that she could play twenty-six different instruments and I just thought that was so incredible that I was just over the moon any time that her and her sisters would perform. Oakridge Boys, you know, Chrisofferson, Johnny Cash, all those. Dolly Parton, of course. And then probably as I started to grow up and get into junior high and high school I started listening to a little bit more rock and pop. And then after graduating college started to listen to more country music. Shortly after I graduated from college Wynonna and Naomi Judd stopped performing as The Judds, and it was just Wyonna on her own, and one of the first songs she ever performed was “No One Else on Earth” and I really liked that song so I bought her whole entire album. And then shortly after that Reba McEntire came out with “Why Haven’t I Heard From You” which I thought was the most hysterical thing I had heard up to that point, and I bought the album for that song and by that time Garth Brooks really started becoming very popular and so I just kind of fell back into it after being away from it for a while. Do you have continuing interest in the contemporary music that comes out? New releases as well? Are you still following along with the... Yes, I am. I’m still following along with contemporary country music, so, Sam Hunt, Kane Brown...I also really like Trace Adkins, you know, I was a very big Chris Cagle fan and he was very nice to look at as well...Tim McGraw, Alan Jackson, all those folks, but also I really like some of the more contemporary country as well. Country as a music has evolved consistently, so the country music of the ‘40s sounds different of the country music of the ‘50s sounds, different of the country music of the ‘70s, sounds different of the country music of the ‘90s and the country music of today. So, my all time favorite country music song is “Crackers” by Barbara Mandrell, and you go back and you listen to her version of that song and it doesn’t sound very country at all, so, some of the music that is being performed today by Sam Hunt and by Lady Antebellum and by some of the other more contemporary performers that people might not say sounds like country...some of the music that was country music back in the ‘70s...that didn’t really sound like country either. (Subjects: music) Do you...um, when you were doing the social event planning did you plan mostly around music or did you plan it around other events? Like maybe a barbecue or bowling or...how would you prefer to schedule social events when you were in charge? It was mainly around music, so we would do different...we had a, um, dance competition. So we had the “Atlantic Coast Open,” and so that was a dance competition...couples dance competition. We also did, um, social events in regards to, um, gosh what were some of the things that we did? [Laughter.] That was so long ago! We did a dance at Baltimore Harbor for a few years, um, also planning a lot of the social events for the rodeo weekend itself...the dances that took place for that...performances, and then also we did some drag shows and other types of events that we would do in bars as social and entertainment events. So two of the ones that I remember most fondly are...we had a event that we did that was a quiz show event. It was called “Gone in Sixty Seconds.” (Subjects: dance, performance) We would have people come up as contestants and they would have sixty seconds to ask...sixty seconds to answer questions. And those questions were usually centered around events and things that were happening within the gay community so they could be leather events, the could be drag events, they could be history events, um, but we used it really as a way to try and reinforce the marketing of what’s coming up. You know, when is the International Leather Convention? When does the rodeo take place? When is New York City’s Pride? Those were the kind of questions that we asked and then people moved up, kind of Price Is Right style, you know, whoever won moved into the final round and if we had a tie then we would have a lightning round with whoever was in the tie to answer questions. And if you got one wrong then you know that was it. (Subjects: community, events) It was like sudden death match! So that was the first event that I really liked that we did, and then the second event that we did was, um, the rodeo association had done a event called “The Shirt Off Your Back” auction. So they would auction off western t-shirts and they’d have good looking cowboys and cowgirls who would come out, people would bid on them and then whoever the winner was had the opportunity to take the shirt off the cowboy or cowgirl. We took that event and we put a little...we made it accessible for poor people, ‘cause not everybody could bid like sixty dollars on a shirt. So what we would do is we would have the good looking cowboys and cowgirls in the shirts and then we would have various prizes. So it could be a gift certificate to dinner, it could be a rodeo buckle, it could be a bar tab. And we took and put whatever the prize was in an envelope and put it around the neck of the cowboy or cowgirl and sold raffle tickets. So you could buy one raffle ticket for a dollar or we would do a whole string of them for ten dollars. So, you know, we would measure your arm, we would measure your leg, we would measure around your chest to try and maximize what you were getting. If your raffle number was called, and you were a winner, you could come up and you could choose...you know...like door number one, door number two, door number three, or door number four style...which cowboy or cowgirl whom you wanted to take their shirt off and you would open up the envelope underneath and receive whatever that prize was. That’s a wonderful setup for that! You mentioned, um, the Pride, um...you said Pride Parade, was it? Yes. Yeah. Pride Parade. Do you partner with other organizations outside of rodeo often in Washington D.C. area? Collaborate, share members, volunteers? We do. We are a member of Team DC. Team DC is the umbrella organization for all the sports organizations in Washington D.C., so, rugby, and kickball, and softball, and flag football, and dodgeball, and volleyball, and water polo, etcetera, etcetera, are all members of Team DC as well. So we’ll do things for them, like at Pride or if they’re doing some kind of volunteering...actually last week they had what they call The Challenge Cup. So people could get teams of five to participate in a quiz show, to participate in beer pong, to participate in darts, and to participate in Mario Kart. And we were judges for two of the events, so, we had somebody who judged the darts and then we had somebody who judged the beer pong, so, that’s our way of...you know...that’s kind of how we work with other organizations in the city to kind of collaborate with them. And do you have a float or march in Pride Parade? Have representation there to help get out the word that Gay Rodeo exists? We do. We usually do marching in the Pride Parade or some other kind of involvement. Last year what we did was we were servers at one of the beer tents. Ah, excellent. And then do you, um, still find people that are “Oh this is wonderful! I had no idea this had existed” and... Yes. ...even in the digital age, and mass media, and... Yes. We do have people who are very excited. We do a horseback ride every month, so people...and it’s...that’s only twenty minutes out of D.C. so people are excited to come and participate in that, you know, to know something like that exists, you know, some kind of outdoor thing...is in the area and is accessible to them. So they’re excited to hear about that. They’re excited to hear about rodeo. You know, a lot of people are traveling more for work, or working remotely. (Subjects: jobs) And in Washington D.C. there’s a lot of that kind of...type of transient work where, you know, you might be going out to different parts of the country to do whatever it is you do. So having an organization like ours that is spread across the country, you know, you can tell people that yes there’s a rodeo that happens in New Mexico. There’s one that happens in California. In Colorado, and Missouri. So that as people are traveling they can look for that and look for their events and go to them and be part of it. (Subjects: jobs) Aside from your own event do you have a favorite event that you like to go to in the contemporary time? Um. [Pause.] Hmm, I would say...you’re talking about on the rodeo circuit? Or anything. Or anything? Um, I would probably say one of my favorite events to go to is flag football. I like going to flag football because I can just sit on the sidelines and watch and eat doughnuts and coffee and they’re running around and you know I can clap and so...yeah. That would be my...that would be the one outside of rodeo. And then inside rodeo I would probably say that the events that I really like going to are probably the events where they might have smaller turnout or smaller association rodeos. I really like going to the Missouri rodeo. North Star is going to be having a rodeo upcoming this year that’s something I would look forward to going to. Have they had a hiatus from having rodeos for a while or is this going to be their first? So they usually do it about once every other year and I think that they had one...they had one in 2018 but not 2019 so they’re doing it again for 2020. But I think before 2018 it may have been three or four years before they had had a rodeo. May I ask what does being a cowboy mean to you? So what being a cowboy means to me is being there to help people. Volunteer. To be a fair competitor...it’s one of the things about the rodeo association is people are willing to help you be a better competitor. They’re still going to try and beat you but they’re willing to provide you with guidance, and information, and hands-on help to make you better. One of the guys that I mentioned before, Oscar Moschello, back in the early days when I had started steer riding, one of the things that takes place with steer riding is your steer gets loaded into the chute, you have to have your own rope that you’re going to use to slip your hand into and ride the steer, tie it around him, and then there’s usually somebody there who helps set you down and that person is kind of your safety person so that way if you need to be pulled off the steer or the bull or the bronc in short order they’re there to do it.(Subjects: cowperson) And Oscar Moschello, he had gone and done his steer ride, he had finished with it, he was coming back from the area after coming off his steer and I was going up next and the crew shouted out “Who’s tying this guy in?” And Oscar Moschello said “Me! Me! I’ve got him!” So he had just come off competing himself and he was willing to take the time to show somebody who was newer, and be there for somebody who was newer, to help tie him in, be his safety and make sure that the person who was competing against him also had a good ride. (Subjects: cowperson) And do you remember if you had a good ride? I probably did not! [Laughter.] Most people who are...most people who are doing competing and competing in the same events that I were...you know...so for us you have to stay on your rough stock for six seconds. You know I think I...in the times that I was not covering the full six seconds I might have done two seconds, three seconds. For the roping events, you know, the people who were doing it that are really in the top part, they’re doing it in six seconds or under. You know I’m more in like the twelve, thirteen, maybe eighteen seconds for the speed events. But for the people who are doing those in really good time they’re doing them in about two minutes and some change. You know mine is probably more like four minutes. (Subjects: events) So you’re still actively competing then while you’re president? Actually I stopped competing in 2007. Oh, my apologies. Did your family come and watch you compete? My family never came to watch me compete. [Laughter.] If only Facebook Live existed back then! [Laughter.] They could have watched! [Laughter.] (Subjects: family) I bet sharing your win of the belt buckle was pretty good though. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really...yes. Yeah that’s one of my...that’s one of the things that I would save from my house if it were burning down. Did any of your family members ever complete in rodeo? No. You’re breaking ground as the first to do it? Yeah. I’m the first person. My sister did...one sister did ballet. One sister did wind surfing. And then I had two cousins who I grew up with and, um, they both did baseball. Commendable for them. I find baseball quite challenging myself. Did you pick up music then with the strong interest? Did you do singing or musical instruments for yourself? I did not. I did pick up dancing though and so that’s...you know...that is one of the things that I am fairly good at. Do you do competitive dancing then? No, I don’t do competitive, just pleasure dancing. But I really enjoy it. I really enjoy...I enjoy dancing with people who may not be as confident in their dancing, um, as I feel. When I was first learning to dance it probably took, like, two years to be really good and I always tell people who are just starting out to learn to dance, you know, that it’s process, you’ll get it. You know? For me, when I was first learning, it probably took, like, three or four months before you could speak to me while we were dancing. And then you could speak to me but I couldn’t speak back to you. Probably it was like six to eight months where I could speak back to you but it would be one syllable answers, so, “What’s your name?” “Patrick.” “Are you from D.C.?” “Yes.” “What do you do for work?” “Reception.” (Subjects: dance) And then probably, you know, none to twelve months, you know, I could say a full sentence. “My name is Patrick.” “I’m from Washington D.C..” “I work as a receptionist.” And probably it took a year to eighteen months before I could really have a conversation with somebody while I was dancing because otherwise I would just get thrown off and trip over my feet, trip over their feet, so I always tell people who are new dancers who might be shy or intimidated or not that confident in their ability that, you know, you’ll get it. Just keep doing it and you’ll get it. (Subjects: dance, jobs) I bet they take a lot of heart from that. I hope that they do. Do you do dancing at rodeos or is rodeo strictly for competition? Or is there a social aspect to it? Because I know that this [the IGRA convention] is a little different because it’s a convention so I’ve been warned that some things happen here that don’t happen out at rodeos, and some things happen at rodeos that don’t come back here. (Subjects: igra) Correct. Um, so, most rodeos will have some kind of social aspect to it depending on where you are. Like here in Denver there’s Charlie’s, that’s a dance venue. There are some rodeos where they’ll actually have a dance as part of the rodeo itself. And then there are other rodeos where its, you know, just going out to a bar or a restaurant and hanging out afterwards. (Subjects: dance) Do you have a plan ahead of time with some friends? I mean now we have the digital age, back...perhaps further back they had telephone calls and maybe they were just lucky and it was like: “Well, we’ll hopefully see you at Phoenix or wherever.” But do you...do you try to plan ahead with your friends to say, well, “I won’t make this one but I will make this one and let’s try to get together there”? Yes. You do do some of that, um, prior to being a little bit more connected as we are now, you know, pretty much everybody wound up at the same place. So, you know, everybody would want...here in Denver you knew to go to Charlie’s. If you were in Dallas you knew to go to The-Roundup. If you were in our rodeo you knew we had dances that took place with the rodeo itself, so, people would just naturally wind up in the same place. We talked a little bit about how some of the rodeo has changed since when you first stepped into it, to becoming president. What are some of the changes its had from maybe membership decline or venue struggles that you have seen change for better or for worse within rodeo in general? I think the biggest change that I have seen is that we have a lot of our competitors, now, who compete in places like National Barrel Horse Association, or compete in straight organizations, traditionally straight organizations, and they compete and they’re open and nobody really thinks anything about it. So, that’s probably one of the biggest changes that I see and, um, along with that...getting back to country music, with Ty Herndon who had...Ty Herndon came out, I forget how many years ago, and his career has actually had a resurgence because of that, whereas for many years he was in the closet for fear that it would ruin his career. So that kind of shows how far the world has come from when gay rodeo first began. Did you ever have to worry about concealing that you were participating in gay rodeo? Did you have to worry about your own career or your own connections with families and friends that maybe wouldn’t have been as open or accepting about it? I didn’t really have to worry about that ‘cause I was stupid. So, one of the first places that I worked in Washington D.C. I was talking with a co-worker and she said, you know, “Oh, how was your weekend?” And she told me whatever she did for her weekend and I said to her, “Well, you know, I went out dancing this weekend and it was a good time and I’m kind of learning that I’m really a much better lead as a dancer than I am as a follower.” And she said, “Don’t guys always follow?” And I...it was one of those moments in time that expanded out like you would see in the movies where I thought to myself, like, okay, I have a choice here. I can either play it off as something or I can tell her the truth. And, um, what I said to her was “Well, where I go dancing men dance with men and the women dance with women.” And she just went, “Oh.” Like, you know, oh! “I’ve never met a gay, lesbian, or bisexual person before.”(Subjects: jobs, comingout) And then after that I was like, you know, that’s it. I’m going to make the choice not to hide because if I do have to hide, I don’t want to be there. So that’s my one story, and then the other story that I will tell is, um, in terms of connecting with people as a person and not just seeing you as a...somebody who is gay...but seeing you in the same way that we always used to say, you know, we don’t want to be “the gay doctor” or “the gay teacher” or “the gay veterinarian.” We want to be seen as the doctor who just happens to be gay. Or the teacher who just happens to be gay. So, one of the rodeos that I went to compete in, which was a straight rodeo, the friend with whom I went to complete...he and I were out and we weren’t in our rodeo gear we were just in street clothes, like regular street clothes, and we were at some restaurant, like Outback or something like that. We were kind of sitting around waiting to get ot our table and across the way from me I could see this kid hitting his dad on the leg and kind of pointing over at us. And his dad leaned in and the kid said something to him and his dad said loud enough for me to hear, “Yes, that is a Dale Jr. hat he has on.” ‘Cause I had a Dale Ernhart Jr. hat on. And I looked over at them and I said, “And he is my favorite driver.” And the two of us, you know, we just talked briefly NASCAR, and then they went on to sit at their table and my friend and I went to sit at our table. But that kind of connection with somebody else as a human being and talking about the rodeo and rodeo association, as a rodeo association, as you would talk about any other amateur rodeo association. So I would be in conversation with people and they’d say, “Oh, where have you completed before?” And I would say, “I’m a member of International Professional Rodeo Association and I’m a member of Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association.” And once in a while people would say, “Day rodeo association?” and I’d say, “No, gay rodeo association.” And they sometimes might be taken aback by that but then after talking with me and after talking rodeo life, country music, you know, etcetera, etcetera, they would come to look at me and accept me as a person and not be uncomfortable or standoff-ish or weird because I was a bisexual guy competing in gay rodeo. [Pause.] And I wanted to move our ball forward! So I was like, anywhere where I am confident I ain’t getting the crap beat out of me! [Laughter.] I’m going to make sure they know it’s gay rodeo! ‘Cause I am gonna break that glass closet! [Laughter.] So, yeah. So what does the community then mean to you from when you first started to now? I mean, you’ve made more connections, you’ve taken on more responsibility. You certainly have a lot of people, just even here, from all walks of life who intersect, now, with your life. What has transformed for you in regards to being part of the community? I think it still means the same thing as it does then. For me the attraction of the community itself wasn’t because it was a gay venue, it was really the attraction of, like I said, Oscar Moschello. You know your competitors being willing to help you. Our events tend to be whole entire weekend events. The way that they are different in terms of what you would find for straight rodeo...for straight rodeo, on a Saturday you might have people come in, compete, and that you know...it might be a two or three day event but your competitors aren’t necessarily competing for the whole entire weekend. So, you may have barrel racers and flag racers on Friday. You might do your rough stock on Saturday. You know, and then you might do whatever other events on Sunday. You know, or you might do the events again and again each night. Saturday night you’re going to have one set of bull riders. (Subjects: community, events) Sunday night it’s going to be a totally different set of bull riders, ‘cause the ones on Saturday night they’ve done their ride, they’ve gone out Sunday morning, they’re moving onto whatever the next one is. Whereas for us it’s more of a whole entire weekend of competition. So you do Saturday and Sunday and that leads to a little bit more of a connection because you’re with the people the whole entire weekend. You don’t just see them on one day and then they’re gone and you might not see them again for, you know, three to six months. For our rodeo, you know, you kind of seen a lot of the same faces again and again at different rodeos more consistently than you would with a straight or a professional rodeo. Have you started any traditions or do you have favorite traditions within rodeo that it just has special meaning for you? Um. [Pause.] None that I can think of right now. My apologies, a little bit out of left field. It just occurred to me there when you were talking about some of the events and then with music and the venues and the community coming together I didn’t know maybe if you’d started something with yours that had then been transferred out to the other rodeos as well. Oh, yes! Actually, I can! Yes! Yes! My proudest accomplishment that I see transferred to other rodeos...so, back in the day we had three royalty titles. We had a Ms. We had a Miss. And we had a Mister. So your Ms. was your drag queen, your Miss was your real girl...no, your Miss was your drag queen! Your Ms., “M” “S” “period,” was your real girl. And then your Mister was your guy. In Washington D.C. there was a good drag king community, so, male impersonators as opposed to female impersonators, and somewhere, you know, in the early 2000s I had brought up the idea of having a “MsTer.” So, a drag king to go with the drag queen. And that’s still going on today. There is a MsTer International Gay Rodeo Association. I’m very proud of that. And I’m very proud that has continued ‘cause I think it is a good representation of our community and as rodeo’s acceptance as a whole for, you know, no matter who you are, come as you are. (Subjects: community, royalty) So you had to form a committee to make that happen? Or did you just put a motion forward to the board? It was something that we ran through our board and we ran through our current royalty for Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association. And actually they were fairly open to it, so, yeah we had one for a few years and then other rodeo associations started having them. (Subjects: royalty) So they saw that you had it and that’s a great idea! Yes. Yep. That’s a good accomplishment to be proud of. I don’t want to be taking up your time so I just wanted to let you know that it is now 9:04 if you... That’s fine. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t cutting into your time. Pardon me, I’ll make sure I’m referencing my question sheet so I don’t go too far afield by accident. [Pause.] Have you ever done rough stock events? I’m not quite sure about the categories so pardon me if we’ve already discussed it. Yes, I have, yes. Steer wrestling, steer riding. Yep. Those were the two rough stock events.(Subjects: events) And have you ever been injured in rodeo? So, the injuries that I have had...is...I’ve broken my nose. I’ve dislocated my knee. I’ve had a fracture in my forearm. I’ve had a fracture in one of my foot...I can’t remember if it’s the left or right foot. And I’ve broken three of my fingers. Oh! And I’ve split my chin open. And that was all before I started competing in rodeo! [Laughter.] So, I have actually been every lucky in that I haven’t been injured at all to any kind of extent in rodeo. Um, International Gay Rodeo Association does a really good job of making sure that there’s safety for the animals and then also safety for the contestants as well. I’ve managed to actually escape being seriously injured while I’ve completed in rodeo. (Subjects: injuries) Hopefully the good fortune continues! Yes! Yeah. Why do you think fewer people are joining the association today? I think fewer people are joining the associations because they have the ability to go ahead and compete in other organizations. So for us, we were a safe space and a safe haven for you to come and not have to worry is somebody going to steal your equipment. Are you going to come out to your horse trailer and find the word “faggot” keyed up in it. Are you gonna find that people aren’t willing to help you. That your name mysteriously disappears off of the registration roster. When you would come to our event you could come and you could be yourself and you didn’t have to hide. Years ago our registrations asked for your alias. And when I first started competing I thought, you know, oh that’s kind of cute they’re asking whether or not you have a nickname like on the circuit. Like, I know some do. So I wrote down my nickname. And then the first time that I went to compete I went to the order board and I couldn’t find my name. (Subjects: community) And I turned to go and find one of the officials and say “My name isn’t listed but I saw my nickname on there.” And somebody explained to me sometime later that the reason that they use nicknames was so that if for any reason some of the registration sheets wound up blowing away or in public hands that people who really wanted to or needed to be closeted didn’t have to fear being out, or outed, that they could compete with cover. And that was something that just didn’t even cross my mind that they would do. Today, I...you know...we don’t do that anymore. You know they don’t ask for aliases or nicknames. You just compete under your name. And your alias or your nickname might be used as a real nickname. But they’ll announce your real name as well. (Subjects: homophobia, community) And for things like professional rodeo associations or things like barrel horse associations, there isn’t the same kind of fear and stigma and intolerance that people used to face. And so people feel like they don’t necessarily have to come to us anymore ‘cause they can do competition through these other venues and not have to fear being who they are. So that’s our little microcosm and I think a larger microcosm is that we want to enjoy the reward for which we worked so hard. Tom Hanks starred in the movie Philadelphia with Antonio Banderas. And I was reading recently that there was a scene in the movie where Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas were in bed together and they cut that scene out because they felt like the world couldn’t handle it. The TV show Dynasty used to have the character of Steven Carrington. And in the beginning it was very clear, like, his storyline was he was a gay man. That was his struggle. That was the friction between him and his father. And as the show went along they kind of straight-washed him a little bit more in portrays him. (Subjects: homophobia, community) And one of the very first things that they show in the very first episode is Steven and Sam meet at a bar, they get into an elevator and start making out, and then one of the very next scenes is the two of them in bed together...and it’s very clear that they’ve had sex, and that is kind of an evolution of where we were to now where we are. And I think the community as a whole really wants to enjoy that place for which we worked so hard. So, people are beginning to reconnect with families. They are beginning to reconnect with their kids and their grandkids and they kind of want to enjoy that life that being a person who just happens to be gay...that we all marched and chanted and met with politicians to work so hard for. the middle of the show. So he was in these relationships with women and marrying women and they made him appear less gay. And then as the 80s started to come to an end they kind of re-resurrected some of his gay storyline. But it was always very, um, chaste and clandestine and he wasn’t kissing another guy. He wasn’t touching another guy. They weren’t even holding hands. It was all suggested. (Subjects: community) You look at the reboot of Dynasty and they have Steven Carrington and in the very first episode he meets Sammy Jo. Rafael de la Fuente I think is the actor who portrays him. And one of the very first things that they show in the very first episode is Steven and Sam meet at a bar, they get into an elevator and start making out, and then one of the very next scenes is the two of them in bed together...and it’s very clear that they’ve had sex, and that is kind of an evolution of where we were to now where we are. And I think the community as a whole really wants to enjoy that place for which we worked so hard. So, people are beginning to reconnect with families. They are beginning to reconnect with their kids and their grandkids and they kind of want to enjoy that life that being a person who just happens to be gay...that we all marched and chanted and met with politicians to work so hard for.(Subjects: community) What were some of those marches and meetings that you had participated in? I mean, was it, um, solely your organization or partner groups that you had scheduled time to go and meet with politicians to put initiatives forward? Or to share your personal stories and push person-first language? In Washington D.C. there were a couple of different organizations that would do that. So we would participate in a few of the marches on Washington that happened. I, myself, personally was a member of the Service Members Defense League...the military group that worked to help repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. So I would participate in their lobby day every year going and speaking to the politicians about repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. So, it was both. From an organizational stand point it was more of taking place within the marches and more of just being who we were in the community. For myself as and individual it was more being involved with Service Members Defense League. (Subjects: community) And so you were in the service then as well? I was not. No. Oh, oh. Just part of the... Yes. But my father and my uncle...my father and two uncles were both in the military service. So you were quite familiar with everything they had to go through. We talked about the nickname piece, do most people know you as “Patrick” or do they know you by a nickname then? Most people know me as Patrick. When you used that first nickname, um, was that something that you had brought with you from childhood through young adulthood, into the rodeo? Or was that something that was rodeo specific? No that was something rodeo specific. So, back in the day the first email provider that I used was Juno. So. [Laughter.] You remember Juno! I loved my Juno account. I miss it. [Laughter.] So I first used Juno and then Juno went away or something. Juno went away or something happened so I had to have a new one and I wanted to come up with a name that was unique, because my name is Patrick Hunter so it was going to be...you know if I typed that in it was going to be like, patrickhunter534792. A randomizer. Yes, exactly. So I didn’t want something that randomized. I wanted something that spoke about who I was, was easy to remember, and then something that was a little bit risque. So I thought, you know, well “cowboy” that’s obvious. You know, “cowboy” will be a part of it, but, you know what can be like the second part of it? At that time I owned a Dodge Ram truck, which I loved! Loved my Dodge Ram truck. And then I’m also an Aries, and the Aries symbol is the ram. So I thought, oh, “cowboyram.” That’s easy to remember, you know, and if you say it like Mae West it can be kind of suggestive. And I put that into hotmail, nobody else had it, so done! So that’s what I took as my own self christened nickname. And you still use that nickname? Yes. Yep. Yeah that’s on my...it’s on my email addresses, it’s on...yes. If you type “cowboyram” into Google then you’ll probably find some things that come up that are mine That’s a very creative one to come up with! [Pause.] You’d mentioned that sometimes people would have to be concerned about their gear being stolen or having their trailer keyed. Was that a pretty common occurrence? Or was it just more there was a few bad apples out there that just had it in for folks? So that would happen to a lot of folks that were competing in straight events. Yeah, so it was mainly in straight events. (Subjects: events) It wasn’t when they would go back to their home communities? Yeah. Nothing like that would happen within gay rodeo or within any of the gay rodeo venues because we would have our own security and our own security usually came from the community itself. In addition to some police officers but a lot of it was our community on its own. So yeah, they would definitely be looking out for folks. But for people who would compete in straight rodeo and straight rodeo events there were some places where things like that would happen. Where gear would be stolen, your name would go missing...they wouldn’t have you as a competitor...and you know somebody might damage your horse trailer or your vehicle. You know, where the message was clear, like, you’re not wanted here.(Subjects: community, events, homophobia) I hope you never had to experience anything like that yourself. I did not have to experience anything like that myself. I was very lucky in that aspect. I think part of that was being smart about where I chose to go. I think part of that was having somebody with me who...you know, I was never there by myself. I was always with somebody else. And then part of it was just being a...part of it was just being a regular person. So... You mean regular person...you mean just how you introduce yourself to people? Carried yourself? Or... No, so...to put it to you this way, going and competing at straight event I always made it clear that the only dick that I’m interested in here is my own. And having a nice big shiney belt buckle placed on top of it. So none of you boys have to worry about me being here ‘cause I’m here to compete and I’m here to win. (Subjects: events) And you did, I hope! Ah yes, I did win a lot of ribbons. Yes. I did get a lot of ribbons. Congratulations! Thank you. When we talked about protesting for rights and your activities with pride marches and other communities did you ever have the opposite where you had to interact with say PETA demonstrations or, um, other groups that would be protesting against what you were doing? We did used to have some issues with PETA or animal rights groups. And then we did also have sometimes some problems with religious groups as well. So, there was some of that that went on. With PETA it was just making the understanding that our rodeo...it’s the health and safety of everybody. It’s the health and safety of the animals, it’s the health and safety of the competitors, and that is what we’re focused on. So, some of the things that we do in our association and in other rodeo associations as well, not just gay rodeo associations but other amateur and professional rodeo associations is, you know, you inspect your stock when it’s on site. And if there is any of the stock that’s sick or lame or doesn’t look well then you pull that stock out of competition. Having rules set for how many times you can run your rough stock through competition.(Subjects: peta, religion) Having a large animal veterinarian on site so that if anything comes up, you know, any injury happens that they are there and that they can tend to the animals. The relationship between horse and rider...you spend an awful lot of time with your horses, caring for them, feeding them, and you spend an awful lot of time with your stock, too. Your calves, your bulls, your steers. You know, it doesn’t matter that it’s thirty-three degrees out and it’s raining, you can’t stay inside and just sip your Celestial Seasonings Tea and not worry about it, you know, you’ll get to them when you get to them. It doesn’t matter. Rain, snow, wind, bad weather, extremely hot weather, you’ve got to be out there and you’ve got to be caring for the animals and making sure that they have water. Making sure that they have food. You know, if ponds freeze over you get to get out there and you’ve got to be chopping holes in the ice so that they can have enough water for themselves.(Subjects: peta) If it’s snow covered you get to make sure that you’re out there and you’re giving them good feed and grain so that they’re not struggling trying to graze on grass that isn’t there, that’s frozen over, that they can’t get to so...you know..if they’re sick or injured, you know, it’s not like you take them to the vet and you drop them off and you go home and you know...you’re up with them. You’re caring for them. You’re...you know, they’re injured and you’ve got to walk them like every two hours to help them get better, that means you’ve got your alarm set for every hour and a half so you can get up and you can go out to the stables or you can go out to the barn and you can get them up and moving around. That’s kind of the type of care that I think a lot of people don’t think about that they don’t realize that happens with things like your horses, and your bulls, and your calves, and your cows. (Subjects: peta) And that’s an education component then for people like PETA? Where they just don’t understand all that goes into it? Yes. Yeah. (Subjects: peta) And do you keep livestock yourself then? I don’t have livestock myself. But you must have had the experience doing all of these things though through competition and helping other people care for theirs? Yes. And I was quite impressed with some of the things that we saw in today’s session where they had a motion moved forward to talk about the cattle prods, and not using them to goad, um, the different animals into performance. Correct. So I mean there is a lot of protective measures taken. Not just with people but also with the animals. Correct. Yes. Very impressive. [Pause.] What did your parents do for a living? My mom… [Laughter.] My mother was a nurse and my father worked for the U.S. Postal Service. (Subjects: parents) And did you, um, get a lot of stories from either of them, then, when you’d share time with music or dinner and tie in that way? Because your sisters were younger, so, I imagine they would probably focus on you first when it would come time to have the “How was your day?” talks. Well our family tended to be, you know, both my sisters are...well one is four years younger, one is eight years younger. So, we were...my mother used to say she was glad she had the kids four years apart because by the time the next one came along the first one she had was old enough to help out with the younger one. Um, so, our family time was really spent all together and talking all together. You know, one of the things that kind of exemplifies the way that I was brought up, and kind of how my family thought, was back when Madonna first appeared I asked my mother: “What do you think God thinks about Madonna?” And she said, “Well, I think God is very glad that she’s using a talent that she has and he’s probably very excited about that. He might not like the way she uses the talent all the time but I think he’s given her a talent and she’s using it so that probably makes him happy.” So there was always that kind of thoughtful, worldly response that they would have. (Subjects: family) That’s been instilled in you? Yes. Have you shared that again with other people in your life? Passed it forward? Yes. Yeah, I like to welcome everybody and treat everybody like a human being and like an individual and like a person. It shows. That’s the way the world should be. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. Especially in days like today. [Pause.] Have any of your sisters expressed an interest in becoming involved in rodeo since you sort of set the... No they have not! [Laughter.] One’s a teacher. One’s a veterinarian. And they’re very happy in their lives and very...and my sister she loves being a teacher. And my other sister, she loves being a veterinarian. You know, they’re...again, like two very lucky people. You know, they both love what they do. They both have a passion for what they do. It fulfills their life, so yeah, they...you know, they won the career lottery. Couldn’t be happier then? Hmm-mm. Sorry I have to go through some of these because some of them we’ve already covered. Yeah. Take your time. Apologies. [Pause.] Have you ever participated in Camp events? I have. I competed in Wild Drag. So, I did that. I was one of the persons who did the wrangling of the steer. Um, I was also a competitor in Goat Dressing. So I competed with friends in Goat Dressing. For steer, or, for the Wild Drag, um, one of the first times that I completed in that was in 2006. It was in the...actually it was probably earlier than that. Early 2000s, and I competed in the Omaha Rodeo with two of my friends. And I was not the drag, I was one of the steer wranglers. On Saturday the gate opened, the steer came out and he ran past me, the rope got taut and he drug me down. [Laughter.] And I let go of the rope and he ran to the other side of the arena. And by the time myself and my two partners had caught up with him time had expired and I felt so bad. So the next day I decided I would be a little smarter. So I took and I wrapped the rope around my hand once, only once, ‘cause I knew from experience if I got into trouble I could just open my hand up and the rope would uncoil and I would be fine. (Subjects: events) So, I hear the whistle, the gate opens, the steer runs in a wide arc, I really dig my feet in, he yanks me down again but this time I don’t let go. [Laughter.] And then he begins dragging me up this 150-foot arena in the dirt Indiana Jones-style. And the thing I remember about the whole experience is as soon as I hit the ground and he started to drag me this monsterous roar came up from the crowd and how that made me feel inside was so good and so heroic it’s one of my fondest memories of the rodeo itself. As I was being drug my partner came to help me out and she leaned down to grab the rope but she just stumbled and fell and I was like, oh, he’s going to drag me right over her if I don’t let go! So I let go and time expired on us again, um, but I felt good about how I had competed. And then afterwards coming out of the arena I had like dirt down my shirt, dirt in my boots, dirt in my ears, down my pants and it was just a...you know...something that I’ll remember forever. (Subjects: events) It sounds like quite an event for you. Was there anything about the Camp events that you would like to do again? I would probably do Goat Dressing again. Yeah. I might even do Wild Drag again. Um, Goat Dressing is a good, easy event. Um, you know, I...like in terms of doing rough stock I, um, would probably not do rough stock again. One of my friends he still does rough stock, you know, I gotta hand it to him ‘cause about a year ago I was horseback riding and fell off my horse. And when I landed I was like, damn, the ground was a lot softer twenty years ago! [Laughter.] So, yeah, kind of like I tell people, you know, like if I feel like I’m going to a venue that might be somewhat more intolerant, you know, I’m always like, you know, if I gotta be...you know, can I call you if I go to the hospital because I’m pretty sure that at this point my knuckles don’t go pop anymore they’ll probably go crack if I punch somebody in the face. (Subjects: events) Hopefully you haven’t had to get in too many fist fights in your years. No, nothing...not over, um, not over gay rodeo. But... Other disagreements. Yeah, other disagreements. Yes. The sisters? [Laughter.] [Laughter.] Well, they were mainly...like, somebody’s fighting with their girlfriend. Um, or somebody’s so drunk that they’re ruining the experience for everybody around them. Um, or somebody says something just, like, flat out ignorant and bigoted. [Pause.] On the note of Camp events, did you see them first then you wanted to participate? Or did somebody grab your hand and say “C’mon, I want you to try something!” I had watched some of them and my friends, with whom I competed in the Omaha Rodeo, they needed a third. So, that’s kind of how I got involved with that. And then I had other friends who didn’t want to compete in any of the events like the roping or the...definitely not the rough stock. But they could handle putting underwear on a goat. So, that was a way that I could get them involved and competing. (Subjects: events) And when you were either doing Camp events or riding rough stock, were there some big names in the community that, ah, sort of were, ah, well you mentioned some were already mentors, but some that you were like “Gosh, I would like to get to know them better?” Or, “Oh! I didn’t realize I was talking to that person!” moments? No, not so much of that because everybody who was a really high-level competitor, everybody who was a person who won a lot, the people who would be your rodeo stars, were really part of the community themselves. And so they didn’t have a star attitude. (Subjects: community) The community that you have together is really wonderful. It’s supportive, um, I believe it was Patrick who had told us someone had said “I’m going to teach you how to do this and then I’m going to beat you.” Yes. Exactly, yeah. Yes. Have you said that to someone yet? No, I haven’t said that one, no. [Laughter.] Mainly because it probably wouldn’t be true. It would probably be the reverse! I’m going to teach you this and then you’re probably gonna beat me. [Laughter.] They have schooling and university as part of the rodeo experience. Do you also have something for you as president to help train the next generation of leaders? The next generation of volunteers that want to step up and say I want to help make a difference? Part of that is university, so university does a lot of instruction in terms of how to do fundraising, how to do rodeo, how to do social media, that kind of thing. And then also, you know, it’s just kind of the training of who you have within your organization that you work with them in partnership in hopes that they will take over for you when you’re gone. So when I was the social and entertainment committee chairman, about two months into my term, I knew who the person was that was on the committee that I wanted to be my successor. So that was the person with whom I worked with probably the most because I knew that when I left, or when I stopped being the social and entertainment chairperson, this was the person who I wanted to do it next. And at first they refused, but then somebody...as I knew would happen...somebody else talked them into it! [Laughter.] (Subjects: jobs) It almost seems to be a tradition in the association? I asked them, they say, “No, no I don’t want to do that.” I said, “Oh, okay. All right.” You know and I went away and then, you know, and then yeah it was probably like three of four weeks later, you know, Gaither Pennington came up to me and said “Ah, you know I’ve been talking to Morgan and I kind of let him know he should probably be the next social and entertainment chairperson and blah, blah, blah. So I just want to let you know that he’s probably going to be the person who’s nominated.” And I thought, aha! [Laughter.] And you didn’t do anything to make that happen? No I didn’t, it just happened organically. Like I knew it would! [Laughter.] When he told me though, I thought in my head, I’m like you’re too good for somebody else. And I know other people see how good you are, so I may not be able to sway you into doing it but I know one of the other people who has seen your work over this last year is gonna talk to you and they’re going to be the person to talk you into doing it. And not that you’ve ever experienced that particular situation. [Laughter.] It wasn’t fortune telling, it was just how it was going to be? Yes. Yep. Wonderful, well I do want to thank you for time in sitting down with me this evening. Would it be all right if we did follow up interviews with you once we get a chance to go back and then I’ll digitize the transcript. I will get a copy of the audio and the transcript to you and then if we discover there are some other items or if Becca Scofield has some questions I’ll write to follow up? Okay, all right. That’d be fine. Well thank you so much for sharing your evening with me, I really appreciate it. Okay. It was a pleasure.

Rickey Phoummany Click to filter

I am here at the Texas Tradition Rodeo outside Dallas, it's April 1st, 2017. This is Rebecca Scofield with Ricky Phoummany. Can you tell me what year you were born?(Subjects: childhood) 1988(Subjects: childhood) Where did you grow up?(Subjects: childhood) I grew up in a little suburb called Watauga outside of Fort Worth.(Subjects: childhood) And what was that like?(Subjects: childhood) I guess coming from a traditional Asian family...I'm first generation and it was just traditional, like go to school, do good, make good grades, this and that, but I kind of veered off and explored the art side. I was in choir, theater, band, dance, everything.(Subjects: childhood, family) How big was your town?(Subjects: childhood) It was pretty big. Pretty big.(Subjects: childhood) Pretty suburban?(Subjects: childhood) Yeah, very suburban.(Subjects: childhood) And what did your parents do?(Subjects: childhood, family, parents) My parents are machinists, so they work on assembly lines and such.(Subjects: family, parents) How did they find those jobs?(Subjects: family, parents) I guess through relatives. When they came over seas from Laos--we're Laotian--we had family here, they networked and I guess that's how they found their jobs.(Subjects: family, jobs, parents) Did they enjoy their jobs?(Subjects: family, jobs, parents) Yeah, I mean, they know the American dream: they come to America and they make a better life.(Subjects: family, jobs, parents) Did you live in town or out on some property?(Subjects: childhood, family) We lived in the town, you know, just got your neighbors next to you, across the street, and behind you.(Subjects: childhood, family) Did you have any interest in animals growing up?(Subjects: childhood) Not much, just the typical "Oh, I want a dog" and such, but I mean we have a dog so that's about it.(Subjects: childhood) So no work around stock or anything?(Subjects: childhood) No, no.(Subjects: childhood) What about...did you like country music growing up?(Subjects: childhood) Yeah, I had a god family so my parents would let me go hang out with them, my best friend and such, and I was very exposed to the country lifestyle 'cause they always took me to rodeos and listened to country music in the car so it was really different. [Laughs](Subjects: childhood, family) Did you have siblings?(Subjects: family) Yes, I have a little brother and a little sister.(Subjects: family) So you're the oldest?(Subjects: family) I am the oldest.(Subjects: family) As you were getting into performance as a young person what was your favorite thing?(Subjects: childhood) I always wanted to grow up to be a singer. And I guess in high school I was like you know, maybe this is not my thing. I can sing, I mean not the best, but I can sing. But I started getting interested in dance and just how your body can do such crazy things so.(Subjects: childhood, dance) What did you do after high school?(Subjects: childhood) I went to college at Texas Tech up in Lubbock, so west Texas country lifestyle. I decided to go there because I wanted to be close to home but far away from home and it's like a 6 hour drive. In college I had decided to major in computer science to make my parents happy, but then getting to college I was like, "This is not what I want to do, I'm not going to be happy waking up every day" and I decided to switch to education, and that's what I do now. And I majored in dance so I teach dance in high school.(Subjects: childhood, jobs) Wow, that's really cool. Where?(Subjects: jobs) Adamson High School in Oakland, which is a little suburb in Dallas.(Subjects: jobs) What type of dance do you teach?(Subjects: jobs) I teach everything: ballet, jazz, modern, hip-hop, tap, folkloric, just everything 'cause that's what we learned in college--to be diverse.(Subjects: jobs) How do your students respond?(Subjects: jobs) The high school I teach at didn't have a dance program. They had--I guess you would call it drill team, traditional Texas, military style drill team, so when I took over when I was hired, I started the dance program and it's grown immaculately and the kids are just hungry to learn all these different dance styles. It's really neat to see their eyes brighten up.(Subjects: jobs, teaching) Can you tell me a little about the school district you work in? Is it pretty affluent or kids with struggling families?(Subjects: jobs) I work for, I guess, a low-income district, but it's a big district. There're about 20 high schools. It's Dallas, so it's big, but a lot of the kids come from low income lifestyles. That shouldn't stop them from learning. And it doesn't and that's what really impresses me as an educator.(Subjects: jobs, teaching) Well it's so great that your school supports the arts. So often they get cut. So, how did you find out about gay rodeo?(Subjects: igra) I came out in 2013, so a year after I graduated from college, and then I had friends that I grew up with in high school and I moved back to the DFW area, and just being out and about and just seeing who was around. I joined the Turtle Creek Chorale, which is a men's chorus in Dallas. And I networked with people and got exposed and I started charity work and I won my first title as Mr. Charity America 2015. As Mr. Charity America you go around and meet all these other organizations and people and that's how I found TGRA cause a lot of former Mr. Charity Americas were part of TGRA and that's how I got exposed to the rodeo lifestyle.(Subjects: igra, comingout) So could you tell me a little bit more about Charity America and what they do?(Subjects: jobs) Yeah. Charity America, we represent...it was called Home for the Holidays but now I believe it's Texas Red Ribbon. Basically we raise money to help those with AIDS and HIV with medical bills and funeral expenses if it comes down to that. And that's pretty much it.(Subjects: jobs) Wow. So, do you compete in the rodeo at all?(Subjects: events) I do. I do. I guess the camp events--goat dressing--and then I do calf roping on foot. I started back in 2014. My first rodeo to compete in was in Oklahoma.(Subjects: events) What was that like?(Subjects: events) It was it was scary at first but the funny thing is that everyone’s there to help you and teach you different techniques and methods so it's really a safe zone where people are willing to help you and not shun you away. Its competition, but we are all family and here to have fun.(Subjects: events, mentor, highlight) That's great. Did you get pretty good at that?(Subjects: events) Mm, I believe I'm improving. I won my first ribbon in goat dressing last year in Oklahoma.(Subjects: events) That's exciting. That was exciting. And do you compete at multiple events in the year or do you stick close to Oklahoma and Texas?(Subjects: events, igra) It's just been Oklahoma and Texas but I guess being royalty I'm now trying to explore more of what's out there with the other organizations and associations.(Subjects: events, igra, jobs) So how did you decide to compete for a royalty title with IGRA?(Subjects: igra, events, jobs) Starting with my first title, Mr. Charity America, I saw that it's just not competing in the arena but there's also behind the scenes of the royalty with people using their talents to help raise money for the charity or cause. So everyone’s like, "You have talent. You're a great entertainer, you should give it a try and see what happens." So I became a candidate for Mr. TGRA and then I won the title of Mr. TGRA 2016 and then went to Vegas in October and tried to compete for Mr. IGRA 2017 and got 2nd runner up.(Subjects: igra, events, jobs) That's exciting. Yeah. Do you think you'll compete again next year?(Subjects: events) Maybe not next year, I'm going to probably take a couple years off and focus on work, on the kids, grow my program and then probably come back, because that's the type of person I am.(Subjects: events, jobs) If you're not involved with the royalty side are you still going to be involved with TGRA on the organizational side or the rodeos?(Subjects: jobs) Oh yeah, I think I would obviously come back and help out just because TGRA has helped me become the person I am today and it's always good to give back to what's giving to you.(Subjects: jobs) So are you out to your parents?(Subjects: family, comingout) Yes, I am. At first it was a little rocky because, like I said, it's a traditional Asian family--they want you to be a doctor, lawyer, all this crazy stuff--then they saw what I was doing. I was loving it and I could say I was successful in doing what I'm doing so they support me, but we don't talk about it as much. They're just like, "Okay, cool." [Laughs](Subjects: family, comingout) Do you ever take boyfriends home?(Subjects: family, comingout) No. I don't live with my parents. When I came back from college I lived with them for a couple months and got on my feet and then moved. Just to start my own life I guess.(Subjects: family, comingout) So no one special yet? No, not yet, there've been a few but, you know, rocky road. And what do you think it is about the rodeo vs. these other really great organizations like Charity America or Imperial Court System? What is it about the rodeo that brings people in who may not have experience with stock growing up or things like that?(Subjects: igra, community) Well, I guess I come from that 'cause I mean I grew up exposed to it but I never touched the dirt, or touched the animals before, 'cause I was always scared. It's just amazing seeing a city boy coming in and you can start somewhere competing, like the camp events are what draws people in. Like, I can put underwear on a goat. Or let me try throwing on a wig and jump on a steer or something like that. So I believe it's the comradery and the loving spirit that everyone has because we are all from different states and different associations and we can come together and help each other out. When I first started competing I didn't have any ropes or gear and people lent stuff to me to use and compete with, and you learn tips and tricks along the way. Again, I don't think it's...the rodeo life isn't "better" than something else because I've also been a part of the Court system. It's all working together raising money for our communities. You know, there's the Court system and they do their own thing and there’s the rodeo.(Subjects: igra, community, events) Do you see much overlap between organizations?(Subjects: community) Yeah, there're people who are part of the court system that do rodeo and then vice versa. We're all a big community just living life trying to have fun.(Subjects: community) As an Asian man in a rodeo association, is the association fairly diverse or fairly white?(Subjects: race) By looking at it, from a spectator side it's predominately white, but you know we have our Mexicans, our blacks, don't see very many Asians except for myself [laughs] but again it's the loving spirit that everybody has. Which makes it great.(Subjects: race, community) Do you ever get any surprised comments when you say you participate in rodeo?(Subjects: cowperson) I do, they look at me--'cause I'm known as a pretty boy--they're like, "You play in the dirt? You ride horses and all this stuff?" And I'm like yeah, you know it's just exploring life, trying new things, taking risks.(Subjects: cowperson, highlight) Would you call yourself a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) Mmmm. No. I don't think so. Well, I don't know. That's kind of hard. 'Cause, you think of cowboys and you think of people that have property and work in the fields and have the horses and their livestock. So I don't know, that's really tough.(Subjects: cowperson) What about other people who live in cities but rodeo? Would you call them cowboys?(Subjects: cowperson) Again, it's just a no because...what's interesting is you learn about these people and where they grew up and where they are now so, if they did grow up on a farm and such I would say yeah, you are a cowboy, because you've had experience. And for those that just live in the city and stuff you can call them...urban cowboys? So, I don't know, for me it just shouldn’t have a title, shouldn't have a label, we're all here to compete and have fun and do what we love to do.(Subjects: cowperson) That's interesting. Well, there seems to be a lot of frustration in trying to get younger members. As a young person, what do you think the future of IGRA is moving forward?(Subjects: igra) I think it's just getting out there and making sure we are exposed. With me being part of the younger generation, you know, showing the people of my generation, like you can be a part of this stuff, you know. The people who started this came from somewhere. They had to work hard to give us what we have now and we shouldn't take that for granted. It's about the history of where we come from and how we can keep that alive. For me it's now talking to people who are like, "Oh you rodeo," it's inviting them out, let them watch, show them pictures, show them Facebook and our social media stuff that we have nowadays and they realize they can be a part of it as well and I believe getting more younger generations involved is gonna be what keeps the organization alive. (Subjects: igra, community) That's interesting. Well is there anything else you want to talk about? Not that I know of. So what was the very first rodeo you went to?(Subjects: childhood) The first rodeo would be, in Fort Worth on an elementary school field trip. Fort Worth is known for their stock yards.(Subjects: childhood) Yeah.(Subjects: childhood) So that was my first one in Fort Worth. I think it was 3rd grade, yeah.(Subjects: childhood) Were you ever like, "I want to do that?"(Subjects: childhood) No, I was like, "Ew, what's this smell, it stinks. Can we leave?" [laughs] So you know, you grow up and then you're like, "Oh wow, oh okay. Why did I say that when I was younger?" It's this funny thing when you're younger and you say things and then you're like oh never mind. So.(Subjects: childhood) That's fantastic. Well thank you so much for talking with me. I really appreciate it.

Kelly Poorman Click to filter

Hello, this is Rebecca Scofield with the Gay Rodeo Oral History Project, and I'm here today with Kelly Poorman. We are meeting via zoom because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I'm in Moscow, Idaho, and it's 10 a.m. on May 5th, 2021. Kelly, do you want to say where you are right now? I am in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, and it is 1:00 here and it's about 58 degrees. I don't know what the temperature is there. Today it's supposed to get up to 82 here, which seems aggressive. A little bit. A little bit for me. Yeah. OK, well so if you wouldn't mind sharing, what year were you born? I was born in 1948. And where? Makes me seventy-two. And I was born in a hospital about 10 miles away from here. This is actually my hometown that I'm living in. And it's pretty neat. I'm in this small town called Boalsburg, as I said. And according to Pennsylvania, we are the birthplace of Memorial Day and I live on Main Street, which means I have the best porch to sit on when we had the Memorial Day parade. That's gorgeous -. If I'm not in it! And was it a pretty rural town when you were growing up? We were about three miles away from the home campus of Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, about 85 miles northwest of Harrisburg. When we had students in here, we go up to about 100,000 people living here. With the pandemic we're down to about 50,000 or so. When we tailgate the...I want to say arena, because we're talking about rodeo, the stadium holds 110,000 people. So during the football games, we we are the third largest city in Pennsylvania at that time. So, yeah. It's rural. Yes. I mean, five miles away from here, you can step in cow patties. But you can also see a Broadway show when they open back up over at the university, so. And the house that you're in now on Main Street, was that the house you grew up in? We moved here when I was 10 years old. Now I'm sorry, 5 years old. And it's a 12 room house and it's 6 down, 6 up. Upstairs has always been an apartment. It was on the... It was supposed to sell for $18,000 dollars and my parents said, "We can afford 15, so we'll counter with 12." So they countered with 12 and the lady was a friend of my mom's. And she said, "OK." So we got a 12 room house for $12,000. And 7 years ago, the house across the street from me sold for a half a million dollars. So my mom always said, "You're sitting on a gold mine." And I didn't realize it was the house she was talking about.(Subjects: parents) Did you have brothers and sisters growing up? I have three sisters. I had three sisters and a brother who passed away when he was a week old. So I...he's in my heart, but I never really ever get meet him. I still have 2 sisters living. 1 of them passed away right after my mom did. I came back to...I lived in L.A. for 25 years and I came back to caregive or to see my mother. And I came for 3 weeks and 2 weeks into my 3 week stay, she had congestive heart failure and a torn rotator cuff on the same night. And my nephew was here, but he was sort of in a room and he never came out. And I really feel that if I hadn't been here, she would have been dead. So I stayed to be her caregiver and she was kind enough to give me the house I grew up in for a dollar. And she'd say to me, we'd be out places, she'd say, "You know, I haven't ever seen that dollar." I give her a dollar and say, "Here, take a taxi home." She was a character. I get my sense of humor from her.(Subjects: family) What birth order are you? I have 2 older sisters and they're both still living. And then me and then my younger sister passed away. And so you were a middle kid. Do you think that... I was the only...I was the only son and I used to get tormented a lot. You know, I would be out shoveling the sidewalk in the snow and my sisters would be at the window drinking hot chocolate and... And I was also a big old sissy, which didn't help at all and used to get terrorized at school a lot. So it was not a...it was not a happy life. I don't remember a lot of growing up.(Subjects: childhood) What did your parents do for a living or with their life? Well, my dad was an ironworker, and he was also an abusive alcoholic. And he didn't stay. When I was 10, he would beat my mom on a regular...regular occasions and then he started beating us kids and my mom put a stop to it, kicked him out. She worked three jobs. We'd go to a babysitter in the afternoon and we ate Chef Boyardee ravioli three or four times a week, so I can't even look at a can of that in the grocery store anymore. Ugh! But, you know, we always had clothes. They weren't always new. She was shunned at our local church because she divorced. Which I thought was very hypocritical, and I'm still a member of the church. Go figure. I'll tell you about that later.(Subjects: childhood, parents, jobs) So you're the middle kid. You moved into town. Were you around horses or cattle at all growing up? I didn't get on a horse until I was in the military. Some friends of mine in the military had horses and I rode horses there. And I don't like...This is such a cop out, but I don't have the hips to ride horses because they're, you know, they're big and my legs don't spread that far and in that position. And the first time I ever rode was bareback. And we're going down this road or this path. And the horse started going faster. And I said, "Whoa." They said, "No, no. He knows, he knows what's coming up." And we turned the corner and there was this log and we went over the log and I landed and spoke soprano for about 3 days after that. So and then I had another problem with the horse. And I've not actually been on a horse at the rodeos that I've been to and I've been to 133 of them.(Subjects: childhood) So. Wow. So you're kind of a town kid. You had your sisters. Close, close friendships at all in middle school or high school? No, as I said, I was very heavy set. I was very effeminate. I had friends here in the little town, but no really close friends, you know. I went to a vocational school where we weren't integrated in with the high schoolers. So, we were in a certain, you know, clique, not...I mean, and that's a negatory word. You know, we were the Vo-Tech guys. We were the dummies. Yeah. And now the dummies are making forty-five dollars an hour as a plumber, you know. Yeah.(Subjects: childhood) So I absolutely understand that. Yeah. So how did you feel... So first of all, can I ask how you identify in terms of gender and sexuality? I, on the Kinsey scale, I identify [as a ] 5.2. I was married to a woman for 8 years. Don't be shocked. In fact, I have a little comedy routine about it. We married 8 years, 2 of the happiest years of my life. It was it was 15 minutes here and 20 minutes here. And then after 3 years, I found out she was bisexual. I had to buy things for before she'd have sex with me. And then after eight years, it was a different kind of bisexual: Bye, I'm not going to have sex with you anymore. So that's my comedy routine. And she lives in Texas, by the way. So I still get along with her. We do. We're Facebook buddies and. that's a whole 'nother story. I really think God put her in my life to save my life because we met at well before you were born. We met in 1978 and separated and in 1986. And by that time, that was right at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and I was monogamous and to my wife. And by that time, I knew what HIV AIDS was and I knew and I am still negative. I actually just went and had a test and still negative. So. And growing up, you said, you know, you sort of presented a little bit effeminate and that caused some bullying in school... A lot of bullying in school, and that was one of the reasons why my mom got divorced, because my dad would beat me when I wasn't...wasn't...masculine enough.(Subjects: childhood) And, you know, growing up, did you have any sense, maybe not just that you were different in terms of gender, but were you aware at all of your, like, same sex attraction or anything like that? Oh, yeah, from a very early age of. When I was 16, my mom, I was driving with my mom, I was learning how to drive, I was going to take my driver's test and we were coming to an intersection that wasn't an intersection, it was like a curve. And and there were trees. You know, if you didn't turn, you ran into a little trees, big trees. And she said to me, your sister told me you were a homosexual. Is that true? And I said in my mind, I'm going, "All I have to do is speed up really, really fast and hit that tree and I'm not going to have to answer that question." But I curved enough. And I said, "Yes, it's true." And she said, "I'm glad you finally figured it out." I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "I've known you were special since you were 5 years old." You know, and I figured it out when I was 7. So I was an early blossomer.(Subjects: comingout) And had you told your sister or had... Yes, yes, I had. I actually had a nervous breakdown. When I was 16, I was in the hospital a while and the doctor said, "Well, it's all in your head," and... This might be telling stories but she's not ever going to see this, she was pregnant at the time. She told me that and I said, I swear I won't say anything and then I told her I was a homosexual and she said, "I swear I will not tell anybody." And I left and my mom came in and she said, "Your son's a faggot." So as we were driving, you know, and, you know, my mom and I just finished that, she said to me, "Is your sister pregnant?" And I went, I could tell and really get back at her. Or I could just I could just be a human being about this. And I said, "I'm afraid you're going to have to ask her that question." And I pulled off the side of the road and I turned off the car and I said, "You need to drive. I have a headache I can't drive anymore."(Subjects: comingout) So do you think your family was pretty supportive? My mom has always been supportive. My dad, not so much. And he passed away a number of years ago, and I think it was early '80s from emphysema and he lived in Tucson, but my sisters would really care less. Now, both sisters are very, very, very supportive. They appreciated that I came back and caregived my mother for 6 years before she passed away, and you know, we're very close now. Thank God for cell phones because, you know, I have a sister in Florida that I talk to whenever I want to for free, you know, and my other sister lives real close here. So. (Subjects: family) So after high school, did you...you had mentioned the military. Did you go into the military or...? I went into the military, yes. Which branch? I went into the army. And as I said, I was heavyset, and I was very effeminate. And it did not fit right with me that I should be in the military. And I went to to the medic a lot. And finally, the medic said, "Are you homosexual?" And remember, this was back in the '60s, so it wasn't a don't ask, don't tell situation. I said, "Well, yes, I am." And he said, "It's not going to get you out of the army because we're at war." It was during the Vietnam War. And he said, "You're just going to have to, you know, not worry about it." And I said, "You're not going to tell anybody, are you?" And he said, "Oh, no, I won't tell anybody." And that was a lie. He told my drill sergeant. My drill sergeant was a little Hawaiian guy with an attitude and and and he was always on everybody's case, and he actually showed kindness to me. I might need Kleenex because he took me in his room and he said, "You know, I talked to the medic, and I know you're a homosexual. If anybody gives you any problem about that, I want you to tell," which shocked me. And from that point on, I said, "I'm going to make the army a career." At least for the four years that I had signed up for and I did and I actually reenlisted and I was an openly gay soldier during my MOS (military occupational specialties) training, I was in ground control approach radar, which I didn't realize was the radar that they put into rice paddies in Vietnam. So about halfway through my training, which I was failing miserably because I'm not technically oriented. My commanding officer and his XO invited me into their office and the commanding officer said, "I understand you're a homosexual." I said, "Well, yes, I am." And he said, "We can't give you a security clearance because you're a homosexual. So you can't, essentially go to Vietnam and get shot up in a rice paddy." I was like, "ahhhh." So I went into the military photography and that changed my life. I love photography, number one. And I also met this guy named Richard, who was straight and and didn't...I grasped what photography was: we went in and we did all the all the chemicals and stuff. I loved that, in the darkroom and and the different things. And we had speed graphics. I don't know if you've ever seen a speed graphic? [RS shakes head] It's a big...if you've ever seen a Superman, old Superman thing where they have the big cameras and they pulled it out and put it, well, that's what we had. And so Richard said, "If you teach me how to be a photographer, I will teach you how to be masculine." And I went, "You can't teach me how to be masculine, I'm a homosexual." He said, "You can be anything you want to be.(Subjects: teaching) You just have to realize that what you're comfortable with." And so he did it through aversion therapy. Whenever I had a limp wrist and there was a lot of them at the beginning there, he would Indian burn me. You know how Indian burn. Yeah. And if I would sashay. He would thump me in the spine and I would be retching on the on the ground and he'd walk by going, "Watch what you're doing." And when I tell people, you know, he taught me how to be masculine, I skipped lesson 4 and 18, I can't remember what they are. But he, I really feel, saved my life. And in the military also, I learned about theater. Fort Riley, Kansas, had an incredible theater program that I got involved in. And on stage, I thought these characters were coming from outside me. And I realized at a certain point that it was coming from inside, and that's when the light came on that I could be anything I wanted to be, and that's it. I came up with this and I like it. So when you when you entered the military was that, do you remember what year that was? It was '67. It was a year after I had graduated high school. So big things are happening in America in '67. Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah. And I reenlisted to go to Hawaii to work in my MOS because they spend $32,000 to teach me to be a photographer. And then they sent me to Fort Riley, Kansas, as a mail clerk. And I had nothing to do with photography whatsoever. So I reenlisted and went to Hawaii for four years as a photographer. They could not let me out of my MOS or they would void the contract. And then they said, "Hey, we'll give you a little bit more money if you come in for 6 years." And I said, "Sure, what could go wrong?" Well, I went to Hawaii for 4 years and then I went to Fort Hood, Texas. West Fort Hood, which is not even connected to Fort Hood. It's like 5 miles away. So it was pretty desolate. But I got involved in the theater there and I actually asked if I could go in to work for the theater there, and I did. And I and it was it was another wonderful experience. I have friends from Fort Hood that are still, I'm friends with them, so you know I'm godchildren, that I'm a godfather to 2 of the children that were born. So, you know. Wonderful Life. (Subjects: jobs) What was it like living in Hawaii at the time? It was the best. Schofield Barracks is in the middle of the island. I don't know if you've ever been to Oahu, but as a photographer, I got to do everything. They sent me to Maui on maneuvers as the photographer. They sent me to the Big...I was connected...our photography group was connected to the information office. So they sent me to the Big Island of Hawaii to go up on the on the mountain that had snow on it and take pictures of women in bikinis and men in shorts. I wasn't too impressed with that. But but this entire time I was openly gay and I and I worked with the theater there as well. I took pictures of hurricane disasters. I took pictures of dead bodies. I took pictures of Officers' Wives Club fashion shows. In fact, I was the first person ever to have a photograph of an officers' wife fashion show in the Army Times, which went all over the world. So it was pretty exciting. And whenever they...whenever I went to Texas and they wanted me to reenlist. They said, you know, "We'll give you a promotion," you know, and so and so forth, and I really prayed about it because....And. And the answer I got was, when you're in 19 years, they're going to "discover" that you're a homosexual and kick you out and you will have wasted 19 years. And so I got out after 8 years.(Subjects: jobs) And did you experience, you know, anti-gay sentiment? And was it did you experience any of that in different places or... Were people pretty, OK? It was actually, you know, for the most part, I mean, you know, in Killeen, Texas, I had an apartment in Killeen and I would walk down to get a drink down at the gay bar, which was nonexistent. But, you know, and one night I was walking back to my apartment and a car stopped and three guys came out and and I ran back to where there was a lot of people, some people that I knew because I knew I was going to get my ass kicked. Am I allowed to say that? Yeah. Sure. Why not? Yeah. I'm sure there is some scary moment. Oh, yeah. There's scary things about anything, you know. But when I was some basic training, I, I somebody attempted to...three black men attempted to rape me. And I'm a big guy, I'm 6'1" or was before I turned 70, and I'm a big guy. I was able to to get them away from me. But you know, after that I was really afraid of black people. And then through theater, I met black people and people are people, you know. If you treat people with respect, they will treat you with respect and if they don't get them out of your life, you know. Did you have any romantic relationships with people in the military? Are you asking if I had sex in the military? I am. Yes. I had no relationships in the military. I had a lot of sex. My mom said, "We're going to send you to the Army to make a man of you." I joked when I got out of the military, I joked and I said, "It made me several men." So how did you meet your wife then, your ex-wife? Well, it was actually in Texas. I met her to the theater and...We were both actors, and in the first show, it was called Private Lives by Noel Coward and, in the end of the show, the characters got together. And then we were in a different show called Of Thee I Sing, and at the end of the show we were together. You know, I'm a bit of a smartass. I don't know if you could tell that so far, but I enjoyed her sense of humor. She was a dance teacher. She had a dance studio, right, and I had seen her like years earlier, she had been a senior in high school and I saw her as Guinevere in Camelot, but I didn't see her through the whole show because they had 2 women to play Guinevere. And one of them played the first act and one of them played the second act. (Subjects: teaching) So I saw her and it was really interesting anyway. You know, we're laying down during rehearsal where it's a break and we're laying down and...She said, "What side of bed do you like to sleep on?" I said, "Well, I'm pretty much on the left side." She said...I said, "What about you?" She said, "Well, usually the bottom," and that really... And it was very confusing to me. And it was also very confusing to everybody that knew me that I would be interested in a woman. When I told them that I was getting married to a woman, she almost hung up the phone thinking it was a prank call. But but like I said, we were married for eight years and we're still friends today. So no children. We didn't have any children. And did you get married as you were leaving the military? Ah no. I left the military and went home for a while and then went out to California. And I got married about 2 years after that. But see, it's funny how you are indoctr...indoctrin... It's funny how you believe things that you're told, OK, I knew I was homosexual. I did not...I was told that if I were a homosexual, I couldn't have physical relations with women. Ever. And she came out to visit me in California when I was staying with my best friends. And she was there for a week and we slept in the same bed and nothing happened the first 2 days, and then we sort of messed around the second 2 days, and then on the last night before she left, you know... I had been afraid earlier in the week that I wouldn't get hard; well, I got hard. Then I was afraid that if I put it inside her, it would get soft. And then the last night, we feared that it would never get soft again. [laughter] It was the light came on, the light came on. So it. You could use this, you can't use this, but anyway. I do think you're getting a little bit too, is that previously this had all been set up as a binary like you were either gay or you weren't gay, right? Yeah. Where I think today we have much more of a spectrum. And I think younger people are understanding sexuality differently in terms of being openly bisexual or gender neutral or... Right. Yeah, well, it's like what I said earlier, on the Kinsey scale, I'm a 5.2. Obviously, I had relations with my wife and I'm also attracted to women that can kick my ass. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Angel. You know, women like that. I, yeah... That's wonderful. So while you were married, where did where did you all live and what were you doing for work? We lived in California. I was trying to be an actor and she was trying to be an actor out there as well. That didn't work out. I worked all kinds of stuff. Like I said, we were only married for a total of...we were together a total of 8 years and... By the time she left, she hadn't done...we'd done see a community theater, but not, you know, and she was a little excuse me. She was a little angry with me because, you know, we would go to auditions and I would get parts and she wouldn't. And she's gorgeous. I mean, and she's a dancer. She had legs that started at her armpits, just a wonderful dancer. And she still is. And she wouldn't get the parts that she wanted and she would get very angry with me. And, you know, I'd say I want to I want to go on a diet. And she said, OK, but I was going to make the chocolate cake. Yeah. But anyway, she left and so I did more community theater. I worked in a bakery out in Westwood for a long time and it was off and on. And it was...the lady was Armenian, I can swear at you in Armenian. And she was the baker to the stars. I mean, she had pictures of people up on the wall. Her co-owner was Barbra Streisand's stepsister. Barbara used to come in all the time and get sticky buns, Philadelphia sticky buns right out with it. I was just talking about this the other day. Olympia Dukakis used to come in all the time. Yeah, I know. And when I...the day she came in and I just found out that she had been cast as Anna and Tales of the City. I said, "Oh, my God, I can't see anybody else in that role." She said, "I hope I do her justice." And she was tiny. She was just this tiny waif of a woman. But she could act her way to heaven. Where she is now. Absolutely. I met a lot of people in there. A lot. Madonna. And Sean Penn used to come in, so it was a fun place to work. Yeah. Were you were you part of, you know, the kind of emerging gay scene at all, or was this when you were still married and pretty monogamous and... Well, no, I...I was...I've never been part of the gay thing. I'm so not stereotypical of a gay person. I have a green screen so you can't see the mess behind me. But right about that time is when and it was well before Craigslist or any of that stuff. I met a guy named Steven who I dated for about 20 minutes. And part of that 20 minutes was we're going to go to the gay rodeo. And I'd been to the gay rodeo before. And because I was supporting this hairdresser that worked about three doors down who was dressed as a woman and miss, Miss L.A., Miss L.A. Rodeo, and I went to support him, her and it was like it was a lot of fun. And then when Steven said, we're going to go to the gay rodeo, I said, "Oh, shirtless cowboys and dancing." He said, "No, no, we're going to work in the arena." I said, "Not in these new boots, we're not." And when I went to support my friend, it was a Sunday night when he was entertaining and that's when they gave out the awards. And it was really interesting. You know, they had All Around cowgirls and All Around cowboys and they would call up the women for All Round cowgirls and they would shake hands. Right. And the guys would come up and they would go, "Oh, sweetie, girlfriend," you know? And when the guy won it, his name was Greg Olsen. This was a long time ago, so. He wept in his hands. He wept that he had won best All Around cowboy for the weekend, and I said, "This is a place that I need to be." And then I didn't think about it until Steven said, "We're going to work in the arena." And I went and I always joked that the first cowpile I stepped in, I was home. And I've never been around animals like that at all, you know, I'm from the middle of Pennsylvania. There are farms around, but I never got involved in any rodeo situation at all here. And it changed my life. The rodeo. Rodeo taught me a lot of things and one of the main things, I might get emotional, one of the main things is: we as gay people, all our lives have been told you can't love somebody for any length of time, it's all a sexual thing, you know. If you stay together, you're not going to stay together long. And I met couples. The first rodeo I worked in the arena, there was a couple from New Mexico that had traveled there, two men, that had been together for 35 years, 35 years, and there were other couples as well. You know, Carl and Dave were from San Diego and they had been together 17 years. You and it was such a mind-blowing thing to see this where you'd been told all your life that this was never going to happen. You know and if I'd seen this earlier in my life, I might have had a really totally different life. I'm still single. I have a cat that's about it, it's the longest relationship I've ever had. He's just turned 7. So what do you remember what year it was that you went to your first one? I cannot remember. I have...I have a...a bag. Then I got going to a rodeo one time, will you excuse me? I know right where it is. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. [long pause]. OK, so one of the great things about living in L.A. was you could fly anywhere in the country and even up to Canada for like one 100 bucks round trip. And I was in the Burbank Airport, and they just canceled the flight for 7 hours, so I was there for 7 hours. I couldn't go home, you know, and I found this. And it looks like the sidesaddle, right? So I started putting these you get tags whenever you go to the rodeo and you put them on your belt loop, or if you're too old to look at the belt loop, you hang it on a lanyard. But these are the first 25 tags that I had. And I don't know if they have the year on it or not. '95. I think I started in 1990, I think. But. It was just a really neat thing, and then I had so many of them because I've been to the 133 that I'd said, you know, this won't fit through the TSA at the airport didn't enjoy that too much. So I stopped putting any more on that. So you went to the first one and, you know, stepped in the cowpile and really felt at home. How did you...did you start volunteering with the arena crews? How did...what were your next steps? Well, the arena crews...when Steven took me there, I was in the arena crew, right, but there was no such thing as an arena crew. And I looked at the at the line up and I knew I didn't know even know what was happening on the line. And there was a lady named Casey Jackson, tall, good-looking woman, who said to me, "OK, this needs to go out next, be ready for that." And I said, "OK." So the first day it was rough because I didn't pole bending. You know, you need you need a tape measure. Oh, there's one right there, you know, so that was the first day and then they did it for two days, Saturday and Sunday. And then the second day, I got everything lined up and I got somebody to help me, Steven wouldn't help me because Steven was the gate guy. So Steven didn't last very long anyway. So the second day I had it all lined up. And the second day is traditionally a shorter day anyway. But it was a lot shorter because I had had everything lined up. And so. We finished the rodeo, it was it was a wonderful, wonderful two days, I was exhausted, and then the next year I didn't do any other rodeos until the next year. And when I showed up to be a volunteer, Casey was there and she said, you know, I said, what do I do wrong? She said, "I remember you from last year and you did a wonderful job on the second day. You're going to be in charge of the arena." And I said, "No, no." She said, "Yeah, yeah." And you didn't say no to Casey. You didn't. So I did it for the weekend. I had three volunteers to help me and everybody else had had. They had these vests on to denote where they were, except the arena crew didn't have any vests, so I didn't know who the arena crew was. So but we went through it. And at the end at the end of the rodeo on Sunday night, excuse me, Casey said, "I have never, ever run a rodeo as efficiently as they did with you working in the arena." She said, "Never, ever leave the arena." And with the exception of one time when I worked behind the shoots, I've always been in the arena or I've been an entertainment rodeo clown in the arena still and. I remember the first time that they actually called me an arena setup coordinator and I was the first of its kind and I bought some brand new jeans and they were white. How stupid was that? And I had a radio on and I wasn't going to have to get in the pens or anything. They said you don't have to get into the pens. And then a dear friend of mine was struggling with calves. His name was Carl. God bless him. He's passed away. And I got in I dropped the radio down. I got into the pen, and within two seconds I had a green streak down my leg on my white jeans. I never wore them again, ever. Not even the rodeos. But, you know, and then I got to go places they would invite me, places. I went to the first rodeo up in Calgary, Canada, Alberta. It was a wonderful, wonderful space. The arena was here. There was a campground here where we put up tents and trailers. And then on the other side was a building that had dance floors and kitchens and all kinds of stuff. And for the entire weekend, you never had to leave. It was it was like a bubble. You didn't have to leave. And there was nobody having problems with anybody else except late at night when people got really drunk. You know, and I got to go to several of the I went up to about 15 of them and then I got involved, really involved with my church. So I was not able to to go up to two once after that when they went to Strathmore. Yeah, I never went to the Strathmore when it is just at this at this ranch, which I loved, I loved. So. So as you're getting more involved with the gay rodeo, are you doing. Did you do any events ever? I've only done one event and that was calf roping on foot and I bought a new rope. And. I failed miserably. So I gave the rope away. So. I.(Subjects: events) That's amazing. So with your with your clowning, had you had were you just channeling your theater experience and what was what was the experience of clowning like? What was your routine like? Well, with clowning, I was the entertainment clown. When something was happening at one end of the arena, I was on the other end of the arena doing stuff like I had a six-foot PVC pipe that I could baton twirl. You know, and I had jokes, really terrible jokes, oh, my God. You know, and I made up a character. His name was Avis T-Bone MaGroin. And he was from Mooseanus, spelled the way it sounds, moose anus. And we weren't in any state because no state had Claimmus, in fact, that was on our town sign saying Mooseanus, no state will claim us. Our neighboring states were Arkansas, Texas, and Rhode Island because it was a long, long place. So, you know, so I give that give that to the people. And they would, you know, it was just all fun, you know, but I only did that I only did that about ten, ten or fifteen times. Not, you know. When we get to my book, I'll tell you one of the inspirations I got from the book and a life lesson when I was writing the book and Roman and Jules is my first book ever. And I wrote that when I was forty-five. No. It was 2000. So. I'm seventy-two now, so that would have been. Anyway, but it was my first one, people had told me all my life I couldn't be a writer and so I would write maybe. A page, two pages and then go, well, I can't be a writer because I can't spell. And so at a late age, I wrote a short story when I worked at the at the bakery and it was 14 pages, it was a short story. People read it and they were very affected by it. So I started writing this book about gay rodeo and I thought it was going to be a short story. And it's I'm not sure how many words it is, but it's not a novel. It's a novelette or. I have it right here With? Oooohh! Oh, wow. Maybe I would say I don't know. I know a lot of people have written about this link, you know, so in book format, it's about a hundred and sixty pages. Yeah. And it has a full story arc. So I'd say, oh, it's a novella and a novel, OK, novella and a novel, absolutely. So yeah. Why don't we talk about Roman and Jules. Excellent, well I've been to, I've been to sixty-five rodeos at that point and I'd written this short story and then I thought I'd write another short story about the rodeo and then it kept growing and growing and growing and growing and to the main characters, one of them is gay bull rider and a straight bullfighter who become really close friends. And I really needed the feeling. A bullfighter has when he's going in to save somebody. So we were in Ramona, California, and the wonderful and God bless him, David Pizzuti was our clown and I had known David for years and years. And I said, "David, what goes through your mind whenever you're in there saving somebody?" And he said. "Well, actually, nothing, because I just go in and my hands go where they need to be." I said, "David, you are so full of shit." He said, "No, no, really. It's like God directs me where my hands need to be." I said, "Yeah, whatever, David." So that day I was the latch puller. There are two people with bullfighting, bull riding. There's the guy with the rope that opens up the gate and there's the latch puller. And these were these were new shoots. So they were they were tough to get open. So I stepped in front because it wasn't coming up. And the Cowboy is going like this, you know. So I stepped in front and I opened it and I try to get back to the other side and the bull came out. And hit me in the ass and I went hit me in the wallet and when I carried it in the back pocket and I went up three feet. Landed on my feet, went to the top of the fence, went to the fence on the top of it, and I hadn't thought about it, it was like God was telling me where to go. And I looked up and I said, "God, if I ever need that lesson again, I'm going to I'm going to believe the person." Right. And I had always had a lower back problem. And I thought I was going to be crippled the next day. And when I woke up, I didn't have a back problem and I haven't had a back problem since. So whenever I hurt my neck, somebody said, go play with the bull again! And I went, eh, no. That's only going to work once. Ramona had, we had porta-potties, of course, and Ramona's porta-potty company had a picture of the guy on the on the door sitting on a toilet. Right. And their motto was, your crap is our bread and butter. I'll never forget it. So as you're developing your story, how much of of the characters are coming out of people that you knew? Well. I changed the names to protect the guilty, except for one, and I kept his name in there, but there were a lot of things in there. The story about Seattle and what happened up there, there was not a shooting up there, but everything leading up to it, like like the SWAT team up there, that was all true. When I walked up and the guy handed me a target and said, put this on your back because they're going to there is talk. And this is how long ago there wasn't chat rooms. It was just boards. And in one of the boards, somebody had said, "My scope, we'll zero in on the pink triangle really well to shoot these faggots, you know, and so there was SWAT team up in the mountains in Enumclaw was it was funny because there were two ways to get to Enumclaw from the hotel where we were staying in Seattle. And I went the back way and it was real foggy. And I stopped in front of this house that had a Confederate flag and a white supremacist flag and the American flag. And it was foggy and there was an old goat sitting right underneath the flags. And I did not have a camera. If I had a camera, that would that would have been perfect. But it was really, really redneck things when one of the bed and breakfasts up close up to Enumclaw found out was a gay event, they canceled everybody's reservation, you know?(Subjects: events) Yeah, that was one of my questions. If if not, I mean, obviously, the book deals a lot with homophobia and transphobia, and violence. And I was wondering how much of that was based on your experiences or experiences of people you knew? Well. It's really interesting because. There is homophobia even in the homosexual groupings, you know, there were clicks inside of the rodeo and still is to a certain extent, I call them pretty horse people in my book, but other people have different names that aren't quite so kind as that because, you know, there there's a feeling of superiority if you're if you're a horse person. I'm not saying that everybody has that, but there is a certain amount of people, but they have grown out of it, I've seen, you know, when I've gone to the later ones. The shirt I'm wearing is is from the gay games that was in Cleveland seven years ago, Cleveland and Akron, you know, and just to see some of the people that came for that, that had been little snots growing up in the rodeo thing and had totally changed. You know, it was really great to see.(Subjects: homophobia) And I think at the center of the story is this really beautiful relationship that, you know, I really enjoyed it because of its complexity and the way you're capturing human relationships that transcend those easy binaries. And, you know, I was wondering, especially with Roman being a straight man who has come to terms with his own homophobia and how damaging that had been in his own life. If you knew people like that at the gay rodeo who came as a self-identified straight, people who were working through their own sort of family traumas.(Subjects: homophobia) Um, when you're when you're at the rodeo and like I said, it's a lot of a lot of ways it's like a bubble. But you get really, emotional when somebody is in the arena. You know, whether they're gay or straight or whatever, and their parents are up in the stands, you know, you just. I don't I don't think parents that had felt homophobic would show up like that, you know? And some people brought their kids that were, you know. Non-binary. Now we know it is non-binary to show them a different side of homosexuality. You know, I mean, Toddy from Victor Victoria at the beginning of the movie, he sings and at the end, everybody's applauding. And he says, “You're very kind.” In fact, you're one up every time. And that's what happens at a rodeo. You know, you have men that identify as big, strong men but happen to be gay. (Subjects: parents) I ran into this straight cowboy that thought he was going to come and get all of the money because he was straight, you know, and it was this was just a damn gay rodeo. And he almost lost his life because he was being stupid and wasn't doing everything that he did in the straight rodeo. You know, you just and you just look at them and shake their head, your head at them. It's like, yeah, you may think that this is going to be a walk in the park, but. But it's not. It's not. I wanted to mention something about protesters, we were at Annapolis, Maryland, doing a rodeo for votes for D.C., but it was in Annapolis, and it was a beautiful, beautiful area. The protesters parked their cars in in our parking lot and then went out with signs and protested about homosexuality and how dare they? And we locked the door on them and they couldn't get back into the parking lot [chuckles] because they were protesting us. So we just closed their doors and they said, but we need to get well, no, you don't, because this is private property and you're not allowed on our property anymore. It was the best. And the story in Roman and Jules, about the nails and the church family that came in, that really happened. That really happened. And the preacher said, after Saturday, you know, these gay people that were protesting and saying they're going to hell came out and helped us. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm not coming back here tomorrow, and if I do come back, it's not going to be to protest. It's going to be part of their family because, you know, I mean, it's hard it's hard to hate somebody that is kind to you. You know, and I found that a lot in in all kinds of rodeos. (Subjects: family) So. Yeah, I miss my rodeo, I went to a lot of first rodeos, the first rodeo up in Chicago. It was in February, but it was an indoor arena. OK, but the ground that they use all the time was outside. So they brought it in and put it on the arena. And it was it was mud. Mud, and they have these and I'm not exaggerating. One-hundred and one-hundred and twenty-year-old carriages that they were going to bring out the drag queens in to go around the arena, and they got stuck in the mud and broke the axles [laughs]. And and and I'm going to mention Clarence. Clarence was the stock contractor and he stood about five foot one and was about that amount around. And he was a good old boy and I said, “You know, I understand, Clarence, that there are some women out there underneath the mud somewhere” - he says, "Don't make me no, never mind it now, if there are men there, I'll go out." And he came out to me right there on the arena. And it was and he was such a wonderful person. He would pick up hitchhikers and take them places. You know, he brought a lot of them into his into his ranch to help. One of them. Thought he could get a bunch of money him, killed him. Clarence was just the most caring, wonderful person in the world, and he died, and I and the guy said, "Well, you know, it was a he was a homosexual and I didn't feel comfortable with it, so I killed them because he was a homosexual." And luckily, if I remember correctly, he didn't get away with that defense. He was pretty much of a scumbag anyway, so. Well, I noticed that at the end of ruminant and Hillary Clinton is president, and I really enjoyed the epilog and had, by executive order, made gay marriage legal. And I'm wondering, you know, as you know, since you wrote this book, how the world has changed in ways that you maybe for, you know, for saw a little bit and maybe ways that that have been unexpected to you. Well, it was called. It was called. Projecting this is the way I wanted it to, you know, and if 10 years after that it would have been 2010, that would have been great, you know, and it and it came around that it just wasn't Hillary Clinton that that had to do with, you know. Yeah, it. I. To see people. That had been together thirty-five years, and if one of them died, the other one would have been kicked off the land. You know, just sickened me, sickened, and that happened, it would happen, you know. Do you think since gay marriage was legalized, that things have culturally have gotten better? Oh, yes, oh, absolutely, absolutely. You know. People are coming to the rodeo to get married now, you know, or they are married, you know, men and women as well. You know, I mean, lesbians and gay men are getting married and bringing their spouses into the rodeo community. I want to I wanted to share something with you early when I was doing rodeo. I'd never met a trans person ever and, I I met this woman at one rodeo and the next rodeo, I met him. And he was about to get married to a woman. And they wanted children and they had. They had a. A folder of men that we're going to be the sperm donor, and so they were asking what we all thought we were in in the arena crew, but who we thought would be a good one and you would have died at some of the comments, you know, we had to write down. Number three sounds good. Number five, not good for you, but just have him leave a deposit. It was just the funniest thing, d’you know, and that was my first experience knowing a trans individual ever. (Subjects: community) I had never known a trans individual and. And now I know a lot of them, and I just didn't know that I you know, they came out as trans, you know, men and women, you know, we just did a Calgary. Went from this little place and they just had a rodeo in 2019 at the stampede. One of the stampede arenas, which back when we first started the rodeo up there, there was nobody allowed to be in the arena if they if they define- themselves as gay. And now we had the whole gay event in Calgary, and that was wonderful. And one of the one of the instigators of the reboots is a trans activist female up there, you know. So, you know, it's just. It. It's interesting now when I look at people - especially non-binary - then you don't know if they were a man or a woman, you know, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. (Subjects: events) You know, I have buttons about beloved children of God, we are all beloved children of God. I want to show you a sash that was made for me. There's a whole thing about sashes in the rodeo that you can only wear a sash for so long and then you have to retire it to your to your closet. You know, I think there's like two years or something like that. I think they might have changed it by that. But I was down and I was down in San Diego and, I was doing, doing a line on the arena, and we're running a little bit late. It was a beautiful day, and I kept hearing my name being called on the loudspeaker. And I'm going, "I'm busy here. I'm busy here." And I looked around and all the contestants had lined up and they gave me this sash and it says, Miss Kelly girl. And they presented it to me. They stayed up till 4:00 in the morning, very drunk to finish it, and there used to be used to be glitter all over it. [chuckles] And it's so old that there's no glitter. But they have they have a lot of things that, buttons and pins and stuff, and so I collected a bunch of pins and put them on my sash and this will never go out of style. Whatever rodeo I go to, I can go to it. And I have a funny story. When I had a little bit of money, which was a long time ago, I used to get things for the people that work in the arena. And one of the things is this. And you might not. It says, Proud to be Kelly crew, and then I had a pink triangle, and so I hadn't seen a lot of the people for a long time because being in Pennsylvania, it cost a thousand dollars to go anywhere from where I live. And so, I went to the gay games seven years ago and I had this proud to be Kelly crew button on there. And this guy came up and this is a guy that had worked 30 rodeos with. He said hi, "Hi, my name's Chris." I said, "Hi, Chris," knowing full well who it was. And I had a big bushy beard at the time. He said, "How do you know Kelly?" And I said, "Um, I am Kelly." He went, "Oh, my God!" and jumped into my arms and his husband turned around and said, "What the hell's going on?" And Chris goes, "This is Kelly! This is Kelly!" And he went, "THE Kelly?" "Yah!" So he came over. The three of us are just hugging. And it was just the best, the best moment of my life. It was one of the best things. On your list, you wanted to talk about religion? I did. I wanted to especially bring that up since you had just mentioned your pins and how what role faith plays in your life. Oh, well, if it. It's the most important thing in my life. In in the book, you read about the blessing to the arena. And that actually came from - I read a book called Coyote Medicine, and it's a true story about a man that was half Native American and half white and how he was pulled back and forth between modern medicine because he was a doctor and shaman medicine. And, you know, and they talked about blessing of the Hogans and things like that. And it really touched a nerve with me. So one year I had this bag of cornmeal in a, you know, like a little plastic bag and did the blessing of the arena up at the Las Vegas in the ninety-five-degree weather. It was brutal and I had a black felt hat on. I was really stupid. And then it got so important for me to do that. It did centered me and I would do it both Saturday and Sunday morning is centered me the first thing in the morning to do that to, you know, whether it did anything or not. So a number of years ago my when my mom was still alive, we had the porch fixed and one of one of the guys had this really great pouch on his belt. And I said, "Wow, where'd you get that pouch?" And he happened to be Native American. And he said, "Well, I make it myself." And he actually made me a pouch. That. Opens and closed, and I said, "It needs to be really, really tightly woven so the cornmeal doesn't come out," and he made it for me and cost me one hundred bucks, I think. And it just and I have one of the important things is knowing north where the north is. (Subjects: religion) So I have a compass in there and then I just go and get cornmeal at the grocery store wherever I go to. And when people see me headed out in the morning with my pouch, they, they come in, they walk with me or they want me to stop by their their horses stall with them being there so I can bless them. And as such it's such a. A spiritual moment in my life, I as I said earlier in my life, I was very effeminate and I had something very wonderful happen in my life right after Easter. I was in the choir loft and it was warm and there was a whisper down the alley, and when it came to me it said, take off your choir robe because it's too warm. And I said, "In my mind. Christ died on the cross for us, and we can't be uncomfortable for 20 minutes," and there was a window to my left and there was only a window to my left and I heard somebody sigh like you finally got. (Subjects: religion) And I looked at it and it was God and he spoke to me and in just seconds he told me I was a perfect person. And that everybody was around that was around me was perfect. We just all had to realize that. And that was so profound for me that, needless to say, I was the only one that where the fire rope on the way out processing and I went to the pastor who I have trouble remembering his name because he profoundly hurt me and. I told him what happened, I said, "I felt the presence of God this morning in church." And he said, "What part of my sermon did you feel the power?" And I went, "Uh..." And I told him what happened, and he said, "So you didn't get it from my message?" I said, "No." He said, "Then it probably wasn't God." And. It crushed me. And I stepped away from the church, and right after that I went into the military, and I stepped away from God. And luckily, God had a bigger step, and he's always been with me. (Subjects: religion) In fact, I didn't realize how, you know, people saw me doing the blessing of the arena. But they also, you know, I'm a very. I don't know if you believe empaths, I'm an empath, the one time that I worked behind the chutes, I couldn't stand it because I could feel everybody's emotion, you know, so I couldn't I couldn't be there. I had to be out in the arena. And then when I came back to caregive my mom about five months after I got back here, there was a phone call for me, and that was before cell phones. Somebody actually had paid to call me and it was one of one of the ladies she and her wife/girlfriend had adopted this son who had leukemia. And they wanted me to pray for him. And I didn't realize that I had affected people with my spirituality that much and that, you know, and then being back to the church, I've been very vocal about being openly gay. In fact, I wrote a book I wrote a play actually about some things that happened to me when I came back and they said, "Oh, we love you, we love you." And then they invited me to be a mentor for the confirmation class and then they uninvited me. And they had said, you know, we have enough people, but they told me the reason why I was being uninvited was because it was just boys in the confirmation class.(Subjects: religion) So basically they were thinking that I was a pedophile. So we came out the other end of that. And, you know, I had written this book about rodeo. So I really felt that I could it would be very cathartic to make a play about it. So the play was about fifty percent to fifty-five percent. True. And the rest was made up and then it got produced at several different events. And I had such a wonderful response from it that I wrote a book based on the play. And they're both in the same volume and it's called All the Little Children. And. So I'm very spiritual, we are coming. We just celebrated our second year of becoming open and affirming, and that's to LGBTQA -plus everything else, disabled, you know, mentally handicapped, so and so forth, you know, and I wanted it done twenty-two years ago when I came back, but I would not have been able to do it without the people that did it this time, you know. Do you think when you came back was that, so you had mentioned it became harder to participate sort of in your rodeo life. Did a lot of that energy go into the to the church that you grew up in? I think it did, yeah, I think it did. And caregiving my mom to she you know, I think you have to have an advocate. You have to have an advocate and nobody advocated for her. When I started back when computers, I actually won a computer on a game show online. You know, if you were one of the top three people at this live game show, you got a computer and I got a free computer. Anyway, I looked up all the medicines and I said, this person that's dealing with her is not when I'm reading all this stuff, it's not helping her. It's counteracting another medicine. Right. So being an advocate is important. So. Anyway, you know, just being a caregiver for my mom and being a part of the church, I've had some really hateful things said to me and said I got a letter from this lady saying, I know you're part of council. The letter I sent has nothing to do with you. And the next night when I went into counsel, they read the letter and it was saying how terrible homosexuals were and you know, and of course, she had said to me, "Oh, no, it's not about you." Well yah, it is about I have to I have to leave the room. I sat and wept at the bottom of the steps. At one point, I wanted to leave the church and our pastor at the time, I went in weeping to her and saying, what do I do? I think I need to leave the church. (Subjects: religion) And she said, "Talk to God about it." She didn't give me direction. She said, "You know, just put your put your faith in God and he'll give you the direction." And after a summer of going to different churches that were open and affirming already or, you know, different denominations without that specification, but a different name for it, I came back to the church because God said, "This, this is your family. You need to help your family open up to everybody." And now we have we have gay and lesbian people here that are proudly open. You know, my mother said to me one time when I came back, I said, hey, tomorrow's coming out today. What should I do? And she said, if you came out any further, we need to put a tether on your leg. I miss her every day. She was a character. She was just a character. I wanted I wanted to tell you one other thing. There's a curriculum called Our Whole Lives. The curriculum has to do with sexuality and spirituality. Have you ever heard of it?(Subjects: family, religion) I have not. No? It's wonderful. It's put out by the United Church of Christ, which is the denomination I'm in and also, universal, you know, universalists(Subjects: religion) Universal Unitarians, Yes, Unitarian, yes, right, and it's a combination and it talks about sexuality. And here I am being a media whore again. I wrote another book called And a Child and one of the characters, one of the substories, in that is about a transgender boy. And I thought, you know, it's not going to be affective in this really small area. And when the kids in the curriculum got to the LGBTQ, they wanted something more than the curriculum. So we went to the Gay Straight Alliance in State College and they sent over a panel of four people, four kids. And then the adviser was a lesbian. There was a gay boy. A straight ally, a bisexual girl and a transgender boy. So it was indeed something here. And I love talking about myself and I apologize. So the boy was talking and he's doing this and crossing his legs and everything. And then the straight girl was talking about being an ally and so on down the line. And I knew most of the kids in the group. There were 10 kids and there was the pastor female. And then it was a married couple that was helping with it. And I said, hey, you kids know me. You know, I've been around for a long time. I've yelled at you for running through the church. I've been openly gay. I've not ever been afraid of telling you that that God loves me no matter what. I used to be very feminine and very. Just queer and uh and I and I found out that that isn't necessarily who I have to be. I can be anything I want to be. So I have chosen to be this. And if you don't like it, too bad. Right. So the pastor said, OK. And I said, thank you. And Pastor started saying something and the gay boy said. Can I say something? She said, sure, and he said, I want to apologize because. I was being very effeminate because I thought that's what was expected of me. And I'm not traditionally that way and the other three went, he's really not. He said, I thought that's what was expected of me and I'd like to be my true self now. So and then we had a two hour conversation after that. It took me about three days to realize because of what I said, this boy realized that he didn't have to be anything but himself. And that made me feel so good. OK, I'm sorry. So. I know you said you've been really involved with your church even through this last year of Covid, and I'm wondering if you could talk about what this last year has been like for you both in regards to your church family and the rodeos and and just how you've navigated that as someone, you know, living in a small town in Pennsylvania during Covid? During Covid, yeah, yeah. Well, obviously, rodeos are off the board right now. I was I was honored to go up to the Calgary rodeo. And it was it was pretty much a nightmare going up there because my luggage got lost and so did I. And it was terrible. But it was wonderful. It just to be around like-minded people is just an amazing feeling. It's just. You know, and I got to I got to go around and bless the arena. You know, I had people come up to me on Friday and say, "You gonna bless the arena tomorrow morning?" And I said "Yah, I'll be here." I actually had to find cornmeal. There was no place around me. I said, "I need cornmeal." So they made sure I had corn cornmeal in the morning. So my church this Sunday, we are celebrating the first year of Zoom Church. In March, we went to other people's Zoom churches during Easter that that last year we were asked we asked if we could go to our past Preachers' Zoom churches. She and she is in Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky. And they said that we could. And then we I work on the faith formation team and the faith formation team said, well, you know, we'd really like to do is in service ourselves. And who wants to do it? And I went. Well, I can certainly talk, as you can tell, and I said, we can put it together, you know, is there anybody that can do it technically? And one of the guys stood up and that that's been a year ago. And the first thing I said was and we were really worried about the seniors, you know, which I am one. But we're talking about people in their 80s and 90s that that would be very confused. And we started at 10 o'clock and at 9:25, one of the seniors got on the Zoom. And then another one came on and they've been there consistently every week except Holy humor Sunday didn't particularly like that. They thought we were going to have clowns on there and we did. But the first thing I said was, welcome to St. John's, where God is still speaking and where all are loved. I have done something that no other preacher in our two-hundred-year history has done, and that is I got everybody in the front row. [chuckles]. That's a good joke. [laughs]. Yah, yah. We've done is we've done this for a year. We have we have pastors that come in on Zoom from all over the country, you know, which is really neat. And I go down every Monday traditionally to sing the hymns because we worked out that singing on Zoom with an organ on the background didn't work. So two of us go down a man and a woman. Usually it's me, but we have another man that does it as well. And we do the hymns, you know, and everybody else is muted, you know. So I'm really involved in that, you know, and the children's sermon, you know, I get to do and just say I went to Cleveland the other day to see a friend of mine who is vaccinated, he and his partner that I've been talking to on Facebook for seven years. I've never met them. And I went to Cleveland and wasn't here. And on Monday when I got back, you know, for people that you really missed you in church yesterday, there was nobody to laugh at. Do you think that that's helped people get through this year of isolation? Say again? Do you think that having at least Zoom as an option has helped people get through the year of isolation? Yes, in a lot of cases, but in a lot of cases, you know, they say it's not the same. There are people that have every capability of being on Zoom and they choose not to because it's not the same, but you know what? It's never going to be the same. There there is not. There's not ever going to be a normal it's going to be a new normal, we will have we had a hybrid service where everybody was out in the parking lot last Sunday and there was some people on Zoom. You know, and then if in the Fall we have no air conditioning in our church in the fall, if we decide to go inside, you know, we will still have Zoom. Because there are people that do not want to come in the building, you know, We've seen the same thing just with teaching. Yah It's never going to be the same. But there's also a really good opportunity to for people who have mobility problems or any sorts of things that would otherwise exclude them from being able to attend, let alone just illness. That I think you're right in that this is helping create a new normal and hopefully one that we can use to create even more inclusive spaces. Right, absolutely. Absolutely. And do you feel like it is getting better? Is the vaccine rolling out OK there? How does it feel right now? Yeah, it is. We just we just had a survey and out of the 42 people that responded, 80 percent have had have been fully vaccinated. You know, now we have 60 people that we sent that out to, but the 40 that you know, and we are still maintaining six feet. And wearing masks, so, you know, it's it will never be the same, you know, who would have thought? You know, in twenty nineteen that things would come to a crashing halt. Yeah, I think absolutely this is this is a good time to be recording oral histories because this is such a historical moment and, you know, do you think when do you think you would be comfortable or able to go to a rodeo again? I know they're planning on holding some, but is that something that that you think a lot of people are excited about or are still concerned about? And how do you feel about it yourself? Well, Pennsylvania has the Keystone. I think it's Keystone. They didn't let covid stop them last year, I preferred not to go, but for more reasons than covid. We did the farm. There's a farm…farmers complex down in Harrisburg that we did our first rodeo at. And we did really well, and then the second rodeo, we were at a smaller arena, it was really nice. But the people in charge of the money messed it up really bad and the contestant didn't get their winnings. And that really that really embarrassed me, you know, because, you know, when the money doesn't shouldn't be used for anything other than the winnings and it went into the bills that even didn't get paid. So it really it was an embarrassment to me. And I you know, it's unfortunate and I don't know how to vocalize that to them, so if they have something this November, I'm not going to be going. But, you know. I guess I guess Colorado's coming up in July. I, I think that's too soon. I really do. August I think New Mexico is having one. I, I think that may even be too soon, you know, and also I'm on unemployment, so I don't have the money unless they say here's a free paid ticket and we have your hotel. Just bring your appetite, you know, money for that. Oh, speaking of appetite, I want to tell you a story. In Phoenix, I haven't gone to Phoenix for a long time, the Phoenix rodeo there. So I went one year and being in the arena, you work late. So all the contestants had gone up to this steakhouse that they went to every year and they have a special room in the back. And there's like 40 contestants in the back there. And the staff in that room come up with a question that everybody at the table has to answer, and it's usually sexually oriented. Are you a top? Are you a bottom? Have you ever been in a three way? And you have to answer these questions. Well, luckily, we didn't have to go back to that because we were really late and there was me and two ladies and you walk in and there's this woman standing there and she has a six gun on her hip and a cowboy hat, and she looks, you know, she looks like Annie Oakley, except maybe one hundred years old. She's old. Looks like Annie Oakley. And, "So what are y'all here for?" "Well, we'd like to eat." "Just the three of you?" "Uh, yes mam." Looked right at me and she said, "Follow me, ladies." And we have the best dinner. I haven't eaten red meat for a long time. So. So they had really good chicken. But you could see them. You looked out the window and they were they were over a big fire pit. Cooking all this food for everybody, it was funny. But but the question that the contestants had was, are you a top or a bottom? And these questions didn't come from anybody in the audience or the contestants, it came from the staff, they wanted to hear all and people were shocked at some of the answers. I mean that brings - Go ahead. No, go ahead. Got to say, that brings up my follow-up question of relationships in the military. But did you have any relationships at the rodeo? Actually, I didn't. Uh, out of the 133 rodeos, I've only been laid at a rodeo once. Just too busy? And that was by accident. I meant I met this guy, we went to my hotel room and in the morning I said, Oh, I've got to get out of here. He said, so do I, I'm going to the rodeo. And I went [sharp inhale] and you know what? It's not because I didn't want to. Everybody thought I was a priest or something, that I didn't have sex. And I don't, [laughs] trust me. I'm not - at all. But, you know. But it was sometimes you just don't need sex and with rodeos, I was usually too exhausted anyway. I was talking to you about death at the rodeo before in in D.C. I, I saw two deaths Uh, there was, as I said, I'm a photographer and I had the camera and I was taking pictures. And. There was a guy in the last shoot on a steer and somebody who is supposed to be holding him, you know, so if you pitch forward, they could pull him back and the person wasn't strong enough and he hit his head on the bar and he died. And I and I almost took a picture of it, and I I mean, it's what I'm used to, you know, and I pushed the button and I had somehow turned off the camera. So God stopped my camera from doing that. And another time. They were doing barrel racing and. The woman came out with her horse and circled around. And the horse slipped and broke his leg and it limped out and they, you know, so no ghouls were around, they put up a fence and everything and the horse had to be put down. And. It costs like fifteen hundred dollars. And the announcement came out, anybody could help with the fifteen hundred dollars [cries] and in 15 minutes it was paid for. That's the kind of people these rodeo people are. It does not matter if you're a man or woman. If you can do a job, you're in the job. I worked mostly with women arena directors. I learned so much about the arena from women. Because they knew how to do the job. It you know, it's just such a wonderful family, a wonderful community. At. The riderless horse you read, read in my book, have you ever been to a rodeo, by the way?(Subjects: community, family, jobs) Yah. OK, so I mean a gay rodeo. Yeah, yes. OK, all right. The riderless horse is such an integral part of remembering who we are and who is past and to hear us talking in the early years about people that have died of AIDS and then going from AIDS to breast cancer to all the illnesses, you know, it's really such a spiritual, wonderful uh, family community, especially with the riderless horse. It is just. It's just a wonderful group of people, and I really appreciate being a part of it.(Subjects: community, family) Do you think a lot of other people I've interviewed have expressed concern that that, you know, people are aging in the association and there's not a lot of younger members coming in. And I'm wondering if that's something you're concerned about and what you think the future of the association is? Well, if we can get somebody to produce my book as a movie, I think they would pique a lot of people's interest. Hint, hint, hint, hint, hint. It you know, you've got to put that out in the universe, you know. I think it needs to be more publicized. You know, back in the 90s, you know, we were we were something of an anomaly, you know, and we were on new shows everywhere, and now it's Rupal's Drag Race that's the anomaly. And we need to become an anomaly again, you know. It's funny because. You see these big butch cowboys doing all kinds of stuff, and then at night they're dancing and prancing around and just being themselves and loving themselves and loving, loving their atmosphere. We need to we need to publicize it more. Absolutely. Do you feel like trans members and non-binary people, do you feel like they feel supported by the institution? Absolutely. Absolutely. Have you seen the movie Queens and Cowboys? Yeah. Yeah, well, my friend Travis, you know, he was so brave enough to show before pictures of him, before he was transition. You know, I really I really feel the love. Through him, you know, and like I said, the trans I you know, the person came up and said, my name is so-and-so, but last year I was so-and-so I'd never remembered that. Before he transitioned. You know, in my mind, you know. So you just you just you, I think, non-binary. Would have a better chance at the rodeo than other places. I really feel that. So as an artist, you know, it's interesting to hear you've been in these spaces - military, rodeo - and you've been in them a lot of times as an artist, as a photographer or a writer, a teacher, all of the these sort of positions. I wonder how you this has affected your art, your approach to creating things. Is it your inspiration or how does that play into your artistic craft?(Subjects: teaching) Well. The old adage, you are what you eat. You know. I I wrote the rodeo book, and then I wrote the play and the book, then I wrote a book about Rose Parade floats, it's called the Long Pink Line. I should have sent all of them to you instead of just sorry about that. I mean, maybe they're on maybe they're on Kindle anyway. You know, I was involved. I mean - I'll check,. Oh OK. I, I had I was walking down the street in college or Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena with a friend of mine who is a florist. And there was a pink line down the middle of the street. And I said, well, what on earth? Is that doing there in the middle of the street? He said when the floats come down the street, they can't always see ahead of them. So they have somebody in the headset saying, slow down, speed up, but they can look down and they can see the pink line and they know they're exactly in the middle of the road. I said, OK, that explains the line. Why is it pink? And. And he said, well, they tried red, but it looked like blood on the pavement. And something in my mind said, I want to know more about this. And two years later, working for the same man, we worked on three rows for eight floats and I wrote about four paragraphs, but it was before I became a writer. So I put everything in a box. And then when I was back here, I had the box sent to me and I brought it out there and I looked at the outline and two months later I had the book. And it is truly, truly a novelette because it's you know, it's really it's eighty-seven pages, you know, but it talks about there's murder and mystery. There's there's a presidential and vice-presidential story in it. There's the way to build a float. You know, that people didn't know and stuff like that, and there's two wonderful love stories, gay love story and a senior, two older people love story. And I already have them cast, by the way, Ellen DeGeneres as the as the lesbian vice president that they attempt to kill, Bette Midler as the mother of one of the gay guys. I already have it cast right here. I'm putting it out in the universe. Yeah. Yeah [inaudible] I'm sorry? Just put it out there. Absolutely. I, I work I used to work with seniors and special needs people, and there was this wonderful lady who had muscular dystrophy, who was non-verbal. But you knew when she was happy when she was sad. And one year, I must have seen her as a mermaid. For Halloween, because I had this vision of her that there was a mermaid trapped in her body. And there was, you know, and I just started writing that story, it's called The Birth of a Mermaid, if you want to look that up and you can. But, you know, it's just something that that connects with me. I have up here a sequel to my And a Child. When the boys - I'm sorry - And a Child was the story about two boys who meet in middle school, one being raised by lesbian parents, one being raised by two gay men. Did I tell you about that already? No. OK, and they become fast friends and they on down the line. They try to get a gay-straight alliance in their high school, and they run into problems, you know, and and the sequel will be shall lead them and that's when they go off to college, you know, and it's right up here. I just need to get it right here. You know, it's tough to do. It's tough to do and it's easy to do. You know, so I just need to do that. Maybe this will get me, get me going again. And when you came back to Pennsylvania, what have you done for for work outside of writing and doing those things and taking care of your mom? Well, writing has never paid for more than a cup of coffee. Unfortunately. I I worked at a like a 7-Eleven type thing for a while, I worked as a taxi driver. I worked with special needs and seniors for quite a while, for 10 years. And and now I'm unemployed, so. Until September and then I'll be seventy-three and everybody will want a seventy-three-year-old.(Subjects: jobs) I feel like a lot of people are experiencing this, particularly with the pandemic. You know, just trying to figure out the next thing. Right. Everything has been hardened and also the way in which that people have sort of reconnected with their artistic selves as well, Uh huh, yah. Trying to -. Yah. To do something that feels good. Right, yeah, yeah. Everything feels hard right now. It does. It really does. And, you know, and, you know, I live with my cat, that's it. You know, I don't have anybody else to at least once a year before the pandemic, I had to clean up the house for Memorial Day because everybody came to my house for I didn't have to do that last year. I sat on Memorial Day on my porch waiting for people to walk by so I could call it a parade. Yeah, I mean, I really actually think the holidays were so hard this year, like the days, the days that we usually celebrate. Even I have two young kids and even then it was hard, like I had to really dig deep to, like, do something big for them. Yeah, because it was, it was hard. Yeah. So I'm wondering if you want to show your pictures and talk about them a little bit? I was trying to figure out how to do that. Hold on. Hold on a second. [long pause] I think I got got it hold on. [long pause] Oh. OK, this thing. I told you I told you that I, I used to give little trinkets to people. And this is in the arena, we called it the Kelly crew and crew was spelled with a K. So I had reverse K's and then the pink triangle and the black triangle. And were you familiar with the Black Triangle before you read it in my book? Yes. OK. All right. So I did that. And then. So I'm sure that. Might take a few minutes, I'm sorry. No, I'm just really impressed how well versed you are in Zoom. I think the next one is. A group of people - you'll see, hold on. Oh, no [laughs] no, this happened to be. Just a silly picture that somebody took of me, I learned I learned early on that I really needed to have a sweat thing under my hat because I have no hair, obviously, and there's no hair up there to soak up the water. So I had something. So that was that was one of my entertainment clown things. I purposely skipped. Oh, sorry. I purposely skipped arena thirteen picture - hold on. Now, this this was at the farm place down in Harrisburg, and I was. I was the assistant arena director. Only because I had the biggest mouth [RS laughs] and it was a really bizarre space and I had to shout around corners to get the horses to come up, and that was me holding, holding the gate closed. And as you can see, I have a little belly, a big belly there. And I had a hat that said end hunger. So I did that. And they normally take a picture of all the women at, at rodeos. Oh, oh, I like this picture hold on. This is, this is my butch picture oh where'd it go, oh, there it is. That's up in Calgary. That is an amazing outfit. Isn't that great? Now this vest. See, I told you I was jealous about the vest everybody had. I made these vests for all the arena crew, and I made like 30 of them, OK? And everybody went, all these are so stupid. These are so stupid. And they took them home with them. So I don't have it. If you look really closely on this, it has a - hold on the second. It has a little horse things on it That's amazing. I feel like that's a shirt that Garth Brooks would have worn. It's great. Oh yeah. There's a shirt. I have a shirt here, you know. You know who Roger Bergmann is, right? OK, I have a shirt to sitting right here. I'm pretty sure this is the shirt. That Roger Bergman has. And when I saw him wear it, I wouldn't wear it again because, you know, that's so rude that somebody else would wear a shirt that you have. It's a vanity thing, you know. Let's see. Almost done, hold on. [long pause] No, that's. I, I have led such a blessed life. Meeting all these people and being surrounded now, this one. This one was. Oh, no, that's not right. Stop sharing. Oh, here it is. You can't see it very well, but these are all the people. At the gay games. And I'm the only one and I'm right here, can you see where my arrows pointing? Yes. [laughs]. Without a hat on. There's a picture of David Pizutti that that I can't find anywhere in my computer. That. He was the most talented person in the world. He was a gymnast. I think it was a he was a nurse or a doctor of some sort. But he come in and came and did our rodeos. He was gay. He walked into a. An event. This right here is. The arena crew now has purple shirts, so that's an arena crew thing. I think that's I think that's me. Looks like my ass right there. [RS giggles] But um. So he walked into to an event where they had pro bullfighters and walked away with best bullfighter. He did he did a thing where he came out and he would put a lime in the dirt and then he would take off his pants and take off his shirt and put on a Nadia Comaneci wig, and he would go out and do a balance beam thing. And he would do a flip and land in a split. And he won with that. With that thing. See, that's me somewhere, I don't even know where that is, but that's me. I think that might be. Washington, D.C.. I think there's only one more. That I will cost you with, sorry. [long pause] (Subjects: events) And what year did you move back to Pennsylvania? I moved back in in 1998. We. And from then on. It costs an arm and leg to get anywhere, so. See you like this vest so much I'm going to show you another picture. And that's the shirt that that no, actually, I think it's a pink shirt, but but the shirt that I just showed you, that's the same shirt. I have to I have this black felt hat that I used to put pins on and the first rodeo they had at Palm Springs, I was running through the chutes where the calves came in and I hit a bar and all the pins scraped my forehead all the way back. So all weekend long, I couldn't wear a hat because I had these scabs [chuckles]. It was needless to say, I don't have any pins in my hat and ever again, so. So that's it. Were you ever sort of seriously injured at a rodeo, working on the crew? Nope. Thank God. Just getting hit in the wallet [laughs]. And I wasn't even hurt at all, it actually adjusted my back. I, I love telling that story because it was so unexpected, all of it, including getting my getting my lower back adjusted so.(Subjects: injuries) Well, I think I have exhausted my questions for now. Is there anything extra you want to add? Look at my list. You know, I think I've exhausted my list as well, So one thing I always like to ask everybody is whether you consider yourself a cowboy? I consider myself cowboy adjacent. I will demand the rights of any cowboy around me. But don't make me sit on a horse. But I love I, I actually I actually wrote a song that I - have you ever heard of a strum stick? A strum stick is, it's like a guitar, but it only has three strings. And I'm going to - I wrote that I have a love of my life, that, wouldn't have anything to do with me after a certain time because we weren't sexually attracted to each other, but we loved each other deeply. And he took me out on the dance floor one time. And I do you know about country dancing, slow dancing? OK, there's a lead and a follow. Well, I don't follow. And he said…He walked up and he said, “I don't… I don't follow.” And I said, “Well, I will let you lead. And I'll follow. But I'm going to have to close my eyes because I just want to take over if I see what I'm doing.” (Subjects: cowperson, dance) So, the refrain of it is, if you lead, I will follow, I will follow your lead and at the end of the song, in true life, he just left me on the dance floor. And we never saw each other again. And to this day, he's still around, he's still alive. He lives in San Diego. I haven't seen him in probably eighteen years, and I still pine for him every day. And you know, we're always told that you love somebody that you have sex with. You don't have to love - you don't have to love somebody just because you have sex with them, you love them because you love them, they're your heart and he could never understand that because he's a physical person. So he took me out of his life. And I think that dance was a dance that showed him that he loved me, but he couldn't accept it, and that's been 17, 18 years. Do you think that's a lot of where your book comes from? About that scared love? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. In fact, he was the inspiration of the love between Roman and Jules. And all I got to say, it's his loss because I have so much love in my heart. And I want a husband of my own, not somebody else's husband - although, there's a book out called Still Straight. And it's about it is probably a doctoral thesis that this guy wrote about 60 straight men in the, in rural situations. Let me let me get you the guys then it's called, Still Straight: Sexual Flexibility Among White Men in Rural America. And. I'm trying to get to. I think the last name is Silva. Still Straight. I found it on Kindle. That sounds amazing. It's amazing, you know, how people. Very, very straight, but need to be with a man. For a lot of reasons. Do you think? That pining for him made it difficult to find other partners? There's nobody around here, you know, when I first got back here for two or three years, the Penn State had potlucks for gay men. And I went to that and everybody had a partner. You know, and I was singled out, you know, I was all by myself single and I, you know. It's unfortunate and you know, I, I, I pined for him, but - I know you don't want to hear this, but I'm 72 years old and I'm still very sexually active, which is why, you know. I went and got tested again because, you know, last weekend I went to Cleveland, but, you know, and I was both vaccinated and, HIV negative, so. So do you think that the development of gay dating apps or hookup apps have have helped for rural men or rural women to at least, like, know who else is out there? You can check your smartphone. Well. I only slipped three times, four times during the pandemic. And two of those times was through a dating app, and it happened to be both of them on the same day [laughs with RS ] TMI, TMI, did you know Craigslist, you know, when they took that stuff off of Craigslist? You know, my sex life hit the dirt. You know, and and I and I feel like a snob now, but, you know. I was very biased against married men. And then reading this still straight, I realize what their impetus is, is that the right word? To having sex with a man and I and I feel that I've snubbed up in a lot of people because of that, you know. So do you use Grindr or Grindr and and the other one, uh Scruff? Hmm, that's what I have. Scruff, yeah. Yeah, Scruff. And then there's Doublelist. But that I haven't gotten anything from that. So, I mean, I'll be honest and say in a lot of my straight female friends feel the same way in rural America, just like any men who are here and straight, like our already paired off and face things. We're also in a college town and so they don't want to use the dating apps because their students will be on it. There's a lot of there's a lot of stuff to navigate. And it's interesting to think about in terms of the rodeo sort of offering a a place where you could be relatively assured of the person you're hitting on, you know, was gay and having some of those spaces die out in it, and these apps emerge. But sometimes even with the apps, you're still at a rural place you don't know. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I'm just praying somebody contacts me and then tries to blackmail me so I can turn them in because I feel like I'm all afraid and everything. And then when they when I bring the money, you know, I hand on the money and then the police come out and go, you're busted! [chuckles] Yeah. I mean, it has it got does it feel safer now using the Internet to find people than it used to? It's never been, it's never been the ultimate place to go, you know, I mean, I'd much rather be in San Diego with my friend Rick. By the way, in the book, I have to tell you a funny story. I talked about the glory hole. Right? And a friend of mine read the book when it first came out. And then I went to a rodeo up in Canada. And when I came back, my mom had some newspapers on my bed when I got back. And it had a story about a math teacher that had been arrested because he had sex with a 15-year-old in a bathroom. But the teacher didn't, and it was one of his students, but the teacher didn't know it was a student and, you know, and it happened a few times. And then when the teacher found out it was the student, he said no more. Right. So the students now 18 years old. Right. And out of school and the police come to him and say, "We're not going to arrest you, but we want you to go to, you know, witness against this guy," and the 18-year-old went, "You guys are full of shit. I mean, I was the one presenting myself to him. (Subjects: teaching) He had no clue who I was. So I'm not playing your game." So I, and it turned out that the guy, the guy's ex-partner that was pissed at him turned him in. So I had talked to my friends who had read my book. And I said, "How are you doing?" She said, "Well, I want to tell you, I want to thank you for something." I said, "What?" She said. "Have you read this story about the bathroom sex?" I said, "Yeah, I heard it on the news or read it in the newspaper." She said, "I want to thank you for me not being nearly as shocked as I would have been had I not read your book." [laughs] You know, you find out things, you know. You find out things. Now, I say, I think me being a young woman in college when the oh, now I'm going to forget his name. I'm from Idaho. And it was the, you know, politician from Idaho was arrested in a bathroom. And that was very much I was like, what's cruising? And many of my gay male friends had to explain the facts of life. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know what I thought was funny? When whenever the pandemic first started and the CDC said, if you are going to have sex habits through a hole in the wall without saying gloryhole, have it through a hole in the wall. Well, if you insist, I give it CDC recommended. Absolutely. And this was while Trump was in office. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to swear in front of you. Oh, yeah? Do you think so? I started collecting oral histories right at the 2016 election. Ooh-ho [shudders]. And people in gay rodeo were really split. You know, there were there are many people in gay rodeo who hold pretty deeply conservative beliefs and who would tell me off the record that they had voted for that administration. And then there were other people who were very concerned and anxious. And, you know, I'm wondering how you felt the last four or five years. How that changed the landscape politically, especially in rural America, for LGBTQ people. Well, I was, I was angry for four years, for six years, actually, because he started, you know. I was really, really, really angry. And on January 6th. You know, I was sickened. I mean, I was physically ill. You know, it bothered me and it scared me, you know, and, you know, thank God they didn't get in to any of the senators because, you know, they would have had blood in their eyes and they would have killed anybody, not just Democrats. They would have killed anybody. And then on the twenty-first. Lady Gaga sang and everything was all right. Garth Brooks sang, it even got better. Garth Brooks said the reason why he came out of jeans was because Lady Gaga had taken his first look. I love him. I love him. Tough not to love. I really think Garth Brooks is tough not to love. He's loveable. Oh, yeah. As you know, his sister is gay. Did you know that? I did not know that. Yeah. I actually went to a Garth Brooks concert up in Spokane and almost got into a fistfight with someone who used a slur that I did not appreciate. And it makes me happy to know Garth Brooks sort of supported my decision to. Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Whenever I hear the dance, which is what I what I talk about in the book, it just tears me up, you know, because that the last dance, you know, and you never know when the last dance is coming, so.(Subjects: dance) So do you think with everything politically happening and obviously we're a deeply divided nation, are you hopeful that things are going to continue to get better? Or are you worried that there will be another backlash that will sort of keep pushing us backwards? I would hope. Especially with people being taken care of. That there's not going to be the backlash and also, and excuse my French, the motherfuckers that that are changing voting laws, they just signed something in Florida this morning. You know, I've already voted. We vote on the 18th. I've already voted, and it's already in there now, you know, I just. If you're going to create laws to have less people vote, then. You know, you're not in the right, and they just figured out, Georgia just figured out that it's actually going to affect the Republicans worse than it's going to affect the Democrats. From what I understand what I was reading this morning. It's like, oh, well. Yeah, America is one of the only democracies in the world that doesn't guarantee voting based on citizenship. Right. Which I, I think that should maybe change someday. Well, and also, Doug Emhoff is that is that the second husband's name said, "Why did you feel the importance to be vaccinated?" And somebody said, "Because I'm in a country that doesn't have universal health care." You know? By the way, he's a cutie, isn't he? Sorry, I'm a big fan of Kamala. I'm sorry. I'm a big fan of Kamala Harris. Oh, me too. Me too. See, see, I would have sex with that. She could kick my ass, but she's married. Darn it. All the good ones are taken. Absolutely. Well, maybe they're not taking it all the way. Read get straight. No, straight. Still straight. Still straight. So, yeah, this has been absolutely wonderful. And so I wanted to ask if it's OK if we contact you, do you only want that to be about transcription or is it OK to reach out with other questions? Absolutely. As you can tell, I'm an open book. I've told you about my sex life here today. Thank you. And I'm not even sure I mean, I'm shy about nothing. That's wonderful. You know, it's you have to be an open book. I was I was never more proud than went two kids in in our church [cries] going to get emotional, thanked me from the pulpit after they graduated - one was a lesbian and one was an asexual - thanked me for guidance. I mean. I am an open book. I'm trying to think if there are any other books that I've read. Oh, I wrote I wrote a Christmas story called So a Preacher and Santa Walk into a bar [giggles]. Well, I'll be reaching out to you for a list of all of your writings so I can Excellent, if you'd like me to send you some. I certainly will do that. Thank you so much. This is really just been wonderful. And I do hope we get to meet in person someday. That would be wonderful. I wanted to ask you. And you're married. I am married. What's your husband do for a living? He is an I.T. professional, so he works in. So we live in a small town called Moscow and right across the border in Washington, is a small town called Pulman, where Washington State University is. Oh. And I work at the University of Idaho. And and so he works at a manufacturing company out there. And yeah, he he's much more employable than I am with three degrees. Yeah. But yeah, we were very happy here. And as I think a lot of what you shared today is how important your work is for young people in your state, in your town. And that's a lot of what we're committed to here is just making sure, you know, young people in Idaho know that they're valued and they're loved and they're that we want them here. We don't want to lose them to [inaudible]. No matter what. No matter what. Absolutely. I mean, when I was a child, I thought I was the only person that had the same sexual attraction. Yeah. And we just yeah, we want to make sure that that doesn't happen to another generation of Idaho kids, so, yeah. Idahoians? Idahoans. Oh, OK. Yeah, I think my children are the fifth generation of Idahoans? Oh wow! And on and on my spouse's side, they'd be the seventh generation. So. Oh WOW. It goes deep. So I really understand your story of going home and living, you know, being in the house you grew up in and being with your mom. That means a lot to me. Yeah. Yep. She was the finest kind of person in the world. She was lucky to have such a great, committed son. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Well, I'm going to end the recordings. OK. And thank you so much for your time.

Candy Pratt Click to filter

So, this is Rebecca Scofield here with Candy Pratt. It's September 10th, 2016 and we are at the Rodeo on the River in Duncans Mills, California. Could you go ahead and tell me when you were born? I was born [...] in 1961.(Subjects: childhood, ) Where were you born at?(Subjects: childhood, ) Dallas, Texas.(Subjects: childhood, ) What was life like growing up?(Subjects: childhood, ) Growing up...I did grow up in the city but my grandparents had horses and were farmers and things like that, so that's how I was always able to be around the horse world, so to speak. And when I was in third grade, my parents bought me a pony and I boarded it with a lot of other people and they had these little things called play days which are kind of like rodeos but they were all horse events. A lot of young kids do that for a sport and it just developed from that. You get better and better and better and we got more horses and then, when you're in high-school, you do a little high school rodeo and after that, there's always barrel races everywhere. And then, I guess it was probably like 1988, maybe a bar ad or something like that for a rodeo in Dallas, was my first IGRA rodeo.(Subjects: childhood, family, ) And by the time you found out about the gay rodeo had you already come out?(Subjects: comingout, ) I had not come out. I did not come out until probably 1993, I think.(Subjects: comingout, ) And did you go to many IGRA events? Yeah, well I started out in ‘88 [with] probably one or two. Then ‘89 a few more. And then, by ’90, I was going to a lot of them. ... Initially, when you saw that flyer, what was your reaction and what drew you to the association? Well, I didn't know there was such a thing. You know, growing up you hear of black rodeo or Indian rodeo or something like that. You don't hear white rodeo, it's just rodeo. So I just thought, “Oh my gosh!” I thought, “Gay rodeo, are you kidding?” So I went and I found out they had what we call speed events and at first I just did speed events cause I didn't know how to rope and I did not know how to do any of the camp events and stuff like that. So that was later self-taught with some friends and stuff. But it seemed like a whole lot of fun and in early years there was quite a bit of prize money and stuff like that from Miller Lite so it was fun.(Subjects: events, ) That's great. Did you get more into the camp events later on?(Subjects: events, ) Oh yeah. I met some friends--George Williamson and Dave Stinson and Dave is still one of my partners today. He's not at this rodeo, but we do a lot. We did the steer deco and won lots of championships and that was just something where you're tying a ribbon on a tail or whatever, but the wild drag George and Dave and I did that for a while. And then David's been my partner for goat dressing and all that stuff you didn’t know how to do, I learned how to do it and got good at that too.(Subjects: events, ) Have you ever experienced any serious injuries?(Subjects: injuries, ) Not at gay rodeo. I've had horse injuries or things that have happened to me through the years but it wasn't at gay rodeo.(Subjects: injuries, ) That's good. Yeah. So, as a woman participating, do you find that it's pretty split 50/50 between men and women who join? Or is it more dominated by men? How’s your experience?(Subjects: events, ) Probably more dominated by men because you'll, here in a little while you'll see there might probably be thirty barrel racers in the men and ten or fifteen in the women. So, yes, it's not as far as their talent or anything like that…there’re just more guys in gay rodeo than there is women.(Subjects: events, ) Has there ever been…I mean is that seen as a problem?(Subjects: events, ) I don't think it’s a problem. It depends on where you go. Like, if you go to Texas or Oklahoma you'll have larger numbers of women. So on the west coast, or let’s say at this rodeo. Like at the San Diego rodeo, when they had it, it was a huge number--it was probably more even. And Texas and Oklahoma is a huge horse-type state or whatever, so when you go to the Oklahoma rodeo or the Texas rodeo you’ll have like twenty women in the classes.(Subjects: events, ) Have you ever rough-stock?(Subjects: events, ) I did in the beginning. I rode steers but, you know, the older you get...I also did chute dogging and did pretty good in that but the older I got the steers got a little larger and stuff like that and I decided it wasn't for me anymore.(Subjects: events, ) Do a lot of women do that?(Subjects: events, ) There's probably a good number of women that do the chute dogging, but there's not a whole lot of steer riders.(Subjects: events, ) That’s interesting. And there’s no bronc riders. We had one young lady that did and she got hurt, so.(Subjects: events, injuries, ) So, you said you were the president of Texas's association. Yes, I was president of Texas for a few years and did a lot of things for them and developed the Red River Rodeo Association. What were some of the challenges you've faced being the president of a large organization like that? There was and still today--even the Texas people they would tell you--there are lots of politics. Too much politics for me--I think everybody should just know the challenges were to raise money for charities and to have fun and stuff like that. And when you have a group of people, everybody has an opinion and that’s fine as long as you’re doing the work for the opinion. I gave a lot of my life to that association and one year someone chose to give a vehicle away. I don't know if you’ve ever been a part of that before but I had a lot of sleepless nights,‘cause we had to get the vehicle paid for to make money. So my partner and I, Dorinne, we were every weekend at all the bars selling tickets. And there was not a lot of help. So, that was a huge challenge, and I know another association that tried that same thing and went under because of it. In the end we paid for the vehicle and made $5,000 but I was at--I don't choose to be at the bars that much--and I had to be at the bars many, many nights of the week to get it done. Sounds stressful. Yeah. When you come to gay rodeos do you go out? Like tonight they're having a party? Yeah, my friend Rick {Rhett?} Ranger travels with us. He likes to dance and I like to dance, so last year I went to a couple of the parties they had. And tonight there’s a dance, so we'll go out for a little while. Generally, we would fly here and we don't bring horses or anything. This year we drove out and brought our horses because there’s two rodeos back-to-back so we are doing a little vacation in the middle, so we brought the horses. But yeah, in the evenings we'll go join the festivities. That’s pretty great. Can I ask where the next rodeo is? Sacramento. Excellent. That'll be fun. Yeah, exactly. Have you seen over the last ten/twenty years is it harder to recruit younger people to join?(Subjects: igra, ) Yes, it is. I have my own philosophy, and everybody will have their’s. We don't make money, but used to we did. Years ago there was a lot more money in gay rodeo--Miller Lite gave a lot of money--and there was more money, more prize money. So now, you if you can imagine the fuel out here and the expenses and stuff like that, if there's no added money then your check’s not even gonna be close. So we do it for fun and stuff like that. I'm fifty-five years old and have a good job and stuff like that, but there's not a lot of twenty year olds that can do stuff like that. So that’s, I believe, the difference between straight and gay rodeo is that the straight rodeos, they make sure there's plenty of added prize money and stuff like that so that's the reason you'll see lots of young people in that. My philosophy.(Subjects: igra, ) In your home community, too, is there a sort of difference in sort of gay community at large after legalization of gay marriage or you know the sort of political successes of the LGBTQ community?(Subjects: community, ) Yeah, if you would have told me…Dorinne and I, we've been together twenty-three years, and we got married in Maui because I didn't think Texas would ever be legal. I thought that would be the last state that would ever be and it shocked me the very next year that it was legalized. I've seen a huge difference and I am more open about my lifestyle, myself. You get to a certain age where things don't matter. Before I kind of lived in the closet at my jobs and everything. Now I’m out at a really good company that's very diverse. And I see communities being that way. My sister is a school teacher and it completely changed her life and she's very supportive and gets into arguments with teachers if they if they don't support the gay children because that's a big deal. These kids have a lot of stress and when they are not supported in schools it’s a bad deal so, you know. I think it’s better.(Subjects: community, comingout, ) And does your partner travel with you? Mhm. She's here, absolutely. Did you guys know each other before? No, I met her at a rodeo in Minnesota. That’s fantastic. Yep. Can I ask, how did the relationship develop? Did you keep running into her at rodeos? Well, actually, the year before it happened I had gone to the IGRA convention in Minnesota and saw her and thought she was very beautiful. And then later that year I was at Washington and she was there at the awards banquet and I had won a bunch of stuff and I kept walking by the table and the very next year, that's when I came out, and my mother went to her first gay rodeo with us which was Minnesota. And told my mother that there was a beautiful girl here, you know, I didn't know where she really lived and we had gone down to the, you know they used to have clogging and big dance competition, and my mother was downstairs and I had forgotten our badges. So when I got to the bottom of the stairs, my mother and my friend David Reiner were standing there with the girl, with Dorinne. So it was kind of it was kind of meant to be.(Subjects: comingout, family, ) That's fantastic. Does she compete as well? Yeah. What does she do? She does the speed events also. You said you didn't travel with a horse a lot… No, I do. We just, the last couple years…years ago we came, in like the early ‘90s, 2000s, or whatever we came to all the California rodeos, but when the money went away it just didn't pencil out so we stayed around Texas/Oklahoma areas, places that we could drive within fifteen hours or something like that so. And so does that present a whole other hurdle to get to these things to bring your own horses? Oh yeah, you know, it’s expensive and you've gotta really plan things out. But we have a lot of friends that we all travel together and stuff like that. We had two trailers that traveled all the way out here, so we kinda made it fun. And do you stay at the grounds? Yes, our trailers are all self-contained. They have a generator, a shower, beds, everything. That's nice. Yeah. Helps out a lot. Yeah. ... Do you feel that because of this big shift in this culture, IGRA, as an association, is going to grow and keep going or is it facing too much with the sort of competition you were talking about with mainstream rodeos being able to offer more money?(Subjects: igra, ) I don't think...my personal…you know, like when we had the movie Brokeback Mountain and all the sudden it was cool to be gay. That helped but there's not enough of that. The people like Ellen and all these others, it’s really helped a lot but in my…because I don't just compete in IGRA and I compete in other things, the draw is money. And also I try to tell them it takes money to make money. So you know if you have $5,000 added money and you get all these extra contestants. They're gonna spend money while they're there. So, until the belief changes, I don't think they will grow that much, my personal opinion.(Subjects: igra, ) So as you've journeyed across…do you feel like you are pulling back at all as you get older from… Absolutely. From the community? Well, not pulling back. But I, we don't…We have our own little…like on the weekends we'll have, you know, all our friends come out and we'll rope and barbecue and stuff and not necessarily go to the bar. That's not the main focus like when I was younger, we went all the time. I think that is straight or gay, the older you get you get to be a homebody, but there are so many of us we just come out and rope or ride or do something and it’s just not so much going to the bars but we still, it’s a huge group of us.(Subjects: community, ) Would you identify yourself as a cowgirl?(Subjects: cowperson, ) Oh absolutely.(Subjects: cowperson, ) And what does that really mean for you as a woman? As a gay woman? As a human? What does it really mean for you to identify that way?(Subjects: cowperson, ) Well, I can tell you anything about farm animals and stuff like that. You know, how to take care of them, what to do to them, I can rope, I can ride, I can build anything. I can change a flat tire really fast. You know, it goes with [being] tomboy, but then when you change it to cowgirl, I can rope well and do all the stuff it takes to work on a farm or ranch.(Subjects: cowperson, ) Can I ask [coughing, clearing throat] sorry…your home--do you have a lot of land with it and a lot of stock? Actually, I don't have a lot of land. I used to have a lot of land when we leased. But we own two places side-by-side and it's 7 acres but I have everything. I have an arena, barns, it’s all self-contained. We had a big practice deal, I had 60 people show up a couple weeks ago, it was really successful. It was a practice deal for one of these, all the events and everything. It was a huge success but I had 20 trailers, I had enough pastures and things like that. It’s big enough. The area around me has grown like 500% or whatever, so our places will probably sell by the square foot. So, we'll move to a bigger one--I want something like 25 acres. I used to have all the places around me leased I didn't have to have it. But then as people died and the kids sell all the big bucks and everything so our ranch is sitting here and there's nothing but fancy houses all around us. So, we're kind of getting pushed out but we will find a bigger place soon when things hit right. Is there anything else you would want to share with your experience with IGRA?(Subjects: community, igra) I think we come to these because there's so much comradery and stuff like, that I would encourage people, especially people that want to come out and have a good time and be out, you can at one of these.(Subjects: community, ) What did it mean to be able to bring your love of horses together with being out and open?(Subjects: community, comingout, ) Oh, you know, it’s huge. It's funny I see it spill over when I go to a straight function or whatever if somebody says something about Dorinne or something like that. I don't hide our relationship to where before I would have said my roommate you know. [Laughs] So it’s much different. I don't even blink an eye now. I used to, I remember all the years of changing the words up and hiding the relationships and stuff like that. Now I don't worry about it.(Subjects: community, comingout, ) Well, thank you so much for sharing your story.

David Renier Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with David Renier. It's September 10th, 2016 and we are at the Rodeo on the River in Duncans Mills, California. What year were you born? I was born in 1961. Where did you grow up? San Diego, California. Pretty urban area or…? Very urban. Did you had you ever worked with stock? My family had a dairy outside of San Diego…so I grew up around cattle and horses my whole life. And then our family ranch is about 20 minutes east of San Diego so it's not actually in San Diego. I live in San Diego now but our ranch is outside of San Diego.(Subjects: family, chidlhood) So do you commute now? Yeah it's only about a 20 minute um drive from where I live. That's nice. So you grew up around dairy cattle. How did you first get into rodeo at all or gay rodeo specifically? Well, I was in traditional rodeo. I was in junior rodeo and high school rodeo and then I went and did some open rodeos after high school. And then a friend of mine told me about the gay rodeo and I was 21 at the time and wasn't really sure I wasn't out at the time so I wasn't really sure I wanted to be part of it. It was in LA at the time and so I went down and I entered one event just to see if you know it was something wanting to do. I did my first event and was hooked. Unfortunately, you had to enter both days on Friday…so I stuck around the weekend and watched everybody and was hooked after that.(Subjects: childhood, joined) And where was that rodeo again? In Burbank. In Burbank. Yeah. And what year was that? I don't remember. Long time. Well it was, well it was ‘86. ‘86? 1986 Excellent. Yeah. Which event did you enter?(Subjects: events) I entered calf roping.(Subjects: events) And how did it go?(Subjects: events) I won my first day of calf roping and that was all I got to do.(Subjects: events) How have…have you always done that one event or have you done multiple events?(Subjects: events) No, I typically, I run in the quarter horse circuit as well. So I run barrels and poles, I calf rope and then team rope head and heal.(Subjects: events) So you trailer your horses? Yeah everywhere yeah. How is that experience? You know I've done it forever so it took me twelve hours to get here. So I'm kind of used to being on the road with my horses and my dog. Do you ever caravan with other people or are you pretty solo? Once in a while…I had a partner…he passed away from suicide in October of last year so…I'm not really used to traveling alone so this year has been a little tough for me.(Subjects: family) Yeah, that would be a very hard adjustment. Yeah. Have you ever done any of the rough stock events?(Subjects: events) I did when I was younger. I thought that bronc riding would be fun, but I found out it was not as fun as I thought it was going to be. So it was a couple of rodeos and then I was done with that part of my career.(Subjects: events) Have you ever been seriously injured?(Subjects: injuries) Oh yeah, I've had three reconstructive surgeries on my knees, my arm, yeah stuff like that.(Subjects: injuries) Stuff like that but always ready to… Oh yeah ready to get back on. Did your partner rodeo at all?(Subjects: family) He didn't. He rode but he didn't compete. He was just he liked to kind of just be the cheerleader and behind the scenes kind of guy and yeah.(Subjects: family) You said you were involved with the Quarter Horse Association… Uh-huh. On either that or mainstream rodeos have you ever um, sort of personally run into any homophobia?(Subjects: homophobia) You know I was lucky, with that…I started young, so I grew up with you know a lot of the people and I was friends with them, you know, prior to me coming out. And I slowly came out to the people that I trusted. And those people were always supportive and were always there for me in case there was any problem. And I think that they kind of embraced me because I grew up with them, you know. It was easy for me. I wasn't coming into a sport unknown.(Subjects: comingout) Do you feel like you've always identified as a cowboy sine you were little or was that something you came to?(Subjects: cowperson) Oh yeah, yeah. I had my first horse when I was two. My dad got me a horse, of course we worked on a ranch so we were always riding horses and moving cattle.(Subjects: cowperson) ... Is the charitable aspects of gay rodeo something that drew you to the association? Oh yeah, definitely back in the ‘80s when I started I had a huge amount of gay rodeo friends and though the 80s most of them passed away unfortunately. And it was a main way to raise money to help with people with HIV and AIDS. And that aspect of it in itself was something that I felt you more compelling to do because of that. It was, you know, I love the sport but then that you know an added bonus that we could provide that.(Subjects: community) Yeah and in addition to that what other…was it just destiny? Did you find this space or what other things drew you to the gay rodeo community?(Subjects: community) It was definitely a sense of family. The comradery. And, you know, you can kind of say…like you know when you're really good friends, you don't have to talk every day. We have a rodeo every month sometimes you see them more than you see your family. It’s definitely a family aspect and great friends and you know that's one of the main things.(Subjects: community, family, highlight) Were you ever involved in the leadership? No. No. Never interested in it? No, I'm kind of just behind the scenes kind of guy. What do you feel like your major accomplishments have been in competing? Well I'm probably one of the most winning cowboys in the gay rodeo. That may just be because I've done it for so long. But yeah, I've won every championship that there is. Being at the gay rodeo have you ever experienced any homophobia here, from protesters or comments from people who may not be attending?(Subjects: homophobia) You know I've seen them but it's very minimal. I think that we have a great amount of people here that are well versed in speaking to those people. So usually what they do is they go out and try to educate those people. And a lot of times you know it changes their mind once they find out that the way we treat our animals is much better than we treat ourselves. The other day, I had a cut, I went to my medicine cabinet and I couldn't find a band-aid I went out to the barn looked out in my horses Cabernet and I had gauze, I had all this stuff. I was like: “I don't even have a band-aid but my horse has a whole tackle box full of first aide stuff.” …Once people see that, you know, we take care of our animals. Like I was taught that as a young child. My parents taught me take care of your animals before you take care of yourself. They eat before I eat, you know. So I it was taught to me as an early childhood thing. (Subjects: homophobia) Do you feel like there's any push back in the larger gay community that, you know, rodeo is not something gay people should be doing?(Subjects: community) No, no, it's especially in San Diego. I'm the only gay cowboy in San Diego basically that competes. And, you know, a lot of them don't really understand what rodeo in itself is let alone gay rodeo and, so you know, being from a town like San Diego, it's pretty much like, you know, the anomaly.(Subjects: community) Do you dress in Western wear on a daily basis? Absolutely not. I do not. There even is a bar that is a country western bar and I don't dress up to go dance or any of that. I'm very much a baseball, t-shirt, kind of shoes kind of guy. ... The association doesn't seem to have a lot of people who are younger…is there an issue with recruitment or anything among…. I think for one thing, rodeo is not a cheap sport, especially, I have two horses you know I've got to bring my horses. It’s expensive, so for a young person these days the cost I'm sure is an issue. And also I believe there are just not as many farmers that are ranchers anymore and so I think that that that itself has less people coming in. Have a lot of the people coming into the association…did they mainly grow up on farms and ranches or were they just enamored with the cowboy lifestyle? Yeah I don't think, I think there is probably a handful of us that were raised on ranches, but I think the other people saw it and perhaps when they were younger their parents didn’t live in a place where they could have horses. And now as adults, they’re, it’s you know, something that they wanted to do ever since they were little and now they are living out their dream.(Subjects: parents ) ... That's understandable. Are there any particular incidents that stand out to you of just feeling that this was a place you could belong in those early days? And a place you wanted to invest in? Yeah definitely, I like I said I participated in, you know quote, unquote straight rodeos. But when I came to the gay rodeos there are some aspects of my life that I didn't share with people. I wasn't walking around with my boyfriend, you know, it definitely was a place that made me feel safe and secure and able to be the authentic me.(Subjects: community, highlight) And when it comes to identifying as a as cowboy what does that mean to you? What does it mean to be a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) Well, I think that there's like a lot of you know different I guess ideas of cowboys. I guess, like if somebody was to ask me if I was a cowboy, I don't know that I would necessarily…I think of a cowboy as a father as that was his living, like that was his life. And he lived and breathed it. And you know I'm lucky enough to be able to do it on the weekends so I guess I am a cowboy but as far as my thought of a cowboy that would be more of my father or something like that.(Subjects: cowperson, parents, highlight) More of every day….(Subjects: cowperson) Yeah, like that's how you make your living kind of thing.(Subjects: cowperson) Yeah.(Subjects: cowperson) The hard way.(Subjects: cowperson) ... What do you think the future of IGRA is? Is it going to keep growing?(Subjects: igra) You know, it's kind of a frightening question because I've asked myself with the lack of new younger contestants coming in, us older ones, I was doing every event and each year I kind of cut back a little bit more and a little bit more--just you know partly like having knee surgeries and stuff like that. I could say my hope is that it continues. But to be honest I don't really know that that will happen. And I also think that, not that there's not a need for the gay rodeo, but with today's life I think people are feeling more comfortable and confident of going to open rodeos and, you know like I…I don't know like there more money for us to win obviously. So if they feel accepted at an open rodeo they would probably be like it's a wiser for choice to make more money. (Subjects: igra, highlight) ... What's the main difference between the events, I mean the rodeos as a whole between something you would have gone to in the ‘80s ‘til now? Do they look pretty similar?(Subjects: events) Not at all. Back in the day, there used to be thousands of spectators and thousands of people there for the evening parties and hundreds of contestants and both of those have dwindled.(Subjects: events ) Why do you think that is? You know I'm not exactly sure why that is. I think that a lot of rodeos that were the bigger rodeos are no longer like San Diego and LA and those really had a big following and they were always a big production. And both of those rodeos have been cancelled and so. Can I ask why? You know I'm not really sure if it was financial reason or people in those areas just weren't interested in putting in what it takes to put one on. But you continued to do it even with smaller crowds? I do, like I said it's kind of like seeing my family you know and my rodeo family. So it's nice to come and spend time with them. We will be on the road now for ten days together. It's kind of fun.(Subjects: family, community) ... What do you do with all your buckles? I either give them away or my nieces and nephews take them from me. Or if like they are special ones like my first and second ones that even I have a big display-like coffee table I've got them in there. But like one of the things for us contestants that have a lot of buckles if we see a new contestant, we usually give them a buckle and say, "This is your buckle until you win your own. When you win your own, you can give it back to me.” So it's just kind of one of those things to make those people know that you're are supportive and we believe that they will give it back one day and have their own to wear one day.(Subjects: community, mentor, highlight) ... Does it influence your broader life in particular ways at all, relationships or job or anything? Well since my partner’s death, suicide, I've now started…I've created my own foundation and am doing a bunch of stuff for that and my rodeo family here…I've had more support than I ever thought was imaginable. When that happened, I could probably tell you that almost every member from IGRA contacted me to let me know they were there for me. You know it's something that I always knew like if something happened in my life that I would have them at my back and it's surely come true.(Subjects: community, highlight) Alright, thank you so much for your time. You’re welcome and thank you.

Bruce "Grumpy" Roby Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Bruce Roby on September 11, 2016 and we're at the Rodeo on the River in Duncans Mills, California. Could you tell me what year you were born? 1959 And where did you grow up?(Subjects: childhood, ) I grew up in Southern Idaho, Gooding and Fairfield. So, very rural.(Subjects: childhood, ) Did your family have a farm or a ranch of any kind?(Subjects: childhood, family, ) We were always the town kids. You know, in the summer you work on the farm but my rodeo experience really was very limited, because when the rodeo came to town, of course we went as a family to watch. But I didn't ride horses, didn't participate in any of that.(Subjects: childhood, family, ) Did you have a large family?(Subjects: family, ) There are 3 of us kids. I was the oldest. I have a younger brother and sister.(Subjects: family, ) Did you grow up in a very religious family?(Subjects: childhood, family, religion, ) No. [Laughs] You know we went to church from time to time but we were not a religious family.(Subjects: childhood, family, religion, ) And did you live in southern Idaho until college?(Subjects: family, ) Yeah, I was actually born in Missouri but we moved to Idaho when I was 6 months old. So, Idaho is really home. When I went to college I went to northern Idaho, the University of Idaho, and then after a couple of years I came back down to Boise but I never really left Idaho until 1989.(Subjects: childhood, family, ) And where did you go in 1989? Los Angeles. [Laughs] How was the adjustment? You know it was I had spent a lot of years struggling with me, being who I am and what I am. And there was a traveling salesmen came through for a travel school and I thought that's where the gay people are. I need a job in travel so I can meet other people like me. So I spent a summer in travel school and got a job with United Airlines in Los Angeles. So, I went from a town with 2,000 people to millions of people everywhere.(Subjects: jobs, ) Was… So it was quite an adventure. Was it…did you have a positive experience of that? The first, yeah, I mean it was it was a struggle to learn how to survive in a city, it wasn't like if you were looking for a place to live, you wouldn't just go talk to Bob down the street and say, “I see you have a place for rent can I go check it out.” No, there's these things called applications and background checks and where do you work, and I'm like well Bob knows where I work. So it was a bit adjusting to…but then there was the cool things like you ride your bike down the beach. Well, Idaho doesn't really have a beach, or even a decent bike trail back then. So you'd ride down the strand and here's a group of people putting on Shakespeare at the pier. And you would just walk up and watch Shakespeare. It was just such a whole new world. It was very amazing.(Subjects: moving away) Were you out at the time?(Subjects: comingout, ) No. No and even I spent 5 years with United Airlines and I never came out to anyone there. I was so afraid. To me as I look back at it now, that should've been the safest place on Earth to come out. But when I started with the airlines that was kind of at the peak of the AIDS epidemic and in our office, every week there was a memorial. Every week there was somebody out sick, there was so much going on that you were scared to death, so, you know, a lot of things didn't happen.(Subjects: comingout, jobs, ) So when did you first get involved with rodeo and was it the gay rodeo that you first got involved with? When I was still in Idaho I was part of the Lions Club. So we had the beer booth at the rodeo. So that was kind of my first real in to the rodeo and I had a few friends that rode. I'm the guy that drinks the beer and sells the beer and takes care of that. I'm not the contestant. (Subjects: community, ) And then once I left Idaho then in Los Angeles you don't really see rodeo. But I lived on the edge of West Hollywood and I had seen signs for this gay rodeo thing, and I'd seen them for 2 or 3 years. But I thought, you know, pink pansies, purple horses. I don't know about this gay rodeo thing, I grew up with real rodeo, I'm not interested. And some friends were coming to town for the rodeo and needed a place to say. I said well you can stay at my house, I'm working all weekend so you know make yourself at home. “Well you gotta come with us.” “Ehhh, I don't think it's my thing.” Well they got me to go with them to the dance at the Burbank Hilton on Friday night, 3,000 people at this dance, men, women, and it's men, it's like regular guys, it's not…it's a different subset of the gay community. It's not necessarily the very flamboyant. They are just…they happen to be…they are just regular people that happen to be gay and that's kind of where I really wanted to find life. And I called in sick the next day and went to the rodeo. I called in sick the next day, and went back. It was like, I found a life. (Subjects: getting started) And 3 months later I happened to be interviewing for a job up here in the Bay Area the same weekend as the Bay Area Rodeo. And walking in the gate I heard people talking, “gosh we’re gonna have to get a few more volunteers cause we are gonna need help with this.” I was like, “I'll help. Tell me what you need to have done and, if I don't know, I'll tell ya.” And I've been volunteering now eighteen years.(Subjects: getting started) Did you ever ride in the rodeo at all?(Subjects: events, ) I have competed. [Laughs] I did goat dressing for one season, and when him and I broke up, I no longer wanted to. It was too…I'm a bit emotional so, you know, it brought back a lot of memories. So, you know, I enjoy the volunteer thing. There's less drama. I enjoy that I still get to talk to everybody and hang out. I'm just not the greatest guy competing.(Subjects: events, ) That's great.(Subjects: events, ) Last year I actually competed again for the first time in fifteen years in Santa Fe. I did goat dressing and I also did steer deco which I've always wanted to do. But, as an official, you can no longer compete when you are working, so you don't have the opportunity much anymore. But that weekend, it just kind of worked out that I was at a board meeting but I wasn't officiating, so it's like a couple of girls needed somebody to compete with ‘cause they are working for points for finals. I'm like, “well, if you keep expectations proper I'll play with ya.” I'll never forget that feeling on Saturday morning in steer deco, standing in the arena holding onto that rope, waiting for that chute to open, going, “What in the hell was I thinking? This has got to be the stupidest decision I've ever made in my whole life. They're gonna open that gate, the steer's gonna come out and I'm supposed to do this.” And we placed 7th, on Saturday, I was like: “Oh my God, we did it. It really happened.” I still had the same feeling Sunday, of standing there with the rope going, “Oh, shit, here we go.” But it was a great experience. I've been watching it for years and years and years. I'm really glad I got to do, but I don't really have to do it again, either. [Laughs] You know there's a certain time in life when you realize that those few extra pounds, the arthritis in the knees, maybe you are a little smarter than you used to be, you don't have to do those things to prove anything. [Laughs](Subjects: events, highlight, ) Now what do you think the role of the camp events are in gay rodeo?(Subjects: events, ) It's…part of it's the entertainment. I think it's the most entertaining part of the rodeo. It's something you don't see anywhere else. Though I am seeing some of it start to filter into regular rodeo. But it's also the open door for anybody that wants to play. For me, that was my open door, putting panties on the goat. The animals are smaller than me…I've been around goats before…I think I can do this. And there is a little trick about grabbing the little hooks that are on their back legs, if you put your hands over that, the underwear slides up really well. And I was like, “Okay. I can…this sounds like…this is something,” and it's a blast. And if you trip and you fall the crowd loves it, all your friends laugh with you, they're not laughing at you. It's awesome and I think it's the entry event for [everyone]…we've had a blind woman that has done it, we've had people with various handicaps have done it. You know, a lot of people will bring their kids to the rodeo when we do the community goat dressing. And it's such a great adventure for the kids and you don't see anybody leave the arena that's not smiling.(Subjects: events, highlight, ) Now once you started attending and volunteering, did you get involved with a local association in the Bay Area or back in LA? Right, actually, I didn't…the first association I joined was the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association. I was dating somebody in Sacramento, so I joined the Sacramento chapter. By the time my first year was up and time for renewal, there were giant political problems in California. And now Sacramento's set was going in their own way and there was all this drama so I joined Oklahoma, ‘cause I didn't want to be a part of drama. There is enough drama in work, in life, in general. I didn't want it in my place that I enjoyed. So, I was a member at Oklahoma, I've been a member of the Canadian Gay Rockies Association, which is one of the finest groups on Earth, and I've maintained my membership through the end of their organization. But I did after a couple of years, and things calmed down in here California, I thought well I've started to become more active, I've started to work as an official--I got certified as a scorekeeper--it's important to be a part of my home association. And now I've been on the board of directors for nine years here in California. And for the board of directors here in California, does that take you to convention and connect you with the sort of umbrella IGRA in any way?(Subjects: igra, jobs, ) Yeah, I'm really fortunate as a certified official. Like I said, I certified as a scorekeeper, I think it was thirteen years ago, and then I certified as a secretary about five years ago, and now I'm a certified auditor on the rodeo circuit. So in that alone, I've traveled to rodeos all across the country and Canada. And then I started on the board of directors with GSGRA back in whatever year that was. [Laughs] One of those crazy years where I thought: “Okay it's time to give back.” Ahh, crazy idea. But again, it does put you into the political realm and I've never been good at office politics or anything else. Shit will come out of my mouth before I have a time to realize how it's going to affect. Yes it's honest, yes it's true, maybe it could have stayed inside for a little bit longer. But, you know, that's…welcome to my nickname on the circuit: it's Grumpy. I own it, I live it. But, it does take you to the conventions, you know, I've been fortunate enough I've been part of production at convention for the two years we had it in California on my tenure on the board. And then between university and convention I have my master’s degree in rodeo arts with IGRA University and I've been a trustee now for three years with the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association. So, I represent California on the international board.(Subjects: igra, jobs, ) Now in the span of time that you've been involved, what are some of the changes you've seen over time with the rodeos or the leadership?(Subjects: igra, jobs, ) Wow. [Laughs] You know, the changes in my own life have been…it's…I'm a night and day different person than I ever was. The fact that I can just sit here and talk to you, candidly, is something I could have never done twenty years ago. Even maybe ten years ago would have been a bit rough. But I've learned to…I can be…if I go to the bar, I'll stand in the corner and watch all night, never say a word to anybody. I come to the rodeo, I have my vest, my badge, I now have a job, I have a responsibility to talk to you and I embrace that. Especially with new folks ‘cause I want them to get the same experience, I want them to love and enjoy. Everything here...um hmm sorry, um, oh wow, um… [emotional] (Subjects: community, comingout, igra, highlight) The changes in the rodeo, like I said, the first rodeo I went to in ‘98 was already kind of things were starting to change. There were 3,000 people at that dance. The dances were the launch, the dances were the busiest part of the whole rodeo weekend even at the grounds. There's this giant tent with this giant dance floor, and there's these men dancing with men, women dancing with women, and it's the country dancing but it's ballroom style. It's the most amazing thing you ever see. And in the last ten years the dancing has stepped away. The contestants were getting older. The younger people don't have the same need in the gay community that we had twenty, thirty, forty years ago. So, we are our own worst enemy. We got the acceptance we've been dying for. When you go out to the arena, there are straight people competing with us and having a blast and bragging to their friend that they're competing in the gay rodeo and having a ball. You know it's so many people when they hear gay rodeo they are thinking: “sex in the bushes and, you know, they are always going to be grabbing at you and they are gonna try and convert you.” “Convert you, honey, if we could convert I'd have converted to straight forty years ago and saved myself some grief and aggravation.” But it wasn't me and it wasn't honest, and I couldn't do it. I dated women until I was thirty and never slept with one of them. What's wrong with this picture? (Subjects: community, comingout, igra, highlight) But in the world today, I'm always, you know, when I see high school kids that are out, I'm like are you old enough to even know what out is? You know I've become my dad, it's kind of crazy that now I'm this old fart that, you know, “these young kids they just don't get it.” And as a board member I've struggled with that in the last few years. When we are trying to grow membership, they go, “well what's in it for me?” “Well, honey, I don't even know how to start.” Because I don't think this is for you, because if you are not looking at the bigger picture of what this was founded for, it's a non-profit organization, supporting the local community. And it's not just the gay community, they are supporting their community, you know, it's been a long time since money has been focused on a gay charity or an AIDS charity. You know, a lot of time it's horse rescue, it's animal rescue, it's hospice care that's not specifically a gay one, it's just something in your community you want to support. And I feel that the younger generation doesn't understand what supporting a community is about. Now you're gonna spend $17,000 to $20,000 a year working in a rodeo, it's crazy. I don't make--I'm in the travel industry, we don't make that kind of money--but the amazing amount of what I get for myself, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't do it.(Subjects: community, comingout, igra, highlight) Can I ask where are some of the favorite places you've been able to travel because of IGRA? Oh, you know, I get the question a lot especially from newer people, “I want to go to another rodeo, what's one of the best ones to go to?” You know everyone has something special to offer. I mean look at where we're at this weekend in Duncans Mills. It's out in the middle of nowhere but it's this beautiful little rustic campground, rustic arena. You feel like you're at the rodeo. When I've gone to Calgary, when I first started going up there, fourteen or fifteen years ago, it was a place called Simon's Valley, and they have acres of camping and it was tents, little campers you know, more European. In America we've got to have the forty-footer. Up there it's like I got a pup tent and a sleeping bag, we are going to the rodeo. And again, their dance would be 3,000 people on Friday night. Saturday night it could be 5,000 people just coming for the dance and entertainment. They've got Warner Brothers artists playing. Farmers Daughter, Emerson Drive, they get this amazing talent to perform at this little gay rodeo outside of Calgary. The Canadians are the warmest, most welcoming people you'll ever meet and I was proud to be a member. (Subjects: community, ) You go to Texas--you're in a rodeo, ‘cause you're in Texas. You know, you go to Arizona, we're in this Mexican arena that contestants complain because they don't like this or they don't like that. But it's rodeo in the round, the people are right on it, they love it, the beer sales are the best they are going to be at a rodeo all year. Florida has put on some amazing rodeos. Chicago, I remember one year Chicago they've got, the rodeo is like 60 miles out of the city, they charter buses. And the rodeo never starts before 12 o' clock because we are going to party and drink until the cows come home. We're not going to start before noon so, you know, as an official you are out there 9:30, 10 o' clock starting to get ready. That first bus shows up at 11:30 and it's full. And right after that there's another bus and another bus and another bus. There are like five full buses of people coming in. The first stop is the ATM, the next stop is the bar. They are right there at the arena and we are starting the rodeo. It's always just so…communities are so excited to have the rodeo. There was one time in Wichita. They had finals in Wichita. Gay rodeo in Wichita, gay rodeo in Little Rock. I was standing there on Bill Clinton Drive in Little Rock, I'm like, "Oh there are so many things wrong with this picture."(Subjects: community, ) But again, it's our rodeo family, and they’re the warmest, most loving people you'll ever meet. I've got friends in every city I swear in the country, all from rodeo. I go to Christmas parties in Dallas, and people are going, “Why you going to Dallas? You live in San Francisco, there's a whole giant gay community.” “I don't know anybody there. But I know a whole bunch of people if I go to the one in Dallas.”(Subjects: community, ) Have you ever experienced any homophobia from communities that you are going into to have a rodeo?(Subjects: homophobia, ) You know, that's what has really surprises me is, I haven't. But I like to think that I'm kind of reserved and I'm pretty cautious, especially in a place I've never been. And then I find out, oh you have ten gay bars in this town! In Minneapolis? Oh my God! And, you know, I haven't dated in a long time so I'm not walking down the street hand in hand with my chosen or anything like that. I've seen protests at rodeos, we get a lot of PETA protest. I remember that one year in Florida they had security all over the place because we were told, “PETA is there. There's gonna be all this protest.” Yeah, there were four signs for cruelty to animals and one saying that rodeo is not gay. [Laughs] Have you ever been to a rodeo? Let’s talk about the PRCA, when I was a young guy going to rodeos there was never a bunch of tighter butts in jeans in my life, and the women had hair to heaven. I'm sorry. We got the same thing at the gay rodeo. You've got drag queens with hair to heaven and you got men in tight pants. There's nothing different. Except we are actually a little more open and accepting and we have a lot more fun.”(Subjects: homophobia, peta, ) Now is your family still in Idaho?(Subjects: family, comingout, ) Yep.(Subjects: family, comingout, ) Have you come out to them?(Subjects: family, comingout, ) I did come out to my parents, twelve years ago. I'd made the trip to Idaho many times to have “the talk,” and every time I get there, there'd be one little thing that happens and I can't do it. I'll never forget one time I'd gone home, and that's when we still lived up in Fairfield and dad and I were going on the prairie fishing. I thought, “Okay, today's the day.” And I kind of had a feeling dad knew I was wanting to talk about something. My dad's in recovery, he has been sober now almost forty years. My first twenty years, we did not get along very well, but now dad's been through and is still very active in AA and he's met a lot of people like his son, so I thought, you know, “I think we're there.” And we are on our way out to the reservoir, and he starts talking about theses two guys that live in this house on the edge of town and he made some straight guy smart ass comment. I thought, “Okay, it's not today.” (Subjects: family, comingout, ) But then I was doing my own recovery in a different program and it was kind of like, you know: “how can I be honest with myself and my friends if I can't be honest with my parents and my family?” So we're sitting at the table, I wait till it's way past their bedtime, so that they are really kind of tired and you know so we can get this over and move on. And I said, “You know mom and dad, there is something we need to talk about, I'm gay. Dad said, “It doesn't matter, you are our son and we love you.” I'm like, “You've got to be shitting me. I've been holding on to this for twenty-five freaking years and that's the best you got. Oh my God.” [Laughs] And you know mom still struggles... (Subjects: family, comingout, ) ... I had a big problem in Santa Fe last year and it was very traumatic. It was some homophobic slurs thrown my way at my safe place, at my rodeo. And I did not handle it well, I was very upset with my retort and horribly embarrassed. But I wanted to get on a plane and go home. I didn't even want to face my friends. I wanted out. I still struggle with it and of course my friends still tease the shit out of me over it. But I didn't realize how much that would affect me. How comfortable I had become. Santa Fe is a very open community and for this woman to basically be calling me a pedophile because I'm “one of those people.” ‘Cause I'm like, “Your son doesn't have a security badge he's not supposed to be here, and when I tried to talk to him he's turning and giving me a dirty look and walking off. Not at my rodeo, honey.” And she just kept coming, she was right in my face, and then I finally uttered the word that no woman ever likes to hear. And unfortunately, there were several of my friends standing right there and it was not a pretty picture.(Subjects: homophobia, ) Were they spectators or involved with the rodeo?(Subjects: homophobia, ) Oh, it turns out they were the stock contractors with the bulls. ‘Cause now she is gonna pack up her bulls and they're gonna leave. And I'm like, “You shouldn't have been here to begin with.” But I'm also thinking, “I screwed the whole rodeo.” These contestants, a lot of contestants only come to do the rough stock and now I've ruined everything. You know, it all gets sorted out. But I'm not going back. That was my safe place and it's no longer safe there.(Subjects: homophobia, ) Is it usual for the leadership to try vet stock contractors or anything to see if incident like that's going to occur?(Subjects: homophobia, ) You know, I think it surprised everybody. Because we're very upfront. The stock contracts are from the International Gay Rodeo Association. You are dealing with the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association. The gay is in there, it's in there, it’s in there, it’s in there. It's in everything you read, it's how we are gearing towards things, how we do things. I mean, even getting the rodeo here was not an easy thing to do. It's a very old world family, very well established, and they weren't so sure about [it]. They've seen what goes on up the road on those special weekends when they're all in town and there's all this stuff going on around them. They really weren't so sure and comfortable about it. After the first year, they're ready for a five year contract. And I've experienced that in so many cities across the country that nobody's really sure about this gay rodeo thing and everything else and it's like, “Well, here's a few things to read. Here's how we feel about the animals and how we want to show respect and how we arrange some of our events to be less harmful to the animals. Here's what we feel about the people. Here's how we treat our people. Here's what we are trying to do for the community.” If you can get past that three letter word, you're gonna have an amazing thing happen.(Subjects: homophobia, highlight, ) So you talked about a little bit earlier the dancing wing of the festivities. Did that sort of dissipate completely or have they split with the rodeo and do their own events? It's…it really just dissipated. I know when I, in my tenure, there's a group called Sundance Saloon outside of San Francisco and they are also a non-profit group. And it's all about the country western dancing, and when I first started it was their group that was a lot of times in charge of the dances at the rodeo ‘cause they knew the music, they had the DJ's, they could get the dance floors, and everything else. So they were a big part of the rodeo. And I think over time, personalities, politics, you know, things kind of clash, and you'll get a person that's gonna be the rodeo director: “I don't really care about that crap…that's just that…doesn't do anything for me.” And you'll have one year where nobody shows up to dance so the next year you just don't bother. Well, the reason they didn't show up is they didn't feel welcome. Or, you know, did you reach out to the people in charge of this group or that group? And go "Can we do something, can we help you at one of your events and then in turn you can come and help us at one of ours? And then we can both grow with that." I think, that's the hardest thing we still have in our community, is how well we can all work together to keep us all alive. When gay rodeo first started, there wasn't a gay league for everything under the sun. You know, we were the game in town, and we were a big game. ‘Cause everybody wants to see the cowboys, everybody, straight, gay, doesn't matter. They all want to see those cowboys. (Subjects: community, igra, ) Well, as I said, now as an athlete, or as a volunteer, you have fifty options every weekend, especially in the Bay Area for a group that is giving back that you can volunteer your time and money and be part of. So part of the gay rodeo we really have to differentiate and I think dance has…the loss of the dance has got us to where we are at. 'Cause dance was a big part of it when it started. That is the social part of the rodeo. We have our social with the contestants and volunteers and you have some social around the bar during the rodeo. But the dance... after a couple cocktails that cute guy that's over there, you've finally earned up enough courage to ask him if he will dance. And sometimes it's going to be a line dance, ‘cause I'm not sure if my two-steppin’ is up to somebody else’s snuff. But you find...you made…you reached out. And here it's harder. I don't think you get the same effect sitting in the stands. You might make a comment to somebody about something that happened in the dirt but that's not the same thing as, for me, asking somebody to dance. That's the hardest thing on the Earth for me to do is ask for a dance.(Subjects: community, igra, ) What do you think when you when you went to that first rodeo, what was it about the gay rodeo that pulled you in, that spoke to you in a way that other spaces maybe hadn't before?(Subjects: community, ) I think it was my idea of the real guy, just you know these guys could ride horses, ride broncs and steers, and you know and dance, and sit and chat and just be open and genuine. You know I was living in West Hollywood when there was nothing genuine about any of that. I would go to the bar and it would take me 2 beers to mark up the courage to say hello to somebody and they would just sneer and kind of look at me. I would be almost in tears and I put the beer on the counter and go home. It's not even like I'm going to move to the next person I think is cute, no. It took me this long to get enough courage to talk to that one, and I'm not good enough, I go home. And I won't go out for two or three more weeks. Just can't do it. But at the rodeo, early on again, I still had the issue if you kind of dissed me, I'm gone, now it's like, “Oh get over yourself.” I'm like, “You're not all what you think you are, so come on let's…”. I’ve got friends. I don't, you know…if I meet new people that's great, and I meet a lot of people being part of secretarial, doing registration at every rodeo. I meet every new contestant, and nothing gives me greater joy on that new contestant when they come up and thank me after the rodeo. Or just come up and say: “Did you see what I did?” I had, you know, it's like: “Good job, son.” I feel like the dad now with the young kids that are coming in: “You did so good, son. You did good.” And the sexual part is not there. It's just you know, we all happen to be gay, that doesn't mean we all have to sleep with each other or anything else. It's just we can be appreciative just like anyone else.(Subjects: community, ) ... Now being from rural Idaho, would you characterize yourself as a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson, ) No. No, I've been on a horse maybe six, seven times my whole life. I enjoy watching somebody ride well, but horse power to me is under the front of my car. Under the hood, more horse power is good. One horse power out of one horse here, that you have no control over whatsoever, is not a good thing. I respect them, but it's still just a little unnerving. (Subjects: cowperson, ) ... And as much as I think that's gotta be the most awesome feeling in the arena, racing on the horse, with the, you know, it's kind of like being on in the convertible with the top down. You know, you are racing through the arena, you are doing the poles, and the barrels, and you get a, I see how fast they do that, and how comfortable they look, that's never going to be me. I think it's awesome, I'm thrilled that they can. But I can't do that. [Laughs] So no, I guess in one respect, I guess I could be a cowboy because I do appreciate and I kind of live the country lifestyle: you're honest, you're true, I enjoy my boots and jeans I listen to country music everywhere. So, you know, maybe I am a cowboy, you don't necessarily have to ride a horse to be a cowboy.(Subjects: cowperson, ) What do you think it means for some people who like you felt they needed to move away from rural America because they couldn't find a space to be able to identify as a cowboy and to find a place like this?(Subjects: cowperson, ) It's fear. That little town up in the mountains of Idaho was, to me, homophobe central. The worst thing you could ever call somebody--of course gay wasn't in the vocabulary when I was in school--it was a fag. The horrible fear every time I heard that word...I was scared to death it may come my way. Even in college I thought, "Okay, when I go to college, things are going to open up a little bit." Oh no. I was in a fraternity at the University of Idaho, and I was constantly scared to death that somebody was going to find out. To me it was like, if I move to the city I'm anonymous. Nobody knows me, nobody cares. And I think, sadly, it's still that way for a lot of rural America. It starts at home, and unless your family is open and supportive as you're growing up you'll never believe your community is either. So you have to run.(Subjects: childhood, homophobia, family, highlight, ) ... Well, is there anything else about your experience with the gay rodeo and your personal history you'd like to share? You know I list two things that saved my life as an adult. One was finding the rodeo. I was a very lost person for a very long time. Then I found the rodeo and it gave me purpose, it gave me direction. It gave me amazing family. And then through all of this, in two days I celebrate fifteen years of sobriety, being sober, and without the two of those things, I'm not sure where I'd be.(Subjects: community, highlight, ) Well, thank you for speaking with me. My pleasure, good questions.

'Paniolo' Joe Rodriguez Click to filter

So, this is Rebecca Scofield and I am here with Joe Rodriguez on September 10th, 2016. And we are at the Rodeo on the River in Duncans Mills, California. So, could you tell me what year you were born? I was born in 1964. Can you tell me where you grew up? Grew up in the Bay Area in Fremont, Alameda County. Lived there most of my life until I was eighteen and then went off to San Francisco for college. Was that a very rural upbringing? As a matter of fact, at that time, it was very rural. It was cow pastures, 4-H's, and Ammon orchards. There was no such thing as Silicon Valley then. So, that all changed in 1980, 1982. So, I grew up around 4-H and people who had horses and some of the people who own the ranches and the orchards.(Subjects: childhood) Did you do any sort of like 4-H or rodeo growing up?(Subjects: childhood) You know, no I didn't. I hung out with the people who did the 4-H; for whatever reason, I wasn't expected to. And my parents probably didn't think it was something I should do, being--I don't know if I could say this--you know, being Filipino American. But I grew up many of my friends had horses so that's where I learned to ride and learned about 4-H. I went with them to 4H and followed them through their journeys. Yeah, I guess I was more of their I was more of their mascot.(Subjects: race, parents, childhood ) And what did your parents do? My parents they emigrated from the Philippines via Hawaii. They grew up in Hawaii and then after World War II, they married and move to California in Fremont. They worked on the plantations in Hawaii, they grew up on the plantations. And then they came to California worked in the Central Valley. In the Central Valley, they worked as farm laborers. After the Korean War, my father moved from the fields to aerospace and retired from Waukee Missile and Space Corporation. My mother went and retired from Coca-Cola. Yeah long history of an immigrant family, that made it.(Subjects: parents, jobs) Now can I ask how you identify [in terms of] gender and sexual orientation? I am a gay man, yes. I came out when I was eighteen. My family was a mixed reaction. My father he didn't care, yeah...my mother...she felt a little guilty. But both have a live-and-let-live attitude. So talking about other gay people was “well, that's them, you know, you're not them.” But there was never any preaching the gospel or…and we are a Catholic family, but it was respect, it was one of respect for each other, and for them to understand that was that was part of my life. And this was 1982, so yeah.(Subjects: comingout, parents, family, religion) And how was your experience in college in San Francisco was that a big change? It was because I think that's like any college freshman it was my first experience to freedom and being able to get out and socialize with people who are different than me who weren't cowboys or ranchers or farmers, who weren't just Asian, they weren't just white Americans. It was especially, in San Francisco many people who might go to Idaho or the Midwest. They may not have that luxury and opportunity to meet diverse people with the diverse backgrounds so. And I never identified as Asian I never identified as a white American either. It was just me. I was just Joe. I was an American. I think that's what’s allowed me to continue with rodeo and to fit in with rodeo it's somebody can look at me and think a different way about me based on my color or the heritage of my last name but rodeo is rodeo. If you love rodeo then you know it's like Mom and apple pie so.(Subjects: race, highlight) Can I ask how you first got involved with rodeo of any kind was it with IGRA or with other forms? I started with Sacramento's Capital Crossroads Gay Rodeo Association. They had just started, this was in ’99, and they were just having their second rodeo or third rodeo. They used to be part of Golden State Gay Rodeo Association in the beginning and then split off and became their own chapter of the IGRA family. I loved horses and always wanted to ride. I never thought about riding bulls. It wasn't a big thing then not like it is today, not even in the straight world. Bull riding is where the action and money is the big bucks. But for me I love broncs. I love horses; I've ridden horses; and I've been bucked, so I know I can take it. But once you're doing it there's a certain technique a certain finesse and agility that you must have--balance and strength, core strength. So, bronc riding was different but the Gay Rodeo Association the Capital Crossroad Gay Rodeo Association was very kind in letting me sign up. And the persons working behind the chutes, Travis Gardner, was sort of my involuntary mentor. He said, “You want to ride broncs? Okay, let's get you suited up. Let’s get you strapped in. Let's get the rigs on. You don't have a rig? Okay, we'll borrow that guy's rig. You're going to wear a vest or you going to wear a helmet?” I said, “No. Maybe I'll wear a vest.” But I wasn't going to wear a helmet, I was going to wear my hat. So that was my first taste. He got me strapped in and I got my first ride. I made it maybe three seconds, maybe a second, out the gate before I went head over heels. But like the old saying you fall off a horse and you get back on it. I came back on Sunday and did it again. I didn't win anything. It probably took maybe five years before I won something, maybe eight years.(Subjects: mentor, events, highlight) How did you hear about it? Through the community. Through the gay and lesbian newspapers, they had flyers. They put flyers on my windshield. And I thought this is great because I do identify with and I have a big respect and admiration for the Western lifestyle and for cowboys and cowgirls and people who work with animals. They call broncs rough stock, the bulls, the steers. Because for obvious reasons they are rough. You are getting bucked and thrown or kicked or you're up close and personal. And I guess I live for that. Being ex-military I like challenges and so this was just another challenge in life.(Subjects: community, getting started) So, after college were you able to interact with animals much, or did you…? No no it was probably almost ten years. I graduated in ‘87 and 1990, no fault of my own, but Sprint was a company I worked for, and they laid off some people and I was one of them and they offered me transfer to Sacramento. So, that's how I ended up in Sacramento and for some reason that was a perfect fit because again it was that culture and it is--there’s a culture in Sacramento. The social economics are different and compared to the city like San Francisco which is very diverse. Sacramento to my knowledge, in my experience was not that diverse, but I saw the cowboy culture there. So in San Francisco when I was going to college, no, I think the only animal I saw was the seagulls you know that you know were sitting on the roofs of the building or flying around but nothing else.(Subjects: jobs) When you were living there did you still feel like part of your identity was grounded in working with animals? You know, it is…that is true because of where I grew up. It was a culture shock moving to San Francisco. The feeling to me was that I was not fitting in. I was lost in San Francisco. I didn't identify with the Asian community and I didn't identify with the gay community but more so the gay community than anything else and so I tried to fit in with the gay community but it still wasn't my crowd. When I got to Sacramento and I saw cowboys and country western night dancing, I mean it was elbow-to-elbow, you couldn't dance on the dance floor at Fences. And the music was grea.t I knew the tunes, I knew the music. I knew the singers. I just didn't know how to dance and to this day I still don't…well, okay, I know how to dance, do the two-step and waltz. I have to hand it to some other folks within the cowboy community they're good line dancers. But yeah, so then I thought: “Wow. Gay community, Western lifestyle.” I just fell into it. The fact that now I've heard that there’s a rodeo then even more so. So it was day and night. It was day and night coming from a rural community where I grew up, moving to the city, but still wasn't right, wasn't the right fit. And then it was a day and night moved to a big city in the Central Valley that had a Western community, so I felt good.(Subjects: race, community, highlight) How long have you been involved, I mean…? I joined, I had to be a member to rodeo and like I said that was back in ‘99 and so I've been a member of the Sacramento Capitol Crossroad Gay Rodeo Association since ‘99. Their Sierra Stampede has been going on since about ‘97. And have you held positions in either the local association or with IGRA? I have. Not with IGRA. I am a…right now the vice president of the rodeo operation for Capital Crossroads and I am assisting with the rodeo this year. Next weekend September 17th and 18th and I've been in that position for about two or three years. Our association is fairly small now and so we haven't put on a rodeo in three years. I'm really looking forward to this, making a big comeback this year. I haven't held any positions at IGRA. I have gone to convention as a representative for my association but that's what that's about the highest I’ve gotten.(Subjects: jobs) Do you travel to many of the other rodeos? Unfortunately, not. I have a good job. Especially during the financial crisis of 2008/2009, I didn't fair too well. So money was tight and I made it to Denver for the World gay rodeo finals. That was my first finals. I had qualified at San Francisco and Sacramento’s rodeos to have points that got me to participate and compete. So I went to Denver for that and did well. I've been to San Diego's rodeo but that’s about it. Did well at my first finals rodeo.(Subjects: jobs) Will you be riding today? No, I will not. I’m no longer riding because of recent surgery. I’m afraid I’m done. Now how do you characterize IGRA in general or the local chapter in particular as far as race goes is there a lot of racial diversity that you find here?(Subjects: race) I do. In San Francisco’s bay area chapter, the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association has a very diverse membership compared to Sacramento we have persons who are of mixed race but it’s not obvious by skin color or other traits that they represent another diverse community. We obviously promote it. The International Gay Rodeo Association is very inclusive and we are very open to, as Travis Gardner did for me back in ‘99, didn't matter who I was or what my name was it was you want a ride come on and we extend the same thing to all people in the community gay or straight and you know Caucasian, white, or Asian, or black you want to learn come on out and tell us, we will show you.(Subjects: race, community) Did you attend many mainstream rodeos before getting into involved? As a kid, I actually did and every once in a while, I wouldn't say I went to every bull riding or every rodeo that happened with in the state of California but yes, I had been to some local rodeos.(Subjects: childhood) Did you ever have any experiences with homophobia or racism or anything like that at mainstream type events?(Subjects: race, homophobia) You know I have and there's no lie that I don't know necessarily look Hispanic or necessarily look Asian but probably more Asian to some people. But when they hear my last name it just doesn't compute. You know, Rodriguez? Filipino? What's that? So yes, it was a misunderstanding I guess you can call it racism but nobody was overly hostile or antagonistic. It was, “Okay, you're wearing a cowboy boots, cowboy hat, you're pretty cool. Okay.” I guess it's like any other social situation people have to get to know you and that's not just in the straight rodeo. You know, being a fan, a spectator because there are a lot of Hispanics within the community within the Mexican rodeo for an example. There's people of all colors there but I've also experienced the same attitude, that same experience in the gay rodeo. It's: “Who are you?” and “Where are you from?” and “You don't look Mexican. So, oh you're Asian.” Yeah. (Subjects: race, homophobia, community) Hey, embrace it. Yes, I am gay. Yeah. And I would probably never tell a straight cowboy that. I've never been in that situation to tell him about my sexual orientation, but I have over the last five years been more comfortable with saying, “Yes, I rodeo and this is who I rodeo for the Gay Rodeo Association and we do good things.” “So, oh you guys make millions of dollars?” No, we do it for charity we give back to the community and that's what a lot of people don't understand even within the gay community we don't make big money here. It's…we're doing what we love, it's a hobby, it's a passion, and a desire. And it's also our desire to help the community, to give back to the community whether it’s an AIDS crisis center, the Lavender Community Center that provides community services to gay and lesbian community. Sacramento Capitol Crossroads is—going off on tangents so stop me if I'm going too fast. In terms of being on the topic of being inclusive, Sacramento Capitol Crossroad Gay Rodeo Association’s beneficiary for a long time was United Ways’ Saddle Pals program which was matching… which was supporting a horse riding program that allowed children with disabilities or challenges to get on a horse and connect with horses and it was a good program.(Subjects: race, homophobia, community) Have you ever experienced any sort of outwardly hostile homophobia on your way to a gay rodeo or at the event itself? Yes, I've been asked that question before and yes, I have. It was a rodeo in Sacramento years back that a couple people showed up at the gate. They were they definitely weren't there to welcome us they were there to show their protest signs, show off their sign, and never became violent but words hurt as much as violence does. So, seeing these people telling us that we shouldn't be rodeoing and that we were a disgrace to the sport, they just never saw what we did. If they saw that many of us were bull riders and many of us have horses, that we love horse lifestyle, they would understand it. We're just like them, if they are actually people of the sport. And so let me backtrack to some of the other rodeos that I've been to. My first rodeos was 1982 in San Francisco. While I was in San Francisco the San Francisco Rodeo came to town and was held at the Cow Palace and, yeah, that's where I fell in. But it was only once a year and I, for whatever reason, didn't know that that that the the Bay Area was the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association existed in San Francisco. It's only once a year that I knew this. So I went to three or four of consecutive rodeos there but it was there at their rodeo that I also met protesters. You know, just a handful and there wasn't like a hundred or a thousand protesters and they weren't loud, but they would stand there and, you know, shake their heads and with their signs. It was very overt. And you wouldn't expect that in San Francisco but I guess maybe you would. Because the Cow Palace, which where's the rodeos held, the Cow Palace is a big rodeo venue for the straight rodeo. The Grand Nationals have been held there in the past.(Subjects: homophobia, highlight) Have you seen any changes in that over you know the seventeen years you've been involved? I have. In terms of acceptance in the community, it's really interesting. And I don't want to jinx it. But there was there are increasing numbers of of people from the straight community who embrace it, the gay rodeo, they embrace the gay rodeo and they want to actively come out and support it. Look where we're sitting right now. We are sitting in Duncan Mills, California. It is…To me, in forty-five years that I've been coming to to this to this area, as a child, as a kid, spending my summer vacations up here, my family having a couple properties here, I've always thought of it as this was a little conservative enclave surrounded by a very progressive or liberal county. Never in my life did I think that Duncans Mills would host the Gay Rodeo Association. And here we are three years later and the rodeo association is still here and the so-called, in-quotes, the straight rodeo association has welcomed us back and they've been, the local businesses and people, have been very accepting. Now in your larger life how has being involved in the gay rodeo influenced anything from your job to your relationships? How you go about your everyday life? I've been working for this company for five years and I've never been shy to explain that I was going to a rodeo and was never shy when somebody asked what rodeo is it. Is it, you know, the PRCA or is it the PBR? Oh no, no, no. This is the International Gay Rodeo Association. It's one of the chapters from Sacramento or San Francisco. And then people realize, oh. They stop and think: Well what do you do at the gay rodeo? Well, I'm a bareback bronc rider and I have ridden bulls. Wow. So my co-workers know now that when I say I'm going to a rodeo, they know it's a gay rodeo. They wonder where it's at. This weekend some of them will ask: “Is it in San Francisco or is it the Cow Palace?” “No, we can't afford it. It's going to be at Duncans Mills.” And, you know, I would much rather have it at Duncans Mills, personally. Rodeo has been like the military for me it's made me who I am. It's made me a better person and have a better respect for the people who ride bulls and handle steers, who rope. It's given me a bigger respect for my sport of bareback bronc riding. And also made me maybe a hard worker because it takes a lot to throw a charity event like this, like a rodeo, and I go back to work and sit behind a computer for eight hours for forty hours a week and I can't complain. Sitting behind a computer for forty hours a week is a lot easier than rounding up cattle or rounding up steers or cows and helping people get ready for their events and then, of course, rodeo is also about show, it's about putting on a good show for the audience. So we would not be successful if we didn't do our best to work hard at our events and put on a good show.(Subjects: jobs, highlight) Well, obviously rodeo has a bit of a dress code with the western wear. Yes. Do you wear that at work or do you switch to your business suit?(Subjects: jobs) I do. I don't wear...I'm pretty relaxed at work. It's a professional office setting. I do walk in with a cowboy hat and Wrangler jeans and a nice pressed shirt. Yes. It goes…is part of the lifestyle.(Subjects: jobs) ... And how long were you in the military for and which branch?(Subjects: jobs) I was in the Coast Guard's United States Coast Guard Reserve and I was in for 8 years.(Subjects: jobs) Do you feel like any use of that was a very key part of your sort of identity formation? Do you think there's a lot of overlap between between sort of military experience and your experiences in the rodeo? The type of people who are really drawn to it? Yes. And some people could could say otherwise but I take away a couple traits: the hard work, the the responsibility that goes with taking care of animals could be equated to taking care of your crewmen or your fellow soldiers-in-arms. It's about following rules because there are a lot of rules in rodeo and you just don't get away with winning by breaking rules, and that's the same thing the military. If you don't follow the rules if you don't follow guidelines, things things can break then somebody can get hurt. And accountability. In the military you are accountable for your actions and in the rodeo the same way. You're accountable for your actions in the arena and outside the arena. When you're wearing your rodeo gear, your cowboy hat and your association's shirt, you represent the Western lifestyle and so being accountable for what we do inside the rodeo, in the arena, how you act is equally important outside of the rodeo. And so, it's the same thing with the military. When you're in the military and you represent an agency or an organization an institution of the military is you're held to a higher standard. Being accountable is very important and taking care of your animals and not mistreating your animals. Same thing. Taking care of your comrades and not mistreating them.(Subjects: jobs, highlight) ... Now have you had any larger LGBTQ Community push back on rodeo of just “that's just too conservative?”?(Subjects: community) No. No, the community has always been supportive and maybe that's because we are the International Gay Rodeo Association of Sacramento, Capitol Crossroads Gay Rodeo Association, or the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association we are contributing to the community. Some of the organizations are beneficiary and they benefit from the proceeds that we take in from the rodeo. Many of them have helped us to produce the rodeo. And they should because we are all part of the same family in the same fabric. We, the Sacramento Capitol Crossroad Gay Rodeo Association, did get some pushback because as I mentioned earlier for many years United Way Saddle Pals program was our beneficiary. Many of the community felt it was not gay enough but that's not what we're about. That program unfortunately no longer exists in Sacramento. There are other programs that I think, I don't know much about them, and I have, you know, our organization, Capital Crossroads, now benefits the gay lesbian community.(Subjects: community) ... How would you talk about having the opportunity to bring together, you know, your Western lifestyle that you've talked about loving and also being out and open with your sexuality? I still don't understand your question but maybe I can answer it this way. I'm one person. I happen to be a gay man that's my sexual orientation and I'm part of a community; that community happens to be gay also. I don't know how better to answer that. I can't change that. It's like I can't change the color of my skin I can't change the slant in my eyes you know it's just going on it's just where I fit. And it may not be for everybody, like your previous question there is some pushback because there are some people who believe that the rodeo is too conservative and it doesn't represent the the gay lesbian community but I tell them that's wrong because we come from the gay and lesbian community and we also happen to be cowboys and cowgirls.(Subjects: community) ... Well it so is there any part of your personal story you would like to share that you haven't had an opportunity to? Accomplishment, you know, no I think that I've rambled on I've told you what quite a bit, you know, I won my first World Gay Rodeo Finals buckle. I think doing that had garnered a lot of respect for me, personally as a person and not just with in the gay community and within the gay rodeo, but also my family. Because my mother, one year I came back from the Capital Crossroads Sierra Stampede rodeo, and I'd won the buckle and I showed it to my mom, who was 80 years old at the time. And she was just like, “This is pretty…you know, your father would be very proud of you.” Cool.(Subjects: community, parents, highlight) Was she ever able to come see you? No, and I don't mind that she hasn’t seen me. As a matter of fact, I did get hurt pretty seriously in 2010, at the Gay Golden State Gay Rodeo Association’s rodeo at Lahanda. My bareback bronc ride went wrong. I got stuck in the rig and ended up underneath the horse and getting trampled. They had to life flight me out of the rodeo and flew me to Stanford hospital where I spent the night. So my mom, she knew I was at rodeo, she didn't know what I was doing. But somebody at the rodeo posted pictures on Facebook and said, “Joe, we are praying for you. I hope you do well and come through this.” And while I was in Stanford, I didn't have any cell service up there. And so my mom she wouldn't have been able to contact me and I wouldn’t have been able to contact her. But I called her from Stanford and she goes: “Hey, your cousins just called me. Your cousins are wondering where you're at and if you were in the hospital.” And it’s like, “Oops, okay, yes. That's where I'm calling you from, Mom. I'm in Stanford general or Stanford hospital or whatever. It is like that I'm fine. I have a busted nose. I got kicked in the face. I had a cut scalp. But I'm doing just fine.” And she said, “Okay, you going to be okay to come home on the drive home? I'll be home tomorrow. You're not riding tomorrow.” And I said, “I might.” [laughter] Most of the cattle folks back at the arena said, “No, you're not riding tomorrow.” So that's the, I guess that's, the one personal tragedy, you know. [Laughter] Suffice to say I did not win the buckle that weekend.(Subjects: parents, injuries) Have you experienced other injuries or just minor?(Subjects: injuries) No, just minor. Maybe…for some reason I've been breaking my nose. At the Gay Games in Cleveland again I got kicked in the face, in the nose. There's pictures of me walking through the arena with a bloody nose but I covered the ride and I got the buckle and it's a once-in-a-lifetime buckle and Brian Rogers sponsored the buckle, so he always bugs me about that he wants it back. That's what that whole—when I walked in here—why the little push and shove that we have going on there.(Subjects: injuries) And did you say you had that on your wall back at home? Yes, I did. Do you keep all your buckles up on the wall? Not all of them, no. Most of them I wear but that one is special, so it has a special place along next to the Gay Games gold medal that we got, that I got. ... Now were you ever able or inclined to participate in other events other than rough stock or did you mainly be roughstock?(Subjects: events ) Mainly roughstock, but I did try to do calf roping on foot and yeah, I haven't got the timing down with the roping. But chute dogging I’ve done and I found that I don't have much of an upper body strength a lot of people have. And bull riding. And bronc riders and bull riders, I know some of them are listening to this, and we have our rivalries, which one's the roughest sport. And they see bronc riding as a rougher sport than bulls and I look at the horns and go, “No, bull riding—it's too dangerous for me.” So, we go back and forth, there’s a rivalry of who can do better and who can ride longer, which sport is just absolutely asinine, crazy, idiotic. We have our banter. And those who listening know who they are.(Subjects: events) What about drag events? Do you like their inclusion in gay rodeo?(Subjects: events) Yeah, it appeals to the gay lesbian community the LGBTQ community because it means that it involves them. It's also among straight audiences who have never seen it before, it's a hilarious. So, yes. Camp evens, drag events have a big place. And they the drag events can be very dangerous cause you're wearing a guy wearing a dress he's never worn a dress before never worn heels before is trying to wrestle on steer. A steer who's very violent and very you know aggressive and jumping while.(Subjects: events, community) ... So, moving forward, do you think is gay rodeo going to revive and get some new people in it or you sort of looking to mainstream rodeos to expand their inclusivity?(Subjects: igra) That's a good question. That's a good question for IGRA. It is a challenge that all our association are facing right now. What is the direction of International Gay Rodeo? And how do we bring in more contestants? And I think that it's going to be it's going to come down to IGRA and the individual associations to come up with a plan. Whether it be hiring publicity marketing company who can help with that strategy. Again, advertising for the local rodeos and getting the word out to just the gay community is not always been the most efficient and successful marketing decision. Because it is only as seen by a particular by you know a particular community. And as long as we have the rodeos, having those rodeos, especially like in the community like Duncan Mills which is small, the straight community does see it. Will we be become one with a straight rodeo? I don't know but it's going to become…it's going to take some some very strategic planning from a public and marketing standpoint to figure out how to attract gay and straight. And I think most gay rodeo contestants, most straight rodeo contestants know that we exist, it's whether or not they want to participate. And do they want to do it for charity benefit verses the big money. So there are a lot of challenges there.(Subjects: igra, community, highlight) Do you think that maybe plays into why maybe young gay kids might not be, if they are talented at rodeo why wouldn't they do the mainstream and potentially make big money versus investing in? Yeah. Exactly. It is. It's a two-pronged, two-edged sword. Do you go to, if you’re a young gay person cowgirl or cowboy who does rodeo currently in high school or in the straight circuit, do you come out as gay? Do you go to a gay rodeo and help compete and help raise money for charity and take the risk of being outed? Because yeah, it's still difficult for gay cowboys to be open in the straight rodeo area. Now there are a lot of straight rodeo contestants out there who say, “We don't care. Come out and ride our bulls, come out and ride our bare broncs.” But, you know, you gotta think about it because sometimes you meet them on the road or on the street and they're not as accepting. So it may take some time and may take somebody who is openly gay and to come out like football players, like national football players and national soccer players and national basketball players that come out and say: “Yeah, I'm gay and guess what? I'm going to make millions of dollars playing football and playing basketball and playing baseball or soccer.” Now maybe a really good gay rodeo cowboy or cowgirl comes out and says: “Yeah, I'm making of millions of dollars, I’m a professional, and I'm gay or lesbian and there's nothing wrong with it. And if you can do better than me, I'll see you at the World Championships or the National Finals and put your money where your mouth is.” And that's what we would say.(Subjects: igra) It strikes me that this might be true as well as Asian-American Cowboys, there's not a lot of racial diversity either on the mainstream rodeo circuit.(Subjects: race) Yeah. So, that's a good that's a very good question, and I know where you're going. And lady just walked up to the gate here this morning and she saw my shirt. You’re looking at my shirt: it's a white shirt and it says paniolo and she says, “I like it. Paniolo.” And I said, “You know what paniolo means?” And she said, “Yeah.” And she was wearing a gray sweatshirt with the Hawaiian turtle, they call it a honu, on it and I said, “Yes, so you know the honu, so you know paniolo.” She goes, “Yeah, Hawaiian cowboy.” And I said, “Yeah, you from Hawaii?” She says, “Yeah, I'm from Maui.” And I said, “Great, so is my family.” My family is from Lahaina, that's where my family when they migrated they went to the sugar and pineapple plantations in Maui. I took the name of Paniolo Joe because a couple people asked me if I was from Hawaii. A Hawaiian cowboy and you’re rodeoing and yeah. (Subjects: race) Ten years later, about ten years after I stared in 2009, I met a bull rider down in Sacramento and he saw my buckle and he saw my shirt, and he says, “Oh, you rodeo?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he goes, “Hey that's cool. What do you do?” I said, “I’m bareback bronc rider.” He says, “Oh cool. Yeah, well I'm a bull rider. And yeah you should come down and bull ride with us down in south Sacramento.” There's a rodeo school down there and I said, “Okay, cool, thanks. I'll think about it.” He goes, “But you're not Mexican are you?” And I said, “No, I'm Filipino.” “Filipino? You know we got a Filipino bronc rider down in south Sacramento.” You know we're out there. We may not be Hawaiian, we may not be from Hawaii or born and raised, we may be Filipino, we maybe Chinese or Japanese but we're out there rodeoing, and I guess maybe we haven't gotten much spotlight. Myself, being being humble and modest, I don't look for the spotlight but I'm more than willing to share my story if someone's willing to listen. And you know we’re in America so it's a great opportunity to do what you love to do. Right? So if a person loves to rodeo, come on out, get involved, maybe you're not a bull rider, maybe you're not a bronc rider, but there's many other events. Whether straight or gay. We have the throw off the labels, “Oh, I’m Asian and therefore I cannot be this or I cannot do that.” I don't live for labels, I don't like labels but I recognize the heritage of my name and the color of my skin and my heritage, my ethnic background, and I acknowledge that. I just also happen to be a rodeo cowboy.(Subjects: race) ...

Adam Romanik Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I am here with Adam Romanik… Romanik, there we go, Adam Romanik. And it is October 21st and we’re in Albuquerque at the 2017 World Gay Rodeo Finals. So can you tell me when and where you were born?(Subjects: childhood) Sure, so I was born in North Eastern Pennsylvania. Near, above Scranton area and lived in that area most of my life growing up as a kid.(Subjects: childhood) Wow, and when was that?(Subjects: childhood) I was, born in '79 and I lived in that area until 1998, is when I graduated high school and went off to college.(Subjects: childhood) Did you guys live on a farm, or out in a rural area?(Subjects: childhood) I did. So, I lived in a rural area [...] there was farms and country.(Subjects: childhood) Did you guys have horses?(Subjects: childhood) I did. So, I’ve owned horses since I was 4 years old. Basically, I was always a horse fanatic, since I was a little kid. When I was 4 years old my dad got me my first pony. So, I had that pony for a short while, and then I got another pony when I was 6 and I’ve pretty much had horses since then consistently, at least one horse. And I’ve had as many as 18.(Subjects: childhood) Wow, and what did your parents do for a living?(Subjects: parents) My dad has been a self-employed truck driver, all his life. And my mom was a homemaker until I went to college. And her and I went back to school and she became a nurse then, and now she works as a nurse.(Subjects: parents) Did you have siblings?(Subjects: family) I do, I’m the oldest of 4. I have a brother and two sisters, and yup.(Subjects: family) Are they horse people too?(Subjects: family) My youngest sister is a horse person, she has horses and my dad owns horses as well.(Subjects: family) Would you mainly just do trail rides or were you involved in, what do I want to say? Like shows?(Subjects: events) Okay so, growing up, I did trail rides and horse shows. I did a lot of barrel racing, all throughout as kid and throughout high school and in college, I took my horse with me to college and did a lot of both trail riding and barrel racing. Yup.(Subjects: childhood, events) What was school like for you growing up?(Subjects: childhood) You’re talking about like high school and elementary school? Well, when I was in high, elementary was you know just elementary school. When I was in high school I was very involved in extracurricular activities, things like student council, and I was very involved in that type of thing. And then later on band and things like that, so I was always very busy in high school.(Subjects: childhood) And then you went off to college in 1998, is that correct? Yup that’s correct? Where’d you go? I went to Clarine University in Clarine, Pennsylvania and I majored in library science, got my bachelor’s degree in library science. What was college like in the 90’s?(Subjects: highlight) Well, it was very, for me it was actully very freeing because I... I’ve been disabled since I was 11. They figure I was born with a tumor inside my spinal cord and they found that when I was 11 years old. And so, I had that removed when I was 11, and since that surgery I’ve been a paraplegic. You know, nothing ever really stopped me, like I rode horses and had 4 wheelers and all that kinds of stuff before I became disabled. And then you know, growing up I sort of, after that happened I sort of just got back into things. I rode again, and I couldn’t wait to drive when I turned 16 and you know all those kids of things. So... college for me was really more about finding myself and becoming very independent. I was suddenly 4 hours away from home and I could kinda go and do my own thing. I had a vehicle there and I had my horse there. So, it was an independence thing but also it was a vehicle for me to get somewhere. I really didn’t want to go to college, to be honest, when I first started because I was very much you know, I didn’t want to go to school, I just wanted to find a job and work. And then when I went to college, my goal was always to get done as soon as possible. I took summer classes, I took 18 credits one summer and I took 17 credits the second summer. I finished my bachelor’s degree in 3 years, it was one of those things where I really just wanted to get done and I wanted to be independent... and start life kinda thing.(Subjects: childhood, highlight) And were you in the dorms? Or, I guess my main question is, where was your horse? Okay good question. I did stay in the dorm throughout the regular semesters fall and summer, fall and spring I lived in the dorm and then in the summer I had an off-campus apartment. My horse was kept in a boarding stable about 7 miles away. So pretty accessible? Right, pretty accessible. I could go out, and I had a trailer there on my own and I could go out and see her, and I did I usually would go out two or three times a week or more and ride and all that. ... And how did you first discover the rodeo?(Subjects: highlight) So, I came out back in the late 90’s early 2000’s, and horses were always the center of my life, okay. Being with my horses, trail riding, showing, etcetera. And... one of the biggest challenges that I found with dating and everything is really trying to find someone, that shares that same love. So I met many people, dated people, been in a relationship with people that really didn’t have that love, and it really was an issue, it really caused an issue. When you own horses, and a lot of horses, it takes hours, it takes money, it takes a lot of things, it’s true dedication. Especially competing in the rodeos, its days of traveling, it’s a lot of expense etcetera. With all of that, I started to explore, how can I find someone that has, shares that same love. When I was in college, as I mentioned earlier I had my horse with me and I shared it somewhere locally. And there happened to be a gay couple there that had met at a gay rodeo, many year before that. So that was kind my first introduction to the gay rodeo and everything that sort of thing. And at that time, I really didn’t get to know anything about the gay rodeo, just that it was out there. And then sort of as time went on I learned more about it and as I had that sort of personal yearning for finding what I was really looking for, that’s when I really started to do a lot of self-discovery and you know, what was really involved and everything. (Subjects: community, highlight, getting started) So then, it became my goal to be involved, and at the time there was another Pennsylvania chapter, it was called Liberty Gay Rodeo Association based out of Philadelphia Pennsylvania. They held there first rodeo in 2008, and they held another in 2009. Unfortunately I didn’t make the 2008 rodeo, but I made it my goal to make sure that I was there in 2009, and that was the first rodeo I've ever competed in. I loved it so much and it happened to work out, that I had a business trip to Chicago right when the Chicago rodeo was happening that same year. My work actually paid for me to haul my horse out to Chicago, and I competed in the Chicago rodeo, and that experience for me was so freeing. It was, a huge event of pride, to go and be able to be who I was and do what I love with my horse and everything and it was really, I’d say kinda what brought me to where I am today. And then after that, I wanted to be more involved in gay rodeo but then I didn’t have the funds or whatever. (Subjects: community, highlight, getting started) And then that’s when I sort of went back to school and got my master’s degree. And then in 2013 I competed in the rodeo in Detroit Michigan. And then, a few years ago, acutely at that Detroit rodeo, someone said to me, we really at that time, the Pennsylvania association had folded, someone said to me you know, we really need to get a Pennsylvania association going, we really need to get back into this. And I did feel that, and it was really just a matter of time before I could put all the pieces of my self together before I could really commit to doing that. And so that's kinda what lead up to where we are today. So in 2015 I started Keystone State Gay Rodeo Association, and... put that together, and we’re going strong. We are here now 2 years later and we have 100 members, and we've held our first rodeo, we held our first rodeo this past June, so.(Subjects: community, highlight, getting started) And how did it go? It went very well, for a first event. Anytime you hold a first event there’s going to be a lot of hiccups, and things that aren’t planned, and expenses that aren’t planned. And just tons and tons of pieces, and through all of it, I am very pleased with how it went, the rodeo went off, we did have some... things that came up, we were able to get through them, work through them. We have a lot of work ahead of us to do, but we are planning on having another rodeo in 2018. We had tons of positive feedback from competitors, we had 1,000 to fifteen hundred people in the stands watching the rodeo. We had tons of positive feedback from the community, that came to watch the rodeo, and being a different type of pride event, and those are all reasons to continue on. What events do you usually compete in?(Subjects: events) So I compete in the horse events, the speed events. Since 2009 I’ve done, I normally do barrel racing, pole bending, and flag race. And then this year, I started a new event, so I’m also doing calf roping on foot now. My goal in the next few years is to get maybe into the roping, do maybe breakaway roping.(Subjects: events) ...As a paraplegic, what are the challenges of doing such a physically demanding sport?(Subjects: Highlight) Sure, so there are a lot of challenges obviously... strength and, getting on the horse and getting the horse loaded and all that kinds of stuff, those are all challenges. Just taking care of the horses you know, huge challenge. So pretty much, the way I see it, if its something you want to do bad enough, you’ll find a way. So I figured out many, many ways of getting the saddle on my horse, I’m very upper body wise strong so getting the saddle on my horse is not a problem. I do actually get on from the wheelchair, I have all my horses trained that they will, they pretty much just stand still and I grab ahold of the saddle horn and pull myself up on, so there are a lot of physical challenges. As well as staying on and riding, all those events are speed events, so you’re going fast, you’re turning you know all those sorts of things and I do it all without the use of my legs. Some of the challenges, so basically how I, how I ride, I have a regular barrel saddle, and it is modified. I have a gel cushion on the saddle, I have a seat belt that’s Velcro that goes around my hips, and I use rubber bands to keep my feet in the stirrup and that’s it, that’s all that holds me on, and my upper body strength.(Subjects: Highlight) And what are the sort of social assumptions, do people just take it for granted that you don’t compete?(Subjects: highlight) [...] They don’t see me as a person, they see the wheelchair, its usually like turning off a light switch kind of thing. I think I’ve done a really good job at showing them that just because you’re disabled doesn’t mean you can’t... be educated, you can’t lead an organization. It doesn’t mean you can’t... do what you put your mind to you know? For me it’s also very freeing to be able to go compete, to be able to go and ride, to do what I love to do. There have been many, many times where I have been at a rodeo, or some type of horse event, team pining barrel racing whatever, and people honestly have no idea. I have been in an arena competing and... I come out, I jump off my horse and, I’m wheeling around and whatever and people are like, seriously was that just you out there in the area, and people just have no idea. They wouldn’t know it from how I ride and all that. So... for me it has been very, very freeing.(Subjects: community, highlight) What have been the challenges of being an association dedicated to rodeo but on the eastern side of theUnited States. Good question, it has been, actually extremely challenging. One of the biggest challenges is the fact that we’re so far away from everyone. We have one association that’s close to us, but they're not a real active association. Beyond that, we have sort of been on our own pretty much. We have really had to spend, I can’t even... begin to think about the thousands of hours that we have spent, out there blowing our own horn, telling people who we are, and who IGRA is, and what we are doing, and why we do it and all of that... all those PR type of events. Its been very, very challenging, to be an association that’s far away. It's been challenging on one hand and on the other hand its been really, really welcomed because people don't know about it. So when they hear about it, they’re all excited. Just the fact that we've held one rodeo and we had a thousand spectators in the stands, and that’s huge. The other thing is that, in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania is a very horse supported area, so there are a lot of horse events that are there that have helped as well. People are familiar with rodeo. Where we held our rodeo at, there's 3 or 4 other rodeo events there every year. It’s just that ours is a unique rodeo, that’s the only real difference. And what about coming west, for other rodeos, how difficult is that? It’s, I wouldn't say it's difficult, it’s just a long process. Anytime we go to a rodeo, you got to add in... 2 to 3 extra days at least. In the case of this weekend it’s 4 to 5 extra days. We could have flown to this, I didn’t bring my horse this weekend, but anytime that we do go to a rodeo, it's taking horses, it's pulling your horse all those thousands of miles. So, it’s definitely, extra days, a lot of gas expense, etcetera. So those are all challenges. Do many of your association members make it out to things like this? Actually, that’s one of the things, that’s one of the reasons I started our organization, was to really gather people, that have the same common interest. Because, it takes money to do it all, that’s just bottom line, okay. If I’m going by myself, I’m footing that bill myself. So one of the things I’ve done, and I think I’ve done pretty successfully, is really do the networking to get our members involved. For example, last Labor Day weekend, there was about 10 to 12 KSGRA members that went to the Kansas City Rodeo. 6 of us all went together, and 2 others went together. We took 2 horses together, so it could really help cut down on those expenses. This weekend here at rodeo finals, there are about 8 to 10 KSGRA members competing at 4 KSGRA. For me those are real highlights, because it just shows the progress that we’ve made, to say 2 years ago we started this thing and now to have 10 members here competing, that's awesome. And most of those members flew here, so it wasn’t really an expense. I did drive here with another one of my board members. Driving is a lot cheaper, but it does take a lot of time. But those are all huge success. As I was talking to someone last night... it’s interesting how... the plan is sort of finally falling in place if you really think about it. Back in 2011 when I started my master’s degree and my motivation was to come to these things. And here we are, 6 years later, basically, and it’s starting to fall into place. This year I’ve done more rodeos than I’ve ever done. So I was at Littlerock in April, we held our rodeo in June, we went to... Kansas City Labor Day weekend, here we are at finals rodeo, and we’ll be at convention in Littlerock in a few weeks. Next year our goal is to do 6, 5 rodeos. So we’re planning on going to Texas in the spring, of course we’ll be at our own rodeo, that’s in June, we'll be at, our goal is to do Denver in July, also Minneapolis at the end of July, and then Kansas City Labor Day weekend. And then of course, next year I hear finals is gonna be in Arizona so we’ll be there. Is it difficult to balance the sort of leadership responsibilities with also competing and training and all that? It is, it really is. There’s, as I say, there’s never a dull moment in my life. My partner and I, we don’t have TV, there’s just really isn't time for it you know? It is a real work balance, there’s always something to do. One of the things that I’ve actually… I consider myself a pretty good multitasker so I can start one project and be working on something else. One of the things that I really actually utilize my rodeo time for, is these trips. So I always have a laptop with me, I have a hotspot on my phone, and as we’re spending hours and hours in the car driving to rodeos, its one of the things that I’ve learned is that, it takes people, it takes a community to do it. As I take people with me I let them drive and I work, or I do KSGRA stuff, or I work on class stuff or whatever I mean, it all takes time, you got to balance it somehow.(Subjects: jobs) ... Would you, being from... not the west, but obviously being involved in rodeo, would you consider yourself a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) Absolutely, absolutely it’s every part of my being is being involved with the horses and riding and... living that cowboy lifestyle, its all, my life just revolves around the whole thing, pretty much.(Subjects: cowperson) When you were growing up, what was your image of a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) I think, kind of my image has changed a little bit. Growing up my image of a cowboy was the guy out working the ranch, rounding up the cattle, and all that. And my image now has changed a lot, there’s so many different images that come to mind when you think of cowboy you know? The hardworking person that, enjoys to go out and ride and, I think too one of the things that a lot of people don’t see sometimes, is the... giving of yourself and trying to better life for the community and that kind of thing. That’s always, I think, been sort of the cowboy way of looking out for your fellow brothers and that’s something that we do here in the rodeo, it’s all about charity for the community.(Subjects: cowperson) Obviously you are been spearheading the growth of the association, what do you see for the future by chairing?(Subjects: igra) Well I’m hopeful that... some changes will come in IGRA, I’m hopeful that we’ll see, sometime in the next few years of getting more national sponsors involved, getting more national companies involved. Growing, bringing back, some more rodeos to the circuit. Bringing back, hopefully more people to the circuit. And also, getting more younger people involved, its one of those things, as long as I’ve been involved in this organization... the age ranges, there’s really, a real gap in the folks my age and younger.(Subjects: igra) How do you think you can... wrangel those folks in?(Subjects: igra) I think some of it is, just being realistic about what it takes. Some of it is... getting people interested in, and some of it is, it's not working, a lot of it's not working. I'll give you an example of that, one of the things that we do regulary, our assosiation, is we do a monthly trail ride. People don't have to own their own horse, they can come ride our horses ride, 10 of our horses ride, 10 of our 13. So, people can come, they can ride, and we have... gotten, I'd say, probably between 15 and 25 percent of new members that way. People coming, teaching them about the horses, about the rodeos, who doesn't doesn't like to look at a cowboy in tight wranglers? Those are the kinds of things, the community building, its the getting the mission out there, what this is all about, all those kinds of things I think are what make people drawn to it. (Subjects: igra) ...

Lisa Smith Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield, and I'm here today with Lisa Smith. And we're at the 2016 Annual Convention of the International Gay Rodeo Association. You said you were a veteran?(Subjects: job) Of twenty-four years, with the army.(Subjects: jobs) When did you join up?(Subjects: jobs) For the gay rodeo? For the army.(Subjects: jobs) Oh, back in 1977. Now I'm dated.(Subjects: jobs) And what all did you do during your long career?(Subjects: jobs) Oh, well, I was in communications and also had a stint with the aviation, and the operations part of it, and also got involved with chemical warfare and I retired out as a First Sargent.(Subjects: jobs) How did you find out about the gay rodeo? We had friends that were members. In fact, the night of my holy union—course back then you couldn't get, or thirteen, fourteen years ago you couldn't get married—we joined up that night. I don't know why that night, I guess cause everybody there were friends there that belonged to it. Did you grow up on a ranch or…? No, I'm a city person. Where did you grow up? Little Rock, Arkansas. So I didn't really have an experience with cattle or horses or bulls or any of that such thing. The closest I got was to a state fair one year. And otherwise I was more of a PE jock. I was the jock, I played a lot of sports and things like that…And I wasn't in the cowboy western way either. I grew up in the 70s, and 60s and 70s music so.(Subjects: childhood) So awesome, awesome music. Yeah, you bet. And how did you meet your partner?(Subjects: family) Well, we met through the military. She comes to Arkansas, back in the early 80s and I met her then, and you know we worked in the training area and it wasn't ‘til I don't know fifteen years after that something turned my head and decided hey, you know.(Subjects: family, jobs) So you were both retired by the time?(Subjects: jobs) Were both retired. She retired out with thirty years, and we've been volunteering for IGRA since then, pretty actively.(Subjects: jobs) What all have you done with IGRA?(Subjects: jobs) Well we've both started out as security at our rodeo, ticket takers, selling raffles, you name it. The stuff that nobody else wants to do. Well, actually the very first year we just watched. We went to a couple rodeos and thought, “Do we really want to get involved with these people?” And then we volunteered and it grew from like I said the ticket takers to the to the other positions and then I thought, Well I want to work in the arena.” so I started working with what they call the arena crew, and I really like the arena crew but I was also getting older and in the arena crew you need to be able to run if you can run and set up barrels or set up the poles or run seventy foot tape across the arena or something like that, so I went in to chute, the chute area, and fell in love with the bulls and the crew, basically it's the crew that got us hooked. We both do the same thing. In conjunction with all that though me being me, I wanted to be a rodeo director. So I started out as an assistant but the next year I was the rodeo director so. Went, you know, went to…IGRA has a University and I went several years to university and took in as much knowledge as I could take in and put it to work at the rodeos. So now I've been led in to…I've branched out to where I wanted to be the rodeo director of the World Gay Rodeo Finals. So bout five years ago I kept ringing their bells saying, “Pick me. Pick me.” and they finally said okay. We'll bring you on board, and so now this coming year, I'll be the rodeo director for World Gay Finals in Albuquerque.(Subjects: jobs, highlight) That sounds great. Looking forward to that. And I have also been the University's chancellor, I'm back down to Vice Chancellor kind of stepping back. I like to volunteer.(Subjects: jobs) Did you ever compete in any? I did compete. That was an experience, we did really well. Jeanie, that just talked me into this Jeanie, introduced me to fellas said, “Y’all are going to do goat dressing.” I said, “Okay.” And his name was Kenny, and I said okay. I didn't know, I couldn't remember what Kenny looked like from Friday night to Saturday morning but we did…we qualified both days, and I was real proud of myself, and we didn't win any money, but you know. Then we then some of my people we decided to do steer deco, which is another camp event and we did that and we qualified. We never got any money but at least we qualified. And I guess wild drag was the other one, and I loved it. And they gave me quick instructions on how to steer the steer with its tail and so we did pretty well. But that was it. I thought you know, I need to stick back in the chutes and produce some rodeos. So that's what I did.(Subjects: events ) And what's the sort of gender dynamics of the association? Is it pretty fifty/fifty between men and women? In our association, in mine or IGRA overall? Either. I really can't speak for IGRA, I would venture to say it’s pretty eighty/twenty in IGRA. In my association, which is out of Little Rock, it's right at fifty/fifty. So we do have a lot of women that are involved and from my understanding of the history of Diamond State, we've always had a lot of women involved.(Subjects: highlight) And do you get to travel to a lot of other rodeos? Oh yes. Yeah, well yeah, I get to travel as long as I've got the money. Yeah, I've been all over the United States to different rodeos and things. I still have a few that I haven't been to. I want to go to Phoenix and there's a couple in California that I'd like to go to. Do you have friends at most of the other associations? Oh yeah, we're all friends. We're all good buddies. Tha's very amazing. Well, I don't want to take up all of your time. What time is it? We've got ten more minutes…five more minutes. How about five more minutes? Five more minutes. Well, is there any one moment when you were in those early days going, were you like, “This is the thing I want to be involved in?” Well, yeah, but in my situation, I started late, okay. I'm a late bloomer as far as getting involved with this stuff. Right now I'm sixty-one years old, so it's kind of hard to get back involved in the competing part of it, even though I think I could get up on that bull and ride that bull, something tells me I know better. Yeah.(Subjects: events ) I'd pull you off. I mean, I know the mechanics of it now, ‘cause I've watched enough putting the riders on there and all their equipment and what you gotta do and this and that, it's just that my body tells me, “No.” That's the only thing I really regret. Is not doing this sooner. Yeah.(Subjects: events ) Were you already retired from the military by the time you started this?(Subjects: jobs ) No, it was kind, of course you know “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” was still in place. But still I had to watch what I was doing, or not doing, or whatever so I didn't get kicked out. I'd hate to get kicked out at the very end.(Subjects: jobs, homophobia, highlight) Was that pretty scary to deal with? Yeah, that's a whole different animal of wondering whether or not you're going to get called in and say, “Hey so’n’so saw you here with you know,” it's not a not a fun thing.(Subjects: jobs, homophobia) Do you think, do you think things are different now that people can sort of participate in gay rodeo or…? I do know some military folks. In fact, we tap in with the we have an airbase there in Little Rock and the Little Rock Air Force Base and now those guys can come out and ride with us and not have to worry. But the stigma of it being gay so...I kind of...I'm always trying to recruit people to do that. To come out and participate that couldn't do it before. I wanted to put an ad in their paper out there, ‘cause they do have a veterinary section that has horses and stuff and they do ride and everything and they wouldn't let me put that in there ten years ago. But now, it's cool. It’s cool.(Subjects: jobs, community, homphobia, highlight) So, do you consider yourself a cowgirl?(Subjects: cowperson) Sometimes. I've learned a lot about the bulls and the steers and the calves and the horses and things. Somewhat. Somewhat of a cowgirl, you know. I appreciate the real cowgirls that I see that live on the ranches, that have to feed those horses and those animals everyday—morning, noon, night, and the veterinarian what they have to go through. You know I know it costs lots of money and takes lots of time and the weather’s rough and…were you on a ranch?(Subjects: cowperson) I did. From Idaho? Yeah. Yes. Yes, I grew up on a small ranch but I actually spent most of my time hiding to read books ‘cause I was so scared… Maybe I was hiding. When I was playing softball and basketball and volleyball and tennis and thought, “You know, I really don't…” I just wasn't into the country side of it, you know. I'm not a country-western fan so to speak, even though I love the two step and the waltzes and stuff, I think it’s so neat. I'm just not a dancer either. Not very coordinated. No rhythm. Give me a few beers, I'll dance for you but otherwise, no… Well, I know you're pressed for time but I would love to continue our conversation. And I have met a lot of good people some of the best people around. They’re definitely family. Have they always as a support network? This is different, you know, there's just this the closeness here that you won't find in a lot of other sports-type activities. I mean you're buddies and stuff but this is somebody has a financial problem, you know, you're going to find somebody that's going to help them out. Or you know we've lost a lot of friends, you're gonna travel across country just to go to their funerals, or something like that. I mean it's just it's tough, we shed a lot of tears here, yeah, so. Don't cry.(Subjects: highlight) It's nice to have a community to do that with.(Subjects: community) It is it is. You know besides cause that's this is my gay community so to speak I don't really we have friends that we go out with in Little Rock as far I'm not the marching the Pride Parades thing even though I've been known to do it, uh, even though we do get in the parades as a rodeo association cause we want people to come and know who we are. But they don't experience what we experience. Isn’t that right, David?(Subjects: community) That's true. Alright, I will let you go for now. Okay, thank you, ...

Tim Smith Click to filter

This is Saraya Flaig and I’m here with Tim Smith in Denver, Colorado, at the International Gay Rodeo convention on November 22nd, 2019. So, Tim, what year were you born? ‘67 What was your childhood like?(Subjects: childhood) I actually grew up in a small town in Texas, in Garland. A pretty rural area. There my whole life, so basically, you know, three schools, elementary, junior high, high school, kind of knew everybody in town. That type of thing. Pretty small town. Outside of Dallas, Texas area.(Subjects: childhood) Did your family doing ranching or farming of any kind?(Subjects: family) Uh, no. Well, actually, yes, they did. My father had come from a large family in Mississippi that that's—that’s what they did. Ranched, ran cattle. Stuff like that. My mother was from Texas. But I didn't grow up with it. Around me, yes. But my parents did not.(Subjects: childhood, family, parents) Did you have any siblings growing up? No, I was an only child [laughs].(Subjects: childhood) What were some of your experiences in high school and growing up? You know, I was actually…I’m very involved in high school. I was actually, like, mascot—Olly Owl. I was very involved. Class president, officer, involved in several clubs, you know, choir. I was very involved in high school, so I had a pretty good friend base from being involved.(Subjects: childhood) What were some of your experiences like coming out?(Subjects: comingout) You know, it's interesting, but…not sure what you were kind of doing, you know, in high school. Obviously, once you hit sexuality, trying to figure out what was really going on and, you know, obviously coming from a small town in Texas. And okay, am I supposed to be with a girl, you know, do I do that? So, I had some girlfriends. But then it just never really did…lead up to anything. And basically, eventually I guess I became secure enough about sophomore year in college that I actually said, you know, this is who I am. And just told my parents, look I’m gay.(Subjects: comingout, parents) Were your parents accepting at all?(Subjects: parents) You know, initially, no, my mother was not. Which, I actually thought it would be the other way around. My mother was probably what I thought more liberal minded versus my father, who came from Mississippi. He actually seemed to be more okay with it than my mother did. However, she did finally come around and was…accepting and learned to deal with it in her own way.(Subjects: comingout, parents) Did you grow up very religious? No. Ironically, my mother was Cherokee Indian. Now, my grandmother—her mother—that I was very close to, was very religious. But my mother was not. Because she was brought up very religious, and she's like, you know, when you get to that age, you can choose your religion.(Subjects: religion) Are you religious personally? No, uh uh. You know, I wouldn't say I’m religious, I would say it’s more spiritual. I don’t know how else to explain that, but it's more of a spiritual connection. I do feel that that's between you and the creator, you know, not you and everybody else necessarily. So, I have my faith, I guess you could say.(Subjects: religion) And you said your grandmother was pretty religious, did you come out to her? Oh, yes. Uh huh. As a matter of fact, she actually had lived with us. Well, I had gone and gotten her, and she actually lived with me briefly till, she actually—and then I put her in with my parents, but then she passed away not long after that. But I actually had her—so she actually lived with me for a while.(Subjects: religion, parents, comingout) Was she accepting of you coming out?(Subjects: comingout) Yeah. She didn't seem to actually address it. Discuss it, I guess you could say. She never really said, yea, nay. I don’t know that it bothered her. To be honest with you, I don't think she just…maybe wanted to address it? So, we didn't really discuss it. Other than, you know, she said, “As long as you're happy.”(Subjects: comingout) You said you attended college, where did you go to college SMU. Southern Methodist University. What did you study in college? Well, originally, I was gonna to go in as a law student. And I'm like, “Oh my gosh, this is gonna take me forever.” So, I actually studied—became a math major, and I got out of there with a math major [laughs]. With a business… What did you do with your degree? Nothing [laughs]. I actually, right out of college, I had actually an interview and I started flying with Delta Airlines in June right after college, and I was with them for 10 years. So, I never had to use my degree. So, I’m assuming you traveled a lot as a…flight attendant? I did So, what was your experience traveling around the world and being gay? You know, I think that sometimes we ourselves put more on the fact of how other people perceive us, or whatever. I had kind of come to terms—I was very comfortable with who I was. I mean, it wasn't a question of whether I was gay or not. To me, people had to know. I mean, to me there was no assumption about it. But I never put anything into what they thought, whether they liked it or didn't like. I was always just cordial to people. And I think that most people, just because I was nice to them and didn't push my sexuality on them, they in turn were very responsive back, to at least to be polite and cordial to me. So, I don’t…I didn’t—sometimes you could kind of tell somebody was not really comfortable with you. But for the most part, I didn't see that—or I didn't let it, actually. Did you experience any homophobia or anything?(Subjects: homophobia) You know…I did a little bit. You know, here and there. I guess you could say periodically. Actually, most of mine I think came out later and more like just being in general public and being around or something like that and someone, you know, using the word queer or faggot or something like that to you. And again, if you allow that to take over—and I didn’t, so it's never fazed me. Like, “Hey, it is what it is,” you know?(Subjects: homophobia) How did you discover rodeo? Or the gay rodeo specifically, I guess? Well, actually, ironically, my first partner—lover—was rodeo, and so I got involved with him. He was one of our team roping people on the circuit for many years. And so, I literally…had gotten involved that way, is how I got involved. And did you just follow him to rodeos, or did you compete yourself? Ironically, you know, initially I kind of helped him—he was also an announcer, so I would help him play the music—back then it was cassette tapes. And so, you know, you have to push play and stop and all of this. And so, I kind of would help him. Now, him and I had separated, and after that I actually got involved in the royalty program. And it was a fluke in Dallas, and you raised money for charity. And so, I actually ran for Miss Texas Gay Rodeo Association, TGRA, for ‘89. And part of your criteria was doing drag and performing. So, I actually got into rodeo initially with drag. However, I then went from that, being in drag, and I started competing in the rodeo as a contestant. So, it kind of brought me into being the contestant side of the rodeo.(Subjects: charity, performance, royalty, music) So, you said you did drag. Did you do drag at all before rodeo, or was that your first experience? No. Actually, it was literally what introduced me to drag, was that program. Back in that program—initially is, you would raise money directly for charities, as royalty, as an ambassador of an association. So, I literally was intrigued with the raising of charity, that money going to charity, and TGRA was set up very different: all your money had to go to charity. So, that year I raised over 20,000 dollars running by myself as a candidate.(Subjects: charity, royalty) Wow. That all went directly to charities that year. I then, later on, actually in 1994—back up a minute, in ‘93, I became Miss Southeast Gay Rodeo Association—outside of Atlanta, Georgia, because I was with Delta—and then I literally then became Miss International Gay Rodeo Association in ‘94. And so, I was traveling the whole circuit, rodeoing as well as performing in drag.(Subjects: performance) What is your drag name or persona? Tessy. T-E-S-S-Y. Tessy [laughs]. People call me Miss Tessy, basically. I didn’t have a last name, it was just kind of a persona, not of a particular character. What is your drag self like? Pretty wild. Or, used to be. Not quite as much anymore. I used to be one that would jump up on tables and dance and perform and wear really, really six-inch-high heels. So, I mean, I was just…yeah, high energy.(Subjects: dance, performance) Did you have any performance experience before doing drag?(Subjects: performance) No. Well, I sang and stuff. Grew up singing in choir, stuff like that. A little theatre. Did you sing at all in drag? I did, initially. I did sing some. And then, of course, you know, lip syncing became big. So, I used to do some live singing in it, which is kind of interesting and fun. What is one of your favorite drag performances that you’ve ever done?(Subjects: performances) It would probably be…—I actually did do an illusion of Shania Twain, as well as Celine Dion, as I progressed in drag. And so, I actually did a whole set that was her Come on Over CD, and it split, and I was doing Shania. And that was probably one of my favorite—looking like her, and same outfit, had guys behind with the guitars. “Man, I Feel Like a Woman,” I mean, top hat and the whole nine yards. So that was probably one of my favorite performances.(Subjects: performances) Wow. That’s amazing. Was that during one of your reigns as royalty that you did that?(Subjects: royalty) It was. Yeah. Well, it was right after I think, right after. Right around ‘95, I think. But yes(Subjects: performances, royalty) Have you ever performed outside of the gay rodeo in drag?(Subjects: performances) Yes. I actually, in the Dallas area—well, Atlanta area and Dallas area, and I traveled quite a bit, performing. So, I did a lot of charity shows in the Dallas area, and I hosted a lot and emceed shows. Well, that led into paid functions and me having usually three or four shows a week in the Dallas area and different places, like at The Round Up on Monday nights, and there was another club called The Zone, and I had a show, a talent night there on Tuesday nights. So, I actually did a lot of performing in town in drag.(Subjects: charity, performances) Did you notice a difference in the way the gay rodeo perceived your drag versus non-gay rodeo? No. You know what, I was very fortunate in, with the gay rodeo, being one that I was a contestant. So, I had a huge fan base within the gay rodeo, um, family, that was very supportive, and just actually had me up on a pedestal—my whole reign. It's ironic that we're at a convention in Denver, Colorado, because I actually stepped down in 1995, and my step down was in Denver, Colorado. Yeah. As Miss IGRA. But no, now they were different—and a lot of those people actually carried over, and when they came to town would come and see one of my shows.(Subjects: family, igra) That’s very cool. So, you’ve had three different titles in your involvement in gay rodeo, or have you held more than that? Yes. Well, no, that's my three titles—with royalty. In the last few years, I've actually become, instead of competing, because I really don't compete anymore, I'm actually a certified arena director and a chute coordinator. So, I actually work in the arena as well now. Just as an official, not competing. Because I just—got old, so I don’t compete as much anymore, and I don't do as much drag.(Subjects: royalty) Since you first got involved in gay rodeo originally, have you continued being involved this entire time? Yes. I've literally been involved since, like, ‘87, ‘86, something like that. ‘87 I think is when I first got involved. So, yeah, I've been involved the whole time. On different levels. And then, you said you've competed as well, outside of royalty. What events have you done?(Subjects: events, royalty) Oh, yeah. Well, I used to do some of the roping events, and I used to do…well, we have some camp events in our rodeo, and I did all the camp events as well. I have a few international buckles—I mean, I’ve won, actually at our Finals Rodeo. So, yeah, it's been interesting to say the least, but yes. And I did some of the rough stock. I used to ride steers, and I used to chute dog [laughs].(Subjects: events) Wow. Have you ever been injured doing any of the events?(Subjects: events, injuries) Many times.(Subjects: injuries) What’s one of, like, the worst injuries?(Subjects: injuries) Probably a pretty good one, a bull stepped on me. On my leg, and laid me open pretty good, and I mean, I literally had to keep going, Saran Wrapped and kept going, and I probably should have went and had stitches, but I didn’t.(Subjects: injuries) How long did you compete in events for?(Subjects: events) I did that for quite a few years. Gosh, I don’t know how long. It was quite a few years. I competed probably up until probably 2014, because I think when we had Gay Games was 2014 or 2015, and I think that was about the last time I've competed. Yeah, I think it was like 2014 when I had competed, but I was not as heavy of a competitor as I was when I was younger.(Subjects: events) Did you compete in your drag persona, or did you just compete as yourself? No. No. Tim. Tim competed, Tessy was stage. On Saturday night or Sunday night at the awards banquet, or at their show on Saturday night, y’all could come watch me perform. So, yes [laughs].(Subjects: performances) And then, you said you’ve won buckles. How many buckles have you won? Or, how many buckles do you have—do you know? Oh, I don’t know. It's quite a few, because throughout the years you win buckles for all kinds of things. So, I’ve got quite a few. I’ve got some boxes, boxes of buckles that I’ve won throughout the years. Do you have a favorite one that you’ve won? You know, probably, my—I don't know why, but I think because it was my Miss International buckle, and also we had won the goat dressing (which was a good friend of mine, Chili Pepper), and we actually won a goat buckle that year, and that’s probably my favorite buckle. Do you feel like you’ve found a community that you’re a part of with the gay rodeo?(Subjects: community) Yes. You know, to be honest with you, it's a little more than a community. It's more like a family—and it really is. I mean, outside of it, we…you build lifelong friendships that you talk to people, and sometimes, you know, you don’t—you're not around sometimes, you don't see somebody, just the way the schedules work, for several years, and then you see them again and it's just like you've never left each other. And, I mean, you can call these people for anything you really need and they're there for you. So, it's definitely a little more than just a community for ya. It’s a huge support group for people.(Subjects: family, community) You said you’ve competed in the camp events. Do you like the camp events? Do you think they’re kind of essential to gay rodeo?(Subjects: events) Well, they are. And the reason they are is they were created for us, by us—some of our members. And so, I think that that’s kind of what…it's fun for us. What I do like about most of them—well, I could be a little rough on one of them—but it's good introductory for people, like goat dressing. So, if anybody wants to get out and get in the dirt, it's a perfect one to try. Because, you know, you can run down there, try to put some underwear on a goat, run back. You and a team member, so you're not out there by yourself, so you're a little more comfortable to run and give it a shot.(Subjects: events) Have you ever participated in any rodeos outside of the gay rodeo? I have. Do you notice any major differences between the gay rodeo and mainstream rodeo? You know, not initially—well, years ago, yes. And you had to pretty much…you didn’t let anybody know, if you were at one of those type of rodeos. And usually, their rodeo is not like our rodeo, because we had all different events, and they’re a bunch of men and women, the events are. But I think the difference…but as it's gone by, like now, even some friends will go to a barrel race, or something like that, and nobody cares. They know you're gay, they don’t care. Like, you ride your horse like I ride my horse. So, they don’t care.(Subjects: events, race) Is there anything that you think makes gay rodeo special or different? Yeah, you know, I think there's several things. One is, we're very inclusive. It doesn't matter whether you're gay, straight. You know, transgender—whatever it may be. We have a spot for you. The unique thing with us is that we combine all the events and that all the events, men and women, can compete in. So, bull riding is open to men and women, steer riding is men and women. Where your standard rodeo usually is more separate on what women can do events, and what men can do. So, I do think that that makes us unique.(Subjects: events) How have you seen gay rodeo be a part of your everyday life? You know, one thing you have to learn—as a competitor, you have to be a good loser to be a good winner. So, I think it builds you, your character, in a different way in your everyday life. On how to handle people, deal with people—again, you're dealing with a lot of different personalities as well, and sometimes you don't intend to, but you may hurt somebody’s feelings, and you can look at—and you know. So again, in real life, you're a little more cautious on how you may approach somebody with something that you've learned from this. This is kind of going backwards a bit, but what do you think is the value of royalty in the gay rodeo?(Subjects: royalty) [Someone briefly interrupts the interview; narrator asks interviewer to repeat the question.] You know what, I think it's important in a lot of different ways. Royalty, one allows, and this is a different type of character, that is kind of what makes us unique, because that is something within our own community. It's kind of like the comical part of yourself, to be able to laugh at yourself. Because of the people outside pointing fingers at you sometimes, so it's kind of like a stress relief for you. (Subjects: royalty) But the important part of it is, is they are the ambassadors of the associations as well as IGRA, and they're out there putting our name out there in a positive way throughout the United States. They also are raising money for the association to help you produce this rodeo, ‘cause rodeos are not cheap to produce. I actually am the current president for the Texas Gay Rodeo Association. And so, we produce a rodeo every year. And so, you know, our budget is usually around 70, 80 thousand dollars to produce our rodeo.(Subjects: igra) Wow. So, we have to raise that money, and our royalty is an intricate part of helping us raise that money to produce that rodeo. We have corporate sponsors and stuff like that, too, but we still have to have a lot of incidentals to come in and cover that amount of money. And then all of our money goes back to charity after that.(Subjects: charity, royalty) Do you have a favorite charity or favorite thing that you’ve sponsored?(Subjects: charity) You know, I have a lot of different charities that we’ve worked with. We do some animal rescue charities in Texas and Dallas—I’m Dallas-based. And then we have ANAC, which is AIDS Nurses and AIDS Care, an organization. And they try to keep up with the most common needs with AIDS-care patients as they're coming in. What their needs are, like, are they getting immune to certain meds and stuff? And so, these nurses are very important to that AIDS care. And I think that's helping the longevity of HIV people. So those are usually some of—but we also do, gosh, animal rescue…I mean, it’s just…we’ve got another one that we chose, too, that is dealing with some boy trafficking, with young boys. And it's the first safe house that's come up in Dallas for them, and actually, supposedly, I guess one of very few, actually in the nation or something. And so, that's an intricate part of helping them, knowing that we're going to help youth that, you know, need help. And you said you were around for the Gay Games. Did you attend the Gay Games? I did. I competed in the Gay Games. What was that experience like? Oh, it was…it was emotionally overwhelming. The…just the whole stadium, the arena, it was packed. I actually also played softball…at the Gay Games as well, on the softball team. So, yes, it was it was just overwhelming. I mean, it was just the neatest experience that somebody could have. And just, with people from all over the world, so it was a lot of different cultures put together with the same common goal. Do you hope that one day IGRA can make it back to Gay Games?(Subjects: igra) Yes, I do. It’s ironic that you asked that because I actually helped on a committee with the Dallas…City of Dallas Sports Commission, and they had bid on it. I think it went to Hong Kong though, or Thailand, wherever it's at. The next one. And we bid on, and we actually had rodeo going to be included in that, for the Gay Games. But unfortunately, Dallas didn't get selected [laughs].(Subjects: igra) What other positions have you held within either your own association or within IGRA as a whole?(Subjects: igra) Well, gosh. In my own association, I've been secretary for a couple different chapters, I've been the vice president, and the president. I've been a trustee before, for IGRA. I'm the President’s Committee Chair right now. Gosh, I’ve held several different positions throughout the time.(Subjects: igra) Do you have a favorite position that you’ve held, overall? Honestly, my favorite position has probably been Miss IGRA.(Subjects: igra) You’ve been involved in IGRA for a long time. What’s one of the biggest changes you’ve really seen in your time?(Subjects: igra) Well, one is the need—it's a good change, but then yet it effects—there's not as much of a need for us to have a safe zone place to go to as gay people. Which, that's what kind of rodeo was for, is for us to be able to be safe. Yes, it was to raise money for charity, you know, HIV patients and all—but it was also a safe zone for us to come to and be this, because you really couldn't go in the real world, so to speak, and be yourself. So, since that need is not…since it’s more accepting, as the world changes, and gets more and more accepting, to be gay, so does that…people are out wherever, they don't have to go to a certain spot anymore. So, the need is not as called for anymore. Which is kind of a—but yet, the change is good on the other side of this because we're getting accepted in the real world. So, it’s the pros and cons of it, I guess. Of change.(Subjects: charity, igra) So, what do you think the future of IGRA holds?(Subjects: igra) You know, I don't—you don't know. It can change from time to time. I think that we're having to regroup some, and maybe see about how and what, which way we need to try to grow—which way to grow? I do think that there's a lot of us diligently working on that, to help see where we need to go—a vision. It should be interesting. Because again, it’s not just gay rodeo, but every rodeo. PRCA—the numbers are down, their membership’s down. (Subjects: igra) They can't get youth involved. It's the same issues that PRCA and—I’ll just use them as an example of a rodeo—any rodeo association is having, it’s the same issues that we’re having. Younger people are not into rodeo, so…it should be interesting to see where we go. I think our goal is just to function right now and get all our existing rodeos back on track to where they need to build up first, and then worry about building a larger organization again. Because we used to have 20-something rodeos a year.(Subjects: igra) Wow. We’re down to like 10 now. What was it like being Miss IGRA when gay rodeo was really big, at that time?(Subjects: igra) It was huge. And it was…I traveled a lot, performed a lot. But I actually—what I loved about it is I got to expose the rodeo through the sash, because I was more approachable than just the average person just standing there. You're a character, so you've become very approachable for people to walk up to you. So, I got to expose who we were to a lot of different people and a lot of different communities throughout the United States. So, I mean, from coast to coast, to Canada. It was amazing. So, that to me was probably the biggest part of it. Being that ambassador, just going out and saying who we are, and what does that sash mean. Lettin’ ‘em know who we were.(Subjects: community, igra, performances) I know being a drag queen can take a lot of time and money. Did you put a lot of time and money into being Miss IGRA?(Subjects: igra) I did. I had a whole trunk [laughs] that traveled in a horse trailer all year long. So, what I would do, is when I would fly in here and there to different rodeos, I would change out outfits and stuff in this trunk, take some back, replace some here for the next rodeos coming up that I was gonna be performing at. Just because it was crazy. But yes, trunk traveled in a horse trailer, all full of drag. And yeah, it was. It was very interesting. But yeah, I spent a lot of money on drag.(Subjects: igra, performances) Did you ever make your own outfits, or did you just buy things and piece them together? No, I was a buy off the rack person. I now, actually, have more custom stuff made, just because it's kind of where the drag genre has gone. And I was—right off the rack anyway it would fit me, so I would just buy off the rack. Where would you draw your inspiration from for your drag outfits? You know, it's whatever I seen that I liked. It was kind of interesting. I was very Western-y, like, as a candidate all year long, and they didn't really ever see me in anything sparkly or flashy or nothing all year, until I competed at Finals, and I came out in nothing but sparkles. And so, they were all like, “Where’d this come from?” So, that to me was the fun of the shock value, of kind of changing your character and changing your clothes up, and, you know, outfits, depending on what it was. I like to do some comedy stuff. So, you know, that kind thing—slinging tortillas out of a dress. Or something, but yeah [laughs]. What is it like competing at a Finals Rodeo instead of just a normal rodeo? Well, one, you’re usually against the best of the best. Because it's by invitation only. And so, you have to qualify by points to get—because there's like 20 spots in each category—so you have to actually get an invite. So, I think that's where it is. So, when you excel, you challenge yourself to do really well, because not only is it going to be you doing well, but it's also—you know you're beating a bunch of other really good people. But then, yet, they're all your friends. So, even if you don't beat ‘em and they get you, you're okay, and you’re supportive, and you’re happy for them as well.(Subjects: events) Have you ever placed at Finals before? Yeah, I'm a Finals buckle winner. Uh huh. Wow. So, what you do is you compete for two days, and the best of two days combined score wins a buckle, the overall scores. And so, I've been a Finals buckle winner. What categories have you won in finals? Goats. Goat dressing. Do you think that gay rodeo is more accepting of people regardless of gender, race, anything, than normal rodeo?(Subjects: race) You know, I would say probably, yes. Although I do think that regular…the standard rodeos are a little more accepting about stuff now—I mean, obviously you’re not going to have a drag queen running around. But yes, we are more accepting, I do believe. However, I do think that the straight rodeo circuit has come a long way.(Subjects: race) Did you ever have people in the gay rodeo not be accepting of you as royalty or as your drag persona?(Subjects: royalty) No, you know, I didn't. Although, most of the time, if someone's not cared for in that fashion, or they didn't care for you, it's just that they didn't like you as a person. I mean, that happens in any organization, there’s just some people you may not care for. However, really in this circuit there’s not a lot of people you don’t care for. You may not like how somebody conducts business or handles something or does something, but it's like, okay, but it's them. I don't like that, but hey, it’s you, whatever.(Subjects: royalty) Have you ever experienced any protests at the rodeo? [Laughs] Yes. Many. So, back in younger years, we would have picketers, PETA and people, picket the rodeos. So, yes, I've had to cross several picket lines. Usually, you just ignored it and just kept going.(Subjects: peta) Did you ever have any personal confrontations with them? No. Nope, just keep going. What does it mean to be a cowboy to you?(Subjects: cowperson) You know, I think it's several things. A well-rounded person, for one, as well as a well-rounded athlete. Or, if you're in administration—when I say well-rounded—so, I like being an official? I have to be well-rounded, I have to be accepting of a lot of different people, a lot of different ways, and a lot of different personalities, and I have to learn how to deal with it. So, yes, you can go what's called the traditional cowboy way, of, okay, the way of life is ranching or rodeoing or doing those kind of things. But I think a true cowboy is at heart, and it's what you have at heart and what you can put out to people, and the type of person you are.(Subjects: cowperson) Do you think you’re a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) Oh, yes. Yes.(Subjects: cowperson) In your everyday life would you say you’re a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) Yes.(Subjects: cowperson) Do you own a ranch or anything? No, I do not. Not anymore. I’m more in the city now. Just because it's more, it's just more convenient, and I don't compete anymore. So, I’m in the city. What is your current profession or job?(Subjects: jobs) I own a florist. So. [Both laugh](Subjects: jobs) Nice. So, where do you currently live then? In Garland. Texas? Yes, I've come back to Garland, Texas. Have you seen Garland change a lot then as well over time? Oh, huge. Huge. Huge change. It's interesting just to go in any restaurant, most of the time, in town and you're going to see other gay people, and say, “Hey, what's going on?” And so, it's not like we have to go down to a certain bar that’s considered a gay bar or anything like that. It's grown a lot. I mean, it's not as rural as it used to be, it's very city now. The demographics have changed, with the people who now have moved in. It was an old city, and a lot of those people who now have passed on. And so, it's got new blood coming in. So, yeah, it's changed quite a bit. Very accepting. Literally, even like high school. I mean, they have kids in high school that are out, and the same high school I graduated from. And it’s like, there’s no way I could have been in that position.(Subjects: events) Is there anything you as current President of the Texas Gay Rodeo Association that you would like to change within your personal association? There is, you know…our association is a very different association than most associations, because we have a state board and then we have chapters. We have five chapters: Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio, and there's boards in each one of those cities, and they conduct business. What I would like is for, honestly, is to get some younger people that would step into some of these other lead positions for us. We need some more younger people to take some of these lead positions. That's what I would like to see change. How do you think you can recruit those younger generations? That's the question. So, the key is, is we have not learned how to reach that younger generation. That's the key. We know how to teach them once we get them interested here. But again, for some of the older people, as well as—we are not sure how to reach those younger people to be able to get them involved. So sometimes it is through a situation like this—somebody that’s met, or in an interview, or someone’s family and knows this one or knows that, or happened to be a friend that goes, “Oh, you know what? My son or daughter wants to be involved,” or something like that. So, but we need to figure out and we have not figured out, and that's on the association as a whole: how to reach the younger generation. I don’t know if it’s through electronic, it’s somewhere—Snapchat! Something [laughs].(Subjects: family) Is there anything you think that needs to change in IGRA as a whole to be able to reach those younger generations?(Subjects: igra) Again, I think, it’s the same struggle. I think that we’re still…we are IGRA, all of the associations. So, again, we're an older group. It's an older group, and we're still trying to figure out how to reach those people.(Subjects: igra) Is there anything that you would like to add to your experience of being a part of the gay rodeo? No, you know, not necessarily. I mean, it just kind of goes and comes and—being an official was kind of what I wanted to do at this point. And again, down the road, it could be something else. But right now, I'm kind of where I want to be at with being a certified arena director and chute coordinator. Do you see yourself continuing to be involved in IGRA as it continues on?(Subjects: igra) Oh, yes. Oh, yes.(Subjects: igra) All right, thank you very much.

Janet Stange Click to filter

This is Saraya Flaig and I’m here with Janet Stange at the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association Rodeo on February 15th, 2020. So, Janet, what year were you born? Born in 1965. And where did you grow up? Perrysburg, Ohio. What was your childhood like? We grew up with ponies and horses on a farm, a 2 3/4-acre farm, so we were always in the horse business. My dad was a Shriner, and he rode parades, and we grew up showing horses and 4-H through the county fair. And then we had a tri-state rodeo association that we followed growing up. When we were old enough, we traveled all over Ohio, and Michigan, and Indiana, and I showed. Then I showed in the quarter horse circuit with a trail horse. Then I got tired of the fancy stuff and said, “Dad, I need something fast.” And went into barrel racing and all that.(Subjects: childhood) Wow. So, did you ever win in those rodeos growing up?(Subjects: childhood) Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was a – it was a big deal on that. It was, I mean – you were out there in the hot sun, and you did every event. So, we had a lot of different events back then, being young, and 4-H, and everything else. So, we used to have to do trot and canter carrying an egg on a spoon, on your horse, all the way around. And if you dropped your spoon, you’re out. Stuff like that. There was all different things – but we still had the barrels, poles, and flags. So, I’ve always known those three events that the rodeo has. We never had this calf roping. It’s always been, like, the breakaway, and the tie down, and stuff like that. Yeah. This calf roping on foot is really neat. It allows people that don’t own horses to be a part of the rodeo.(Subjects: childhood, events) Yeah. And then, do you have any favorite memories from childhood? Oh, my favorite is just growing up, getting on my bareback pony all the time when I was little. And going barefoot around the farm, and the fields, and just having a good old time. And it was just – I was very blessed. My parents, you know, my dad had his own businesses as a septic tank man, and we were very blessed to have those ponies and horses to grow up with. And we worked hard for ‘em.(Subjects: childhood) Yeah. So, do you have any siblings? Yes. I am the baby of four. My oldest brother used to compete in the gay rodeo circuit. He retired, and he’s the one who got me hooked into the gay rodeo circuit. I did not even know he was doing it and didn’t even know it was out there. Wow. So how did you find out he was doing the gay rodeo? He called me – I’ll never forget it – he called me in 2005. I was in Texas, and he said, “Sister, I’m in your state. You want to come see me?” I’m like, “What are you doing?” He goes, “I’m in the rodeo finals for the gay rodeo.” I’m like, “What?” And I worked for Coca-Cola, and I was a bartender for the gay bar for Abilene, Texas. So, I – and we – had no idea it was going on. I had no idea. And so that’s why I was like, you know, the lack of communication that some people didn’t even know about it. So, yeah. So, I was hooked after I went to his finals. I went up there and saw him and I’m like, “I can do that. I can do that.” So, I was hooked with him. So was that – what was your first experience at the gay rodeo like? It was amazing just to get out here and play in the dirt again. And I started with the chute dogging, steer deco with my brother – he showed me deco, how to tie the ribbon. He was the header. Chute dogging, he just showed me and talked me through it. And then wild drag, that was what I started with: three. Started with three events, and now I’m in eight.(Subjects: events) How did you do on those first – that first rodeo? Um, the first rodeo, it was okay. I mean, I did, I think…I can’t even remember. I think I did win. I mean, I placed if anything at that. It’s been a long time. That was 15 years ago. So what are your eight events now that you do?(Subjects: events) I’m now into the calf roping on foot, the chute dogging, steer deco, poles, barrels, flags, wild drag, and goats.(Subjects: events) What is your favorite event that you do?(Subjects: events) Chute dogging. Do you think your perspective, kind of, changed on rodeo when you found out women could also do the rough stock events?(Subjects: events) Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I’m all for it because I hated that, you know, like watching the NFR, that the girls only get to do barrels. I’m very proud that they’ve changed a little bit now that they can finally do break away. But I love that we get to compete in our events, too.(Subjects: events) Are there quite a few women that compete in the rough stock events?(Subjects: events) Yeah. There was. It’s kind of dying now but, I mean, it’s… you know, we’re trying to build it back up. It’s just, it’s tough. Steers and bull riding, it’s a tough event. Chute dogging is really the best event for girls to start and to get into. Have you done any bull riding? Would you ever want to try it? No. I wanted to, on my bucket list, but wife said I’m too old. Have you ever been injured doing the rodeo?(Subjects: injuries) Oh, yeah. Could you elaborate on that? Okay. My worst injury was, I was in Little Rock, Arkansas’s rodeo and my horse – we won flags the first day, and we go in the second day to start the flag race. And I go to pick, and I pick it, and the next thing I know, I’m blacked out at the end of the dirt. And she had bucked me off. I had no idea that if you lean forward, she would buck. So, I had an L-3 eye socket crack, I had a – no. I had an eye socket crack, L-3 spinal fracture, and then a hematoma from here to here. And that’s why I wear a helmet now. Because to fix an eye socket fracture – I was lucky I didn’t have splinters, or shaved, or broken – they would take your face off to fix it. So, now I wear a helmet.(Subjects: injuries, race) Crazy. Did that stop you from competing at all? No. I heated, I treated it. I did a lot of medicine on my own. I went to the doctors. But it, I mean, I went to the hospital. I passed out. I went to the hospital in an ambulance. I remember that. And stayed there an extra day. I got a CAT scan and all that stuff in Little Rock. But when I got home, I treated it: ice, heat, the hematoma. And then I used my tendon machine to loosen up the blood vessels, stuff like that. So, you learn how to be a medic. Physical therapy for yourself. You know, you have to save some money. Yeah. So, you said you competed in both, like, normal rodeos, mainstream rodeo, kind of growing up and then... 4-H and everything. Yeah, I was in everything. The showmanship, the barrels, poles, and flags growing’ up. So, yeah, this is not new. Yeah. So, what do you – what are some of the differences you’ve noticed between those rodeo events you competed in growing up compared to the gay rodeo?(Subjects: events) Nothing really different there. It’s the same events, it’s just the, you know, we were younger then. And, you know, now we’re just all a big family here, at gay rodeo stuff.(Subjects: events) Yeah. Do you think there’s anything that makes gay rodeo special? I think it’s the people. The people and the camaraderie; that we all care about each other. It’s not, you know, I know they talked about back in the day it used to be cutthroat, but I wasn’t around for then. And it’s just, you know, we love it and that’s why we’re here is the passion, you know, because it’s not – there’s not the money anymore. I’ve seen the stories in the old films, and I’m sure you have from the archives and stuff that, you know, we used to have thousands and thousands of people in the stands, but I never got to experience that. The most I think I’ve experienced it was, Forth Worth Finals had like about 1,000 to 1,500 people in there at the Will Rogers Stadium. And that was a lot of people. Have you competed in a finals rodeo then? Oh yeah. I’ve been in almost every event. Except the first year because I really wasn’t – do I go for one event or not? What events have you competed in at finals?(Subjects: events) All of ‘em now. Except for barrels or rough stock – except for steer riding, and team roping, and breakaway, and bulls. Those four. Wow. Have you won any buckles, then, at finals rodeo? I finally won my first buckle with my brother in 2014 in steer deco before he retired. We finally did it, and then he said, “I’m done.” Then I finally won my first chute dogging final buckle last year, which now was my passion because I just – you know, I’m over 50 and that was my passion of getting there. I’ve worked hard, I’ve tried to encourage other women to get in there with me and play. And, yeah, they beat me. I don’t care. I love the sport. I love that event. But I don’t care if they beat me. That was my golden ticket this year because I really strived for it, and I got it by less than a tenth of a second – it was that close. Wow. Do you have a favorite buckle, then? That one now. That one for now. I have a lot of buckles. That’s exciting. Do you have any favorite memories of participating in a finals rodeo? I would say, the one that my brother and I won. That one because it was so special, and my sister was there and her husband. It just seemed more – it was a big crowd, and he cried. We got the banner for the steer deco, and it was just really special because it was our first one together. Because he already had a chute dogging buckle from years ago before I even knew he was doing it. And that’s all he had – or, I think, or something else. If he even had a goat one. But when I started competing, and then it was brother and sister, and chute dogging female and male, I guess my score started getting closer to him. He was a little upset with that. Would your scores have beat his scores ever? A couple times I have. That’s pretty exciting. He’s like, “Hummm… sister’s getting stronger.” Yeah, he’s six years older than me. Wow. So, what was that like doing gay rodeo with your brother? It was amazing; it was great. He taught me a lot, showed me the ropes, and I came right into the rodeo family. It was great.(Subjects: family) Do you have any other memories that you’d like to share with your brother doing gay rodeo specifically? Well, the other memory is, you know, that’s how I met my wife. At the gay rodeo. Could you expand on that? In Oklahoma City, she came with a very good friend of mine that is somewhat of my teammate. And he brought her. She never heard of the gay rodeo out of Kansas City, and she wasn’t doing anything memorial weekend. I was with my brother; we shared a room and all that because we’re teammates and stuff. And I was standing there talking to the arena director, just hanging out, on Friday, at registration in my shorts and T-shirt – just hanging out talking. And she walked in with him. And he first saw me and Todd, and he goes, “Oh, my god. You gotta meet my new friend,” and all that stuff. And he was the like showing her off to everybody. I’m like, “Nice to meet you.” And he said, “Oh, she’s going to do this. Will you help her in the girl’s side?” And I’m like, “Sure, no problem. I’ll help her,” and stuff like that. So, I kind of just went about my way, and she went about her way. Then, all day on Saturday, you know, when we start warming up – and all of a sudden, she was just sitting up there watching. Like, every time I kept going down to stretch and work out, get ready for my event, I look up and she’s staring at me. She kept staring at me. And then finally I look up at her, and then I snuck up – I thought she was cute – so then, I snuck up behind her and I said, “How you doing?” Scared the shit out of her. And she went, “Okay.” And I’m like, “Okay. You have any questions? What’s going on?” And she goes, “Nothing, just hanging out.” “Okay.” (Subjects: events) So, then, I think it was Saturday – Saturday we were all going about our ways, picking up our bags and stuff, and going to eat. We’re all discussing where we’re going to eat. She walked by me, and she goes, “Can I give you a kiss?” I’m like, “Okay, right in front of my brother?” And my brother goes, “Sister! Stay away from her.” And Todd pulled her away and goes, “Stay away from each other!” So, it was like big brothers were pulling each other away. So then, I’m like, “You don’t pay my bills. I’m a big girl, if I want to go see somebody, I will.” So, we went out Saturday night. Had a good time, sat out by the venue pool and just talked and drank, stuff like that. And my wingman – or, her wingman – was Pepe. Pepe was our wingman. He was with us. He’s the history of our relationship. Then Saturday night came and I was pissed at my brother, so I moved out of the hotel room we were sharing and got my own hotel room. And she came and stayed with me. And this is where it comes into the two full on Sunday night, after finals and awards and stuff. She came back and we talked, and we sat up all night. We’d been drinking and stuff; she talked about her family history. And this was Memorial Weekend – get the dates, okay. So, she’s sitting’ there telling me. And I went to bed, and she said she didn’t feel good. And I said, “You okay?” And she goes, “Yeah, I’m okay.” And then all of a sudden, she wakes me up and she’s – well, our phone’s ringing because Todd’s like, “Let’s go, let’s go.” And she said she didn’t feel good again. She was throwing up and stuff and I had slept through it. I go, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She goes, “It’s okay.” But she had told me that her dad died on Memorial Weekend of a heart attack, so it’s in her family. She didn’t want to tell him, and so he thought she was hungover. And she had to ride back with him, all the way to Kansas City, so she forewarned everybody that she didn’t feel good, and she might have to stop throw up. He’s like, “Hey, you drank too much. Blah, blah, blah.” And so, she got back home to Kansas City, and I went to Texas. I said I would take her home because I was off, and she said, “No, no,” because, you know, we just met. And so, I went home to Texas, and I kept calling her.(Subjects: family) And then she was in the seventies – she didn’t feel good, let’s see, that was Memorial Day, that Monday. She got home Tuesday. She went to work Wednesday. She didn’t feel good again, so she called her doctors. They ran her a little stress test, and then they ran the dye tests – I guess this is only way they can tell. And she was in the seventy-second hour of finding out she had a heart attack. And they said, “Immediately turn around and come back into the hospital,” and they were putting two stints in. And I was in Texas. I had facetimed her and met all her friends from up there, and one was a good friend of ours that’s a nurse doctor in the hospital she was at. So, yeah, I gave her a heart attack. [laughs] Just kidding. But anyway, that’s our history of it, and we, you know, we connected. It was 756 miles from my door in Texas to her door. I would drive it. I would fly it. I knew all the ins and outs of American, to go San Angelo to Dallas to Kansas City on Fridays, or she would drive down. But I did most of it ‘cause I had the freedom. How long did you drive back and forth? A year and a half, a year and a half. Wow. So, where do you both live now? We got through, through corporate America. We kept our eyes out. She was lucky – her job, she asked for a tranSFer to Wichita. And I took a demo. I had my own station for FedEx Ground as a senior manager in San Angelo and gave up a cushy job and went back to the outbound as an outbounds manager – which it helped me develop for the company anyways, because my little station didn’t have that much volume and stuff. So, we got to tranSFer. And I kept watching for positions open, and one just happened to open. I actually had to – the senior manager wouldn’t accept me on the first one, so I had to, you know, so I kinda had to, almost… I drove up – Denise had some kind of function in Wichita – and I met her face-to-face. And she ended up being a lesbian. And I’m like, “This is why I’m moving.” Cause you kind of got to watch who you’re telling you’re moving and you’re leaving this corporate position. So, until you know them…. So, I physically went up there, met her face-to-face. And she goes, “Oh, okay, we’ll find a spot for you.” So that’s how we – and we just lucked out with our jobs because I was like, I didn’t wanna leave it. I was 10 plus years in. And she didn’t wanna leave hers, so that’s how we worked it out. I picked up everything from and she still had a condo. She has two daughters and a grandbaby now. They’re older, you know, 25, 26, below 30. We have a 6-year-old granddaughter, and they have cattle in Missouri. We’re three and a half hours from them.(Subjects: jobs) And then you are married to her? Yes, we got married in ‘11, 10/12. And we went to Sioux City, Iowa. Our good friend, Slick, she lives out there on her cattle ranch. And she used to rodeo. She retired from rodeo and so we all were friends then. And then my brothers and sisters – my brothers and sister came, and her daughters came and were in the wedding, and all it was all rodeo. That was our family. Yes. Came to Iowa. And we had a little reception. We had a great little venue that Slick hooked us up on. And it was just an amazing, intimate little wedding. It snowed; it was cold. But we had a really good wedding. Yeah, we did it at church. I think it was a MCC church. Yeah, we did it there. We had a great little lesbian couple venue. The food was delicious; the cake was amazing. And I just couldn’t believe how many people showed up – just 50-some altogether.(Subjects: family) That sounds like a great wedding. Yeah. It was not this group. It wasn’t that many of this group. I want to, I’m trying to think… yeah, because I wasn’t really knowing all this group yet, so it was a different side of the rodeo family than that.(Subjects: family) So was it like your rodeo family from doing rodeo before?(Subjects: family) Yeah, yeah. It was the rodeo family of earlier days. Yeah, and they’re all not here anymore. That’s the gist of it. So now it’s a new rodeo family.(Subjects: family) So does the rest of your – do any of your other siblings do rodeo as well? Or just you and your brother? Yep, just the brother until he retired. And now, he just plays and travels. My second brother-sibling, we share the same birthday. He owns the family business. He took it over from dad. You know, him and his wife and daughter, they ride horses. She’s a pleasure, cutting horses and all that. They did all that stuff. And my sister used to be in all this stuff with me because we were closest – two years apart. So, we showed all the time, but she quit and got married, and moved to Hawaii, and all that stuff. But she’s back in Ohio now. She’s been to a lot of our rodeos. She’s come and seen a lot in support of me.(Subjects: family) And so, what was it like coming out to your family or friends?(Subjects: comingout, jobs, family) It was tough, I’ll tell you that. You know why? Because the brother came out first. So, I kind of knew, and he kind of knew. And he did it first. He was in college, and I was in high school. I was in high school, and I knew I was gay – actually, junior high. So, he come home one Christmas for – to tell everybody. And I’ll never forget, in the farmhouse kitchen him and I are talking, and I said, “Yeah, brother, you can come out, but I’m gay too.” He goes, “Don’t tell mom and dad.” So, I didn’t. And he got disowned for 10 years. I never knew it. He told me that mom and dad – mom threw the Bible at him. I had no idea. I had no idea.(Subjects: comingout) So did you later tell your parents? Yeah. Were they accepting or not? I didn’t tell them fully. Because I’ve always had roommates playing ball – because I was in college and played ball, had full rides at the University of Toledo. I play volleyball, softball. So, I always had roommates that were “my friends,” brought ‘em home to the farm, stuff like that. I think they finally put two and two together when I finally moved in with somebody that had kids, in Texas. I actually left the university after I finished my college days; I ended up in California. So, I’ve been around. I’ve had a very, I’d say, colorful travel of the years. I went from graduated from college, met somebody, went down to Dayton. And then I went to California, followed them because they were military with kids. And I worked for Airborne Express out there. I’ve experienced being left on the street. Because she left me for a man. And bad days of illegal drugs, been through all that. So, in California, had no family, no nothing. And lost it all. And got myself up, and vowed I’d never do that again. So, yeah, I had some rough times. And I went, on my own, and saw the L.A. rodeos out in California way before – I had no idea that my brother was even doing ‘em – way before then. I saw one. I just, I was out, lonely, and saw it at a bar that was posted. So, I went to it. I was like, “Wow, that’s pretty cool.” But I was in a rut, so I just faded away and never thought about it again. Until I moved back to – I took the Greyhound bus to Texas from California. I left all this stuff in storage for 3 years here, finally got it out 3 years later.(Subjects: family, jobs) Wow. Yeah, I’ve had a traveling time. And, so, did you grow up pretty religious at all?(Subjects: religion) We were Lutherans. We went every Sunday. Dad would wake us up. We’d gripe and moan when we got older, but he’d wake us up and we’d go every Sunday. In this great small town of Perrysburg, we had a great church. I really liked it, and stuff like that.(Subjects: religion) Are you still religious now? No, we don’t. We – we’ve been to MCCs, been to a lot of MCCs. I was religious back in Abilene a lot, with the one I was dating then with kids and stuff. We tried that. We just have, you know, we have our own time with them.(Subjects: religion) So, what do you think about camp events in the gay rodeo?(Subjects: events) I love ‘em. That’s my fave. That’s my fave and that’s – you know why? If you saw me in goats today, I picked up a rookie. I do that a lot. I pick up a rookie because it’s an easy event to show somebody to get thrilled about it. You know, because he was in rodeo school and his first experience, he wanted to try steer riding and all that ‘cause Utah – he’s coming from Utah. And he got a little hurt. And then he’s like, “Well, I want to learn goat dressing.” So, I showed him how to goat dress. And I said, “Well, you know, I don’t have a partner. Would you like to partner with me?” He goes, “Oh my god, yes.” And I’m like, “Okay.” You know, I don’t care. I want to – I want more people to have a good experience, you know, to come and stay and promote us. So, I don’t always have to win. I just want to have fun now. I’m at that age of 55. I mean, I’ve gotten my buckle I wanted. So, I’m enjoying now that I’ve been – now that I’ve hooked up with some great persons like David and Robin Kegel and Rhonda that let me, allow me to ride some wonderful horses, that’s where my passion is now. ‘Cause I love riding them, going back and riding again. And I love chute dogging.(Subjects: teaching, events) Do you own any horses yourself? No, I used to. In Texas I had four horses and walked away from all of it for Denise. Left it all. Have you and your wife ever partnered up for any events before?(Subjects: events) No. Nope, she’s the chute coordinator. But no, she competed with Todd at that rodeo, and she got kicked so bad in the arm – from him. And that’s where she thought, you know, with the heart attack, that we thought that was it – her bruising on her arm. How has being involved in gay rodeo affected other aspects of your life? It’s been financial. And, you know, it’s my expensive hobby, as I call it. It’s, you know, some days are tough for work. But I budget and plan. I really budget and plan so that I can do my – this is my vacation times. This is my enjoyable vacation because I can’t take it with me. I don’t have any kids. So, I plan on enjoying life. And then, once we get done, Denise and I get done with this one, enjoy life again.(Subjects: jobs) Do you see yourself participating in the rodeo for the foreseeable future, as long as you can? As long as I can. As long as my health holds up, I plan on staying. And have you held any, like, administrative-type positions within the rodeos or your association? No, I’m pretty much just a contestant liaison. I’ve been the contestant liaison for three years now. So what do you do in that role? We’re here to help contestants, especially new contestants. That’s why I’m big about them – helping ‘em through the rules, their class, or their events they’re in. To let them know the breakdowns of it, what they’re going to see, what’s gonna happen, who’s gonna ask this, blah, blah, blah. And the rules and regulations so they don’t get DQ’ed. Yeah, it’s pretty much – and I’m not, I’m like a go-to person, but I’m not official. So, I always make sure that they understand who’s the Skittles: the red, the yellow, the blues, and greens, and who go to for what. And if you have any questions, always come to us.(Subjects: events) What is the association you’re a part of? I’m in Red River Rodeo Association. I was in North Star with my brother forever. And then I’ve only been in Red River now after that. I think I was 10 years with North Star. It was just – my brother and I were the only competitors from North Star then. And I was out of Minnesota. Oh, wow. And have you noticed any differences between the North Star Association and the Red River Association? Red River is a lot easier. Well, both of them are really easy. It’s not – because we did – Carl lived in Minnesota, but I didn’t. So, I didn’t have to do anything. Red River is really easy, and we don’t require a lot of stuff commitment-wise. And then, when we have something, you know, like we always – we do a lot of rodeo schools because our President has the facility for us to do that. So, we do a lot of rodeo schools to make money. And have you seen, kind of, IGRA or even your own associations change over the time that you’ve been involved?(Subjects: igra) Yes. Our association is huge, but they don’t come out and support. They do a lot of their own barrel racing and their own roping because they’re all from Texas. They’re big barrels and roping people. They don’t come out, to travel. They’ll come to Texas, they’ll come to Oklahoma, they’ll come to Kansas City, but that’s it.(Subjects: igra) Have you seen numbers, kind of, grow within your own association over the years, then? Well, we’re a branch off of the – let’s see, Texas had one, two, three chapters. And we broke off from it and made our own, well our President did. What is your favorite aspect of the gay rodeo and being part of it? The family. Getting to hang out with everybody and socializing. But my biggest thing is being with everyone. We all care about each other. We’ve been doing this for so long, for 15 years. I have a 15-year relationship with this, with all these people. I mean, we’re just talking about – my teammates Bubba and Luke – we were just talking about how, just yesterday – because we were a six pack as a group for a while. It was four boys and Denice and I. We would get Airbnb’s, we’d go to restaurants together, we’d go do stuff, we went on adventures, we made vacations as families and stuff. And we’re all placed all over the United States. But we always flew together, worked together, and played together. And we got Airbnb’s, just had a blast. So, we were just reminiscing about all the stuff we’d done. That was in the last five years.(Subjects: family) Wow, that’s cool. Yeah, it really is. Have you ever met a rodeo cowboy or cowgirl that was openly gay outside of gay rodeo? I mean, like, are you talking about NFR people? Yeah, in any other venue. Not ours, right? Yeah. Probably not. I don’t remember. I might have, but I don’t remember. I know of some people that talked about some people. What does being a cowgirl mean to you?(Subjects: cowperson) Very proud to be able to tell people that I actually flip a steer, actually rope a calf, and I get to ride a horse. I tell them, you know, I don’t wear boots all time. But I do it. I love it. I just think it’s really neat to have that on my title. So, you would say you’re a cowgirl, then, for sure? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I love my jeans. I love my jeans, I love my boots, I love my hats, but Denise hates me in hats – at least in a cowboy hat. And our wedding was in a cowboy hat; I was in a cowboy hat and a tux. Oh, yes, I wore my black cowboy hat.(Subjects: cowperson) Do you think the larger LGBTQ+ community supports the rodeo?(Subjects: community) Depends on what city. Which cities would you say are more accepting of…? Of coming to the rodeos and stuff like that? Because there’s, I mean, there is some places in Dallas that does, but I don’t know... I mean, our rodeo venue has changed so much since then. Obviously, this rodeo is a different kind of LGBTQ that comes here, but their support of the buses and stuff just brings them in. Um, California, the Bay Area, has a good following. Nevada, Las Vegas does. Minnesota has one, but it’s, you know, it’s not at the arena, it’s more in town. Oklahoma used to, and hopefully now that we have it back, they’ll be there. Kansas City had one, but, you know, they – they’re a dying breed on their bars up there, too. I mean, because we’re so accepted everywhere now, it’s not just…(Subjects: community) Do you think that kind of changes the way gay rodeo is viewed or what the experience is like of people who are part of it? No, not really. It’s just, I think it’s just the financials. People don’t think about spending this kind of money doing this. They don’t think about that. They, you know, it’s the millennial time. It’s a quick fix. When you say there’s like a different kind of LGBTQ+ that comes here to the Arizona rodeo, can you expand on what you mean by that? The Spanish side. You see it. This is totally, totally because they own the Corona Ranch and Charlie’s bar, that brings them here. I mean, it’s really, really amazing. Those people out there, coming and, you know, they were a hit in our stands. And then you go out there and they’re still out there. And it’s like, “Oh, my gosh.” And that’s both nights now. Like last night, even at registration, it was packed. So, I mean, it was a lot of fun last night, too. Is there anything else you would like to add to your experience about IGRA or any other favorite memories or stories you want to share? Favorite memory, sure. Of the rodeo? I mean, the six pack, our family that we’ve established, is just amazing. We do have our commitments because we’re all older, and we all have professional jobs too. So, it was just – we still had our own page. We talk to each other, and we look forward to this spending time with just us and hanging out and talking, and stuff like that. We’re all – only Denise and I are together. One is in Arizona and he’s actually at his pro rodeo, so he couldn’t be here. He can’t be here because it’s on his weekend. So, he’s actually gay and nobody knows he is, kind of, sort of. He’s in charge of the Tucson Professional Rodeo. And then my buddy Bubba, he’s the San Quinton gunner in California. And Luke is in Colorado, and then Jason’s in California, in San Francisco. So those are my favorite memories of that, and then also competing with my brother, getting that. Cause that brother-sister, not too many have that brother-sister company. And then actually, we won Colorado. I won the female chute dogging, and he won the male chute dogging. We’d never done that before. And we got to compete in Gay Games together too.(Subjects: jobs, family) What was your Gay Games experience like? Amazing. We got there early, Denise and I, we went down to the park where, you know, they told us we weren’t – we thought we were going the right way to sign up. But we got to see everything: all the other different sports and stuff, all of the signing up and all that. We got to get some great gear. And everybody else for the rodeo signed up, like locally, back in Akron. We’re like, “Oh, my god, you’ve got this, this, this and this.” And then to go to the Cleveland Field – and I’d been there and, you know, when I lived in Toledo, so I’d been to Cleveland – and to go to that baseball field and fill it with all of us and our color codes. And then walk under the street and go into the Cleveland Cavaliers Stadium. And just like the Olympics, being called in was unbelievable – never forget it. I will never forget that. But I will never forget to talk about that because, you know, it’s kind of gone. That was in 2014, too. Do you hope that one day IGRA can be a part of Gay Games again? Oh, yeah. But it’s, you know, it’s overseas. I think they were bidding for one out here somewhere just recently. We were all talking about that. Here comes my wife. She texted me and I said, “I’m still here.” Alight. Well, I think that’s all the questions I have for you. Thank you for your time.

Patrick Terry Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield and I am here with Patrick Terry and it's October 21st, 2017, and we're at the World Gay Rodeo Finals in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Can you tell me when you were born? Yes, November 25th, 1957. I celebrate my 60th birthday next month. Congratulations! Yes, I am treating myself to a cruise. That's gonna be amazing. So where were you born? Denver, Colorado. And... Born and raised on the west side, graduated from Almeida High School, and then went on to college and graduated from CU. I have a bachelors in PR and business management. So the area you grew up in, was it pretty urban?(Subjects: childhood) Yes, yes.(Subjects: childhood) Did you grow up as a city kid?(Subjects: childhood) No. People might say I did, but I didn't 'cause even though I didn't have my own horse, I had people that had them and so I was constantly riding.(Subjects: childhood) Were you pretty horse crazy as a kid?(Subjects: childhood) Yes I was. Always have been and still am.(Subjects: childhood) When did you first learn to ride?(Subjects: childhood) Oh gosh, I would say probably about when I was about 6, 7 years old, I first rode and I then I knew. I knew then, and still do, that I love it... So then, you know, through high school, our high school didn't offer an equine type of program like that so I went into the program called the Westernaires, which is a professional riding, I mean kids riding, group that puts on a show for public events. And when I was in it there was about 15, no there was about 500 people in it, and now there's 2,500.(Subjects: childhood) Oh, wow. Yeah. And to do that, did you have to have your own horse? No. And see, I was fortunate enough that my father's boss had a horse and so I was able to do it. But of the four kids, I was the only one who took an interest in doing it, and so I did it and then, you know, had my own horse for a while and then sold it for different reasons, various financial and everything. But I always have had that passion to ride and be a part of rodeos and everything else. And so then, I came out as a gay man in 1987 and right away jumped right into it, into the western lifestyle and gay rodeo, and have gone on from there.(Subjects: childhood, parents, comingout, highlight) And so, when did you first know you were gay? Very interesting question, because people, a lot of people will say you're born with it. I don't believe that at all. I have gone through two engagements to women and it was during my year that I travelled in Up With People, which is a singing/performing group that travels all over the world, I did that and was a staff member also one year, that I started having feelings because, you know, a lot of times we'd share, 'cause we stayed with host families wherever we went, so a lot of times we'd share a bed with another handsome man. You know, 85% of the men in Up With People are gay because its theater and production.(Subjects: comingout, jobs) And so I started having these feelings, and then I was so scared because my brother, my little brother, was gay. And it all came out when he was 16 and it wasn't good. He got caught fooling around in the park, got arrested, you know. My dad had to go bail him out. My dad bailed him out and then kicked him out of the house and wanted nothing to do with him. And so he grew up. And I have always said, he paved the path for me to be able to come out because it was so much easier for me to come out. My father never knew that I was before he passed away but my mom, I told her right away. I said, "You know, this is it. I am this." (Subjects: comingout, family, parents) My brother had seen me working at a gay bar. He came for the grand opening of this one particular bar and I was bartending. And it was kind of, kind of... not a real good thing. But he, rather than talk or say anything, he goes and stands right in front of the register where I was bartending, he and his partner, all night. And so, then he brings it up at Thanksgiving, that I have this job. And he says, you know, "What's your extra job that you're doing?" 'Cause at the time I was working in retail. (Subjects: comingout, jobs, family) At that time I was store, I mean department, manager for the entire mens' department of Bradburry Southwest. I had seven departments in one, 55 employees, 3 assistants, and it was a multimillion dollar business a year. It was big. I was the first one with that company to ever have multiple departments. So, I was working there and doing that and then I started, you know, going to gay bars and then, all of a sudden, they're asking me, "You wanna bartend?" And so I did. I went to Charlie's and in 1987, it was probably in August or September, and, right away, they were in the process of moving downtown from the Aurora area, they said, "You wanna work here?" And I helped put the new bar together and everything else. Which, ironically, was the same place where I went to my senior high school homecoming dinner. It used to be a restaurant called Emerson Street East and it's ironic to go back into that building. And I was bartending, DJing, waiting, bar backing, and everything.(Subjects: jobs) And so, after I'd left the other bar and went on with Charlie's, then it was after that because the owner, the general manager, he was one of the founders: Wayne Jakino, he was one of the founders of IGRA and CGRA. Actually, CGRA first and then IGRA. He pushed me into getting more involved. I went to my first rodeo in Phoenix, Arizona, finals rodeo, in 1987 and had a great time and everything else and I said, "This is it; I want to." So I did, and I got in. And so, in 1988, I joined CGRA and from there the general manager continued to push me into a position that he had helped create for the International, which was the administrative assistant, and so I took over for a guy that got sick and eventually died of AIDs.(Subjects: jobs) I took over 1993, worked in the office as the administrative assistant for 10 years 'till 2003 and then resigned from that for other reasons, you know, which probably aren't so important. But I did that and have been involved, basically, with gay rodeo since 1988. Have been rodeo director of Denver's rodeo twice, I've been finals rodeo director, can't remember what year... 2013. How can I forget that? 2013. I was finals rodeo director in Fort Worth, Texas, and have served on various committees, not only at CGRA level but also IGRA level. I've been trustee for CGRA twice and have done other things, committees and everything else. (Subjects: jobs) Then in 2000... gosh, sorry can't remember, either 2013 or 2012. I think it was '12, I was inducted into the hall of fame. I found out that I was not only nominated once, but twice in the same year. The first year that I was nominated, I went into the hall of fame. It's very dear to me. It's an honor. It's, you know, means a lot. And I've served on that committee and everything else but I had to recuse myself because I was on the committee at the time I was nominated. So the chair said that I had to back out of it during the process of them deciding who was gonna make it. And so, I believe it was in 2012, was at convention in Las Vegas, my rodeo mom and dad and my real mom, sister, and her husband came to it and supported me during this time of recognition and everything. And so...(Subjects: jobs, family, highlight) So, can I ask, going back, what year did you travel with Up With People? 84 and '85.(Subjects: jobs) 84 and '85. So, it was right around there that you came out? It was after. Basically, right towards the end of it in '85 and then, I was so scared at first because I saw what my brother had gone through. And I was so scared that I stayed in the closet for two years until coming out in 1987.(Subjects: comingout) And did anything particularly draw you to Charlie's, to the sort of country western side?(Subjects: jobs) I loved the music, I loved the dancing, I loved the animals. And, through the years I've done various things with IGRA including, one of them being, I was score keeper for several years. I did it but I didn't really like it because it took me away from the contestants. And during the 10 years that I was the administrative assistant, I worked directly with the contestants, and that to me was the thing. So, now that I've taken a couple of years off and I've come back, today reassured me. I belong with the contestants, not up in the booth, but back there. So I pulled gates, did the gates for the speed events, for the horse contests, and everybody was really excited to see me. Not only see me back 'cause after being gone for two years, but that I was wanting to volunteer. I said, "Well, it's just, I can't just sit there and watch. There is no way I can go and sit in an audience and not participate."(Subjects: community) So, at the very first rodeo you went to, did you compete or did you just watch? Nope, I just watched. And what did you think? I was hooked. I was hooked and I was ready to start competing, and started competing in 1988. And what events did you compete in? I did calf roping on foot, wild drag, steer deco, goat dressing, chute dogging, steer riding, and bull riding. And I competed from 1998, I started competing right away, and I competed until, I think it was about 1994, '95. And then I went into the certification. I was getting too old. It was too hard to come back from the injuries. And at that time we had 20 to 25 rodeos a year and, I mean, sometimes we had rodeos that were back-to-back, and so it was hard to recuperate and then go do it again. But it's, it was something I always wanted. My mother refused to come watch. She, you know, I think she supported me, she just didn't want to see me in case I got hurt. I had my injuries. I definitely did. Broke both collar bones, almost every rib, and got stepped on and, you know, but its still....(Subjects: events, injuries, family) And, I've been thinking about it, when I started to get back involved with CGRA, I started thinking about that I would love to one time go back and steer ride. So, possibly next year, I'm going to do it. Just do it one time, just to satisfy my craving for it because it just, it, ugh, it is so hard to explain. People ask, "How can you ride a bull?" And it's so hard to describe because it's, in that moment, it is the biggest thrill you could ever have. And that, I always said, I'd never do broncs. I said it's too high. It's a lot higher up there to fall down. But, then, drawback is broncs usually don't come back after you, bulls do. Only thing I ever really attained, I mean that injury I had from bull riding, was a broken collarbone. And it was a fluke, it was a simple fluke. I fell off but I landed on my shoulder and it broke.(Subjects: injuries, events) What were those early rodeos like in the '80s? Oh my gosh, very well attended. I mean, you could go to the LA rodeo and, I am not kidding you, there were ten thousand people a day. Partying, out dancing, watching the rodeo, all these other things, and I mean, it was just, we were just thriving. And there were 20, 20 to 25 rodeos a year. We had up to 28 associations at one time in IGRA and it was really going really strong. I mean, pool parties at the San Diego rodeo. You just did not want to miss it.(Subjects: community) And so, it was all this, but the most important thing at all of this, and I realized this after being gone for two years, was the camaraderie and the friends. You meet friends that become your family and they, you know, you really do care about them. It's not that I don't care about my immediate family, but these people mean a lot to me, they do. And I had a lot of people yesterday and today say it's wonderful to see me back and that, you know, that they truly, really do love me and are excited that I'm back in it.(Subjects: community, family, highlight) And you mentioned your rodeo mom and dad. Who is that? Turned out to be... it was the funniest thing, because I was a certified scorekeeper and at the Chicago rodeo I got invited to be the score keeper. And this rodeo was on the facility, I mean on the grounds, of this couple's home. One of their sons lived across the driveway and everything, but then they had their own full arena back there and everything else. Well, when I first went in and met her and everything else, she thought I was the most pretentious queen that she'd ever seen. And it was so funny, but we grew to be so close, so close, I just... And when I was inducted into the hall of fame, she came to Las Vegas and she broke the news to me that she had cancer. And she fought it for about a year and passed away. And it was a very, very devastating to me. It was very, it was so hard. I just can't even imagine. (Subjects: community, family) And I, you know, I lost my father but my father and I weren't really close after my parents divorced because I was involved with, I was the one that found him, caught him cheating on her and everything. And then I had to help her out when he filed for divorce and moved out because she had never had a job 'cause she raised us four kids. And, all of a sudden, here she's in a five bedroom home and no money to have to pay utilities while this was going because he had taken their checking account and...(Subjects: family) How old were you when that happened?(Subjects: family) Let's see, I was... um... I'm trying to think... I would say maybe, '79 or '80, 1980. [...] They'd been married 28 years. We had, us four kids had, put on this huge party for them for their 25th anniversary. My parents traveled, through my father's business he was able to win these trips to go. They traveled all over the place. They went on a trip to Portugal, came home, mom said everything was fine, and then he didn't come home that night. He insisted on going bowling and, sure enough. I was the one who caught him doing the whole thing and it was devastating to me. So after that, my father and I did not speak and we had no communication with each other.(Subjects: family) And when did he pass?(Subjects: family) He passed in 1995, I think. No, he passed in 1991 'cause my brother passed away in 1995 of AIDs. He was, it was really interesting because I am HIV positive myself but I am in no danger. I have never been in danger because I accepted it and I dealt with it. My brother, little brother, was in total denial of the AIDs. And him and his partner had all these holistic views about saving him. So, it was very difficult 'cause when he did get sick, he was so sick. He went in the hospital and 18 days later he's gone. After being in the hospital, being fed intravenously, and he's losing a pound and a half a day, just deteriorating something terrible. I had to educate my entire family on what exactly was going on. They couldn't understand how I could be HIV positive, but he was in full blown AIDs, full-blown AIDs. His T cell count was five when he went in. They thought at first he had tuberculosis but, then upon starting to.... But my brother had been tested somewhere, don't know exactly where, but he used his social security number. (Subjects: family) And so, when he died, we got the death certificate and his partner really got upset because it put it on there, the information, they have to, that he had been HIV positive for 10 years and full-blown AIDs for 18 days that he was in the hospital. And so, you know, it was really difficult. So, I'm educating my family on what is going on with my brother deteriortating like that, and I just had to say it. In his final days, we spent lots of time together. We had never been real close because he always kinda despised me 'cause he was right behind me and I accelerated in school and he didn't and the teachers expected the same out of him that they got out of me, so it was difficult. He actually attempted suicide once, blaming me, and so it was a rough road but those, probably 15 of those 18 days, him and I had a lot of talk. A lot, you know, about each other and everything. So at least I got to go away with that. But he survived that. (Subjects: family) And, does your, how did your mother cope with that? With losing a child?(Subjects: family) She did very well, and she does very well with things like that, but I know, deep down, it was really difficult. But as far as the level, I was the most devastated because I was scared to death that this is what is gonna happen with me. But, I accepted when I found out that I was HIV positive, which was in 1995. I was on a study for HIV negative people and my test results came back positive. And, you know, people say different things. They used to say you could contract it and everything else but I know exactly what happened. I know when and strictly mine. But the nurse was just astonished, she could not believe it, so she had me come in and do another blood test 'cause she thought it was a false positive. And it turned out it wasn't. (Subjects: family) But my T cells have never, ever been below 500. I started taking medicine when they were between five and six hundred, the doctor felt it was a good time to do it. And I have applied, and my T cells are currently around the nine hundred to eleven hundred range so, I mean, the disease is there, it doesn't go away, but you have to accept it and you have to move on with it. And I've learned and felt really good about some things that have happened in my life, you know, becoming gay, coming out, and then becoming HIV positive. I don't look at it as a bad thing. It's something that's happened but with research and everything else, and I've participated in a lot of studies here in Colorado at the University of Colorado, I'm involved with studies. They call me all the time and do these different studies so they can work on trying to get, they're never gonna find a cure, but being able to control it. I was very, very lucky when I started taking meds, AZT was very, there was very little AZT in the meds. And I have only in my 20 years, 15 or 20 years now, I have been on two different kinds of medicine. And I currently only take two pills a day. I take them in the evening. And one's a booster and the other one is... and that is what has really kept me alive. And through all these other medical issues that have come, you know I have crohn's disease, barrett's esophagus, cholesterol problems and all that. I take 38 pills a day but, you know what, it's kept me alive. It's kept me here and I credit that to that. How do you think your rodeo family has helped through your various health struggles? Oh, I mean, everybody's so supportive. Because this association is very unique, we don't do rodeo for a living. None of the contestants, you know, you can't, by the time you do all your expenses and everything else throughout the year, and especially if you have a horse, you go into it knowing you're gonna lose money. But, there's more to it than that. And that's why our rodeos and the umbrella IGRA association, all proceeds go back to charity. That's why we do this, to be able to give money back to charities.(Subjects: community) So, you said earlier that you know Wayne pretty well. What was it like working with him? I heard he was very enthusiastic about IGRA and Gay Rodeo in general. What was it like working for him? He was; and he pushed, and pushed, and pushed me. You know, 'cause he did. And we traveled together; went to rodeos together; and he gave me a lot of work, favors, and everything else so that I could go to these rodeos and all this other stuff. And he was just like a dad to me and it was very devastating when he passed away. He passed away of pancreatic cancer. And that was very difficult, once again for me, but his ideas and his creativity continues to live. He's very proud, I know he's very proud. I know when he died he was very proud that he had created this and watched it grow to where it had gone. (Subjects: mentor) And, you know, we've struggled in the last few years. We've struggled because financially it's difficult, it's becoming more and more difficult, to find sponsors because sponsors look at it as "butts in the seats." And we can have as many contestants as we want but it's [...] our rodeos are very recreational. None of our contests make a living off of 'em. They all have other jobs and do other things. So, it's very recreational but we do it because we give the money to charities and we feel good. And this camaraderie that you create, that you become a part of at the rodeos, it's indescribable. I found out when I had to take these last two years, take a break.(Subjects: igra, community) I really found out how much it really is in me, and how much I missed it. And I really missed the contestants. Being here this weekend and being, I was a timer in the rodeo, and I couldn't, I can't, just sit in those stands and watch the rodeo. I got to be doing something. So I volunteered to go back behind the chutes, behind the alleyway, and help with the arena directors, with speed events, and pulling gates. It got me right back with the contestants. Because when I was a score keeper, you're isolated into a different spot so you don't get that. And I just, I miss that so much, because I became so close to the contestants while I was in the office. I just became so close to them and, you know, confided in them, they confided in me, and it really was a family. And I missed that when I went up into, as a scorekeeper, because I was isolated up there.(Subjects: community) I retired as a scorekeeper in 19, in 20...um, let's see, it would have had to have been about 2011 I retired. It was at the Florida rodeo, that was my last rodeo. They gave me a big old send off and everything else and I said, "Well, I'm not going away, I'm just retiring." And the reason I was retiring was because I had been diagnosed with Parkinson's and my writing was very difficult, and I did not want to subject a contestant to a wrong score because the secretary or the auditor couldn't read it. So I took that step but I found myself, I think 'cause I like so much being with the contestants, I found myself going to becoming barn manager. And this turned out to be just a total fluke. I had gone to the Oklahoma rodeo and I was supposed to be scorekeeper. And I came in a day early and I stayed with the rodeo director and then helped him set up. Well, he needed to go to a VIP party on the Thursday night and he didn't know how he was gonna be able to do it 'cause these contestants were starting to come in. And I said, "I'll do it. It can't be too difficult." You just check their papers, and give them a stall, and ask if they need shavings, and it's very simple. And that really brought me back with the contestants, really brought me back, and so it's something that I totally enjoy. And all this weekend people have said over, and over, and over, "We've missed you so much." It's kinda hard to grasp. I never realized that it really, people really did care, and do care. And so, it's been a wonderful, wonderful weekend. To be back into this. And I'm jumping right back into it. Of course, I'm not gonna be quite as involved as I really was before but I've submitted my name to be back on the finals committee. I just told them, I'll do anything on the committee - just don't make me rodeo director again. Been there, done that, and don't wanna go through that again 'cause it's not easy. It's a lot of responsibility and a lot of pressure. And, you know, with our rodeos starting to struggle in 2000... probably about 2010 or '11... starting declining and everything else, it was becoming more and more difficult. Unfortunately, the rodeo that I was rodeo director of, finals wasn't as successful. It was really hard for me. It was really hard for me that it didn't, it wasn't, successful like I wanted it to be. But it was happening, and we're happening right now.(Subjects: igra) And I tried, you know, I've served on various committees, probably almost every committee you could possibly think of. And I have been trying to preach that, with the difficulty of getting sponsors and everything else, we need to, rather than create new associations and then they jump in and do a rodeo first year, and they don't know what they're doing, and they don't know and don't realize, and they end up losing a lot of money. And, unfortunately, some have folded. I have really been trying to push, and I'm going to continue to push, that associations work together, come together, and be. We had four associations that were the GPR: Great Plains Rodeo. Four associations: Kansas, Oklahoma, Little Rock, and Missouri. And the rodeo rotated. It rotated to the different cities. And it worked. And that was at a time when the rodeos were successful, but it worked. Then they eventually went off and did their own rodeos. And that's what I'm trying to get back again because we have some little associations that are struggling, they are struggling to even stay alive, stay in business. And it's very disheartening when we lose one, so I'm gonna try to continue to try to push for the coming together. Not being, feeling like you wanna be independent, do your own thing. Because it's hard; it's not easy. (Subjects: igra) And some rodeo budgets [...] our finals budget can run anywhere from 150 to 200 thousand dollars budget. And it's hard, it's very hard, 'cause see, what the contestants put in - at finals they have put in a percentage all year long towards the finals rodeo and then their fees for the finals rodeo itself and what's been participated - this all comes into the big pot and every single event no matter how many people [...] are in the event, the payout is the same for all 13 events equally. And then it's broken down as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I've seen bronc riders, bull riders, that that's all they do. They are the only ones that cover, and they walk away. I've seen them walk away with 3,600 dollars just for two rides. And, so, it is a big thing but even then it's becoming more and more of a struggle. Like I said, we don't do this, there's no intention of being professionals. Some of our members are PRCA card holders because they do other professional events: roping events, barrel racing, you know those different things. But we... ours is recreational. And it's more, it's more than just the rodeo, it's the camaraderie, the chance to see friends, be together, spend a weekend together.(Subjects: igra) So, with you getting started in 1988 were you, did you, experience the cancellation of the 1988 finals? When it was supposed to take place, I believe in Nevada, and then all of a sudden got canceled? I'm not quite sure that was 1988; I believe it was earlier than that. I would have to go back and look but, yeah. Did you experience any sort of homophobia on the circuit?(Subjects: homophobia) Yeah, I mean, we did. PETA used to protest a lot of our rodeos. So, we had to deal with that, but they had their limits on where they could protest and we just did not let that affect us and, you know, not get to us. 'Cause we have very strong, how would you say, rules or guidelines for animal safety and we thrive on that because that it is so important to us. And part of, you know, the mission of IGRA and everything is for the country western lifestyle but [...] we don't tolerate abuse of animals.(Subjects: homophobia, peta) How do you think the culture has changed overarchingly in terms of homophobia?(Subjects: homophobia) Oh, I think it's changed: it's become much easier. Gay marriage is becoming legal now and, more and more, it's changed a lot and it's a lot more comfortable. I've always said that with my brother, it was very difficult because that was during an era in the '70s that it was not accepted and you had to be very careful. And there was a lot of, you know, hate and everything going on. And you just really, you know, you really had to be careful and a lot of people remained in the closet or very isolated because they were so scared. And nowadays it's much more accepted and everything else.(Subjects: homophobia) But the one thing about our rodeos, too, is that we have never, ever turned somebody down for their race, their sexual orientation, anything. We have straight people that compete in our rodeos, we have a couple of 'em this weekend that are competing, and we have always, with open arms, invited them in. And they, the first thing they say, after they've completed one day is, "This is unbelievable. Everybody is so wonderful and so nice." And they say it's a much nicer atmosphere. So we're really proud of that, you know, that we're able to bring that out into the community and open it up to anybody. And we do not discriminate.(Subjects: community, race) We're even working on trying to get kids now involved. The problem we have is the legal age and stuff like that so currently kids cannot, depending on what the legal age is in the state, cannot compete. But we're getting, we've gone, in a direction now where some of the associations, CGRA has done it, we have junior members. And they come to gymkhanas, they come to the other events that aren't sanctioned rodeos and everything, and then they come to the rodeos and watch their friends and/or family members compete. I mean, a lot of kids come that their parents are competing. It's really, it's a very gratifying, very satisfying, feeling and it also, you know, it's just become so much easier.(Subjects: igra) And I've said, you know, I was so blessed to come out when I did. Not only did my brother pave the path with my family but [...] it was at a time where it was getting much better and it continued to get better all the way up to today. It's become much more acceptable. There were times, you know, in the early years that we were a little fearful. When we went into cities, we had to be very careful. We had to be very careful. We didn't allow people to go out by themselves; we had to be very careful because of the acceptance of being gay, lesbian, transgender. And so, it's come a long ways and I think it's continuing to become more and more acceptable. And I believe that's happening around the world too. Countries that never used to acknowledge women are now acknowledging women, gays are no longer being tortured and murdered for being gay, and so it's a good thing. It's good and I feel very proud to be a gay man living in the 21st century.(Subjects: homophobia, comingout, highlight) Now, could you describe what you did as the administrative assistant for those 10 years? What did that job look like?(Subjects: jobs) I was a lot like the liason for the contestants. The contestants would call the office if they had a problem with the registration - they couldn't get registered, this, that, and everything else - they'd call. And I, that's the one thing I did do that has still continued [...], is I gained the respect of them. Because I listened to them and I helped them get better or get through the obstacles that they needed.(Subjects: jobs) And the physical office was in Charlie's?(Subjects: jobs) Yes. Yes, the initial, it started in 1991. Wayne created this position, it was another bartender that was at Charlie's and he started, Ricky Joe Newly, and he was the administrator for two years and then he got sick. So at the time he did, Wayne said, "Okay, here's your opportunity. Go." So I interviewed at the finals rodeo, no the Texas rodeo, in 1992, and started January 1st, 1993, for 10 years. And that was a wonderful, wonderful thing. If I were to ever get the opportunity to go back, I would do it in a heartbeat. And it would be because of the contestants.(Subjects: jobs) And were you mainly doing most of your work at that time via telephone and mail?(Subjects: jobs) A lot of it was mail, snail mail, and telephone. The internet was beginning and all that but a lot of it was snail mail and telephone.(Subjects: jobs) Did you ever get an email address?(Subjects: jobs) I did, I did actually, during my time and I still have it. I still have it. I have an account, it's IGRA@att.net but it's still one of my own personal accounts. So, yes I did. And then, when I was an administrative assistant, I had one: administrativeassistant@igra.com. And then I had one, when I was trustee for Colorado, I had different emails. So I did. But I got to experience the beginning, the real beginnings, and the popularity of email and the much easier way of translation.(Subjects: jobs) And was that your full-time job, or were you doing that in addition to other things?(Subjects: jobs) It was a part-time job. It was, let me see, how many hours a week was it? It was probably about 30 hours a week. And then, and I worked in conjunction with working at Charlie's as a bartender, DJ, and all that. And my office was downstairs in the basement. So, sometimes I'd come in and work up until it was time for me to go upstairs and go to work or...do that. But it gave an, and this is exactly what Wayne wanted, it gave an avenue for contestants to be able to go. When you couldn't necessarily go through your association because, for various reasons, you had an avenue to go that would help you. And, I believe today it still has gone on.(Subjects: jobs) And Tommy Channel, when he took over my position in 2003, and is currently in the position, a lot of things have changed. The office is no longer there; it's all done remote. You know, Tommy works out of his house and everything else but... he just received on Thursday, Thursday night, no, Friday night, last night, he received the Wayne Jakino Western Lifestyle buckle. And I've won various buckles across the years; my most favorite one is, of course, my Hall of Fame buckle. I wear that very proudly, but I wear other ones too. But, that's one I do not have yet and I hope someday before I die that I will get that, because Wayne paved the way for me. He pushed me into all this. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for him. And he was just like another dad to me. And it was just, it was so hard, you know. It's hard to describe, I mean, just how we bonded so well.(Subjects: jobs, mentor) Can I ask what the western lifestyle means to you? Western lifestyle, in my opinion, is the beginning of the West. You know, the beginning of cowboys and Indians, you know. That was the start, that was the beginning of the United States. And it could have even been the beginning in other countries, but it was really the United States where the western cowboys and Indians started. And at first they were fighting against each other, and then later on, you know, and now to this day, get along. And I don't know if you were there for grand entry today, when they blessed? That was very moving. That was unbelievable. I was just like, "Wow." Just to be there in that and face the different directions, and she would bless the directions. And they all had - you know, north, east, south, west - all had meanings. It was, it was quite the experience. I thought it was just amazing. I told the person that was in charge of getting that, "That was just amazing, it really was." So do you consider yourself a cowboy?(Subjects: cowperson) Yes, I always have. I always have. I've always worn the jeans, the cowboy hat, everything else. And, ironically, I'm the only one in my family that does. Nobody else did. My father grew up on a farm in Iowa. He was basically on his own at 14. He had 10 siblings, actually he had 11 siblings initially and two of them died so then it was him and nine other siblings. There are two of them left. But he grew up there, you know, on the farm, so I attribute some of that to him being that way.(Subjects: cowperson, family) My mom was pure city slicker. She was born in Salt Lake City, wasn't even there a few days and was in Colorado, so Colorado recognizes her as a... I am a third-generation native because they recognize her as a native 'cause she spent most of her life here in Colorado. So, yes, my family comes from Fairplay area. I have a lot of relatives that are buried up in, outside of, Fairplay, in Alma. And we, when we have a death, [...] we go as a family, we go up and spread the ashes at the same place where we've done all the others. And we've even marked a tree so that we know we have the same place. It's something that our family does that just, it's just what we do. And it means so much because it goes back to where our roots and where my great-grandfather was and grandmother.(Subjects: family) So did you leave Charlie's at the same time that you left the administrative position? No, no. I continued at Charlie's and worked there up until I left there in 2000. I met my partner at the time; we met by mutual friends in Puerto Vallarta and hit it off right away, dated for six months, and then I moved to Colorado Springs. 'Cause he had just taken over, him and his brother had just taken over, their father's business. A 30-year painting business. It was very reputable. They don't have to advertise because they have all these people from before that return, so it's quite the deal. So when my partner and I, Craig, talked about it, [...] I said, "You know what? I'll go. I'm ready to go." I'd been in the bar business 15 years and that was, it was enough. It was enough. And I just really wanted a relationship that I thought was going to be forever. Unfortunately it was not but... and part of it was my fault because I was so heavily involved in rodeo and travelling so much that my partner strayed, and therefore...(Subjects: jobs) But I left 2012, moved back to Denver, lived with my friends for a year, and then my Mom and I moved in together and I started taking care of her as she started getting, you know, progressing and getting older. And she's getting pretty frail. And probably we're gonna have to put her into a, some kind of, assisted living or nursing home in the next six to eight months because it's gotten to a point I can't... and she needs medical assistance. And so, once again, I'll be out on my own but I'm ready to do that and I'm ready to do a little bit different than what typically people do. I want to be, I worked up, I just left July 22nd, I worked up the Jefferson County fairgrounds in Golden, Colorado. I was the campground supervisor. It was a position that this director had created with, specifically with, me in mind running it. 'Cause he had seen what I had done when I was barn manager for CGRA rodeos, and he wanted that to happen, so he created the position. I was there for 15 months before I had to resign because I was having medical issues, and I just was worn out. [...] (Subjects: family) But during that time, I was, I had attained a trailer, a fifth wheel, a small fifth wheel, ' cause I stayed in it sometimes if we had events going over the weekends and, you know, it was gonna be the long hours and all that. So I had it, and with the help of two of my very dear friends, I was able to get that fifth wheel and did that. Well, during that time it convinced me, that's the way I wanna live, I wanna live. I was the campground supervisor and I just loved the people, the stories, oh my gosh. People from all over the country, even out of the country, you know, they come to camp and everything else. And hearing their stories... You know, it's becoming more and more people, and not just older people but younger people, are living full time in their RVs. And so, you know, of course, even though I left Jefferson County fairgrounds, I've been told I'm always welcome to come back. So, I definitely wanna be a camp host. Because I can do volunteer, not have to pay rent, because for volunteering it's in exchange. Then I can still do the rodeos. 'Cause I'm back. I told them today, I told a lot of them today, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere. So when you took the last two years off, was that really to sort of focus on your health? Partially. But partially I just needed a break 'cause I had gone non-stop and, you know, through losing a relationship, partially to my involvement with rodeos and commitment. Not that my commitment wasn't there, but it's difficult because I traveled a lot and so then he.... And so he wasn't interested? No. Oh, no. I tried to get him interested once and boy, was that the wrong thing to do. He just didn't care for that. But in the beginning he supported me completely but then, I just got too involved. I didn't realize until it was too late, you know, how involved I was. And so, I took the two years just to get a break away from it, but also because I was working full time up at the park. Even though it was part time, it wasn't. I was working very much full time but only getting paid part time, which was okay with me because of my being on disability, I can only make so much a month. So it wasn't the money issue, it was the job. And I loved it, and I would go back in a heartbeat. I would go back to it, if offered that, but even if I don't, I'm welcome to come back as a camp host and do that. So, I'm looking forward to that. It's very unfortunate that we have to do what we have to do with our mom but it's part of it. So I kinda get my independence back, because it's been interesting. Its difficult. Yeah. I love my mother to death, but it's been tough.(Subjects: family) Do your other siblings help at all?(Subjects: family) My younger sister does; my older brother doesn't help too much, but it's mainly my sister and I.(Subjects: family) It's a lot of work.(Subjects: family) Yes. Yes. Can we take a little break? Yes, of course. Alright, we are back here with Patrick Terry and I was wondering if you would be willing to talk a little bit about the effort that went into building the amazing archive that you helped donate to the Autry National Center? I, when I was a competitor, I always kept the programs. I kept them myself and everything else so I had accumulated boxes. Then when I went into the office, I was still competing but, you know, I was going and having access to and getting rodeo associations to send me their programs, advertising posters, everything. And I went into the office and I said, "You know what?" And it had been somewhat collected prior to that but it was mainly just thrown into a box, it was not organized or anything, and, you know, I'm a very organized person and probably a little overboard but I started arranging it. And then I thought, "You know what? This stuff is gonna come back. Someday it's gonna be important, someday it's going to be beneficial. I know it will. Maybe not while I'm alive, but I hope that people that continue on after me will continue to collect it. So I started collecting and putting it all together, organizing it, get it all in order by year, by rodeo. And started doing that when I went in the office, you know. Heavy contacting all the associations, telling them they had, whether I went to the rodeo or not I told them, that they had to send me the program, the advertising, their flyers, their posters. We used to do a poster mailout, CGRA used to do a poster mailout, to bars, organizations all across the country. And each association would submit their poster and we collected, we'd get them all, and then we'd put them all into tubes and mail them out, CGRA did. So that was going, so we had accumulated lots of posters. I'd accumulated quite a bit and, you know, I'd put 'em up on the top shelf thinking someday and everything else. But then I went full force getting as much as I could from the rodeos and/or events that the associations had put on. And it, it was fun. I loved it. And I knew that someday it would be. So, then through the relationship that we built with Gregory Hinton, he came to Charlie's and we were going to ship archives. Well, I wanted to retain some for IGRA, for the International. And so it was kinda interesting, when we met and we started going through it, Gregory wanted to take it all, and I wouldn't. And so, Brain Helander was the president at the time and he got kinda, became the referee for, you know, what we were doing. And he said, his words were, "Patrick is entitled to keep whatever he wants." Then whatever will go to the archives. And so Gregory wasn't too happy with me about that, but it worked out. So we went through all of it, all of it by year; I had it all in order by year. We went through every single one. If there were duplicates, I would keep one, one would go to them, or maybe two or three, because I was collecting about four to six programs from every rodeo and as much of the flyers and all that stuff. So I was doing all that, and so we went through all of it. It took three days, took us two days, three days. And where was it stored? It was at Charlie's, in the basement of the administrative IGRA office. And it was all there, in these big, heavy-duty shelves. And I had put them all into these large, really long, file boxes and had them all in order by year, by rodeo, blah, blah, blah. So I had them. So by the time Gregory and I finished going through, I kept what, I felt, IGRA should have. And then we sent the others and Tommy Channel and myself drove to Burbank, California, and [...] we had to actually get a special SUV, large SUV, a suburban, because of the weight. There were 22 of those boxes, full to the brim of programs, flyers, everything you could possibly think of IGRA. And so, when Gregory had approached us and said this opportunity was... it was the same time that Brokeback Mountain had just come out. And so the understanding we had was, it was gonna go on display right away. And when we arrived there, I had to sign off on there, meaning it was no longer our property but theirs. And it was difficult. I had a real difficult time signing that piece of paper. I hesitated, and hesitated, and said, "You know what, I don't know if I can do this." But then I kept thinking, for the future of people and studying, researching as yourself, and doing this, it will benefit. So, I finally signed the piece of paper. I have to this day, still, that piece of paper that I kept myself. I took a copy and put it in the archives but I kept the one I signed to myself and I just...you know. So we dropped that off. So we were anticipating that it was gonna go on display fairly quickly. And I don't know if you've talked with Gregory in depth and everything else but at the time, the Brokeback Mountain, the two guys' shirts, had been donated. Some guy bought them and didn't know what to do with them but he had wanted to buy 'em. I think they said he paid 40 thousand dollars for them. So he donated them to the Autry with the understanding that they were going to be displayed immediately. And that's where we thought our archives were gonna go, in conjunction with that, and we're gonna be displayed. Unfortunately that didn't happen. It took a few years for them to archive it, and catalog it all, and everything else. And we had people from associations, if they were in the Burbank, California area, that they would go. But they never allowed, never anything was allowed, to leave the Autry. It was never allowed to leave the library. You checked it out but you could only do your research right there; you could not take it home with you. There was nothing to take. Unfortunately, the archives was never really fully displayed, but there was a, like a, ceremony and everything else and Mrs. Autry was there. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make the event but, you know, it was okay. Everybody knew that I had done this. And that was probably one of the biggest highlights of my entire time with IGRA. It was so gratifying, and just that whole idea that I knew, someday, somewhere, that it would come into play. And you know, people have researched, people have gone and researched. We did have some of ours on display for a while. I don't know that it still is but, you know. So it was a little disappointing that we anticipated it'd go farther than it did but, the fact is, it's all cataloged, it's all there at the Autry museum, and Mrs. Autry was so... she could not get over, she said, "I have never seen any organization that kept so many things, you know, and archived them." [...] So, she congratulated me on doing that and sent it through people, you know, and so they told me. And that, to me, was the top of it. Here was all that, it had come to fold and had come. It was now going to be put to use, rather than sitting in the boxes in the closet down at the office at Charlie's, in the basement. It had its purpose, but yet we still had ours. So, one thing that really struck me going through the archives was that a lot of people, when they do archive rodeo things, they do flyers, and they do programs, but they don't do filing of complaints, or they don't keep stock contractor agreements. They don't keep that sort of business side and I'm wondering how you decided which of those sort of, those business-end of things, to keep in the archive? Well, I mean, it was more of the how International Gay Rodeo Association board felt about it. Whether or not they wanted that released because of people at the times, you know, it was just starting to get better, but people's names and everything else were associated and they wanted to remain anonymous. So we were, we had an obligation, to our members to keep that quite, keep that as quiet as possible. So, therefore, it was difficult to pass on that stuff. We kept all of it and still have it and it's currently being stored up in a semi-trailer that we share with the Colorado Gay Rodeo Association, the International does, in storing in this big semi-trailer.(Subjects: homophobia) And for the pieces you've kept, that's really helped Frank Harrell construct his online archive. Correct. He took it to yet another level. A level that I never even envisioned would happen, and it's just been absolutely wonderful and it's made, it's brought Tom and Frank and myself so close, we are so close, it's amazing. Because he continued making my dream come true and making it happen. So, we still have a lot of the paperwork and everything else, but, you know, that basic stuff that I kept when Greg and I went through it, went over to Tom and Frank. And from there, Tom and Frank, or Frank and I helped some, we put together, started cataloging ourselves and putting it so that we could put it on our website so people could see this. And if you go onto our website, you go in there, you can pull up, by rodeo, by year, if we have the program and we have almost all of them there. We've gotten down to, I think, in the 20s. It might even be lower than 20s. Now, as far as programs, people have discovered, and have come forward, and have given. So that's all been done and that just was, to me was, it was my dream come true. That I knew someday, somehow, this would be important. And with technology where it's gone and everything else, we don't do posters very much anymore. Flyers, all that, it's all electronic, but we still have the programs. Not always do the associations elect to do a program. But we still, if they do, we still collect it and Frank archives it and keeps it on the website. And it's a very, very interesting portion of the website to go to. You can get a lot of information, a lot of stuff that I learned over the years that I didn't even know occured. And finding out more and more, and I'm still finding out more and more, about gay rodeo that existed before CGRA or IGRA were created. That was going on. And then being thrown out of Reno, Nevada, for our finals rodeo and not being able to have that take place after contestants were up there and ready to go and everything. It was very difficult, but we managed to make that event and/or time still be part of gay rodeo. And, you know, all around, that year that they couldn't have the finals rodeo they gave- at that time there were 2 divisions- and they gave the persons that had the total points, both men and women in division 1, division 2, their buckles as All Around buckles because the buckles had been ordered, everything was in place, but then they couldn't have the rodeo. So did that. That's why, if you look at spreadsheets that I've also done for years, and years, and years, and I still do. And I send the updated information to the announcers for the rodeos just, you know, all the people that won, how many they've won by year, everything else. And it took a long time to put that together, I mean, I had to do a lot of researching and look, and looking up stuff myself, but people love it. They love that information and, it once again, makes me feel so proud to be a part of this and do this. And, I'm still doing it. Even though these last two years I took off, I still updated the information and everything else. And there's a big spreadsheet that has all the women, all the men, that have ever won, all around at any rodeo and/or finals. But what's interesting, this year is actually the 31st... World Gay Rodeo Finals but, the one year we awarded two all arounds, both men and women, that screws it up to make it one more. So there's 32 years because I felt it still needed to be recorded and was important. And we've been working on, we just celebrated, the 500th rodeo, or 500th gay rodeo event. I have to be careful I say it to make sure I get it all in. It wasn't just rodeos, but it was other events that have taken place. I tried to keep on top of it as much as possible but then when I left from the office it was more difficult for me to keep that updated and everything else. So then, another gentlemen in the last two years came forward, Rodger Bergman, and he went through everything and all that. Now him and I still have a little bit of disagreement on which actually is the 500th rodeo but, you know, it's there. It's there, it's just a matter of when. But it was decided by the board of directors and everything else that the 500th rodeo was the Bay Area rodeo outside of San Francisco, up in the Russian River this year. And were you able to make that one? No, I didn't. I wasn't able to make that one. This is my first rodeo besides Denver's rodeo that I've gotten back into and so.... So, as a at-home-archivist, is there, like one poster, or program, something that you think of as your just favorite thing? You know, I try, I really do, but just when I think I have it, I look at another one and it's.... It's so hard for me because it brings back, for me, so many memories, people I have met. One of our biggest all around cowboys ever was featured on the front page, I mean on the cover, of the program the year of the finals after he had past away. And that one was my favorite for so long, because I was such good friends with that gentlemen and... Can I ask who it was? Greg Olsen, Greg Olsen. And, I went to his memorial service and everything. But it was my favorite and then others started coming up and, you know, as electronic and everything else evolved, things become fancier, you know, and everything else. So it's very difficult for me to really pinpoint one thing because I can give an excuse or a give an answer to every single one of them. *laughs* So it's hard for me, personally, to figure out. Well, is there anything I haven't asked you about that you want to cover? Not really. I mean, I just, you know, the fact that it meant so much to me, and doing that project was so gratifying, and I have been recognized so many years by the International for that. That was part of my getting into the Hall of Fame. I'm a lifetime member with CGRA. So if, it's that whole process. My involvement with IGRA, or with CGRA and IGRA, is part of archives and part of the memories that go back. I share many, many memories. I can't even tell you how many rodeos I've gone to because there's, I can't even remember some of them, because I went to so many. But its not, numbers are not important to me, it's the fact that the history of IGRA, the International, and the archiving, that means more to me because it's beneficial, it'll be beneficial down the road in years to come. What do you think it means to young gay people to have their history documented that way?(Subjects: community) I don't know that they really understand archiving; I don't think they really realize it. I know I really didn't until I was older. I was 30 before I came out and so, for me, I was more mature and everything. The young kids, I don't think they really understand archiving and the importance and everything else. They think it just happens, museums just happen, this stuff happens[...] So I would say most people, most of our young folks, don't collect like, like I did, and like a few others.(Subjects: community) There's another gentlemen that, honest to god, his place in Arizona - his name is Dan Iverson - he has collected. And I mean, he has two trailers full of it, to the door. Full of programs and stuff like that. He's got an entire, practically an entire, basement full of it and everything else. And he's very protective of it, he doesn't like to give it up. I had to beg on some of 'em to give, to make it so that we had our archives. And I was never, I've never been able to go down there and spend enough time to go through all of it. 'Cause I'm sure if I did, with all of it that he has collected over the years and everything... 'Cause he was one right in the early years and he was actually Greg Olsen's partner in events, in the camp events, for years. And they were very identifiable, they wore shirts with polka dots on them, and they were both the same [...]. But, yeah, he saved his stuff and everything else. But every time I've gone to his house and I see something and he's like, "Umm...." And I'm like, "Please, can I have just one? I'm sure you've got another one." Just so that we can make our's complete. And he's good, he's really good about it. But I've never gotten the opportunity to go down there and actually go through everything and I really should before, you know, too late. You know, or something happens, maybe to them. I don't know how long he's gonna keep those trailers full that sit on his property. And all these archives, these just, filing cabinet, after filing cabinet, after filing cabinet in the basement in his house full of all this stuff. And, like I said, I think we could pretty much complete it but it would take a lot of time to go through all that stuff to find... because he wasn't necessarily organized in filling it like I was. He, it's all, kind of thrown together. So it could be various years, could be intermixed, and stuff like that. Maybe someday... maybe someday I can get down there and do it. But I think what we have put together - and I say we because Frank, and Tom, and Brian Rodgers, and people that have served on the committee - have spent a lot of time doing this, but it's all for the good of the organization and to get out and really show what we are. Well, thank you so much for your time. Absolutely. If you have any other questions, I mean, feel free to contact me; you have my number. Wonderful.

Ron Trusley Click to filter

This is Saraya Flaig and I’m here with Ron Trusley at the International Gay Rodeo Convention in Denver, Colorado, on November 23rd, 2019. So, Ron, what year were you born? Oh, if you really want to know, 1943. And where did you grow up? Uh, in Oklahoma until was about 14. And I’ve been in Arizona since then. Did you grow up in a pretty rural area, at all? It wasn’t rural, but it was a very small town. Maybe at the time the population was possibly 1,500 or less. And did your parents, or your family, do any ranching or farming of any kind? My parents were farmers, but I didn’t grow up on a farm. My mom and dad had separated, and we had moved to town when I was five years old.(Subjects: parents, family) And what was your family like growing up? What was your childhood like? I would say it was a happy time. We didn’t have a lot, but my mom worked hard to support us. So, we were a happy family, got along well. No issues.(Subjects: family, childhood) And you said you moved to Arizona later on. What was that change like for you? Well, it was a big change coming from a very small town. My mom remarried and that’s when we moved to Arizona. Then we were living on farms in Arizona because my stepdad worked on the farms in Arizona. They were basically cotton farmers. So, that was a big change for me, living actually in the country, rather than in a small town. And the weather, of course, was so different than Oklahoma, so it took a little while to get used to it.(Subjects: childhood) Did you ever help out on the farm at all? Not actually helping on the farm. When I was, I guess in high school probably, there were a couple of years that to make some money, I did what we call to chop cotton. And did that. But, as far as actual work on a farm, no. And how did you eventually find the gay rodeo? Now, that is a very interesting question. The Arizona Gay Rodeo Association started in Arizona in 1984 actually, but it officially became incorporated in January 1985. Well, September 1985, I heard about the square dance group, Midnight Ramblers, that was part of the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association. I was already in another square dance group, The Desert Valley Squares, in town and I was a founding member of that. In order to be a member of the Midnight Ramblers square dance group, you had to be a member of the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association. So, I joined the rodeo association so I could audition for the square dance group, and that was my beginning of involvement in gay rodeo.(Subjects: dance) So, you said you started another square-dancing group. What was that like? I didn’t actually start it; I was a founding member of it. And it was just a time to be with people that I could really identify with, and have some fun at the same time, and exercise as well. So, it was it was really a good experience to start to get out more in public, with other people, doing the same things that we liked. How did you originally come to start dancing, or start square dancing? That was – I started just starting to be part of this square dance group, because I’d never danced before.(Subjects: dance) Was there anyone that brought you in? Or you just wanted to learn to dance? It was so long ago – I think it was just a group of us that decided to do it. And we formed the association. And then, you wanted to join the gay rodeo square dancing group, so do you identify as gay, then? I did. And what was that coming out process like for you? Well, actually, I probably didn’t truly come out until I was maybe 25, because I had actually never been to a bar in my life. I knew nothing about alcohol, I didn’t even know what drinks there were. I knew a little about beer, but I’d never had anything. So, I was working for state government, and I went with some people to a bar one night. But I didn’t know anything about drinking, so they said, “Well, try scotch and water.” That’s actually how I started getting involved in that way.(Subjects: comingout) Is your family very religious at all? Did you grow up religious? Yes. Yes, we – I grew up Southern Baptist when I was in Oklahoma. And then, eventually after moving to Arizona, over the years, then I became involved in and started identifying more as Pentecostal Holiness. So, yeah, my family, for the most part, we were. Not all my older brothers and sisters were, but my mom, my younger sister, and I were.(Subjects: religion, family) Are you still pretty religious today? Well, I would say there is a big difference in religion and Christianity. I don’t go to church regularly, but I still consider myself Christian. In that aspect, yes, very much so. But I think religion is just a term that people – we use so often when we really mean are we Christian, and what is our belief?(Subjects: religion) So, when you first joined the gay rodeo association as square dancing, what was the rodeo association like at that time? It was just starting, as I said, in Arizona. And the membership when they started was not a large number – I don’t remember exactly what it was. But it was very accepting of everybody. You felt welcome; you felt a part of it. Because after I joined the square dancing group – the association and the square dancing group – it was interesting that it was not very long after that that the association board asked me, just on the spot, to be the parliamentarian sergeant at arms. So that was how, then, that I further got involved in rodeo. Did you ever attend any of the gay rodeos, right in the beginning, when you first joined? Oh, when I first joined? Yeah, I started going to rodeos right away. But before that, I had never been to a rodeo in my life. I didn’t know anything about rodeo, so it was all brand new. What was that first rodeo experience like for you? I guess I could say it must have been really rewarding, it was something that I thought I would really enjoy, because I’ve kept involved all these years and I’ve not regretted it. Mm-hum. Did you ever participate in any of the events? A few times. I’m not really a rodeo contestant as much as staff, and things like that. But yeah, there were a few times I did roping on foot. I did the camp events, steer decorating, goat dressing, wild drag racing. I never did any horse events or rough stock riding events, anything like that. I did in a rodeo school one time, just practice. Tried steer riding one time. That was it.(Subjects: events) Have you ever been injured doing any events? Well, when I tried to steer ride, just for practice, I was – it could be considered an injury. It wasn’t really severe, it was just hitting the ground hard enough that for several weeks, or a few months, I was pretty sore. My back was pretty banged up. But, as far as a really substantial injury, no.(Subjects: injuries) Did you ever win anything, or did you just compete more for fun? I never won anything, but it was fun. Yeah. Um, what was it like originally getting involved on the administrative side? Well, as I said, when they started, they asked me to be the Sergeant in Arms Parliamentarian for the local association, and then from there, I eventually started getting involved as the local Secretary. And then, a few years later, I don’t remember exact year – I should. Then at the international level, when I started going to conventions right away, then I got involved in secretarial work. We have a certification program for all of our efficiencies.(Subjects: jobs) So, when we started the certification program – and, again, I can’t remember when it was, but it was a long time ago – I was grandfathered in, initially, in the certification program as Secretary of Support Team. And then, from there, when there was an opening, I ran for the position of International Secretary. And I became the Secretary, where I served for over 14 years in that position. And then, I was out of it for four or five years, maybe. About two years ago and now – two or three – I came back for about a year and a half and then I resigned.(Subjects: jobs) So, did you come back as the International Secretary? Yes. So, what’s the difference between being a secretary at a local level and then at the international level? There’s a big difference. Locally, you’re doing the secretarial work just for your local association. At the international level, you’re doing more things that relate to all of our member associations within the international organization. And a big part of that is preparing for conventions, making sure everything’s in order. And then, at the convention, getting our rodeo rules book, our bylaws, our standing rules prepared for dissemination to everybody.(Subjects: jobs) When was the first convention that you attended, if you remember? And what was it like? I think, it probably – I may be wrong, but I thought I went to the first one in 1986. It was very small, as I remember. They were not very many of us. So, it was an eye opener, but it was the beginning stages for really getting into everything. Like, folks that you probably heard during the convention floor today when Roger Bergman mentioned the rule book, our rodeo rule book, way back when, how small it was? Yeah, it’s really grown. So, it’s been interesting to see how we were so small and had such a small number of rules in the beginning, to 2019 and the changes in the rules. What do you think is one of the most interesting rule debates you’ve seen in the past? It would depend how you defined interesting. For you. Well, I’ll put it this way, chute dogging over the years has been controversial. For several conventions, every year there would be a debate about the chute dogging rule, and it would change. Then we’d come back the next year and sometimes we’d change it back again, or we would change it differently to move forward. So, I would say that’s probably been the most interesting. But in the beginning, also we had an event called Wild Cow Milking. That’s been eliminated and now we have Wild Drag Race, which is similar but has several differences. Can you tell me a little bit about Wild Cow Milking? I haven’t heard about that one yet. Not many people have. As I recall, it was a two-person team, and there was the cow. And they had to go out and one would hold the cow. Somebody else would have the pail, and they would actually have to milk the cow a little bit, to get some milk in the bucket, to get a time. And it was a timed event, whoever could do this first had the best time. Do you know why that event went away? I really don’t. I think people just thought it was time for a change, for something different. How have you seen conventions change over the years, from your position? There’s a lot more participation from individuals now. I think, more often than not, there is more interest shown in adopting our new rules, or rule changes. There are a lot more actual rodeo contestants than there were in the beginning, who are showing an interest. I think, personally, I see sometimes that some of the contestants who also participate in non-gay rodeos, the professional rodeos, that they would like to see us move more toward the professional rodeo rules. But we advertise ourselves as amateurs, and we consider our events as amateur sports events, so I think it’s not a conflict, but just sometimes just the – the differences that I see, it seems that some of the people want to move forward quicker than others do. And it’s having to come to that compromise and see when, and where, and how do we get there.(Subjects: events) What personally would you like to see? Would you like to see it go more of a professional route or stay as it is? Personally, I would like to see it stay like it is, I think. Because if we went too much on the professional side, we’re going to lose contestants. And now this is people who maybe have never participated in a rodeo, they see what’s going on and they think, “That’s something I would like to do.” And it’s happened time and time again that new contestants will start in some of the speed events and then they will work their way up to, maybe, steer riding, roping, things like that. So, I really think that we can keep getting more contestants and support the contestants we have now if we stay more at the amateur level. And keep making our own rules that fit and work for us.(Subjects: events, jobs) How did you see the organization change over the years in terms of diversity? As far as diversity, we don’t have the diversity of ethnic groups that we should have. And I don’t know what the cause is. I think sometimes – unfortunately, I think nationwide, we still tend to segregate ourselves a lot. And I don’t know if maybe some of the other athletes like the blacks are afraid to – I mean, we have some, and they’re all accepted. I mean, we get along very well. So, diversity, I think we need more females, and we’re trying to get more females involved. But it’s difficult. And nobody has come up with the real solution with how to do it. We tried the outreach. Were there a lot of females back when you first started participating? There were not a lot, but there was a good number, several of them who were really good contestants. Do you think women should be allowed to participate in the rough stock events? Oh, I definitely do. I think it should be equal all around. Females should have the same opportunities as a male. If they choose to do it, and accept the risk, then yes, people should. In your position as secretary for either the Arizona association or IGRA, what are some changes that you made personally to the association or contributed? Well, locally, I’ll take responsibility for writing a lot of our local bylaws. And then, besides being the secretary at the local level, I’ve moved positions such as Vice-President, President, Rodeo Director, and currently I’m the President and Rodeo Director for the local association. At the international level, I think I was able to contribute a lot when I was the secretary. One way that I was able to, I think – and maybe it sounds bragging, but I’ll do it anyway – because I am able to do actual shorthand, which is almost unheard of now, I was able to really do a lot more in notes. And it was easier for me to do that, and to be able to go back and read it. So, I think I was able to contribute in that way, that you didn’t have to wait so long to have something written. We could keep moving forward in the meetings.(Subjects: igra) You said you’re President of the Arizona association, so what, um, what years were you President? Well, uh, I don’t know. I was before different times and then I was – it’s confusing because when I had moved to Trustee for our Arizona Gay Rodeo Association at the international level, I served in that position for, I think, nine years. So, I couldn’t be Secretary anymore. And then, at the local level, as Trustee to international, I couldn’t be President of the association. So now, I am back as President. This is my… I think third – third or fourth year, consecutive year – and I have one more year before we have elections again. So, what are some changes that you made to your local association as president? I think – and, again, maybe I’m bragging – but I think that I have been able to get a lot more members coming to our membership meetings, and be involved, because I have encouraged them over and over again in writing, in our newsletter, monthly newsletter, and in person at our meetings, that this is your association. And even if you have an opinion, and if our board does not agree with you, or nobody agrees, you’re entitled to your opinion. And I want to hear what you have to say. And every time I write my articles for the monthly newsletter, I always end with, “If you have any ideas, suggestions, or questions, contact me.” And I give my email address and phone number every time. So, I think that open line of communication, or encouraging it, I’ve been able to do that. And to me, that’s more important – or very important – because if I, as the leader/CEO of the group, or whatever you want to call it, if I cannot encourage the members to be involved and listen to them, then it’s not a member association and I have no right to be in that leadership position. Um-hum. Have you received any good suggestions before? Yes. I’m trying to think of – I know I have, as well as some things that were not so good. But I listened, and I’ll go to the board if we need to. “Can we do this? Is this something that will work for us?” And it doesn’t always work, but yeah…. How have you seen the Arizona chapter change, specifically, over time, since you’ve been involved? A lot of our members who were involved and that we had in the beginning years have either moved away and chosen not to renew their membership, or they are still local, but they just have gone down other avenues and are not wanting to be involved in rodeo anymore. I’ve seen a lot of new faces coming in; people coming in, sometimes with some new ideas, a lot of questions, and showing that they want to be involved. What I’m seeing is – and it’s not just in Arizona, I think, it seems everywhere – that we all have difficulty recruiting and getting younger people involved. And I think it’s just a change everywhere that the younger people, now, because all the social media and everything, they have other ways to meet people and be involved, whereas way back, years ago, that was the one major outlet we could have to meet people and to be involved with people. So, I’ve seen – I guess that’s the biggest change, you know, the makeup of the membership. And we still struggle to get a lot of females involved. And, unfortunately, sometimes I hate to see it, but sometimes it seems that a member may not get his or her way, think what they want to do is the right thing, and the board doesn’t, or the membership doesn’t agree, and they leave. And it saddens me when that happens because, as a member association, stay there and work. Try to get what you think is right accomplished. What are some things that, specifically the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association, makes it unique or that Arizona would like to see on an international level? Well, I think the rodeo that we produce every year is one big thing that makes us unique. We use now, and we have for years, a Mexican arena – charro arena – that’s kind of a round arena. But, because, when we did our first rodeo in 1986, we could not find any venue that would accept us because of a gay group. So, Coronas opened up their venue to us and treated us like family and now we’re able – at that arena, they have a huge indoor pavilion. And behind that is an outdoor, like, huge cement slab. So, inside we’re able to do parties, dancing inside, entertainment while the rodeo is going on outside. And we’re able to keep people there – keep them involved. And I think that’s one thing that really makes us unique, is that we can do everything right there. Plus, we now, for the last few years, we have come up with the idea of party buses, and people can buy their tickets and ride to the rodeo and back, so they don’t have to worry about driving. And we’re able to keep people there to just drink, have a good time dancing, whatever. And there’s a huge stage in the pavilion so we can bring in entertainers – we have our own local entertainers. And, in addition to that, and it’s not really so much that we’re unique in this way, but I think we are in the fact that we probably have more vendors at our rodeo than most rodeos do. And we’re able to have them in places inside the pavilion and the outside as well. So, we’re serving our alcohol at the bar inside, and then we have a beer truck outside as well. I think that helps with a lot, that we’re just able to do everything right there. Do you have a favorite rodeo memory from that – were you at the first rodeo that Arizona put on? Yes. Do you have a favorite memory from that? Well, not from the first one. And I have a favorite memory, but it’s not a pleasant memory: one rodeo, and it was probably in the ‘80s – mid to late ‘80s or early ‘90s. The weather in Phoenix is usually really good. We do rodeos now in February. We changed a few years ago, but they used to be January. Well, one year it actually snowed. And there was so much ice. I was secretary at that rodeo, and we didn’t have an enclosed area to work. So, go out in the morning, just ice all over the tables. I tried to work with gloves, I couldn’t. And I remember saying, “I will never be secretary of this rodeo again if I work outside.” So that’s one of – probably the best memory I have. That’s kind of an interesting one. How have you seen – how has planning the rodeo changed from that first rodeo or any planning you were involved in in the ‘80s to this upcoming rodeo? To me, I think we probably have more of a committee make-up that makes the decisions for the rodeo – not all of them, some, of course, the Rodeo Director makes, or the Rodeo and Assistant Rodeo Directors make. But that’s probably the biggest change I’ve seen. What we’ve done, different people and having them do different tasks. Let’s assign someone as Vendor Coordinator, Entertainment Coordinator, Awards Coordinator, things like that. You mentioned camp events earlier. Do you like the camp events? I do. I think they’re very entertaining and when the public comes, especially if they’ve never been to a rodeo, it’s exciting for them to see all this going on. You know, they’re interesting. And what a lot of people sometimes – not so much anymore, I guess, it’s just certain groups – will think it’s abuse of the animals because of way we do the event. And it’s not because IGRA, at the international level and local, is all about animal welfare and not mistreating them in any way. (Subjects: events, igra) So, I think the camp events are very interesting. It’s exciting when, for example, in Wild Drag Race, when the drag is getting on the steer and having to stay up there to get across the line. Maybe you fall off, your partner helps you get back on, and back and forth until the time runs out. So, that’s probably, to me, the most interesting next to Goat Dressing. And that’s another fun one.(Subjects: events) Have you ever participated in the Wild Drag Race? Just a few times before. What role did you play? I think I did – held a steer most of the time. So, you were never the drag? I don’t believe so, no. That’s just not me. What do you think of royalty in the rodeo and the role that they play? I think our royalty people are very integral, a very important part, a necessary part. Because I look at them as goodwill ambassadors for the association, and they are our major fundraisers. They have that expertise to entertain crowds and to bring in money. So, without them, I think we would be hurting ourselves.(Subjects: royalty) How have you seen the role of royalty change in the rodeo over time? Well, we used to have the Miss and Mr. category, and Mrs. We have now, Mr., Mrs., and Miss, and a MisTer, a drag king. So that’s the biggest change, that we’ve added that category a few years ago.(Subjects: royalty) What do you think of those new categories? I think it’s essential to have it, because – just the community is everywhere. It’s in other associations, the Pride associations have categories such as that. So, to stay up with the times, and to be inclusive, and to let everybody who wants to be a part, I think it’s absolutely essential.(Subjects: community) How long have those categories existed? Oh… Well, our MisTer, we added that just a few – I can’t remember, maybe three or four years ago. But, the Miss and Mr., I think have been in existence pretty much since we started the royalty. And it wasn’t as much competition way back in the early days as it is now. It was, but not to the extent it is now. So, probably in some form or other, we’ve had those categories since 1987, probably. A long time.(Subjects: royalty) Yeah. Have you had a lot of participation in the Mrs. and MisTer categories, specifically, since they’ve been added? In our local or at the international level? Um, both. Locally, we’ve always had, or generally had, a good response for the Miss, the drag queen category, and the Mr. And occasionally the Mrs. We did, one year – or a couple years – we had the MisTer, a drag king. So, that’s one that’s getting more people involved now. At the international level, we now have a MisTer 2020 and a first runner up. So, more people are starting to see the importance and how they can be involved. So, I think it’s growing, and it’s gonna continue to grow. You mentioned earlier, you said you were a scorekeeper at one point, for the rodeo. Do you still do score keeping? No. I was scorekeeper and Secretary, both. I’ve done both. But no, I – we have to recertify every year, and I chose not to recertify for 2020. How long have you been scorekeeping for? What years did you score keep for? Well, when the certification program began, again, I think – I can’t remember the year, I should – but it was maybe ‘87, ‘88. Way back. I was grandfathered in as scorekeeper and secretary. So, from then until through 2019, I had those positions. What made you interested in scorekeeping? I don’t know. I really don’t know. I guess just because – and I prefer the secretary position over scorekeeper, very much so. I guess maybe what had a lot to do with it was, because of my professional work: working in offices and having worked in positions with classification, and – I don’t think it exists anywhere anymore – as an actual secretary or clerk typist, and things like that, and just having the experience from the office atmosphere, probably is what made me more interested. And knowing that was a way that I could participate, and I could give back something.(Subjects: jobs) So, what do you do outside of the gay rodeo? You mentioned it a little bit. Well, I’m actually retired from state service, state government, but I work out of my house now, fortunately, as executive director for a tribal workforce group in Arizona.(Subjects: jobs) So, what does that entail? I do research. I plan all our meetings. I coordinate an annual conference every December. I attend meetings on behalf of our chairperson or on behalf of myself. I am responsible for ensuring that minutes are done and distributed from every meeting.(Subjects: jobs) So, kinda similar to your work with IGRA and your local association. Is that why you originally decided to get involved as secretary? I think so. Because of my previous work and, actually, of course, when I started doing it, I was still working. I had not retired. So, I think that’s it. Because it’s something I knew I could do; it was kind of related.(Subjects: jobs) Yeah. Have you ever attended any of rodeos outside of the gay rodeo? No. I think that once I’d seen a little bit of bull riding, but not a full rodeo. Is there anything that you think, personally, makes gay rodeo special or unique? Yes, I think the fact that somebody who identifies as gay, or lesbian, or just supports other groups, that you can feel welcome. You can feel a part of it, and you don’t have to fear any retaliation by participating. So, you’ve been involved in gay rodeo for a really long time, so what has made you keep coming back every year? Because I like it, and I like being around the people. And it gives me something – an outlet to do other than just work. So, you mentioned dancing a little while ago. So, how long were you involved in square dancing? Well, from 1986, and then we disbanded... probably... maybe in the early 2000s. Something like that. So, at least something like that. Do you still dance? No. No, I’m not as limber as I used to be.(Subjects: dance) Did you enjoy the dances at the gay rodeo? Oh, yeah. We had a lot of fun. I enjoyed it very much.(Subjects: dance) Do you have any memories that you’d like to share about any of the dances you attended? One, I think from our own association that really I loved and the crowd loved. We were able at one of our rodeos at Corona – normally no vehicles are allowed inside the pavilion, but we square danced to “Pink Cadillac,” the song. So, we borrowed a pink Cadillac from somebody we knew, and eight of us piled into the Cadillac, and we drove in through the pavilion. And then we got out of it and started dancing. So, that was one of the best memories about square dancing.(Subjects: dance) That’s great. And you’re in the Hall of Fame, right? Yes. What year were you inducted? 2014. What was that experience like, being inducted? It was emotional. It was a real honor, something unexpected. But it just made me realize more how much people did appreciate what I had done. Um, let’s see. Oh, have you found – do you feel like you found a family or community within participating in gay rodeo? Yes. Definitely.(Subjects: community, family) Could you give any examples, or have any memories you’d like to share of finding that? Well, I think the big thing is just, from the beginning, getting to know people and where they made you feel welcome and part of it. That was the biggest thing. Because having never been to a rodeo or anything like that, not know what to expect. But it’s like people who have been there take you under their wing for a while and let you, you know, get used to everything. And they’re there to answer questions and help you along the way. What do you think it means to be a cowboy? Some people I know say they’re a cowboy. And to me a real cowboy – and I don’t want to be negative about our gay rodeo, because, yeah, I think they’re cowboys/cowgirls – but a real, real cowboy is living on the ranch, actually working with the cattle, and being able to ride, and really work with them that way.(Subjects: cowperson) Would you say you’re a cowboy? No. I’m not a cowboy, but I identify with being around our cowboys.(Subjects: cowperson) Do you wear Western wear at all in your everyday life, or just when you’re at rodeos? Sometimes I’ll do it in everyday life too, depending on where I’m going, what I’m doing.(Subjects: cowperson) Have there been any other rodeos that you’ve been to, besides just the Arizona one? Oh, yeah, I’ve been to a lot of them in different states and in Calgary. And I’ve worked at them a lot as the secretary. Do you have any favorite rodeos outside of the Arizona one? It’s hard to really say I have a favorite, but I would probably – and I’m not really sure why, I think I have some reasons – but I would probably say two of my favorites are the Missouri Gay Rodeo, which is called the Show-Me State Rodeo, and then Diamond State Rodeo when it’s held in Little Rock. And I guess maybe it’s because, having started growing up initially in Oklahoma, that they’re more like the people that I’m used to, or was used to before. Kind of in the same local. So, I think those are two of my favorites. The Zia Rodeo in New Mexico is another one. But somehow, I think I kind of feel better about some of the smaller ones than the larger rodeos. Why do you say you like the smaller ones better? I didn’t know. I don’t know that I really like the smaller rodeos better, but the ones I mentioned seem at times to be smaller. And I think it’s more just the kind of people, the areas they’re from. Is there anything else you’d like to add about your experience of working with IGRA for so long? Only that I feel very blessed to have been able to be involved, and to continue to be involved, and to feel that I’m welcome to come back at any time if I, you know, say if I want to be secretary again, that I could run for that position with no negativity from anybody. And I think just knowing I can be part of something.(Subjects: igra) What do you see for the future of IGRA? That’s a hard question. Let me put – I want to say that I don’t know what I see that’s the future. I want to be careful how I say that. But what I want to see is continued growth, better communication, and encouraging more people to be involved(Subjects: igra) How do you think IGRA can reach out to younger generations and bring them in? I don’t know. We’ve dealt with that for years and we keep bringing it up every year. There’s a few younger people now, but not anything like we need. And, I guess, probably using every means – social media means – we can, is gonna be the only way to reach them, and to really let them know that, you know, you don’t have to be a cowboy or a cowgirl to be involved in gay rodeo. You can do other things. You can be a supporter, you can be a member, or just go to the rodeos and have fun.(Subjects: igra) Great, well, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. You’re welcome, thank you.

Curt Westberg Click to filter

This is Rebecca Scofield, and I'm here with Curt Westberg*. And it is March 6th at 10:13 am. Thank you so much for doing this with us. I appreciate your time. So can you tell me what year you were born? 1962, July 25th. And where were you born? Missoula, Montana. Amazing. How long did you spend in Missoula? My dad was a grad student getting his master's there, so I think we moved away when I... I have some memories, but they're real...two, two and a half, three, maybe. What was he getting his master's in? Organic chemistry. What career did that lead to? He was an atmospheric chemist at WSU, actually for...he got hired at WSU in '71 and retired from there in...I don't know, probably 2000 somewhere, you know, 30 or 40 years or something like that.(Subjects: jobs, parents) Wow. So was there a place in between Missoula and Pullman? He got his Ph.D. in Seattle. So we lived in Seattle through first grade, and then he post-doc'ed in Edmonton, Alberta, for second, third, and fourth grade were in Edmonton. And then we moved Pullman when I was in fifth grade. I no, first, second, third grade, were in in Edmonton, and I moved to Pullman in fourth grade year. Wow. What was that like going from Missoula, which is pretty big and pretty rugged we'll say to Seattle to Edmonton. I was so little. I mean, I just, you know, it was...I don't...I didn't have any impressions of it or anything. I remember a little bit of that moving from Edmonton to Pullman, which was Edmonton was big city, too, and that was back in the days when there was so much freedom for kids. I mean, we used to run around Edmonton, just my buddies and I, fourth grade just everywhere up on campus and take the bus downtown. And, you know, it's amazing. I can't imagine my kids having that level of freedom. [laughs](Subjects: childhood) So did you have siblings? I have a younger brother....a younger sister and a younger brother.(Subjects: childhood) Were you guys very close growing up? Yeah. I mean, we... We were close. We fought like, well, my brother was nine years younger, and so it was...I wasn't the best of older brothers. And my sister and I fought like crazy until we got into college. Then we got to be good friends. We're all really good friends now, so.(Subjects: childhood) Yeah. Sounds pretty typical. Yeah. Watching my own kids, that was the case. They tolerated barely tolerated each other in teenage years and are super close now. Just got to get them through. Yep. Just got to get them through. Yeah. Just have to be adequate. That's what I learned about parenting. You don't have to be a perfect parent. You just have to be adequate. That's good advice. Much needed advice. So when you all moved to Pullman. So your dad joined faculty? Yeah he was an associate, then got tenure somewhere in there, probably late '70s. And he was he headed that laboratory for atmospheric research for a lot of years there. He's a super bright guy. And you know, brain works different than mine. Very, very locked on and focused and bright did a lot of really groundbreaking work. He did a lot of the early methane work, biogenic methane work with cattle and livestock and jungles and all kinds of things.(Subjects: parents) So fascinating. Yeah pretty fascinating. I got to do a lot of research projects with them. And I put my actually when I was going through school, he'd get the consulting projects and I'd do the analysis on the gas chromatograph and stuff like that. So I learned a lot of skills that I had no theoretical background for, but [laugh]...I knew how to do the work. That's amazing. What's your mom do? She stayed at home until we were, you know, until my brother... They were high school sweethearts in Yakima. Grew up in Yakima and got married. My mom was 19 when she had me, which is just...it's hard for me to imagine. And then so she was she didn't finish college, stayed home. I think she always felt, you know, ashamed of that. And then she was a good mom and a really good mom; is a good mom. And then she went to work for a bank. She would started being a bank teller. And then she got moved. So she worked pretty hard for...till I moved away after I got out of college. I went to WSU and moved away after that. And I'm not sure quite when she quit, but, uh, but she had worked at Siefers for a long time.(Subjects: parents, jobs) So where did you guys live? Like in Pullman or on the outskirts? We had a little house on Gladstone Street in Pullman, which is an easy walk to the university and lived there until...this is a kind of funny story. Lived there until I started riding. As a freshman in high school I needed to reinvent myself and fell in with the cowboys and started riding bulls because I didn't have a horse. Right? So I started riding bulls and my mom hated it. And my sophomore year for Christmas, they got me a horse. And so then we had the horse. Right. We were living in town in Pullman. And so between my sophomore and junior year, they bought a ten acres in Colfax and we moved over there. So I had a place for the horse and that was nice, actually.(Subjects: childhood) So then were you still commuting to Pullman for school? No, I went to Colfax. I graduated from Colfax High, so I spent junior and senior year in Colfax, which was a ton of fun. It was really fun. Did you keep your same friend group when you moved? Some. I'm still friends with a lot of them. We had a pretty tight...I, you know, a lot of us went to WSU and so we had a big kind of built in group that was tight. And we still...I mean, my best friend lives in Moscow. And we he sat down next to me in a health class when we were freshman in high school and I was an asshole to him. Can I swear on this? Yes. Absolutely. It's encouraged really. Yeah. I was not...because I was like, "I want a popular guy to sit next to me." I didn't know who this guy was. And then when we went to a party and drank together and talked about hunting and you know, we just...he and I had a ton of similar interests. And so we got to be really good friends all the way through college. Oh, still. So did you do high school rodeo? What were you...? I did junior rodeo and then I did high school rodeo and then I rodeoed in college at WSU for a couple of years. Yeah. I was wondering if WSU had a team. They had a rodeo team and [Dolly ?] was the leader of that. Yeah, it was fun. I wasn't, I was never top notch talent, but...but it was a blast. I had so much fun. Where you guys travel to compete? Mostly just...probably the farthest we went was what used to be Treasure Valley Community College. Yeah. TVCC and Blue Mountain and Idaho had a rodeo and I don't know where else we went, but that was about as far, you know, regional. Did you ever go into PRCA at all and think about it? Never good enough. I hit a point in my sophomore year where it was rodeo was a blast and I was drinking way too much and I wasn't paying attention to school and it just kind of was like, "No, this isn't the path for me." I don't have the background, I don't have the skill. And I'm not willing to work hard enough to get the skill. And so I just concentrated on school and kind of quit rodeo and I still team rope. Team roping was what I like to do. So I still team rope on and off. But my brother actually was good. And he was nine years younger, so I'd already started all this stuff and kind of laid the groundwork and he really took it and ran with it and went to nationals but he never got his card either. And his kids, one of them, one of my nieces I think she has her card, and they were good enough. But they just, you know, it's, it's kind of like... Yeah, it's a whole lifestyle. We come from a really academic family, and I never realized how pervasive that was until just looking back at the decisions I made. And it always kind of went not towards academics with me but just kind of, "That's fun and this is life," right?(Subjects: family) Yeah. That it never felt like a career path. No. And I didn't have the desire or the competitive edge or the money. Frankly, it takes a lot of money to do that stuff. Yeah. Absolutely. Unless you're a rough stock rider. And even then it then...I didn't like doing that so. Yeah. Did you continue to rough stock ride after you got your horse? As soon as I could quit. Every time I got on a bull it was like an out of body experience. [laughing] I'd get tunnel vision and I just, you know, I couldn't keep [on]. I don't know how those guys do it. It's not how my head is wired or wasn't back then. And so now I just I like the horses. And so what was your degree in at WSU? Wildlife Biology. Loved animals, you know, and it was a little bit of...I realized it probably in my thirties that it never entered my head that I wouldn't get a Ph.D. Right? Because everybody I knew, right, my dad, all most of the people we associated with were professors or they were grad students, and everybody was working towards that goal. My dad never said it. I mean, I think he would have wished he was a hired man. He would have rather been a rancher. Right. And so it wasn't any pressure. It was just I never even considered not doing it. And so I remember the day I woke up and thought, "Thank God I don't have to get a Ph.D." This is after I'd gotten a master's and I'd been accepted to a couple Ph.D. programs. And I just had a moment of clarity that it was not...I wasn't going to...I wasn't in a mental place, you know, having watched enough Ph.D. students torture themselves for long periods of time, I just knew I didn't have it in me.(Subjects: jobs) So. So you said you were pretty avid hunter? Yep. Did that play into what you wanted to do? You mean for life? Yeah. What I wanted to... I mean, in terms of wildlife biology. Yeah, I mean, that was part of it, certainly. My dad was a super good teacher, so super good teacher about respect. And he was a scientist; always questioning, "why is this..." "Why does this work the way it is?" "Why do you think this works the way it does?" And ecology. And it was just fun. And frankly, I had to get...I had to do something. You know, I was in school, and I needed to...I figured out...I started in engineering because that's where my dad said, "That's where the money is." And then I took calculus, said, "No, we're not doing engineering." [laughs] I was always good at math until that. That was a nightmare. And so then I kind of bopped around and it was always between English...It was always between...I love to read and I always kind of have wanted to write, never had the skill to or never had that whatever it takes, you know, whatever writers have to do that. But and I had a super instrumental, a couple of profs at WSU in elective classes.(Subjects: jobs, teaching) I took out literature of the American West class from a guy named George Watkins. And he was an old cowboy, smoked a cigar in class and just cowboy hat guy. He was funny and he's super bright and it was really it was a wonderful class and that and then I took a Shakespeare, a couple of Shakespeare classes, from Professor Bruce [?] over there. And that just opened my mind. But it was like, "What am I going to do with an English degree, right?" And so I finished. And I love I love the Wildlife Biology, too. And so I did that and then and then went to work for one of my dad's colleagues. He was at Washington State, and then he got hired at National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. So I moved after college, I moved to Boulder and he said, "Come down, I'll get you on the payroll for six months as a visiting scientist, and we'll see what happens." And, you know, I could have stayed there, and I could have I could have continued working there for longer than I did. And, you know, but I kind of realized that's where I realized, okay, I'm not a scientist.(Subjects: jobs) Right? I mean, caring, you know the old joke, caring more and more about less and less. Right. And I just couldn't generate... We were doing like the funnest science there was. Tenth percentile science. Right. Just trying to answer just the broad brush, big questions about the beginnings of climate change stuff, really. And it wasn't enough. I just knew I wasn't going to be good at it. I just couldn't generate... The enthusiasm? Yeah, the enthusiasm for it. So I did the prerequisites to get into a Lit program in Boulder and did a master's in Literature there. And, I loved it. Oh, my God, that was so fun. I was just a hick from Pullman, and going in, it was a heavily, heavily feminist department. And I mean, I thought I was pretty bright? [Laughs] I got in there and our first couple of classes I was in, I'd open my mouth and I'd have these women, scary women come tell me, "Just why don't you just not say anything for a little while? Just listen, alright?" They were great teachers. It was so fun to be surrounded by people that just had the same passion that I did about literature; it was awesome.(Subjects: teaching) And then I taught. [laughs] And I hated it. [laughs] I didn't hate it, but I just was...It was like freshmen comp? And it's just like there's three people in the class that care. Yeah. Right. And the rest of em are just in there checking a box. And it was just like...So I would show them... Finally, I just got frustrated and...how can you?... Plus, they can't...They don't have a background. You can't manipulate [their writing]. You're supposed to be helping them manipulate their writing. And you can't manipulate your writing if you can't write a complete sentence. Yeah. Right. And so I finally just bailed and started... It was at Southwest Missouri State, and I went back there chasing a relationship, which is a whole different topic. And I just ended up showing a movie like I showed Harold and Maude. And we read A Modest Proposal, and I just had them write about those things and I made it through. But it wasn't what I wanted to do. I got accepted into a PhD program in Literature at Oklahoma, there was a guy there that I can't remember his name now, but there was a critic there or a professor there that I really wanted to study under. American West is what I would have done. Probably really early American West stuff and I TA'd for Patty Limerick. She wrote a book called The Legacy of Conquest, which was an awesome book. There's something about the West. I grew up here. It's in my blood. There's something about it that I love, and it's super interesting. Absolutely. And if you're working with Patty Limerick, you're right on the cusp of New Western Historiography and this... Redefining the whole discussion. Like away from wagon wheel [western history] Exactly. So that's super fascinating to be right in there. It was fun and the entire time I was drinking, right? And I wasn't taking advantage of the...I got some intelligent regret about my past. I mean, I think everything that I ever did got me sitting in this chair right now. So you can't second guess stuff. I really like where I'm at. But intelligent regret around missing the opportunity to just...I just can't imagine how wonderful it would be to go back to school and just have nothing to do but learn. I'm kind of old...getting to be an old fogy, but, it's wasted. It was wasted on me a little bit. I mean, I learned a lot and I learned a lot of social...I learned lot of stuff. But the opportunity and the time. What is the saying? Youth is wasted on the young? Youth is wasted on the young! It kind of was. And in a lot of senses with me, it would have been nice to have had... But then I also look at the people that were super locked on that knew and they missed out on youth really. So I don't know. What do you...what can you do about it? It's hard to ever see a path in which someone appreciates every aspect of life. Right. It's all that magical thinking about: woulda, coulda, shoulda, right? But it was interesting. And then, you know, I took a job as a...I went to work...Well. So while I was in Denver working and doing my masters, that's when I first went to the rodeo, the gay rodeo. I never even imagined such a thing was even possible. Right. It was early on. It was probably...it must have been around 86 or 87, one of the first Denver rodeos. And I went to it the first year. And then I'd met-ca-n I say people's names?--Dave Stinson, who I'd met him at a summer party, some friends through in Missoula, and he was wet behind the ears cowboy from Philipsburg, Montana. And I'd never met anybody quite like him. Still a really good friend of mine. We talk a lot and we'd been talking and he'd decided to come down and so he ended up pulling a couple horses down. It was so amazing, right? It was...I was listening when you guys when you had the talk and it wasn't this, "Oh, this is a political statement I'm making," it was just dang fun. I don't think kids. Kids? I don't think people nowadays know what it was like in the 80s. I did not have a single role model, period. Right. Everybody that I ever saw I didn't relate to. And I thought I was alone, especially in Pullman. And not out of the closet. I was not out and proud. And Denver was wide open. I remember walking there's a bar in Denver called The Foxhole. It had a Sunday afternoon beer bust, volleyball net. And I walked in there and there was 600 guys. And I was just...I mean, it was a bit of a spiritual experience for me. It was unbelievable to know that there was...kind of knew it it by that point that I wasn't [alone] but to see it in that kind of volume, it was so fun. So can I ask how you identify in terms of gender and sexuality? Well, I'm not sure I understand those terms anymore, but my gender is definitely male and my sexuality is 90...I mean, I had a girlfriend in college and it's 95% gay. I've never had a relationship with a woman after I came out of the closet. And how young were you when you came out? Twenty. It was my senior year in college, so I must have been 22 or 23. I'd kind of got to the point where it was: do this or I don't know what's going to happen if I don't. I couldn't keep lying. And I had two sides of my brain and they didn't talk to each other. And except when I was drunk. It just got untenable. I just can't deny it anymore. I have to do this. And it was interesting. So I feel like you have a very interesting background because you grew up in a really rural place, but also in connection to a university. And so what was your kind of feeling growing up? Were you afraid of coming out? Oh, my God. I it's the last thing in the world I wanted. I just I wanted to be...I wanted to be like... I wanted to just fit in, right? I was always kind of a weird kid. Kind of by eighth grade, I'd kind of learned the social skills to fit in. And I didn't want to jeopardize that. And again, there was no framework for it, really. The amount of change that has happened in 40 years. I never thought I'd ever see it. It's just astonishing. It was not a conversation. It's not something I welcomed. And once I came out, I had some really good...I had a couple of guys that were so kind and so gentle early on.(Subjects: comingout) Were you worried about your parents at all? Oh, hell, yeah. I never did tell em. I never did tell them I got drunk at a party and told my sister because she was feeling sorry for herself. And so I said, Well, what about this? And, and so she told them. My dad was...I thought my dad would be the one that had the problem with it. And neither of them had big problems with it. But my mom was the one who really had to work. My dad was just like...I don't know. My dad was not an expressive guy, let's put it that way. I never knew what he was thinking. He was incredibly kind with his time. And I knew...we never got told he loved me, but I knew he loved me because of the amount of--unbelievable amounts of time--that I was included with him. And I was in Denver right by that point.(Subjects: comingout) I was in Denver by that point. Two things were going on. I'd come out of the closet and I'd kind of figured out I was an alcoholic. I got down there and I just kind of I kind of just distanced myself from everybody. Maybe three or four times a year, I'd come home sometimes for Christmas or Thanksgiving or something like that. But but I was not an active part of their lives for many, many years, actually, which is another intelligent regret. Frankly, I have not had...I've had nothing really overt...I've had one good friend that I've never talked to since he found out. And that's it for me. Which I don't know whether...I don't know how to parse that really because I read all the stories, I hear about all this stuff, and it's just so not my experience. And I don't know why that is, and it's not like I've been not around. I've never really identified [why]. That's not 100% true in Denver. It was wonderful. I had a big group of gay friends. But the reason we were friends, because we played basketball, we played volleyball. It was sports oriented. I've never really got into the whole...I don't know. I'll keep it at that. And then my ex I was with--I was married to a guy for 20 years, married for five, but with him for 20 years. We adopted kids real early on, in 2000. We were in L.A., I was in L.A. at that point. And so we were kind of on the front wave of the gay adoption. People had been doing it, but all of a sudden, a lot of people were doing it. And we had. And so we were like our own--I mean, we'd go through the airports in Salt Lake and all these places--we were like our own gay pride parade. (Subjects: homophobia) I mean, it was impossible to not know. Somebody joked, "All you need is a Native American and you're going to be your own gay pride parade." Because our daughter's Black, is half African-American. Son is blond haired, blue eyed. Two guys. And people would look and they just...you could watch them try to figure it out. But we never got any...the only blowback I ever got was from the gay people, which is really interesting. I was thinking about this the other day. Really, most of the homophobia that I've experienced in my life has been from people in the community and not outside it. And it's there's this, I think there's this.... And mainly that's because I didn't I you know, I never...I don't know why. Never been able to figure it out. But I didn't I didn't try really hard either. And I don't know if that was threatening or what but...(Subjects: homophobia, community) And so for those instances of homophobia experienced from from other gay people, where they upset about your kids? Mostly was around the kids. When my daughter was a month old, we went back to Family Week in P-Town with a bunch of friends, L.A. friends. And we just had a ball. And I was packing around Sophia and the Baby Bjorn and Kenny in a backpack on my back. He was 18 months old. We got some pretty...people in restaurants and clubs, gay people just kind of chipping, "Selling out, buying babies, doing all this stuff." That's the only really the only instances that I can think of that coming up in my life. And I I've lived in Oklahoma and South Dakota. I was just in South Dakota for two years, three years, and I was team roping with these rednecks. And it was awesome. I don't know. I guess one of the ways I put it is I didn't demand their respect before I earned it. And that's just been my experience is once they know who you are, then it's just you. And it's not...it has never proven to be that big a deal. But if I'm coming at of them before they know me and demanding that they respect me, or treat me different or whatever, then...I've never done that, so I don't know what would happen if I did that.(Subjects: homophobia, family) So by the time you're roping in the Dakotas, did you have your family with you? We had divorced by that point. My kids were in college, they were older at that point. But it was obvious that I wasn't...I had a buddy that we're pallin around--a long story--but not a partner. And he's a straight guy. But we were always together. And I know they were all talking about it because I roped with the same club and I got to know them. And so they were like, "Why? Why is there no women around this deal ever?" I can just imagine the conversation, but never got any shade from any of them. It's interesting. I find that interesting, actually. I don't know how to parse it exactly, but I'm blessed. I feel lucky. Cause I know the horror stories. And I'm not dismissing, I'm not diminishing that, I'm not saying that I did something right and they did something wrong. I just I don't know why I've gotten to not have that as my experience.(Subjects: family) So what were you doing for work when you were in L.A.? And so I quit teaching school at Southwestern Missouri State and basically left that relationship and moved down--Dave Stinson and another guy, George, had gone into business training barrel horses. Breaking colts and training barrel horses. Futurity horses; basically running in the futurities. I just said, "Hey, can I can move in? I'll pay rent. I can feed, I can ride." And so I got to ride really, really high dollar horses for a year. It was super fun. We just had a ball. It was just an absolute blast. And I taught a couple more sessions at the community colleges and I canvased for the National Toxics Campaign. It's kind of where I learned that I was good at sales. And then again, it was like, okay, I could have stayed there. There was no forward direction. So I took a job with a family friend back in Seattle that had started a company and wanted some help. And I didn't need much. And so I could come in and work there for three years and kind of learned sales. (Subjects: jobs, teaching) And then I answered an ad in the newspaper for my career at a company that wrote and built software packages that sold to construction companies. Accounting packages for construction company; started out as a salesman in Seattle, moved, told them I was going to move to L.A. cause I'd fallen in love with my ex, and just said, "I can do this from home. I'll just work for you down there." And they took a risk back then and it worked well. I worked for that company until 2017 and ended up working sales manager, VP of sales, bought in--they offered me an opportunity to buy into the company in 2008. So I bought into the company and mortgaged everything I had and bought into the company and we sold it in 2017. So it worked out pretty well. Yeah, and was super fun and I loved it. I love sales. Sales is fascinating. It's the only thing that's kept my interest because it's always different. You never know what's coming. It's just talking to people, which I'm good at. And I like that. (Subjects: jobs) And I respected the heck out of the guys I worked with. And they're really smart and I was good at it. And it paid. You know there's a reason why salespeople get paid a lot. Because there's not very many people that can do it, which I learned once I went and tried to hire salespeople. And it just doesn't, right? I could never figure out why they were willing to pay me the money they were paying me, because it's just like all I'm doing is talking to people. This is like the easiest gig in town. And boy, when I started trying to hire them, it was like, "Oh, no wonder." It's kind of like how I never could figure out how I got A's and B's in college until I taught college and read the papers. And I really I could have wrote about anything. If you can write a complete sentence and sort of logically present an argument: A or B. Because when you're reading 40 papers that you can't decipher. It's just astonishing to me.(Subjects: jobs) So what was the if you don't mind me asking, what was the name of the company? Dexter + Chaney. We had 1,000-1,300 customers or so. When I left, the average sale was around $60,000 or $70,000 back then. And we ushered it through a lot of changes in technology. And it was really well run. It got bought by Bain Capital, actually ended up buying us through another company, but a company they owned. Our biggest competitor ended up buying us. And then Trimble, which is the big giant in the construction industry, bought them after that. So what took you away from L.A., then? Sales Manager. I got promoted and I needed to be--they were okay with me selling in L.A. and not okay with me being a sales manager in L.A. And so I commuted back and forth for a couple of years because we had kids. My partner had a job and so we had to make that work and moved to Seattle.(Subjects: jobs) What part of L.A. did you live in? Mid-Wilshire. San Vicente and Hauser. Walking distance to The Grove and La Brea Tar Pits. It was neat. I loved L.A. It was awesome when the kids were little. As soon as they hit school age, you are looking at back then, $12,000 a year for kindergarten for each kid, out of net. It's like, there's just no way. And the public schools were just not an option, right? I mean the elementary school they would have gone to is four blocks away and it had metal detectors for first graders. You know, it's like no, we're not doing that. So they spent most of their growing up in Seattle. They're Seattle kids. We waited until they graduated. We moved after we sold the company. Kenny had, my son. Had he or my daughter? Well, no, they were both...They both were done right around the time that we moved back there. And they both went to University of Wyoming. My son graduated. My daughter, she's kind of like me. She was like, "Why am I here and why am I wasting your money?" And so she bailed on her senior year and she'll probably go back... who knows, life takes you. And so what part of Seattle did you live in? Lake Forest Park. So just 140, about 145th, 155th in there. They went to Shoreline schools and that's where I started all this. That's why mainly since we had the kids, I mainly identify with other parents. In L.A., there was a big group of gay parents that had adopted kids at the same time. But when we moved away from there, the kids were old enough to make their own friends. You don't have any time to have friends or make new friends. It's like you went through this all has been a huge part of my story. And I got sober in '98. So I've been going to a lot of AA meetings and if you tie into that crowd, it's a serious social--you get a lot of friends fast. And so [I] mainly identify with sober people and identify with other parents. And that kind of describes it. Now I'm here, it's kind of the same here. Yeah. So what brought you back? I'd gone to Rapid City to work for some friends and that ran its course and I bought a recruiting company. I'm a headhunter now. I bought a recruiting company and I could do that from anywhere. And so I started that. Well, I bought a franchise, so I started the company and did that and then met my current partner, Keith. He and his kids, one of his daughters was in Bellingham. His son was in Oregon. My kids were--Kenny was still in college and Sophie had moved back to Seattle. Kenny was going to move back to Seattle. And so we was like, "Why are we here? Right? We're 1,400 miles from our people." And we loved it. We had got at a ten acre place, an arena, horses. And it was a neat place. But it just was too far, too far away. We didn't want to be that far away. So we made the decision and moved back here and love it. Actually, that's really fun. I was a little worried about Keith. He came from Jackson Hole. He'd spent 40 years, had a career in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And how do you top Jackson Hole? You can't. It takes a while to learn to love the Palouse. But once you do, it's really a wonderful place. And he's got the bug now.(Subjects: jobs) What's it like living in Palouse? I love it. It's a great little town. Yeah. It's like being back in the fifties. They blow the fire whistle every day at noon so people know when it's lunchtime. That was like when I was a little tiny kid that used to happen. And then I've never been in a place since then that did that. And every noon. And it's like 50 feet from our house because we....So just like every day at noon, it's like the fire bell goes off. And the people are wonderful. It's a really neat mix of--kind of like my life-- actually. It's a really neat mix of academics and old farmers. And everybody just seems to get along. I've never even had a negative interaction out there, you know, just super welcoming. They spend a lot of money on the city. We couldn't believe this: the pool is free if you live there in the summer. We're both busy, but we're trying to work our way in and give something back. And it's a neat place. I really like it. And it's, you know, 16 miles from Pullman, 16 miles from Moscow. We looked in Moscow and when we bought the market was crazy. And we had a budget we wanted to stay in and nothing in Moscow was working. And he didn't want to live in Idaho because he'd lived in Wyoming, which is apparently better than Idaho. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with here, but he didn't want to live in Idaho. He wanted to live in Washington. And neither of us lived in wanted neither was I. I lived a long time in Pullman, and I never felt like Pullman had much. It's never connected with the town. It's so dominated by WSU, it's really difficult to have its own soul. Yeah. Moscow does. And so Palouse was a great. We bought a little farmhouse in the city. First time I've lived in the city for quite a while since Seattle and 900 square feet. Built in 1892, one of the original houses out there. It's really in great shape. It's super cool. The sort of political mix of Palouse, being from Moscow, I always hear Palouse is this great little tiny liberal dot. Does it feel like pretty welcoming to you? Oh absolutely. Like I said, I've never had anything that isn't just a positive friendly interaction out there. And I don't go looking for it, but it's so awesome. So what's your kind of take on that? You mentioned this earlier, and just like the amount of change that has happened for LGBTQ people over that span of 40 years? What's been your experience as things have changed? And do you think could things change back? You know, how do you feel about right now? Astonishment, basically, astonishment. Will and Grace, right? There's just been some...media has really I think one of the reasons and just basic human goodwill. It's like more and more people coming out and more and more people know peopl. It just took on a life of its own. The marriage thing was astonishing to me. I couldn't believe that that actually happened. And be careful what you wish for because then you get all the problems. [laughs] The law of unintended consequences. It was really a good thing that I couldn't that marriage wasn't an option or I would have been involved in more divorces; more than one divorce. And do I think it can go back? That's a big question. I think there's two narratives, at least probably thousands of narratives, but there's two major narratives going on here. There's the normal everyday interaction that people have, and there's what we're being fed, right? And the divide, the division and I think that the two are not conversant, right? And, frankly, I have problems. I have big problems with both sides, the fringes of both sides. And, you know, I think most people, when it comes down to other people are in the middle. Both of the extremes are walking around looking for a reason to be pissed off, right? To be offended, to be scared. And I don't think there's very many people in either of those camps. I'm reading a book right now that I'm kind of wishing I wasn't reading. It's a kind of a political...it's a near-future. It basically takes where we're at right now and rolls it out 15 years. Just takes the narrative through 15 years with climate change, with the politics that we're in. And it's frankly super frightening. I think humans have an amazing capacity to ignore the big picture--to ignore the forest for the trees. I have to always remember there's billions of acts of kindness happening every day right in the world. There's far more kindness and love in the world than there is the crap we read about. But all we see is that most not all, but 99% of what we see is the horror. And then you sit there and you get more and more insulated, more and more polar[ized]. And there are no answers for it, right? I mean, the far left scares me as much as the far right does, just for completely different reasons. But in the end, it all comes down to...I don't know. So I think a lot about it. In terms of me personally, I think Keith and I are going to probably...I don't see how they can roll marriage back just because it's gone far enough and maybe states can take it back. Maybe the Supreme Court will do the same thing that they did with abortion and throw it back on the states. And in that case, then it's like that's why we're living in Washington. Just I'm hoping that something somebody wakes up. And has a message. The thing I cannot believe is how out of 350 million people, the two people that are running for president are the best we can come up with. It's just...it's tragic. Right. But then who in their right mind would want that job? I mean, I figured that out a long time ago. If you want to be president, you're immediately disqualified. [laughs] There is something seriously wrong with you. I think it should be...nobody asked me. [laughs] I got a lot of ideas. So as you as you moved to Seattle and then L.A. and then back to Seattle, did you stay involved with rodeo? No. Once I left Oklahoma, I pretty much...just like in college. It was just like, "This is problematic. I don't have a horse." I lived in Seattle, all the rodeos were Denver east, pretty much. I could have kept doing it, but I got involved in relationships and life and work and life just took its own course. And you know what? Again, it was like, it's fun, right? It's fun, but it wasn't...And then actually it's so funny because Denver right before COVID. So 20--, it must have been 2019. I went to the Denver rodeo. It's kind of going the way a gay bars. It's like "we just call it rodeo." My kids are like, "It's just a bar. We don't call it a gay bar." There's no need. So they're not so much of a need anymore for that for the ghetto. For, "That this is a gay bar. And that's not a gay bar." Now, it's like my kids, I used to ask em, "Do you think that guy's gay?" They go, "Never thought about it. And why does it matter? Why would you even...? Who cares?" Right? I mean, it's so different. Yeah. I went to their prom--I was a chaperon at one of their dances in high school, and it's like women, lesbian couples, gay couples. My kids have three or four friends that are transgender, that I watched play soccer when they were five. And it's just a different world for the next [generation], for the younger people. I try, but I'm stuck in the '80s thinking. My upbringing--'70s, '80s--and it's hard to imagine that it doesn't matter. And so no I didn't stick with the rodeo stuff until we went back to the rodeo and that was a blast. We had fun. You know, Candy Pratt, is a friend of mine. I knew her when I lived or got to be good friends with her when I lived in Oklahoma. And a bunch of the...a few of the old guys were still around. Dave Stinson didn't come. He's pretty much quit doing it. And you know, we're getting old. But we had we had a lot of fun actually. But it was a it was a kind of a shadow of it itself. I mean, the year before I moved away, Dave and I actually won team roping at the finals. And we did that a couple of years in a row actually. I was never all that good, but I was good enough. It's such a beast. It's such a beast of its own. And that's what's sad. It's inclusive in a way that you just go to a PRCA rodeo and there's no there's no inclusion there. Those guys are top athletes, are riding $100,000 horses. It's fun to watch, but it's not a participatory event. And that's what I that is both. When I first started the first rodeo I went to, they still announced the names of the horses that the people were riding, which coming from high school, college rodeo, kind of the hardcore rodeo scene, that was, "oh, this is a different place. This is different." Back then it was still in its beginnings. And there was just a sense of for me and I think it was pretty pervasive, there was just a sense of newness. And relief and gratitude and not a lot of politics. You know, I see you guys studying this stuff now. And it was interesting experience for me to listen to that talk because it's it was never about that. And some of the questions that, "What was their race?" Looking for things. Now, first of all, if you think about it, there's 20% of the population is African-American, and the filtering that goes down to having somebody even know what a rodeo is enormous. And so...but I never saw even hint of that anywhere there, Black guys were just guys. There's one thing I love about the LGBTQ community...or I'm not sure if it's still that way, I haven't been really involved in it for so long...but it seemed it just was there, just wasn't any of that stuff, at least in my experience.(Subjects: community) So you've talked about some identity categories like parent and salesperson. Yeah. So one question that I always ask is: do you consider yourself a cowboy? Probably. Just more in the what the ethic represents. Just a way of thinking. Do I get on a horse every day and go chase cows around? No. I think there's something that I admire greatly in the no bullshit. And there's a lot of ignorance everywhere. I think that some of the values that I that I've got and that I've identified come from there. Because those guys in South Dakota, they would never talk politics. We never talk to religion. And that's just my...they were willing...there is no way I was going to do that. I don't care. That's personal. That's none of my business. And it will interfere with our relationship because I'm going to say, how could you vote for that idiot? And they're going to say, well.... It's not a way to foster connection.(Subjects: cowperson, religion) And connection is one of my huge values.I don't have to have the people that I connect with think just like me. And I think that's a cowboy [value]...especially older. Wisdom comes with age. I don't know how to answer that question. I'll think about that question. Yes. Yes. And one of the things I dislike about-- I dislike this in anybody--is being in love with my own ignorance. And there's a lot of that, but there's a lot of that everywhere. So how do you filter that out from the...I like the good things about being a cowboy.(Subjects: cowperson) And if I had to pick one thing, that's probably what I'd pick. Except I was sitting in...I'm an on again and off again vegan. I have all of a sudden fallen onto this Buddhist path that I didn't expect--came out of nowhere. I'm a team roper. I'm gay. There's one of me right now. If I wanted to feel unique, I could. I don't like feeling unique, right? I like being connected to people and noticing the similarities rather than the differences. So I've had some good teachers--some really good teachers--cowboys and others that really taught me I think what's important: compassion, love. Not: how do you talk? What are you? I get scared sometimes about the direction things are going in. Just everybody seems to want to be unique and recognized. I think there's some...I don't know how to...I got to do some more thinking about it.(Subjects: cowperson) Do you think that it plays into American individualism a lot versus--I spent a year in Japan and there it is so focused on the collective. And so how in America do we balance this desire for individualism? But also when does it get to the point that then we have no meaningful categories? It's a legacy of conquest, right? It's hard to shake our Puritan roots and it's hard to shake our westward [movement], or "Give me room. Don't tell me what to do." And a lot of what I share, it's really hard, right? It's a great experiment. And I think we're in an interesting phase of the experiment right now because I think both sides are trying to do the opposite of that. The right wing is like, "Give me...I want freedom as long as it looks exactly like what I think freedom looks like I want to have freedom. I don't want you to have freedom." And the left is...we're going to get to where we can't have a conversation anymore without offending somebody. Probably doing it right now. [laughs] It's just not conducive to any kind of collective goodwill. What I'm trying not to do is just buy 40 acres in the mountains and get some solar panels, right? I mean, that's a such a temptation. I know I could live, right? There's days when it's just like, "Oh, Let's just do that. All right? Let's dig a well and get some solar panels and grow our own food." It's hard to keep opting in. It is hard to keep...that's a great way to put it. It's hard to keep opting in because we're not getting much back other than fear. Just seems like we're so dominated by fear, which is if you look at the big picture stuff like climate change and rampant capitalism, capitalism driven by quarterly earnings. Capitalism pointed in the right direction is an incredibly powerful thing. And it's so not pointed in that direction right now. It's completely out of whack. And I'm not a Marxist. I just think that what government's job is: to steward--in America anyway--a steward to capitalism. And we've missed the point on that. Because we've created a political class. It is so astonishing to me. You don't have to look very far in history, over and over and over again. What happens when you concentrate wealth? What happens when you concentrate wealth? What happens when you concentrate wealth? What happens? You guys don't end up well. You think you would have learned a lesson This time will be different, right? I mean, in general, they don't like history. No, that's fake news. It's hard to learn from it... French Revolution is fake news. Yeah. I think it's really interesting that you've talked a lot about this very particular place you came from. I mean, were your parents religious at all? No, no, I still, to this day, have no idea whether my dad believes in God or not. He just did not...it was an absolute…I never...and our relationship was such that I would have never asked him that question. I think they felt like their parents weren't particularly [religious] either. Neither of them. My father's side anyway was teachers and college academics. And I just think that...I don't know what they believed, frankly. I think my mom and I have talked about it. I think she has a concept of a higher power. I don't if she's ever really defined it. We went to church on Easter and Christmas. I tried a couple of times when I was young to generate some belief and just never took. The questions were too great for me. I could never divorce myself from, "How does this really work? I don't quite get it." It just never it never passed the sniff test. And I got sober when I was 30, I guess I was 36, 35, 36, somewhere in there. And it's not a religious program either. (Subjects: religion, parents) But it does require something other than you. Alcohol, it's been your god. Now, it needs to be something else. It can't just be you because it's too strong a god. That's basically how to put it. And so I generated enough of one to put it in the place of alcohol. And I never really, couldn't go much further than that. I've tried all kinds of things. And that's basically what got me sober was a spiritual bankruptcy. I just knew there had to be something else to life and I couldn't get it. And AA lasted for a long time. And then just recently, it's still astonishing to me that there's these guys--that people that have been thinking about this stuff for 2600 years. Not about god, but about how the brain works. And why does this happen? Because it was always the big question for me is why does why does the same event have two different out[comes]? The same thing happens to two different people and they have two completely different [reactions]. I just I don't know. I've just gotten really intellectually, extremely intellectually, extremely interested in it. And it just appears true to me. With a capital T. (Subjects: religion) It's like AA, they don't ask you to believe in anything, right? No, there's no god. It's: here's what I've found. Go try it yourself and see what happens. So it's exactly like AA, it's really interesting. I think that if I write anything, I'm going to write about that. So that's currently--it's kind of turned my world upside down. It's like I'm looking at things different. And really when it comes down to it, it's like all religions, right? Be nice. Love your neighbor. Religion--organized religion--has people involved. And once people get involved, right, then all bets are off. The basic teachings of all of them, I think--I haven't studied the Muslim religion, I haven't I have a little know a little bit about the Hindus; I know some about Christianity, and I learned a lot about Buddhism--and they're all saying the same thing, right? Love. Compassion. You're not the center of the universe.(Subjects: religion) How do you how do you deal with this stuff? And it's seriously comforting to me in a way that I never thought religion could be comforting. It's just, "oh, okay. Well, I don't have to..." My marching orders are clear and I don't have to just be lost in trying to create some meaning out of whole cloth. I have absolutely zero idea where it's going to lead, but it's definitely... Just meditation alone. That's where it started with me was I meditated for a year, there's this program called Mindfulness in Recovery, which is a mindfulness based kind of in addition to AA. It's not 12 steps. It's like, no, this is about mindfulness. But the program itself is for people in any form of recovery. So if you consider yourself in recovery, you belong there. And it's 24 minutes of meditation a day. And I did it for a year. And I started it just [specific form of] meditation, just breaths, just calm, abiding, concentrated on my breath, trying to concentrate on my breath and watching what my brain does. (Subjects: religion) And it's like, Oh, my God. It's like this thing is out of control. One of the teachers I listen to talks about it being like a horse. An untamed horse. Your brain is your thoughts, your ego, whatever you want to call it, is it just jerking around all day? You can't do anything with it until you tame it. She's like a horse. You can't take a mustang, throw a saddle on it, and expect it to run the barrels. You got to train the damn thing. And so it's really been interesting and it, like AA had for me, the effects it's having on my life are never what I expected. I always expect euphoria. Left to my own devices, if I'm not euphoric there's something horribly wrong with the world. And that's just, that's just insane thinking and it led me...basically what I've been led around by my most of my life, right? Is that nope, this is going to make me euphoric. And then you get the euphoria for short periods of time and then it's gone and then you suffer and you try to get it back and it just creates this grasping, right? There's more and more and more. It's the basis of some of the problems in our society, I think. Is it? I think we have a spiritual illness in this society. And, you know, and I don't know what the answer is, but I'm enjoying the journey I'm on at the moment and you know how that relates to anybody else. I don't even know. I know how hard I've had to work to get here. Just really the large chunks of truth I've had to swallow about myself. And if I would not have been going to die, I would not have. There's no way I would have done it. So I look at my friends and it's like, Yeah, yeah, good luck. Right? It's just tough. We believe what our brains tell us hook, line and sinker. Every single time, even when it's telling us to don't have a sandwich, you're fat, have a sandwich, you're hungry. And then the same voice, same brain gets in a big fight with itself about what you should do, right? It's like insane. It's like crazy. So you talked about how, you know, the way in which he really was not political. Right. And you talked about how connection is really important in that in the... I'm sorry to interrupt. It was political. It was a big fuck you. There was an underlying... It was: "No, we can do this. You can't tell us not to do this. Come try to make us not do this." Yes. Yeah. And I think that's probably what researchers will talk about is like even when it when it wasn't necessarily... We weren't in there feeling this self-satisfaction about being political. We were just having a rodeo. But that it had political implications. Oh, absolutely. And then you were talking about how you sort of avoided talking about things that are going to come in the way of connection with people at straight rodeos. You have to be like, "Why did you vote for that person?" Was it the same at the gay rodeo that you didn't talk about religion or you didn't talk about politics or? Or was or was there some sort of... It was a pretty homogenous community when I was doing it. We were all liberals. And I did talk about it back then. I didn't learn that until recently. Not to talk to people about that stuff. [laughs] I used to have a lot of opinions that I was willing to share with people. And we had such an overriding common theme. That it kind of pushed all the differences to the to the back. I mean, there were people that I didn't want to hang around and there was people that I didn't want to hang around. And half of it generated by sexual attraction. And, you know, there's always that. It was a place...It was a place. And by the time the last couple of rodeos I went to we were we were rock stars and I was young and, you know, young. I was young and I was young and....[laughs] It was really, really just ego driven fun. It was it was great time. (Subjects: community) And the gay community is cursed with substances. You can't have a conversation about the gay community without talking about substance abuse. You just can't. Not everybody in it is abusing them. But, I mean, all you got to do is look at meth in the gay community. I'm probably stepping on more people's toes. But but it's just tragedy, right? Because there is a sense of...Well, I don't know if it attracks. I don't know and it's everywhere. It's not like I don't know if it's any greater in the gay community than it is in other communities. But I've certainly noticed that in the gay community and being sober in that environment was strange. Yeah, it was weird.(Subjects: community) Yeah, were you sober? I was not drinking. Because I knew I had a problem. And when I drank, I didn't know if I was going to stop. And I couldn't not for any extended period of time. Two things that make me an alcoholic. And so I pretty much didn't...I'd pick men that would take one look at my drinking and go, "We're not having this. If you want to stay with me, you're going to stop drinking." And so I'd quit, right? And I'd be increasingly miserable. You can't take away your medicine and not put something in its place. And codependency is not a good answer for that. So there were times when I did and times when I didn't. Generally, I'm not one of those people that every time I drink was horrible. No, I had a great time. It was just unpredictable. Yeah. I mean, I would assume that's part of what drives addiction is because you do have a good time. Oh, it scratches that itch, right? That I want to be euphoric. I know how to be euphoric. Three martinis. Right. And I have a sense of euphoria, but it doesn't last. And then I chase it, and then I end up doing pitifully and incomprehensibly demoralizing things. I don't remember your question so well... When you look at the archive of of gay rodeos, there's a lot of focus on the parties or when I went to the 2021 Denver and they had the party busses running from Charlie's. And it seems like that was so much a part of the... I remember when Bud Light agreed to sponsors. Or one one of the beer companies agreed to sponsor and it was like huge deal, right? But that's everywhere. And we have such a weird relationship with it. But yeah, definitely, it was about the party, right? It was not a professional sport. It got to be more that way. I think by the time I was quitting and there was enough money in it. It was big enough that there was enough money in the jackpots, that it was starting to attract people that would have never gone to one before because they could win. And the competition was still...For the money, the competition was not the same as the other rodeos. And so we got to be more serious. But rodeo is not any bastion of mental health, just regular PRCA rodeo is not a bastion of mental health. It's a tough life and there's a lot of there's a lot of [substance] abuse. It's just the way it is. And certainly being...I was a young, straight woman around rodeos and they seemed like great places to meet cowboys. Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, does it have that feeling of just sex and alcohol and a good time? Absolutely. I mean, can we get candid on this? Yes. Okay. I think that straight men and women and maybe gay women, maybe lesbians, too, don't understand what being gay was and probably still is like. Which is: I could get laid as much by just walking to the grocery store. That sounds egotistical, but it wasn't. I mean, I'm a decent looking guy. I'm not, you know, but I'm not the best thing in the world. And it was just never a problem. Right. And I guess just like, you know, I had a friend who used to say, women need a reason and men need a place. Right. [laughs] I'm not sure if that's offensive or not. But, it's, you know, I've had this conversation with my straight friends a lot over the years. It's like, "You guys just have to work so hard for that." Especially the single ones. You know what I mean? It's just this this whole dance where, you know, it's not the same. Yeah, that's exactly what it was about. But, but everywhere was...going to the grocery store was like that, right? I mean, going to any bar. There was really one..."Oh, I'm going to go for the camaraderie." No, you're not. Right. Well, let's not fool ourselves. [laughs] I don't think it was any...that was just a natural extension. It wasn't anything...And it was fun because there was more people that, if you like that kind of thing, there was more people there that were kind of concentrated.(Subjects: dance) Did you see long term relationships, marriages, partnerships emerge out of that culture? I mean, that's a big thing in straight rodeo. You have like the buckle bunnies and, and lots of emphasis though on sort of eventual marriage and things like that. I don't think I saw anything any of that more than anywhere else. I don't think it was...I think "I want to go land me a cowboy." Right. I think and they landed them cowboy and then it has predictable results generally. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. It depends on the players. And so it's you know, it's but I don't... It just was about...most of the guys...shoot a lot of the guys who were competing, especially in the horse events, it was a way to get together and compete that wasn't available. That wasn't really available in other places. I mean, you could go to team opens and stuff and that's fun, but not with those people.(Subjects: events) Yeah. Right. And so there was a tremendous sense of camaraderie and just shared purpose and fun around it that that was more around the rodeo--just being able to do this. Frankly, I was just absolutely amazed that...I was just absolutely amazed. I couldn't believe that it was even happening in the beginning, you know? And then it got serious. I mean, I missed the serious years, but I heard a lot of stories from Dave and Candy, and it got serious. There was a lot of money in it and big crowds. It's a little sad that it's not, you know, that it's run...And I don't know if it's run its course or not. I know Candy has been president and I know that there's still a community there for sure. But now it's more of a...I think from what I gathered from the Denver rodeo, it's more of a...it's not drawing new people in as much as it did. I think it's more like a team roping club, right? You know, people that do it and enjoy it and have fun and trade their money back and forth, and that's great. I mean, and who knows what will happen in the future, right? And I'm not that's not in any way a diss on the thing. And I don't think anybody's doing anything wrong to make that different. I think it's just it's just a function of of where we're at society wise, you know? Yeah. You had mentioned that kind of the wages of success. But yeah, we no longer have to ghettoize or put in niche spaces. But there is a sense of sadness. Oh yeah, it would be nice to just go to a gay bar and know that it was like the old gay bars were. Right now it's like, well, not that I couldn't go to bars, but I don't. But and plus I'm, you know, Logan's run for gay people. You know, I'm 60. [laughs] I'm that guy. It's definitely a young man's game. Which is fine. That doesn't even bug me. I don't have a lot of interest in that anymore. And I think that's the reason--I think the young [people] they've got big groups of friends. They still may get ostracized by their parents and stuff, but not by their friend groups. Right. They just go to a bar. I think especially the emergence of apps, the ability to meet people online. Oh, my God. That changed absolutely...I mean, that's like, why would you go? It's insane for straight people. Why would you go anywhere? Right? Why am I going to go spend 20 bucks on a drink when I could just swipe left? Or swipe right? Or whatever you do. It's just...it's instant. It's like social...Absolute antithesis of those things or just the the absolute essence of those things. Just because we can doesn't mean we should. Well, I think it goes back to what you were saying about connection. And so it's like it gives us so much, but also... Well, after my ex and I broke up, I played on those things, right? And it's just like, it's super convenient and interesting. I mean, sociologists must just be having a ball right now. Well, so I really want to ask you, because you have so much background in this. I mean, you've you've read historiography on this stuff. You've read Western literature. A big question I always get it is like, can the cowboy be a liberal icon? A liberal icon? Yeah. Is it too grounded in these really brutal histories about the legacy of conquest? Can it be an icon for inclusion and diversity and celebrating different pasts than all of these things? What are your thoughts on that? Well, I think individual cowboys can be that. Mhm. Mhm. I've never, I've never even entertained that thought. Could it be...? I think it could be... It could, I think it could move people back to the center. I'm not sure it's ever going to be the, you know, it's not going to be the...what are they going to call it? Cowperson? Cowfolks. Cowfolks Cowfolks comes up a lot at the gay rodeo on and off, I think particularly for women, even people who, you know, are trying to talk about all of gay rodeo, not just cowboys or cowgirls. They get tired of saying the same thing right. Cowfolk makes sense. There's nothing wrong with that. Although "folk" is on the Stanford list of words that you can't use now. [laughs] So just saying. Could it be? If it can get divorced from either side, then, yes, I think it could. I think there's the potential that maybe it could be a rallying point for some sort of sanity in the discussion. You know, there's good things over here. There's good things over here. We're going to land in the middle. We're not going to demand that everybody do everything exactly the way I think they should. And we're not going to think that everybody's exactly the same. And there's only two of these and there's only one of those. And so could it be that? I think cowboys are historically, "Don't tell me what to do." They're freethinkers. Right? In a lot of ways sometimes I just like any there's... they're people. So there's thinkers and there's not thinkers. And, you know, the sex appeal, it's going to be hard to maintain that in the face of...it really is an ideal looking at the past. Mhm. Right. Which was never true in the first place. Just read Lonesome Dove. I mean it's just like oh my God, what a brutal...what is the word...short, short, brutal...there's a saying about life. It was a brutal life. And they were just trying to live. You know, it's like a mountain man. They just idealized this mountain man. Tough, rugged, individual. They lived like forty years. And usually died horrible deaths. Right. It was horrible. That was George Watkins' big message. That everything you've read is bullshit. Right. It's not that. And I think that's true. You know, I think anybody who looks from the outside and says, "Well, this is the cowboy way," and all that kind of stuff. It's like, "No, there's not such a thing." And so, you know, is it as good an icon as any? You know, probably. I mean, in a could. Right. Who knows? I mean, people are astonishing. Right. Who knows what's going to happen...if social media takes it up and, you know, could be. But I don't think...I think that the days of idolizing that lifestyle are...there's too many problems. It's fine as long as everybody looks alike. Right. It's fine as long as everybody thinks alike. It's fine as long as they're cultural experience is homogenous. And it's not trying to go back there or trying to put a new one in its place. What does that look like? And can you morph it into that? No, it'd be a long slog. I guess, what is the reason for that? Is that are rallying? What is the reason to do that? Do we want it? Do we want to take something that used to mean this and then change it into meaning this? I don't know. They need their own. They need to come up with new icons. Let this stuff die a peaceful death. Because it's I guess part of it is we don't accurately view reality. And so we're continually making decisions based on a delusional view of reality. Right. We refuse to look at...We just don't want to. Our brains won't. Right. We can think about it for one second. Like this for example: death is certain, but the time of death is uncertain. So if you knew that, right? If you really knew that and could keep that conscious, how would you live your life? Well, you'd live it in a whole different way than you...I would live it in an entirely different way than I live it right now. Because what is important, right? That question just says, "Okay, if I was dying tomorrow, what's important? How am I going to spend my next 24 hours?" Well, you never know. Right. And so we can't do it. Our brains, evolutionarily are not, do not allow us to do that. Unless you just sit on a cushion for a lot [of time], but it's a full time job to just try to keep...I mean, I can keep that thought in my head for about 30 seconds and then bam, I'm off on something else. And so I just think that...I don't think there's much value in defining redefining something from the past. I think you're just you're always chasing...it's always going to be, "what isn't it?" What is it? What is it not? And so I don't know. I think, if you really look at the reality of it, it was never an icon in the first place. It was a short, brutish life led on ignorance. Yeah. And everybody looked the same. There was mostly... And the ones who didn't, we killed. I mean, why would we want to rewrite...? And then it goes back to your question earlier. Well, do you think of yourself as one? Well, probably. What does that mean about you? Who knows? I like that...there's something about the individualist...Not that I can do everything myself, but that there is personal responsibility there. I do have a responsibility to others. And to myself and to the environment and to all these things. I think that there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing that puts the cowboy out of that. But when you're, I don't know, trying to take it and make it into something else, I don't know. Where did that question come from? Some of my students ask, really, you know, because like, obviously I'm a lefty professor. Right. And but I study mythology and cowboy... The Virginian, Owen Wister, James Fenimore Cooper. Yes, exactly. How this all emerged and but I grew up in Idaho too, I grew up around cowboys. Like the pictures of my grandpa on the ranch with chaps. And my mom inherited that ranch. And so for me to I get asked this a lot with my friends and students of like, "Was this even an icon that that should be used by queer people or by...?" And so I think for me, I really liked what you were saying in terms of whenever we reappropriate things from the past, it's never going to be an actual image of what was the past. Well, because the past wasn't one thing ever. Ever. I mean, even if we look at cowboys, the conditions in which they worked would have been radically different in Texas than the Pacific Northwest. I mean, everybody's life is so full of nuance. Exactly. And so it was already an amalgamation and icons are always already constructed. Well, if you define it as people who chase cows around. It's a pretty select group. There was there never was very many of them in the first place. Especially open range, we're looking at maybe a 20 year time span. The 1850s, maybe the 1860s to 1890s, maybe in... Before barbed wire. Yeah. And then even if you put all the cowboys that have ever been...even if you define it liberally you put them in a room or put them in...I don't know how many it would be, but it wouldn't be that many. But I really like to quote this Ralph Lauren ad from the eighties that if you're an American man, somewhere deep inside is a little bit of a cowboy. Oh, absolutely. It's the Marlboro Man. Yeah. The way it has spoken to larger groups of people who live outside of that, like working class lifeway. They want to feel some way differently than going into a cubicle every day makes them feel. Mm hmm. Right. Mm hmm. And a lot of people have said, I think it was a quote by a leatherman, talking about how Europe has Beowulf, you know? Right. They have these past... Vikings. Yeah. Like, what is our past? Our past is the cowboy. Cowboys, right? Oh, absolutely. The way in which you construct your own identity based on shared ideas about the past. That's absolutely true. It's the overarching. Right. Where does that leave women? It's like, who's the woman's ideal? I don't know. Especially since even in rodeo women bronc rode all the time in the 1910s and '20s. And then that was completely expunged by rodeo queens in the '20s and '30s. And it completely sort of rewrote that narrative of like, well, women have never bronc rode. Oh, they were tough...I mean, I think a lot of that is come about that gender, the gender and what's the word? The gender fixity. Has come about relatively recently. I mean, women pretty much ruled the world for about 390,000 years. And the way in which all the markers tend to change over time. In some societies, obviously it's women's job to work in agriculture and other societies, no women can't work in agriculture. And so, it's all just so it's like you said. I wrote about this all my masters. I mean, Richard II was one of the plays that we read and I think it was Richard II or Edward. One of the...the guy who gets killed with a poker. Richard II, I think...the subjugation of women really came about, "Well, you know who your kids are? I don't know if those are my kids." And it came about with the with the concentration of wealth. I want to make sure that my genetics is getting what...I mean, this isn't radical thought, but. I think that homophobia was the same thing. It wasn't so much about...I think guys have always screwed around. It's not like this just came out. This just happened--as much as the Christians would like to think that it's because it's brand new. It's always been there. I hate to tell you, it just was never nobody ever until the class system. Right. And you could take a commoner and make them a noble. Right. And that was why they killed Rick. Not because he was gay. They killed him because he did that. He threatened the power structure. They could have cared less who he was fucking. I mean, it was just that he subverted. And I think that there's a lot of that.(Subjects: homophobia) One of my good friends is the ancient historian, and you look at practice versus identity and yeah, people have had sex with other people of all kinds for millennia. But as long as it didn't threaten the power structure. The power structure. I think that is crucial to get students to understand. Well, and I think since the '50s, it wasn't as big a deal that I can tell from reading and stuff. It wasn't that big a deal until really until women started... until the '50s, really '40s and '50s--when the men went to work, the women stayed home. They were set, there was one income. And the two income thing is a hit on the power with power system. You guys have more chance to succeed than I do. And that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. Yeah right. Yeah. I think it's a some really interesting stuff about how we how we think about the past, how we construct our identities around them. And even I definitely, obviously participate in this a lot being from Idaho. It's like our operating system. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so my final question before I let you go. So Gay Rodeo is one of those interesting places that actually brought gay men and lesbian women together, which often didn't happen. You know, bars were segregated. They were segregated. And so how was it since you were there? Kind of as it was beginning...what were the discussions around that? How did women operate in the system? Did they feel super included? They ran it most of the time. Take everything I say worth a grain of salt. They had more energy, more organizational energy than most guys. Right? They were good at it. Not all of them. But you know what I'm saying? I mean, they just and they were willing to step up. Right. And it was wonderful. I mean, that was one of the best parts about it for me was the ability to not just know gay guys. Right. To not just have male friends. There's a lot of and that's probably where that came from because I didn't have a lot of...I didn't know any...Where would I ever meet them? I think actually that's really interesting. And I think that they talk about the gay agenda a little bit. Your question is he gay agenda. So when you all sat down and tried to come up with the gay rodeo theme, now, who got decided to do this and who got decided to do this? And there was none of that. I mean, you get three gay guys together and you can't decide where to go to lunch, right? I mean, it just happened, right? And the people who were willing to do it stepped up and some of them were lesbians and some of them were gay men. And so there was never this...there was people that definitely would go after the sponsors. I played on in a gay basketball league in Denver. And we actually played...No, it wasn't....There wasn't a gay league. There was...we just played in basketball leagues and we were a gay team and everybody kind of figured it out. But we played the police... that was a planned political statement, much more so than I ever saw around the rodeos. And I wasn't at the table either in most of it. I mean, I was closer by the time I quit, you know, in Oklahoma than I was...But I was I didn't want a clip board. I didn't want anything to do with that. But I know myself well enough that I can't keep my ego out of the way far enough to be an effective planner and those sort of things. And so I don't...maybe they did have meetings about that stuff... I don't know really. But I kind of I kind of doubt it. I mean there was definitely some discussion about whether to call it the Gay and Lesbian Rodeo Association or just the gay association. There's definitely some discussions about women's safety in the arena and things like that. Safety like...? Well, there's some men who talked about like, "Are women going to get injured doing this and then we're going to look like a bunch of bad guys?" So that came up. Why don't you let the women decide if they want to do that? Really? Are you making a decision? Are you, like, speaking for all women? [laughs] Yeah. I think that was the response of the women who were involved. [laughs] Yeah. I mean, I could see the gay rodeo just easier, right? I mean...should probably shut the mic off. It's just easier, right? It was just easier. And you didn't want to put...you don't have to have an explanation of the thing on the sign. When you say gay rodeo, it's assumed that or nobody's going to be surprised if there's lesbians there. I mean, and especially back then. And maybe that's probably way too simplistic. I don't know. I never heard any discussions about that. And I don't even know if they sat down and maybe they sat down and decided to call it Gay Rodeo. I mean, it just that's what it was. [laughs] I think it's a descriptor. It's not a title. Having felt disenfranchised when I first came out and really when society actually really did, you know, you have to be careful, right. Of where you are, what you're doing. And I'm starting to feel that same thing from the gay community and what's happening with the with the mass amounts...Not that it shouldn't, not that it shouldn't be inclusive. I don't know where to go, but I don't feel the same...I'm just a regular old 60 year old gay guy. I mean, I'm just like I'm just I'm like the straight guy of the gay world.(Subjects: community) Yep. I mean, is that...? Am I reading that wrong? I mean, that feels really...that makes me sad, right? I don't know how to have discussions about gender. I mean, I can. I'm not dumb. I mean, I can. And I don't care. Right? I have zero question about my gender and I have zero question about my sexuality. And both of them are like...it's like going back to foundation horse racing stock right now. It's like, okay, that's all old stuff? And now all this new cool stuff is going on, right? And I don't even know...I don't even know how to talk. I don't know when I'm offending somebody. I don't ever mean to offend anybody, but I don't know how to do it. I run into it in AA. I run into it everywhere now. And I try my hardest, right? My kids will tell me, "you can't say that." It doesn't happen very often. I mean, I'm pretty astute. Occasionally they'll give me that look and it's like, [sigh] I might want to think about that...my daughter, especially, "Ah, think about that one a little bit more." Mhm. I just feel, I guess, left...not left behind. But left behind. I'm probably not alone in that. I would guess, you know. So it'll be interesting and that's fine. That happens right. I mean it's great. I'm glad...that's why I was willing to come out of the closet in the first place. I didn't keep it serious. I knew what the ramifications of that were going to be. And I'd had hopes. That, okay, if I could do it, then maybe it'll make it easier for somebody else. And I'm not sure I ever had that thought actually, that's probably way too grandiose for what I was thinking at the time. I've certainly adopted that as I've gotten...as I've been in situations where it's easy to hide. It's easy for me to hide. I can hide, but I don't all the time. Sometimes it's in business, especially, sometimes it's just none of nobody's business. And I'm not asking them, "Who you're sleeping with?" You know, it doesn't come up. But if it comes up, I don't hide. Right. And so, I'm hoping that it makes it easier for somebody else, especially in AA. I mean, that's where I probably put far more effort into AA and sobriety than I do into being a good gay boy. I never like parades. I was in a couple of them I don't like gay pride parades or I don't...especially when I quit drinking. That really alienated me from the big events. Because it's fun for a couple hours and then it's like, I got to go home now. You guys are getting boring. So it's really interesting. It's interesting. Yeah, that's a whole nother topic. Getting old.(Subjects: events) Okay, Well, I want to be mindful of your time. So, is there anything else you want to mention before we wrap up? No. I mean, I'll be interested to read the work you guys are doing. Because it didn't seem like anything worth studying when it was happening. It was in a very tawdry way, it was very wholesome. There was a wholesomeness to it that...because the values...there is values in rodeo. It's a value driven...in a lot of ways. I mean, that's idealism. That's idealistic, of course. But at its base, it's spiritual. Even though I don't 100% agree with the spiritual nature of it, it is a lot of...it's spiritual and family and all of these things that are themselves, the values themselves are good values. How they're expressed is an entirely different thing. But the values themselves are good. Right. And it had elements of that...family was all of us. Spirituality was this nature of being free. And so, I mean, my memories of it are...I didn't do it until I got sick of it. Right. Which I think has happened. Like with anything but for me it was transformative, really. It was just like, oh, we can do anything. What a world we live in. As long as we're in a big city. And there's lots of us. There's lots of us. [laughs] It's all so wonderful talking about this stuff. It's interesting, a little bit broader conversation than just rodeo. Well, I think it's good. It would be nice if we could keep it could keep going because it does give a sense of community, but a sense of community that probably is sorely lacking right now. I mean, where do they, you know, now that we're all homogenized into it, where do we go? Maybe that's what we're seeking with all this differentiation, right? Is, oh, "I want that sense of community." And I don't know the answer to that. So I think I've gotten my sense of community from other places besides that. And so I guess and that's how, you know, those options are always open to anybody. But it was a good one. It was a really good one. Thank you for sharing today.


Contents

Brian Helander

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofiled and I am here with Brian Helander and it is October 21st 2017 and we are at the World Gay Rodeo Finals in Albuquerque New Mexico. So could you tell me when you were born?
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Brian Helander: I was born [in]1954.
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RS: Where?
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BH: In Teulon, Manitoba, Canada.
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RS: And, what was it like growing up there?
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BH: Well... I didn't know any better so it was pretty good.
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RS: Pretty rural?
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BH: It was, we didn't, we ultimately moved to the the big city, Winnipeg so we moved to the big city. My dad became a milkman, the kind that carried milk to your door.
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RS: And when did you make that move?
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BH: I guess that was 3 or 4.
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RS: So did you spend most of your youth in Winnipeg?
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BH: Yes.
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RS: And what was it like growing up there?
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BH: Well, I didn't know any better so it was pretty good. I thought it was completely normal. It was a rough, a harsh life, winters were harsh. My mom and dad had 5 kids and my dad was a milk man so, it was not an easy life. We didn't have a car. I still to this day don't know how my mother got groceries to the house, enough for 7 people without a car.
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RS: So where are you in the 5?
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BH: I'm the second oldest.
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RS: How big were ranges there in ages?
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BH: Well they were pretty close together, older brother a year older, younger sister couple years younger, and a couple years younger, and then a couple years younger.
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RS: So did you help raise any of those babies or?
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BH: Well I wouldn't say that. My mom was pretty good at that. She was a stay at home mom, so she did a pretty good job of raising the kids.
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RS: And, what was school life like for you?
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BH: I was not a very good student. I was distracted by other things. I tell people--I teach now--and I tell people that are my students I was a D student on a good day, an F student on most days, except when the teachers took pity on me and made me a D student, just to pass me along. And that continued until I found my current profession and then I became an A+ student.
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RS: What were you distracted by?
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BH: Just the family life. 5 kids, and no money, and all the stuff that goes along with no breakfast, and no lunch, and hopefully dinner.
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RS: Did you work at all when you were young?
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BH: I started to work when I was about 14.
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RS: What did you do?
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BH: Well, by that time my father was a bus driver. And I actually got a pretty good job counting. Sitting on the corner, basically on a trailer box, counting empty seats on buses, or estimating number of passengers on buses. It was actually a fairly good paying job. So, I did that.
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RS: What was the purpose of estimating?
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BH: So they could plan the routing, see if they needed more buses to come by or if the buses were overloaded or underloaded. So I manually tallied up. I knew that a bus was...maybe held, say, 30 people, and if I saw 3 people standing I estimated 33 people on the bus.
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RS: And Winnepeg is it a very big city?
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BH: Yeah it's a big city, capital of Manitoba, Canada.
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RS: Where would you have lived right in the center of the city or out in the suburbs?
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BH: We lived in the suburbs.
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RS: After highschool did you go to college?
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BH: I did go to college. I wanted to be an astronaut. I... didn't have the, mathematical skills to... really do that [chuckle]. So I took a job as an orderly in a nursing home they had built right behind our home. And that got me into the healthcare field and I've been in the health field for over 30 years. I'm working now on my doctorate in global health sciences, and I'm a registered nurse, have been for...since 1977.
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RS: And as an orderly, what would you have done?
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BH: I took orders from the nurses. And it was a German Mennonite nursing home that I worked in and a German Mennonite hospital that I worked in. And I took orders, I mean, took orders and if it wasn't done right, I heard about it, and was instructed to do it again and, if I didn't do it right, that's it. The Friesen sisters were two nurses that worked together, we're talking 40, 35 years ago whatever. Typical starched white hat, duty shoes white, uniform, stern, perfectionist, they taught me alot about work ethic and doing things right, doing it for a reason, taught me alot about compassion, caring, and taught me a lot about life.
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RS: So the people who would have been there, did their families seem involved?
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BH: Yeah, yeah, great relationship with most of the families, with all the families really, patients. Stayed there about 7 years, and then went to nursing school. I applied for nursing school and they kinda laughed at me, I didn't have the right grades for nursing school, so I was rejected. I went back the next year and I literally begged the head of the department to let me in, based on the work I was doing, not on my grades. And, she took a chance on me and let me into the program and I went from a D student to an A+ student. They would tell me they would literally design exam questions with me in mind, I wonder if he'll get this one? I was in a class of 99 women and me, so back in 1977 it was still a rather unusual thing for a guy to be in nursing school. But, you know, when I talk to my students, you may not know what your passion is now, but when you find your passion you will excel at it, and that's what I've done with my nursing career.
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RS: Where did you go for your nursing degree?
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BH: I went to Red River Community College in Winnipeg. And then I moved here to the United States about a year after I graduated. There was a big nursing shortage here in the United States. I had a nursing license and a reason to get out of town. I packed up my Honda Civic and headed south. Got a job at the Phoenix General Hospital, working night shift in the intensive care unit. Told my mother, it was just a year assignment, I'd be back, not to worry. Never came back, that was 40 years ago. But it turned out well for her because she would come and visit us, and get out of the winters and stay with me for 3 or 4 months at at the time.
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RS: What was it like moving from Winnipeg to Phoenix?
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BH: Well, it was moving from the coldest capital city in the world to, probably, the hottest capital city in the world. And suddenly, you know... there was gay life in Phoenix, there wasn't any in WInnipeg.
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RS: How young were you when you started to grapple with your sexuality?
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BH: 5 years old. I knew, I knew I was different from age 5. And I also knew it was probably something that I shouldn't talk about. I just knew instinctively that there was something different about me and it probably shouldn't be talked about. And I tried, I tried dating girls and it just, wasn't there. I tried.
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RS: Throughout high school or, in your working at the nursing home were you dating? Did you have relationships?
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BH: Yeah, I dated. I dated girls, I was a good looking young man. I had no trouble dating girls.
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RS: What about dating men?
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No, no.
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RS: Did you have anyone you could talk to?
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BH: Not at all.
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RS: Was that one of the reasons you wanted to leave Winnipeg?
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BH: Yeah, I think it was. I wanted to get as far away as possible. I moved to Phoenix for a woman I was living with at the time. But, when I got down to Phoenix and found my way to the first gay bar and got the courage to go in I realized: oh, okay, this is, this is what it's all about, this is who I am, this is the real me.
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RS: Were you living with her at the time?
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BH: Yeah, she was an American and her parents moved to Phoenix and she wanted to be closer to her parents. And I said, 'sure let's go to Phoenix.' She was a Vietnam draft, or draft dodger, supporter who moved to Canada from the United States to support the American draft dodgers who moved to Canada. So she was a hippie, so I moved to Phoenix to be with her.
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RS: When you broke up did you tell her why?
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BH: Yeah
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RS: How did she take it?
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BH: Fine. She had a lesbian sister, and we talked about it quite a bit. Better than to carry on, carry on and pretend.
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RS: What year?
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BH: That was 1980, 1980. Around circa 1980.
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RS: So you really started to get involved in gay life in the early 80s?
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BH: Yes, I was.
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RS: What was that like?
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BH: Well, I was a young nurse... and I was darn cute, and I had a blast.
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RS: What were some of your favorite clubs?
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BH: Well, you couldn't be gay and not be seen at Connection on Wednesday night or Saturday night. You had to be there. If you weren't there, you weren't cool. So Connection on Wednesdays and Saturdays--it was the place to be and I was there.
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RS: Did your experiences change as the AIDS epidemic hit?
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BH: Well, yeah, it did because, I was... So HIV started in '81, '82 in that area. And I was working in the ER and one of the gay doctors came in one morning and threw down MMR article on the 5 guys that had Kaposi's sarcoma in New York and said to me, 'We got a problem here.' And I read the article and like, okay. And then suddenly we started seeing guys in the ER. So, even though I was an ER nurse, I was suddenly also an HIV nurse because I was out in a Catholic hospital. I was the one they called because nobody else would go in the room. So I was that guy, they called down and said, 'Brian you need to come up here because we aren't going in, you're one of them, you go in there, we're not going in.' And I...the women I worked with because at that time it was largely women, I instinctively knew, I knew 2 things, I knew several things. I knew either A: I was infected with HIV, and would shortly die. Or B: that the mode of transmission was not casual contact because I had been casually, my friends... I was in casual contact with them, I was eating with them, I was shaking their hand, I was around them. So I instinctively knew that, that there was 2, there was really just 2 choices. This was before testing and so on, and I was healthy and so on, so I kinda erred on the 'this is not casual contact sort of thing.' I remember saying to myself... to the women who had children, young children... my fellow, my peers, my fellow nurses, I remember saying to them, 'One day, you will come crawling to the gay community, to ask us how to deal with this issue, for your children.' And today young heterosexual, and gay kids are at risk for HIV, and they ultimately did. We had set up the infrastructures, we had set up the programs, the treatment, the outreach, the doctors who left their practice to become HIV specialists. The nurses, for a large part, were gay, and we set up the infrastructure for the treatment of HIV in the 1980s. So, it did come to us, and I, you know, I'm still involved, it's why I'm going back to school... to finish my degree in global health sciences. I want to finish this work. We're on the brink, the brink of fixing HIV, we could stop it today if we had the political will, if we had the political will. So there you go.
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RS: So being out at work would you get discriminatory comments from peers or from patients or anything like that?
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BH: I wouldn't, I was a very... I know I've said this too many times, I was a handsome young man. I wasn't effeminate, not that there's anything wrong with that, but looking at me, when I was 26, 27 you would not know I was gay. So I didn't experience any of that. At Saint Joseph's, at the hospital I worked at, which was a Catholic hospital, the hospital had a female CEO. Hope I can swear on this because I'm gonna swear in a minute. She had a big donor come to her, and the truth was that, in the emergency department, we could run an entire shift, from doctors to secretaries to techs to other nurses, lesbian, gay--we could run an entire shift with just gay people--okay, and it would be, it was the best of the best, and... and the Chief Financial Officer that they hired was gay also and that created a big kerfuffle. And one of the big donors went to the CEO--her name was Mary--and said to Mary, "I hear there's lots of gays here, and this is a Catholic hospital and I'm not gonna support that." And Mary said, "Well, that's fine because if I didn't have the gay people here I'd have to close down the fucking hospital." So Mary knew and she was right, she would have had to close down the fucking hospital. So, that was 1984, '85 and you know, before we found that, by then we knew how HIV was being transmitted, we started to develop interventions and drugs and in '96, of course, we started with the real treatment for HIV and so on and so on. That's was what it was like in the 80s. There were heroes like Mary. There were hereos that were lesbians who weren't infected by HIV but they were there for the gay boys. There were heroes...like those of us who weren't infected who went into the homes of the dying and cleaned up after them, and took care of them, and held their hand, and were with them when they died, and with their partners, when they died.
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RS: Did you have close friends?
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BH: Yes, absolutely, I would say that because I was such a handsome young man, I had a lot of gay friends. And, you know, I was a nice person--not just handsome. I was a fun, fun guy. I had a lot of friends. And I can say that of probably 100 people that I would call friends, probably 3 of those survived. Probably 2 of those were HIV positive and they're still alive today, long-term survivors of HIV for whatever reason. And 1 was like me, did not become infected with HIV. But I lost every friend I had. Then, suddenly, really didn't have any friends, you know?
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RS: How long did you work at that hospital?
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BH: 10 years.
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RS: So through most of the 1980s?
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BH: 80s and into the 90s, yeah.
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RS: What did you do after that?
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BH: Well, I was a flight nurse for a long time, and then I went on to manage a HIV service organization over in Phoenix, I became the CEO of an HIV organization, where we did clinical trials on medications and so on.
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RS: And what was it like trying to get medication at the time? What was it like working with pharmaceutical companies?
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BH: Well, it was difficult, prior to '96 there really wasn't really any medication. Then after '96 there was medication. It was hard to take and ineffective and almost worse than the disease. The cure was worse than the disease in many ways, but it was all we had. It got better and better and better, as... things come out.
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RS: During this time did you have a particular partner?
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BH: Yes, I did. I did. I've had three partners in my life. The first one was 5 years, the second was 10 years. And the third one I told him, 'Well, you're good for 15 years.' And at 15 years he was gonna re-up, and he said no, he wasn't gonna re-up. But changed his mind and he re-uped and on 21 now, 21 years together.
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RS: So, growing up in Winnipeg did you have much contact with horses or stock?
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BH: No, no. We worked on the...my dad was a farmer, a bad farmer. We had cows and my aunt and uncle had dairy, but we didn't really have horses that we rode. I'd been on one... I didn't really get into riding until I came to Phoenix, Arizona and said, 'You know, you're in the southwest. What should your new identity be?' And it was like, 'Oh, you should be a cowboy, that's what we do in Arizona.' So, I set out to be a cowboy at age 40.
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RS: So, how did you... become a cowboy?
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BH: I found a friend and I said, 'Teach me how to ride.' And bought my first horse... and from there.
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RS: And were you living in a place that you could pasture your horse right next to the house?
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BH: No, no, no I was the boarding the horse.
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RS: And what did you like about riding?
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BH: I liked everything about it. I liked the connection with the animals, and just the skill that's needed, and so on.
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RS: ...Would you have gone to country western bars as well?
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BH: Yeah, Charlie's was the big bar in Phoenix, of course. And I would go to Charlie's on Friday, Saturday night. That's where I met my current partner by the way, good old fashion way. But, I wanted to be, I wanted to learn to ride, and I learned to ride actually before I knew about gay rodeo. So, certiantly that was a good thing. I knew how to do events and learned to ride.
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RS: Growing up did you... idolize cowboys?
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BH: No, no, no. I wanted to be an astronaut and idolized astronauts.
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RS: So it was really promoted by moving to the southwest?
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BH: Yeah, it really was.
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RS: Did you find it pretty easy to find other gay men who wanted to be cowboys?
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BH: No, not the first couple years, not really. Not until I met my rodeo partner, Chuck Brown. I think he and I, if I remember correctly, I went to the gay rodeo in Phoenix, and he went to the gay rodeo in Phoenix, and we, independently, without even knowing each other, decided that, 'Hey, that's something we are going to do.' So I decided, "Well, I'm going to enter the gay rodeo in Phoenix.' So... I did, and he did.
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RS: What year was that?
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BH: Gosh, that's a tough question. I would say it was probably '95.
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RS: And, did you just see the rodeo advertized?
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BH: I think so. Yeah, I went by myself.
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RS: Had you known of its existence prior?
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BH: [head shaking]
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RS: What was that first walking into the arena like?
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BH: Well, for me it was another discovery. The smell of the dirt, the animals. It just harkened back to my childhood and my grandparents' farm and my aunt and uncle's farm and it just... it just meant, it felt like it was meant for me to be. I didn't understand before but I got to the gay rodeo... smelled the dirt and smelled the animals, and the competition, and like, ahhh, this is, this is me.
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RS: So you would have been about 40 at the time?
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BH: I was 40 at the time. Yep.
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RS: What was it like getting into such a physically demanding sport at, you know, not in the first blossom of your life?
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BH: Well, I was at the prime of my life, I was at my best condition ever in my 40s, so... Yeah, I did really well.
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RS: What did you compete in?
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BH: Competed, to start, I competed in the ground events, chutedogging, calf roping on foot, goat dressing, wall drag race, just the entry level things...and did really well. And then Chuck had some other partners in the rodeo that he'd been working with and they kinda dropped out for one reason or another and I decided to partner up back then. And we've been partners ever since, we've been together.
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RS: Did you mainly do team roping with him?
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BH: No, we do goats together, we did wild drag for many years together, we did steer deco together, team roping. We compete against each other in schute dogging and calf roping on foot.
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RS: Have you ever done rough stock?
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BH: I did. I did steer riding, Chuck taught me how to steer ride. That was probably not so wise to do at age 40, because it wasn't the riding it was the falling off and the hitting the ground. And I broke my shoulder and it's like, that's probably not for me at this point. But there are pictures of me, floating around, riding a steer.
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RS: Have you ever been involved of the leadership aspects of IGRA?
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BH: Yeah. I became involved locally and I even became involved internationally. I ran for president and I became president of IGRA. At the time, things were kinda shaky. There was...the organization was going through a rough time by my estimation and I became president and I served for 2 years and then I served for 2 more years and then I served for 2 more years after that.
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RS: Wow, that's dedication.
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BH: That's dedication, I loved every minute of it, it was not easy, I lost a few friends, but... I... ... it was a great 6 years, and the organization seemed to flourish, there was a lot of fun things including, the build up to the gay games rodeo in, Cleveland, so, ya, we had a goal, and it just all seemed so much fun.
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RS: And what years were those for?
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BH: Ahhh, gosh... I'm not good with years. I can't remember, I'd have to look it up.
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RS: Was it late 90s, early aughts?
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BH: Yeah, late 90s, early oughts.
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RS: Sounds fun.
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BH: Yeah.
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RS: What sort of galvanized you to get involved in the side of things rather than just competing?
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BH: Well, at the time I was a trustee and there was some big issues occuring, and I felt I had some leadership to offer, and that it was my responsibility to offer it, and... I did.
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RS: What were some of those issues?
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BH: Well...Some of those issues were related to how we interacted with our sponsors and what our mission was. I helped clarify the mission. On the back of our members, you see, the mission statement which I helped the organization through, 'supporting associations that support the communities,' that was an initiative of mine to crystalize our mission statement into something that we could, when people said, 'What do you do?' That's what IGRA does--supports member associations that support their communities. And we do it through the rodeo. At the time, I was in the right spot at the right time.
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RS: What were some of the challenges of being, IGRA president for 6 years? That's a lot of dedication.
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BH: Yeah.
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RS: What would it have looked like on a day to day basis?
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BH: Well, it was a day-to-day job. When you've got at that time,probably 5,000 members, don't anymore, probably like 2,500, you're dealing with a lot of personalities and a lot of drama and stuff. I dealt with a lot of personalities and drama in the ER, and I knew how to deal with personalities and drama. And I just brought those leadership skills to direct us away from the drama and personalities and get to the facts and the task at hand and the things that needed to be done and all those things. I'm actually pretty proud of those 6 years.
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RS: Did you travel a lot as president?
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BH: Yeah, travel to, at that time, the all the rodeos and all the meeting and so on. I think, I would still say to this day that, one of the trustees --they were a statistician--did a summary of miles traveled and hours spent and--I've got it in my briefcase--it was probably done 6, 7 year ago, and I was the most traveled contestant, at that time, and probably still am to this day.
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RS: And you're still living in Phoenix?
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BH: Yeah, still living in Phoenix.
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RS: So when you were president was that also the time you were running the HIV care organization?
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BH: Correct.
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RS: Did those blend well together or did you have to find a balance?
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BH: No, they blended well together because you were leading an organization that has personalities and drama and another one that has personalities and drama. Mission issues at the HIV organization: 'Why are we here?' Mission issues at IGRA: 'Why are we here? What are we doing?' And I just brought that thinking to the boardroom of the IGRA and tried to keep it focused on factual things, and things that could improve the organization, and things that would be helpful, and be more business-like, and so on.
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RS: Sort of helping to professionalize?
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BH: Yeah.
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RS: And after you stepped down as president, were you pretty ready to step down after your 6?
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BH: Nope, I would have been just happy to go on, but there just comes a time when you just really need to. I also stepped down as CEO of the HIV organization because in a non-profit, you have a shelf life right? I knew it was time.
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RS: And after stepping down as CEO what did you move on to as far as your career?
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BH: I went into consulting... I started my own business and did well with that.
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RS: Has that been fulfilling?
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BH: Very much so.
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RS: And when did you start your program for your PhD?
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BH: It's a doctoral degree in health sciences with a global emphasis, and I started a year ago, so I'm half way through at this point. I want to use it to help our community get across the finish line with wiping out HIV. We can do it, we have all the tools right here today to wipe this disease from the face of the earth and I want to be part of that. Even at the ripe old age of whatever it is because I don't really tell people that.
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RS: What about as far as IGRA after you stepped down as president, did you take a different leadership position?
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BH: I stayed on as trustee, public relations, that kind of thing. I tried to continue to bring my own independent thinking, my best independent thinking to the organization. And voice my own independent thinking on issues. Yeah, so I'm still involved and still a trustee for New Mexico right now.
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RS: So in the, 20+ years you've been involved with the rodeo how has it changed?
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BH: Well, I think the HIV epidemic had a great impact on rodeo. If you look at pictures from the early days the stands were packed with guys and that audience was decimated by HIV and we've really struggled to get that audience back. They're not there. That audience, the people of my ilk, my age, the western cowboy kind of lifestyle, I'm not sure we're there anymore. So HIV has played a big part in my life, not personally, like I said I'm not infected by HIV. I don't know how but, I'm not. I'm one of the lucky ones but, it continues to play a big role in all my life. And maybe we'll get, maybe there are younger kids that are coming back, maybe it's a cycle, maybe we'll see the next generation of young cowboys and cowgirls coming up, but the dramatic impact of HIV on IGRA, it's been slow to dig out of.
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RS: How do you think you can approach younger people to try and get them involved?
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BH: Well, I think we need to make it fun. I think the organization is a little stuck in what we were doing 20 years ago, 30 years ago. And, I take a lot of criticism for it, for voicing this opinion. But we still perseverate on HIV in our grand entry, kids don't want to come watch that, it doesn't mean anything to them. We should be doing that privately at some other private event with just IGRA people. We don't need to have some public display of grief, just because those folks don't remember, they don't, I dare say, they don't care. We do, we can do it but we just shouldn't be doing it here. It tends to keep people away, and we can't seem to let go of that. And I've been a big advocate of letting go of that, it hasn't gone over well. [laughs] But I'm right.
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RS: Were you ever involved in the dancing aspect?
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BH: No.
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RS: Weren't a big two-stepper?
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BH: Well, yes, I was a great two-stepper. Chuck and I were great two-steppers back when there was 3,000 people at a dance on Saturday night. They're all dead now and we don't do much dancing anymore.
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RS: Do you think that could be a way?
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BH: I guess it could, do kids dance anymore?
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RS: I don't know, I'm not a kid.
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BH: Don't two step anymore, I don't know.
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RS: I'm not sure, they definitely dance somehow.
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BH: I guess they do.
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RS: What do you really think is the future of IGRA?
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BH: Well I think, I think we need to retool. We need to build a new IGRA. We need to take a new trajectory. All nonprofits are on a bell curve and we've allowed ourselves to slip down the y-axis of the bell curve a little bit too long. And we need to create a new trajectory for the organization. And it's a struggle to point that out to people, but we need to take a different trajectory. And it makes me not very popular. But, I'm right.
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RS: What about changes in the larger gay community over the last several decades--has it changed? Being just an out gay man over time?
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BH: Well, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, when when rodeos were popular, it would be where you would go to meet people. You don't need to come to a rodeo anymore to meet people. So we have to have something different. We have to re-encourage people to use their electronics to come and meet people at the rodeo for a while. So there's lots of things that we need to do. And it's a slow moving organization and we're a little bit slow to change.
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RS: You said earlier that we're lacking the political will to really see the fight to end AIDS, what do you think could happen to change that?
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BH: Well, there's lots of policies that need to change here in America in relation to health care and access to healthcare and providing people with antiretroviral drugs and PrEP for those that are at risk. And those two things together can wipe out HIV, we know that scientifically today. That the combination of those 2 treatments, treatment as prevention--for people that are HIV positive treat them to a negative viral load will stop them from spreading HIV. And then, treating people who are at high risk, treating them with the PrEP--a once-a-day pill, a cheap, once-a-day pill, will prevent them from getting HIV. And once we've got a critical mass of that going, we've got the disease and we can stop it.
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RS: Why do you think we are lacking that political will?
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BH: Well, because... don't even get me started on that. There are still many prejudices, homophobia, and stigma against gay people in general that... Unfortunately, in in this country, the HIV epidemic took hold in the gay community, in Africa it didn't, it took hold in the heterosexual community, so our experience here is tied to homophobia and stigma and stuff like that. So I'd better go check on the next event cause I've got chute dogging coming up and I've got to win that one.
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RS: Well, good luck, and thank you for talking today.
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BH: Thank you.

Jay Lovejoy

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Revulai Detiv: Hello, my name is Revulai Detiv. I am here with Jay Lovejoy and we’re at the AGRA rodeo. February 16th, 2020. And, to start off, what year were you born?
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Jay Lovejoy: 1939.
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RD: Where did you grow up?
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JL: I grew up in the Chicago area, the suburbs. And my father worked in Chicago and commuted every day. And I lived in the suburbs, in the Chicago area, pretty much in the same small town until I went away to college. I went away to college in Chicago, so I didn't go very far.
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RD: What was life like growing up?
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JL: Oh, it was a very small town. Everybody knew everybody. One school. And it was very fun. Felt very secure and free to relax and do whatever we wanted to do.
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RD: Do you have any favorite memories from childhood?
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JL: Um, I think my third-grade teacher knew that I was interested in automobiles from a very early age. And she had a friend in a different town who had an old Rolls Royce, and I got to go over there and take a ride in it.
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RD: Oh, wow.
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JL: At the age of eight. And going to the same school right through eighth grade. There was no junior high or anything and, actually, even high school, I had to go to the next town over. But we rode on an electric interurban railway to go to high school. So that was kind of unique and kind of fun.
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RD: Did your family have any background in ranching or farming?
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JL: No, my parents were city folks and moved to the suburbs. We just had a house on a very small piece of property, and we were just transplanted to the suburban life. And it was, like I said, a small town. And not very congested, very relaxing.
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RD: What kind of jobs did they do?
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JL: Well, there really wasn't much employment. Most of the people commuted to the city for their work. Except the people who, you know, ran the local grocery store and the drugstore and the, you know, to support the people. There was no industry in the town other than the town itself. So, people that had serious careers had to commute somewhere else. Bedroom communities are different, you know.
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RD: How do you identify in terms of gender and sexuality?
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JL: Well, I'm a gay man. But I didn't really come out until I was maybe twenty-nine years old because it was pretty restricted back then and, you know, it was a private sort of thing. But I came out when—I had gone to work after I graduated from college. I had a management job in the telephone company. But I was subject to the draft at that time. And I went to the army draft because my number was called, but I had a chance to join the Navy and go to officer candidate school instead, so I did that.
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RD: Did you face any discrimination?
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JL: No, but I really didn't identify as gay ‘til I got out of the Navy anyway. And when I was, you know, away from home, man, I really didn't feel free to come out until I moved to Arizona. Which I did at age 31.
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RD: Was your family supportive?
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JL: Well, they've always been supportive of me, but we didn't have a real deep discussion about what I was doing or where I was going. But, you know, there was an awareness and they were very supportive. My family's always been very supportive.
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RD: That’s good to hear. How did you first become involved in the gay rodeo?
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JL: I became involved because I knew it was a group of people that were socializing and having fun, and I knew some people that were members. So, I joined the group. And I was not a very active member at first. But there came a point—we had a problem with a treasurer who absconded with some money and then there was a volunteer who came in and kind of straightened that out. But he didn't want to stick around so I volunteered to be the treasurer of the rodeo association and I became very committed when I realized we could raise a lot of money for charities by having the rodeo, and that we nominated charities to receive our funds. And we went by a vote as to where that money was going.
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JL: In fact, while I was the treasurer, we devised a plan of people voting for their charities and apportioning the money of their vote so they could divide it up into 10 percent for each. And that actually became known as the Lovejoy method that we used for a good number of years, well after I was the treasurer. It was a way of deciding who the charities were that got the money that we raised for the rodeo. So, I was quite pleased when that happened. And I saw that if we made twenty thousand dollars at the rodeo and there were 40 people who could decide where that money went, I had a voice in giving five hundred dollars to a charity – that I could give them without writing a check, which I couldn't afford to do on my own. So, I was very pleased with the way the rodeo association was able to do that.
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RD: What kind of charities did you donate to?
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JL: At first there were a lot of AIDS related charities: Food for AIDS people and we supported the PFLAG Organization. Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays was an organization that we direct quite a bit of money to. And they didn't have many other fundraising sources, so they supported us and we supported them. So, I was particularly pleased with that.
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RD: That’s good. Did you ever get involved with any of the rodeo events?
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JL: No, I didn't. I'm more of a sitting in the stands sort of guy and running the organization and the rodeo events that took place in conjunction with the rodeo. One time I did use my car to bring in the grand marshal of the rodeo, when you have the parade for the festivities for the grand marshal event. I had been doing that, too. But, primarily, lately, I've been involved with running the AGRA booth inside each rodeo where we have information and we sell the T-shirts – the commemorative T-shirts – and we have prizes and raise money by spinning a wheel for luck.
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RD: Oh, I think I saw that here.
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JL: We've been doing that for a number of years. We raise $1,000 or more, maybe $2,000 doing it. That's been fun.
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RD: Do you have any favorite memories running AGRA?
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JL: Um, I think being the treasurer for a couple of years when we had two rodeos and we had rodeo finals in Phoenix where I was the treasurer for those events. That's the most important events, as far as I’m concerned. But lately, I've just been one of the team that's running the booth. But at one point, I was with a group that we were selected to be the grand marshal. We had four friends that kind of hung out together pretty much all the time and Claudi B designated us the “Golden Girls” and recommended that we be the grand marshal for the rodeo back in, I believe, 2010. And we enjoyed that very much. That's a big highlight of my time with AGRA.
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RD: What did you like about being the treasurer during that period of time?
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JL: I think it was just that that was my talent. I was a business and economics graduate with a master’s in finance, and my job experience was with the Greyhound Corporation where I was internal auditor and eventually system controller. So, I knew how to run the treasury without problem.
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RD: It’s good that they had you there to do that.
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JL: Well, that's why I volunteered to do that sort of thing. That was my talent. And that was where to apply it. I had very little experience riding horses.
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RD: What are some of your favorite events in the rodeo?
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JL: Well, I think I enjoy the camp events, just because they're fun. But I'm very excited when some of the men and women ride the horses very fast and do the events where they're going around barrels or weaving between poles and stuff like that – just seeing them control their horses very carefully and at great speed. It's a speed event. So, I think that's the most exciting.
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RD: Do you think the larger LGBTQ community supports the gay rodeo?
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JL: I think they do. I would like to see more of the general community here. We try to promote the rodeo. I wish we could promote it a little more. We're in competition with other events. You know, there's so much going on in Phoenix, Arizona, in January and February when we have beautiful weather and people want to come from different parts of the country to enjoy it. But we do get a good crowd out. And one thing, as I say, I wish we would promote it a little more to get people out. We try to give out a few free tickets, and we used to go to the different bars and have a promotion, you know, we’re all there in our cowboy outfits, saying, “The rodeo’s in two weeks!” or “The rodeo is in one week!” We do as much as we can to promote it.
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RD: That’s great.
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JL: Here comes the next one! [People talking in the background]
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RD: Have you ever experienced any homophobia or harassment?
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JL: In my life?
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RD: Yeah.
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JL: Uh, I have a bad memory of being in Dayton, Ohio, and having rocks thrown at me. Walking down the street, you know, with a group of friends to go from the hotel where we were staying to a bar. And people were aware that we were having too much fun and we had to get ahead of that stone throwing crowd. That's the worst discrimination I think I've seen. I've been really pretty lucky in my career. Nobody ever caused me any discrimination, but I had to play it kind of cool.
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RD: That’s good.
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JL: Yeah. Undercover.
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RD: Have you experienced any protests or anything at the gay rodeo?
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JL: I have seen people protesting, not so much at the gay rodeo, but other gay events where they come with their microphones and say, you know, “God doesn't like gay people,” and things like that. But that's a very small minority and I tend to just kind of laugh that off.
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RD: That’s a good way to deal with that.
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JL: Yeah, that's their problem, not mine.
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RD: Exactly!
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RD: Are you active in any religious community?
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JL: No, I'm not. I'm not. I belong to the American Humanist Society.
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RD: Has that influenced…
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JL: No, I just read their newsletter, and pledge, and know there's other people that think the way I think. And I'm comfortable with that.
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RD: I guess, would you consider yourself a cowboy?
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JL: No. I could get dressed up like a cowboy, but I'm not a cowboy.
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RD: What do you think defines a cowboy?
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JL: Somebody who likes to live on a ranch and have animals around to take care of. The most animals I ever took care of was a cat – two cats. That's enough. I'm really a city boy or suburban boy at heart and the rodeo’s just fun.
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RD: How has your experience been with the AGRA growing over time?
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JL: Oh, I think it's been very positive. There's always a couple of things that they decide I don't agree with but, on a majority, I can just go along. I don't mind that they don't agree with me 100 percent of the time. I can live with that.
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RD: Do you want to speak any more to that?
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JL: No, I think that covers it. I think that covers it.
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RD: Do you have any other favorite memories of being at the rodeo?
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JL: I think just being with a big crowd of people that are out for having fun is good. The crowd that we have standing outside, and just milling around, and saying, “Hi,” and people you haven't seen in a year sometimes say, “Hello” – things like that. It's kind of fun to go and watch the events, then come out and have a drink and look up old friends. That's the thing. I wouldn't miss it; I wouldn't miss it. I've been a member for a long time. I'm still wearing this badge they gave me a few years ago for 30 years. And I expect to be a member for the rest of my life.
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RD: That’s great.
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JL: That's a pretty good endorsement, isn't it?
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RD: Oh, for sure!
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JL: I believe in lifetime memberships.
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RD: Let’s see… Is there anything else you’d like to go over?
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JL: I think we kind of covered it. Thank you very much. I enjoyed it and I hope your project works out very well.
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RD: Thanks.

Anthony

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Court Fund: Hi there, I'm Court. It is May 1st, 2020. I'm here with Anthony, who also goes by Chicken Nugget in the Rodeo Circuit. It is 7:00am. And, Anthony, you are in the Dallas metropolitan area, that's what you said?
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Anthony: Yes, ma'am.
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CF: Perfect. So just going to get started. Where did you grow up?
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A: I grew up in a really small town northwest of Fort Worth of Spring Town, probably about an hour northwest of Downtown Fort Worth.
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CF: And what year were born?
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A: I was born in 93.
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CF: 93. You're a millennial, then?
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A: I am, according to most. But I don't consider myself a millennial. I don't have a mindset like most millennials.
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CF: Yeah. What do you consider the millennial mindset?
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A: Oh, Lord. Dramatics.
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CF: Dramatics.
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A: Like just one word for it, I guess.
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CF: How was your childhood growing up over there?
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A: Within my family, it was really, really good. I had a really loving and caring family. Outside of that, though, especially living in a small town in Texas, being gay is like unheard of, especially back in the day when I was going through all that, going to school and stuff. So outside of my house, it was really rough or up until after high school, after high school, it kind of changed quite a bit. But yeah, it was really rough on like school life.
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CF: When did you come out, then?
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A: I came out to a few friends in middle school in seventh grade. And then, of course, didn't really tell my parents and stuff until the summer going into my ninth grade year in high school and I was kind of outed, actually. I wasn't ready to tell my parents, but somebody had spread the news to them. So I ended up just coming up to them as well. And high school was where it really got rough.
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CF: You said that you had a very loving and accepting childhood. Do you want to share any memories? Do you have any fond memories that you want to share?
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A: I don't really. I mean, everything really was a memory to me. We always did everything as a family. My dad was on the volunteer fire department. My mom was a nurse. And then outside of the fire department, my dad was U.P.S. driver. But everything we did, whether it was going to church, going to the movies, going out to dinner, like for their honeymoon - or no not their honeymoon - their, um, anniversary dinner, like we always did it all together as a family.
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CF: So you guys were tightknit, you would say?.
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A: Extremely.
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CF: How did they react when you came out?
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A: Well, my mom didn't really care. I mean, she didn't show hate towards it. She didn't really necessarily show acceptance. But I mean, she wasn't like not wanting it to be...not wanting me to be who I was. My dad took it really hard, actually, to the point where he tried to kick me out of the house and didn't want me as a son anymore. And it took a lot of heart to heart with my parents. My grandmother, of all people, who was the last person I wanted to know I was gay, she actually told my mom that we need to watch this movie called "Prayers for Bobby." I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it's oh, my God, you you need to watch it 'cause you'll cry at the end, but it's such a good movie. But we ended up watching it as a family. And at the end of the movie, all of us were crying. And my dad came up to me and he hugged me and said I would never want to see myself do that to you. Like it happened in the movie. And ever since then, he's gone to every pride with me here in Dallas and Fort Worth. He's marched in the parade with PFLAG in the Fort Worth parade with me multiple times. And now, I mean, they're like 100 percent supportive in all aspects. I think, I don't even have one family member in my entire family that doesn't support me and my LGBTQ lifestyle. So it's kind of nice.
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CF: Wow. Yeah. Did you come out to all of your family at the same time?
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A: Not really. I came out to like my immediate family all kind of after I obviously got outed. And then I kinda went in waves on who I told and who I didn't and who I finally got around to telling. But yeah, that was within about a year span. It took me to get the whole family on board.
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CF: Looking back, do you think that you're glad that you came out so early in your life?
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A: Yeah.
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CF: Yeah.
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A: I think that I probably would have drove myself insane if I would have waited. Especially into my adulthood. Like there's just no way I see friends today that are older than me and haven't came out yet. And they're having to live such a closeted lifestyle. And I don't think I could handle that lifestyle, being in the closet, as you would say.
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CF: How would you describe your lifestyle now?
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A: It's crazy. I mean, I actually just got engaged.
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CF: Congratulations.
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A: Yeah, last Friday. So never in my life did I think I was actually going to get married. So it's been pretty crazy. But I did meet my partner on the gay rodeo circuit and it's...I mean, my lifestyles pretty, pretty fun. I mean, it's I've made a lot of friends through these past couple years in the rodeo. And it's just that's all I do now is spend time with all my rodeo family and friends.
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CF: Wow. Congratulations. How did that go? How did, did you propose or?
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A: No, he proposed to me. It was kind of funny. We were out at my mom and dad for dinner, and he always gets onto me because when I'm around friends and family, I'll get on my phone, but check on Facebook or whatnot. So it sounded like when he started talking, it sounds like he was getting on to me for being on my phone. And I looked at my mom and I go, here he goes again. And I look back over and he was on his knee and I about fainted. So it was a surprise for sure.
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CF: Yeah. Have you guys picked a date or a time?
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A: Actually, I think we have. So we've actually talked about getting married for the past year. My family, my grandparents on my mom's side own a lake house up in Canada. It's like the most beautiful setting. And so we're thinking because we're planning on going up there on vacation at the end of summer this year, hoping if this COVID-19 stuff kind of clears up by then. If not, we'll push it back and do something different. But we're hoping to do it at the end of the summer.
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CF: That's really amazing. Congratulations again.
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A: Thank you so much.
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CF: Are you still pretty nervous about telling people?
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A: Not really. I mean, of course, as soon as that happened, because I always told them I was like, you can't just ask me when I was two alone. I have to have people around. I want them to witness, it's a special time. But he did it in front of my parents, which I'm totally, perfectly fine with. So, of course, one of my closest friends not being there, I had to call them all. I told - I told the closest people in my life. And here, like, slowly but surely, people are starting to find out and congratulating me and all that. But...
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CF: Yeah, announcing things right now is difficult. Did you do you like...
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A: It is very difficult.
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CF: Did you do like a mass phone call or a text?
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A: Yeah, I did a group text with, um, like we have a rodeo group chat we do. And I listed it on there. And then friends of mine from like high school that aren't involved in rodeo or whatnot, I would just call them personally and told them.
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CF: Today would have been that the Palm Springs rodeo where you planning on going to that?
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A: I was I actually was kind of funny. I called in sick to work Monday 'cause I had stayed out a little too late at a friend's house Sunday. And my boss said, let me know that I had the week scheduled off for vacation. I'm like, well, why would I have the week off for vacation? And then I remembered it was the week of Palm Springs 'cause I was actually going to haul horses with my partner and our really good friend and her horses at the Palm Springs. So, yes, I was really hoping to go there. That's one of my favorite rodeos on the gay circuit.
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CF: Is it just the place or is it also the people in Palm Springs?
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A: Well, so that organization has always done very well. They have something going on at all times. Like you don't feel like you're just sitting kind of twiddling their thumbs or whatnot. There's always something going on like nightlife. They have like shows like pushed towards the rodeo team and the rodeo folks that are in town starting from Thursday all the way up until Monday morning. It's really cool. And it's, I just love and enjoy it. And Palm Springs is Palm Springs, so...it's beautiful there.
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CF: Oh, yeah. Do you do events? What do you compete in?
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A: I do. So when I first started on the gay rodeo, I was only doing goat dressing and then I very quickly got pulled into doing steer deco, wild drag, and then eventually calf roping. This year, I was actually going to start doing horse events because my partner and I bought a horse last year and I've been training on him and I was going to start doing barrels and polls with him. But obviously that kinda went down the tube. So, gives me a little bit extra time to train on him and look a little bit more professional on him, I guess you could say. And I was actually thinking about picking up chute dogging in the near future as well.
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CF: So you mainly did camp events to start, you said, and now you're moving in to like Gymkhana. Could you describe some gymkhana or chute dogging for me?
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A: So chute dogging, you're in the chutee with the steer. And when you come out, it's 10 feet from the chute. You have to get all four hooves of the steer passed that line and then you dog it, which pretty much you wrestle it to the ground and have to get all four hooves off the ground. And then that's when the time stops. So as soon as the nose hits the line, that's when your time starts. And then you have to drag it all the way across the line and then steer it down to the ground.
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CF: Wow.
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A: Yeah. It's intense. I did it at a rodeo school last year. And I about, I was like, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this.
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CF: How was that last year when you tried it?
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A: It was fun. I mean, it's really exhilarating, but it's definitely something you have to do a couple times, like, not at a rodeo, but maybe at a rodeo school to get used to and know that you're doing it the right way. 'Cause the first time I did it, I was doing it so wrong and it didn't work out. But, yeah, I was exhilarating.
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CF: Yeah. So, you've been riding for about a year. Have you have had horse experience before that?
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A: I have. So my mom, when I was first born, my mom actually owned a horse. I didn't do any rodeo persay on that horse, but I always used to ride him. And then in high school, I took AG and was around horses all the time and friends that were in rodeo. And I actually helped out in rodeo in high school. I didn't compete, but I did help out. So I got to ride horses all through high school. Yeah, living out the country. I mean, all my friends had horses. So.
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CF: [00:13:18]So, [0.0s] your country life, kind of, you're like stock, horse life, started really early on then.
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A: Oh, Yeah.
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CF: Yeah. When did you know that you wanted to have like a country, rodeo lifestyle?
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A: I mean, kind of funny, but I was always attracted to like cowboys, like my uncle used to work at Billy Bob's, which is a country bar here in Fort Worth. And they also do rodeos there. They have like a bull riding rink and stuff. So he used to work security when I was like real little. I remember me and my sister used always like to look at that one. Look at that one. My sister is pretty much the one that knew the whole time. But always kept it hush hush until I was ready to tell people.
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CF: That's really that's really nice of her to be honest.
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A: Right.
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CF: It sounds like you guys have a pretty close bond, you know, going to these rodeos, talking about cowboys, has that continued into adulthood?
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A: Not necessarily. She has had children now and been married and kinda off doing her own thing. I mean, we're still really close. And she's gone to a couple rodeos that I've gone to and competed in. But she's got her hands full with a bunch of babies, now she's got four kids.
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CF: Yeah. Do you have any stories from those early rodeos that you want to share?
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A: So there was a rodeo clown that was really good friends with my uncle and he used to always come after the rodeo and paint our faces and stuff. And I remember I had my uncle put me in wranglers and boots, and Jeans, or a hat all that stuff like a whole that cowboy get up. He came up to me and painted my face and he said, "you're going to make a cowboy one day." And here I am doing rodeos that I never really thought that I was actually going to compete in or whatnot, but it's always stuck with me. So.
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CF: Do you compete in mainstream rodeos or like the jackpot circuit?
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A : I do not.
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CF: When did you find out about the gay rodeo?
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A: So, when I first started going out to bars here in the Metroplex, the rodeo association, I'm now a part of Texas Gay Rodeo Association. They did a lot of drag shows and fundraisers and stuff at the bars. And I met a friend of mine who was a part of the association at the time, and he invited me out to this fundraiser, so I went out, really enjoyed it. So I started volunteering to help out like help setup stuff at the bars when they do fundraisers and run music back and forth to the DJ, just like small stuff like that. And then my ex-boyfriend, he actually was a member when I had got together with him and I decided to join. And that's when I started by going to rodeos and volunteering to help out with the rodeos. And then when we split up, I went to my first finals rodeo in Albuquerque, and, I believe it's 2017. And that's where I met my current partner and I got...he's been a rodeo director for finals for the past three years. And he's also the rodeo director for Texas Rodeo. [...]
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CF: [...]
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A: [...] So that's that's when, um, that rodeo was my first real gay rodeo experience. And it actually was insane because being able to follow my partner around as a black shirt, as rodeo director, I got to go behind the scenes. I got to really see how everything was. And I I told him that weekend I was like, I really want to do this. And it wasn't two months later I was doing my first rodeo school. And a month after that I started competing.
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CF: Your partner, was he involved with horses before the IGRA?
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A: Yeah. He actually competed in rodeo in high school. He was a bull rider and chute dogger and a couple other things.
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CF: Does he still do like rough stock and horse events?
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A: Yeah, he does chute dogging still. He's too afraid he's gonna break something if he tries to do any bull riding or steer riding. We, um, a bunch of us and kinda got him talked into doing steer ridding, which is kind of the lesser of bull riding. So we'll see if that happens when these rodeos start back up.
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CF: Switching gears just a little bit. What do you what do you do for a living?
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A: So, I work for Coca-Cola.
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CF: Oh, wow.
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A: And my partner actually is what got me the job at Coca-Cola. He's been there for 18 years. So yeah, we make sirup for the fountain machines.
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CF: Wow, sounds like a very different job than your regular lifestyle.
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A: Right. It's crazy. Helps pay the bills, though. It helps pay for rodeos and stuff. That's what I like about it.
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CF: Yeah. Are you out at work? I'm assuming, yes, because your partner also works there.
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A: Yeah.
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CF: Yeah. Do you feel like your work environment and your, like, gay rodeo environment clash in any way?
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A: I personally don't think so. Good thing like with how I work...like with my work ethic and stuff or not, my ethnic work period is: I worked during the week, rodeo's are normally on the weekends, so it's like a perfect handoff. I don't ever feel like I have to give up rodeo because of work or give up work because of rodeo. So it just kind of clicks well together.
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CF: Thats good. I feel like it's hard to find.
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A: It is hard to find. There's so many people on the rodeo circuit that deal with that all the time, like "I'm be able to go to this rodeo because I can't get off." And I'm like, "oh that sucks. I can."
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CF: Has gay rodeo changed since you've started?
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A: Yeah, it has.
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CF: How would you say it's changed?
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A: It's gotten smaller, in my opinion. I think it's like nowadays, the LGBTQ community is starting to come together more and the acceptance is at a higher level nowadays. And then the Western lifestyle is kind of dying in a sense. Because back in the day when like especially when IGRA and TGRA and all these gay rodeo organizations started, it was pretty much to give gay cowboys and cowgirls a safe haven to do what they love to do. Now, you don't really need that because the majority of the world nowadays accepts it. But yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things that I've noticed is changing. The rodeos have just gotten smaller. People are doing other things or found new, newer and more exciting hobbies than rodeo. I know at our - my home association here in Texas, that's one of our biggest things is trying to pull in more members.
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CF: Why do you think that the Western lifestyle is dying?
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A: It's a tough one. In my own personal opinion, I think it's because everything nowadays is so materialized. Like even like going to the bars, like the country bars nowadays, like you don't hear country music that much, like you'll hear it up until about 7 or 8 o'clock at night and then those bars. Change it to rap and pop music and stuff like that, which I'm OK with. Like you always want the diversity in music and stuff, but it doesn't have that country vibe like it did for, say, ten, fifteen years ago.
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CF: How would you describe a country lifestyle? Like what..how do you, how do you define that for yourself?
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A: I would say it's a very exhilarating lifestyle full of always changing events. It's never the same, but it's always very exciting and rewarding.
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CF: You mentioned that there's like a whole nightlife aspect to country living. Are you involved in any dancing or like two stepping?
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A: Well, so there's a bar in Dallas that like we do shows at it's a country bar. And my partner and I will go up there and do country dances and stuff. But it's not anything persay that I'm like always dying to do because I cannot dance. I try, but I can't. [laughs]
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CF: Dancing is hard.
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A: It is really hard, especially when you've had a drink or two and you're being yelled at to follow their lead. Like what? Follow what? [Laughs]
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CF: Can you talk for a moment about your rodeo family? It sounds like you guys are very close. So I'm just wondering if you have any stories about the community and community in general or like family memories?
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A: Well, so I can say when my ex and I broke up, I was in a really, really bad place in my life. I started developing an eating disorder. I was told I was too fat and ugly and all this stuff. And by my own community, not the rodeo community, but just by the gay community in itself. And that put me in a really deep depression. And then my ex breaking up with me just kind of put it in deeper. And so when I joined this organization, it gave me a purpose again. And I can probably tell you 99.9% of my friends now are from the rodeo. I do everything with them like these past few weeks, weekends, when I'm not at work, I'm at my friend's house helping her finish setting up her barn and reinstalling new panels on her barn. I mean, it's just always, always, always doing stuff for my rodeo family. But it's really given me purpose to my life back. And there are just countless memories that I've made with every single one of them that I've been with in this organization. Yeah, we're definitely tightknit, of course, just like siblings as there's... a lot of members that butt heads and stuff, we always in the end come together for the right reasons. And do we love doing most and that's rodeo.
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CF: Yeah. Do you think that the gay rodeo community is different from the larger LGBTQ+ community?
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A: Say that again.
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CF: Do you think that the gay rodeo community is different or how do you think it differs from the larger LGBTQ+ community?
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A: So I actually do think there is a big difference. But like I said, like how I was treated by the gay community, like you don't really find that in gay rodeo. And that's just one example. But like, I can go into a bar with a bunch of people that know me and they'll be like, oh hi, hey, whatever. And then like, I go in to a rodeo to these people that I haven't seen a couple weeks and we just pick up right where we left off. And I mean, it's like a family on the rodeo side of it. But I don't feel that much towards people that I know in just the gay community itself.
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CF: Do you think that the gay community accepts the gay rodeo.
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A: To an extent, like I mentioned earlier, times have changed. Especially like...Oh, I don't want to call the gay community catty, but all the catty gays nowadays don't really care for the rodeo. They'd rather go to brunch on Sundays and spend their time at house parties and stuff like that. But I mean, when we do shows and stuff, we always have a pretty good turnout from the local community people and they always help fundraise and raise money. And that's one thing about all the gay rodeo associations, all the money that we raised are uh, goes to charity.
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CF: You've mentioned shows a couple times. Do you perform?
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A: I do. So something I never thought in my lifetime I would ever do. I used to be such a very nervous wreck. being in front of a lot of people, like I mentioned earlier when I went to finals in Albuquerque for the first finals rodeo, I got to watch the IGRA royalty competition. And I told my now partner, I told him, I think you know what? I want to do that, too. I think I want to help because the royalty teams are the face of their organization. They're the ones that help the most by going out raising money for these organizations. And I was like I would feel like so warm inside if I was able to help raise money and for all these charities and stuff. So we came back to Texas and I ended up running last year for the royalty team for Texas. And I actually won. And then back in October, I ran for Mr. IGRA and won that as well. So I am now, Mr. IGRA, which is insane. Yes, I do perform as a boy. I do not do drag.
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CF: Well, congratulations.
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A: Unless it's for extra money.
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CF: Well, congratulations. That's really exciting.
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A: Yeah, it's really exciting for me, too.
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CF: Yeah. This is your year: you're Mr. IGRA, you just got engaged.
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A: I know it.
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CF: Yeah.
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A: Been on cloud nine since October.
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CF: Would you describe the Mr. IGRA competition? What you do, how you perform?
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A: So as Mr. IGRA, the competition itself was very, very challenging, not really challenging, but a lot of work. There was four of us total competing and they, they take the winner and then two runner ups, and so unfortunately one of us did not make it on the team this year. But we all worked really, really hard. That's all that matters to me. But the competition was really hard and it involved an interview where you have a panel of judges that ask you questions regarding rodeo history, IGRA history and then some questions just to like figure out what kind of person you are and what you bring to the table as if you were to become Mr. IGRA. And then you also do a performance of some sort and you can either do a performance or horsemanship, which horsemanship is a...they provide a pattern that you have to ride the horse in a certain way and fashion. Trot, here. Lope, here. Like that. So you have the option between those two and then you do onstage stage. Q and A. And Western wear. Sorry, I forgot Western wear too. But in my performances I didn't want to do horsemanship because it's so easy to mess up on and make your score drop. So, I didn't want to even risk that, but in all my performances I always do country music. I can't get myself to do any other style of music. I mean, I love rap and all other kinds of music and stuff, but I don't know. It's a country organization and I've tried to do it once. I was like, I just don't feel comfortable. I have to do country. But yeah, now like as Mr. IGRA, it's kind of hard, the whole team has been having a hard time doing what we are supposed to be doing because of this COVID-19 thing. Thankfully, IGRA has actually pushed the whole season to combine it with the '21 season. So we will now be IGRA royalty this year and next year. And so thankfully if something goes on, we still have of all next year to be able to raise our funds and, uh excuse me, raise our funds and go to all these rodeos and represent.
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CF: That's really exciting. I'm curious now that you're starting to ride and you're starting to work on your horsemanship, if like looking into the future, if you would do horsemanship in a competition like this later.
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A: You know, I think if I had a little bit more training and was able like felt really comfortable with it, I definitely would. And I've actually me and my, my TGRA royalty team. We actually all three went on to compete at IGRA. And we're all three of us are on the team for IGRA as well. But we decided that we're going to come back in a couple of years and we're all going to swap roles. So like my friend Phillip, he actually does drag and he competed as a drag queen and won at that, my friend Jessie, she competed as a drag king, which is a woman that dresses as a man. And so we're all going to swap roles and run under different categories here in a couple years. So I'm like, well, we'll see what I can pull out of my boot and do that time.
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CF: That's amazing. Have you ever considered doing rough stock?
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A: I have. And I've been thinking about doing chute dogging. Like I said, I tried it and I want to do it a couple more times before I actually spend money at a rodeo to try to do it, because watching some of the guys that have been around for 20, 30 plus years doing it, they do it so fast, it's almost like embarrassing to even try 'cause you're like, why? Why do it? But it'll be the fun of it.
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CF: Have you ever been injured at a rodeo?
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A: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely.
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CF: What types of injuries have you occured?
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A: So the the one rodeo that actually got to happen this year was in Arizona. Back in February. Me and my friend Philip were doing steer deco, which is putting a, you have to tie, a ribbon to the tail of a steer and I'm the ribbon tier. So, Philip had gotten on the head of the steer to kind of neutralize the steer and get him stopped. So I could get on the tail. And right when I got to the tail, he got a little rambunctious and got away from Philip and went straight into my crotch with his horns, hooked me in the leg. Thankfully, I haven't had any cuts, but I've had lots of bruises, no broken bones, thank goodness. Lots, lots of bruising and dizziness falling on my head. And...
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CF: It's dangerous. Anything with animals. Have you been injured on your horse, yet?
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A: Yes, I have. And it was mainly my fault. When I first started riding him. I was giving him mixed signals as my horse trainer was telling me. And he put me right into the side of a fence and hurt my leg a little bit. But like I said, that was my fault.
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CF: What kind of horse did you guys get?
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A: Oh, goodness. He's a, um... I always can't answer this question because I always forget the word. He's a, um... Well, no he's not a paint, he's a um... I'll have to get back to you on that one. I always forget what kind of that word that they call him?
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CF: We just met, but I can see you on a palomino.
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A: Oh, I love Palominos. Yeah, he's not a palomino. I love palominos. My mom's horse that she had when I was first born was a palomino.
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CF: Do you think that you'll have more horses in the future? Is this just the beginning of your horsemanship?
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A: I think so. We've been talking, my partner and I, about buying a ranch and potentially trying to host rodeos there like, um, we went out a couple of weeks ago and actually looked at property to buy. And we were going to put an arena out there and potentially start doing rodeos and small jackpots and stuff out there and get more horses.
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CF: Wow. That's going to be... gonna be fun.
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A: It would be fun.
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CF: Yeah. Outside of rodeo, do you wear Western wear?
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A: I do. Most of the time I'm in boots and jeans. Mainly a t-shirt, if I'm just out and about. If I'm going to show or anything to represent my organization or IGRA, I'm always in Western wear like you will not find me at a drag show or anything, not wearing western wear. Today, I've been having to run a bunch errands, so I'm not in Western wear. I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt. But it's hot and I don't want to wear jeans. But, yeah, a majority of the time I'm in boots and jeans and a hat.
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CF: Do you consider yourself a cowboy?
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A: Yes and no. I mean, I definitely enjoy the Western lifestyle and I partake in a lot of Western lifestyle, Western lifestyle aspects. But at the same time, um, in my opinion, a real cowboy is somebody that's out there working on the ranch doing stuff like on a day to day basis like, that's their job, like that's how they make their income is out herding cattle and doing all those kinda things. But in a sense I, at the same time, I think that people that are involved in rodeo, but not necessarily do the working in the fields and all that kind of stuff at the ranch like that, they're still considered a cowboy or a cowgirl.
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CF: What do you think the future of the IGRA is?
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A: You know, I actually have really big dreams and I'm kind of excited for the future of it. I think that the royalty team, especially this year, has a lot of plans up our sleeves to try to get the general public more involved, not even just the gay community, but the general public more involved. And I think that's what we really need nowadays. So I'm actually really excited to see. I think it's going to grow a lot in the next couple of years. Hopefully, after all this COVID-19 stuff is gone.
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CF: When it does grow, what do you think that'll look like? What's your ideal İGRA rodeo space?
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A: My honest dream for IGRA. I want to see it how it was back in the 80's when it first started. When I was running for IGRA and TGRA, I learned so much history on all the old rodeo's and I'm constantly getting the pictures sent to me from rodeo's from before I was even born, like gay rodeos too and it's insane to me like thinking Holy crap, that they've gone back this long. But you see pictures from these rodeo's and like the stands are full of people and it's just breathtaking and like so, nowadays, like we go to a rodeo in the stands or maybe half full, maybe a quarter full just depending on location or whatnot. But like Arizona's rodeo this year was like so amazing because both days there was not an empty seat in the stands. I mean, it was just full of people. And that's what, that's what I want to see happen. And I do think it's going to happen in the next year or two once we start getting more people involved.
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CF: It's amazing. I just have one last question for you. Have you ever experienced homophobia at the rodeo or on your way to a rodeo?
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A: Um, at the gay rodeo's. I've never actually experienced that, thankfully. I don't think and I don't really recall ever seeing any protester or like you would see a gay pride. I haven't seen any of that. Yeah, I, it was actually funny, at finals last year, it was held in Scottsdale, Arizona, and the way the arena was, it was right next to a convention center that was having this RV show and this family came walking over, thinking it was like just a regular, like, straight rodeo. And it was really kind of funny. They came in and somebody had explained it to them and stuff and they're like, "well, we've been enjoying it. We're going to stay and I think we're gonna come back tomorrow and bring some of our friends too."
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CF: Oh, wow, that's amazing.
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A: Yeah, it was actually, it was kind of nice because you wouldn't expect that from a straight family like how that was. But then that, that's just the sign of the times, I mean.
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CF: [...]
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CF: [...]
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A: [...]
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CF: [...]
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A: [...]
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CF: [...]
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A: [...] But, um, so, I pretty much was saying, um, it's just a sign of the times now that everything is more accepting. You don't really see that negativity and... hateful words and stuff being spread all like wildfire, like it used to.
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CF: Well, thank you so much. Do you have anything else to add before I let you go?
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A: I don't think so. I really think it's awesome what you guys are doing. And I can't wait to hear where it goes. Yeah, I wish you guys the best of luck in this. Hopefully, I get more people to enter in to have an interview done and I'll definitely spread it around to some of my royalty team. There's quite a few that have been around for a little bit. So I know that you guys were at convention, right? We have, yeah?
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CF: I think we're at convention and the Phoenix rodeo.
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A: Yeah. OK. Yeah. Yeah. I remember seeing y'all at the Phoenix rodeo as well. I'll definitely hit up some more people because I love this. It's just giving more history for the books for the future. So.
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CF: Thank you so much.

Ron Trusley

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Saraya Flaig: This is Saraya Flaig and I’m here with Ron Trusley at the International Gay Rodeo Convention in Denver, Colorado, on November 23rd, 2019. So, Ron, what year were you born?
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Ron Trusley: Oh, if you really want to know, 1943.
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SF: And where did you grow up?
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RT: Uh, in Oklahoma until was about 14. And I’ve been in Arizona since then.
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SF: Did you grow up in a pretty rural area, at all?
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RT: It wasn’t rural, but it was a very small town. Maybe at the time the population was possibly 1,500 or less.
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SF: And did your parents, or your family, do any ranching or farming of any kind?
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RT: My parents were farmers, but I didn’t grow up on a farm. My mom and dad had separated, and we had moved to town when I was five years old.
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SF: And what was your family like growing up? What was your childhood like?
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RT: I would say it was a happy time. We didn’t have a lot, but my mom worked hard to support us. So, we were a happy family, got along well. No issues.
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SF: And you said you moved to Arizona later on. What was that change like for you?
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RT: Well, it was a big change coming from a very small town. My mom remarried and that’s when we moved to Arizona. Then we were living on farms in Arizona because my stepdad worked on the farms in Arizona. They were basically cotton farmers. So, that was a big change for me, living actually in the country, rather than in a small town. And the weather, of course, was so different than Oklahoma, so it took a little while to get used to it.
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SF: Did you ever help out on the farm at all?
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RT: Not actually helping on the farm. When I was, I guess in high school probably, there were a couple of years that to make some money, I did what we call to chop cotton. And did that. But, as far as actual work on a farm, no.
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SF: And how did you eventually find the gay rodeo?
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RT: Now, that is a very interesting question. The Arizona Gay Rodeo Association started in Arizona in 1984 actually, but it officially became incorporated in January 1985. Well, September 1985, I heard about the square dance group, Midnight Ramblers, that was part of the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association. I was already in another square dance group, The Desert Valley Squares, in town and I was a founding member of that. In order to be a member of the Midnight Ramblers square dance group, you had to be a member of the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association. So, I joined the rodeo association so I could audition for the square dance group, and that was my beginning of involvement in gay rodeo.
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SF: So, you said you started another square-dancing group. What was that like?
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RT: I didn’t actually start it; I was a founding member of it. And it was just a time to be with people that I could really identify with, and have some fun at the same time, and exercise as well. So, it was it was really a good experience to start to get out more in public, with other people, doing the same things that we liked.
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SF: How did you originally come to start dancing, or start square dancing?
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RT: That was – I started just starting to be part of this square dance group, because I’d never danced before.
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SF: Was there anyone that brought you in? Or you just wanted to learn to dance?
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RT: It was so long ago – I think it was just a group of us that decided to do it. And we formed the association.
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SF: And then, you wanted to join the gay rodeo square dancing group, so do you identify as gay, then?
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RT: I did.
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SF: And what was that coming out process like for you?
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RT: Well, actually, I probably didn’t truly come out until I was maybe 25, because I had actually never been to a bar in my life. I knew nothing about alcohol, I didn’t even know what drinks there were. I knew a little about beer, but I’d never had anything. So, I was working for state government, and I went with some people to a bar one night. But I didn’t know anything about drinking, so they said, “Well, try scotch and water.” That’s actually how I started getting involved in that way.
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SF: Is your family very religious at all? Did you grow up religious?
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RT: Yes. Yes, we – I grew up Southern Baptist when I was in Oklahoma. And then, eventually after moving to Arizona, over the years, then I became involved in and started identifying more as Pentecostal Holiness. So, yeah, my family, for the most part, we were. Not all my older brothers and sisters were, but my mom, my younger sister, and I were.
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SF: Are you still pretty religious today?
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RT: Well, I would say there is a big difference in religion and Christianity. I don’t go to church regularly, but I still consider myself Christian. In that aspect, yes, very much so. But I think religion is just a term that people – we use so often when we really mean are we Christian, and what is our belief?
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SF: So, when you first joined the gay rodeo association as square dancing, what was the rodeo association like at that time?
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RT: It was just starting, as I said, in Arizona. And the membership when they started was not a large number – I don’t remember exactly what it was. But it was very accepting of everybody. You felt welcome; you felt a part of it. Because after I joined the square dancing group – the association and the square dancing group – it was interesting that it was not very long after that that the association board asked me, just on the spot, to be the parliamentarian sergeant at arms. So that was how, then, that I further got involved in rodeo.
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SF: Did you ever attend any of the gay rodeos, right in the beginning, when you first joined?
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RT: Oh, when I first joined? Yeah, I started going to rodeos right away. But before that, I had never been to a rodeo in my life. I didn’t know anything about rodeo, so it was all brand new.
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SF: What was that first rodeo experience like for you?
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RT: I guess I could say it must have been really rewarding, it was something that I thought I would really enjoy, because I’ve kept involved all these years and I’ve not regretted it.
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SF: Mm-hum. Did you ever participate in any of the events?
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RT: A few times. I’m not really a rodeo contestant as much as staff, and things like that. But yeah, there were a few times I did roping on foot. I did the camp events, steer decorating, goat dressing, wild drag racing. I never did any horse events or rough stock riding events, anything like that. I did in a rodeo school one time, just practice. Tried steer riding one time. That was it.
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SF: Have you ever been injured doing any events?
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RT: Well, when I tried to steer ride, just for practice, I was – it could be considered an injury. It wasn’t really severe, it was just hitting the ground hard enough that for several weeks, or a few months, I was pretty sore. My back was pretty banged up. But, as far as a really substantial injury, no.
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SF: Did you ever win anything, or did you just compete more for fun?
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RT: I never won anything, but it was fun. Yeah.
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SF: Um, what was it like originally getting involved on the administrative side?
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RT: Well, as I said, when they started, they asked me to be the Sergeant in Arms Parliamentarian for the local association, and then from there, I eventually started getting involved as the local Secretary. And then, a few years later, I don’t remember exact year – I should. Then at the international level, when I started going to conventions right away, then I got involved in secretarial work. We have a certification program for all of our efficiencies.
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RT: So, when we started the certification program – and, again, I can’t remember when it was, but it was a long time ago – I was grandfathered in, initially, in the certification program as Secretary of Support Team. And then, from there, when there was an opening, I ran for the position of International Secretary. And I became the Secretary, where I served for over 14 years in that position. And then, I was out of it for four or five years, maybe. About two years ago and now – two or three – I came back for about a year and a half and then I resigned.
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SF: So, did you come back as the International Secretary?
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RT: Yes.
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SF: So, what’s the difference between being a secretary at a local level and then at the international level?
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RT: There’s a big difference. Locally, you’re doing the secretarial work just for your local association. At the international level, you’re doing more things that relate to all of our member associations within the international organization. And a big part of that is preparing for conventions, making sure everything’s in order. And then, at the convention, getting our rodeo rules book, our bylaws, our standing rules prepared for dissemination to everybody.
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SF: When was the first convention that you attended, if you remember? And what was it like?
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RT: I think, it probably – I may be wrong, but I thought I went to the first one in 1986. It was very small, as I remember. They were not very many of us. So, it was an eye opener, but it was the beginning stages for really getting into everything. Like, folks that you probably heard during the convention floor today when Roger Bergman mentioned the rule book, our rodeo rule book, way back when, how small it was? Yeah, it’s really grown. So, it’s been interesting to see how we were so small and had such a small number of rules in the beginning, to 2019 and the changes in the rules.
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SF: What do you think is one of the most interesting rule debates you’ve seen in the past?
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RT: It would depend how you defined interesting.
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SF: For you.
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RT: Well, I’ll put it this way, chute dogging over the years has been controversial. For several conventions, every year there would be a debate about the chute dogging rule, and it would change. Then we’d come back the next year and sometimes we’d change it back again, or we would change it differently to move forward. So, I would say that’s probably been the most interesting. But in the beginning, also we had an event called Wild Cow Milking. That’s been eliminated and now we have Wild Drag Race, which is similar but has several differences.
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SF: Can you tell me a little bit about Wild Cow Milking? I haven’t heard about that one yet.
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RT: Not many people have. As I recall, it was a two-person team, and there was the cow. And they had to go out and one would hold the cow. Somebody else would have the pail, and they would actually have to milk the cow a little bit, to get some milk in the bucket, to get a time. And it was a timed event, whoever could do this first had the best time.
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SF: Do you know why that event went away?
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RT: I really don’t. I think people just thought it was time for a change, for something different.
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SF: How have you seen conventions change over the years, from your position?
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RT: There’s a lot more participation from individuals now. I think, more often than not, there is more interest shown in adopting our new rules, or rule changes. There are a lot more actual rodeo contestants than there were in the beginning, who are showing an interest. I think, personally, I see sometimes that some of the contestants who also participate in non-gay rodeos, the professional rodeos, that they would like to see us move more toward the professional rodeo rules. But we advertise ourselves as amateurs, and we consider our events as amateur sports events, so I think it’s not a conflict, but just sometimes just the – the differences that I see, it seems that some of the people want to move forward quicker than others do. And it’s having to come to that compromise and see when, and where, and how do we get there.
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SF: What personally would you like to see? Would you like to see it go more of a professional route or stay as it is?
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RT: Personally, I would like to see it stay like it is, I think. Because if we went too much on the professional side, we’re going to lose contestants. And now this is people who maybe have never participated in a rodeo, they see what’s going on and they think, “That’s something I would like to do.” And it’s happened time and time again that new contestants will start in some of the speed events and then they will work their way up to, maybe, steer riding, roping, things like that. So, I really think that we can keep getting more contestants and support the contestants we have now if we stay more at the amateur level. And keep making our own rules that fit and work for us.
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SF: How did you see the organization change over the years in terms of diversity?
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RT: As far as diversity, we don’t have the diversity of ethnic groups that we should have. And I don’t know what the cause is. I think sometimes – unfortunately, I think nationwide, we still tend to segregate ourselves a lot. And I don’t know if maybe some of the other athletes like the blacks are afraid to – I mean, we have some, and they’re all accepted. I mean, we get along very well. So, diversity, I think we need more females, and we’re trying to get more females involved. But it’s difficult. And nobody has come up with the real solution with how to do it. We tried the outreach.
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SF: Were there a lot of females back when you first started participating?
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RT: There were not a lot, but there was a good number, several of them who were really good contestants.
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SF: Do you think women should be allowed to participate in the rough stock events?
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RT: Oh, I definitely do. I think it should be equal all around. Females should have the same opportunities as a male. If they choose to do it, and accept the risk, then yes, people should.
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SF: In your position as secretary for either the Arizona association or IGRA, what are some changes that you made personally to the association or contributed?
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RT: Well, locally, I’ll take responsibility for writing a lot of our local bylaws. And then, besides being the secretary at the local level, I’ve moved positions such as Vice-President, President, Rodeo Director, and currently I’m the President and Rodeo Director for the local association. At the international level, I think I was able to contribute a lot when I was the secretary. One way that I was able to, I think – and maybe it sounds bragging, but I’ll do it anyway – because I am able to do actual shorthand, which is almost unheard of now, I was able to really do a lot more in notes. And it was easier for me to do that, and to be able to go back and read it. So, I think I was able to contribute in that way, that you didn’t have to wait so long to have something written. We could keep moving forward in the meetings.
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SF: You said you’re President of the Arizona association, so what, um, what years were you President?
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RT: Well, uh, I don’t know. I was before different times and then I was – it’s confusing because when I had moved to Trustee for our Arizona Gay Rodeo Association at the international level, I served in that position for, I think, nine years. So, I couldn’t be Secretary anymore. And then, at the local level, as Trustee to international, I couldn’t be President of the association. So now, I am back as President. This is my… I think third – third or fourth year, consecutive year – and I have one more year before we have elections again.
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SF: So, what are some changes that you made to your local association as president?
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RT: I think – and, again, maybe I’m bragging – but I think that I have been able to get a lot more members coming to our membership meetings, and be involved, because I have encouraged them over and over again in writing, in our newsletter, monthly newsletter, and in person at our meetings, that this is your association. And even if you have an opinion, and if our board does not agree with you, or nobody agrees, you’re entitled to your opinion. And I want to hear what you have to say. And every time I write my articles for the monthly newsletter, I always end with, “If you have any ideas, suggestions, or questions, contact me.”
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RT: And I give my email address and phone number every time. So, I think that open line of communication, or encouraging it, I’ve been able to do that. And to me, that’s more important – or very important – because if I, as the leader/CEO of the group, or whatever you want to call it, if I cannot encourage the members to be involved and listen to them, then it’s not a member association and I have no right to be in that leadership position.
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SF: Um-hum. Have you received any good suggestions before?
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RT: Yes. I’m trying to think of – I know I have, as well as some things that were not so good. But I listened, and I’ll go to the board if we need to. “Can we do this? Is this something that will work for us?” And it doesn’t always work, but yeah….
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SF: How have you seen the Arizona chapter change, specifically, over time, since you’ve been involved?
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RT: A lot of our members who were involved and that we had in the beginning years have either moved away and chosen not to renew their membership, or they are still local, but they just have gone down other avenues and are not wanting to be involved in rodeo anymore. I’ve seen a lot of new faces coming in; people coming in, sometimes with some new ideas, a lot of questions, and showing that they want to be involved. What I’m seeing is – and it’s not just in Arizona, I think, it seems everywhere – that we all have difficulty recruiting and getting younger people involved.
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RT: And I think it’s just a change everywhere that the younger people, now, because all the social media and everything, they have other ways to meet people and be involved, whereas way back, years ago, that was the one major outlet we could have to meet people and to be involved with people. So, I’ve seen – I guess that’s the biggest change, you know, the makeup of the membership. And we still struggle to get a lot of females involved. And, unfortunately, sometimes I hate to see it, but sometimes it seems that a member may not get his or her way, think what they want to do is the right thing, and the board doesn’t, or the membership doesn’t agree, and they leave. And it saddens me when that happens because, as a member association, stay there and work. Try to get what you think is right accomplished.
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SF: What are some things that, specifically the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association, makes it unique or that Arizona would like to see on an international level?
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RT: Well, I think the rodeo that we produce every year is one big thing that makes us unique. We use now, and we have for years, a Mexican arena – charro arena – that’s kind of a round arena. But, because, when we did our first rodeo in 1986, we could not find any venue that would accept us because of a gay group. So, Coronas opened up their venue to us and treated us like family and now we’re able – at that arena, they have a huge indoor pavilion. And behind that is an outdoor, like, huge cement slab. So, inside we’re able to do parties, dancing inside, entertainment while the rodeo is going on outside. And we’re able to keep people there – keep them involved. And I think that’s one thing that really makes us unique, is that we can do everything right there. Plus, we now, for the last few years, we have come up with the idea of party buses, and people can buy their tickets and ride to the rodeo and back, so they don’t have to worry about driving.
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RT: And we’re able to keep people there to just drink, have a good time dancing, whatever. And there’s a huge stage in the pavilion so we can bring in entertainers – we have our own local entertainers. And, in addition to that, and it’s not really so much that we’re unique in this way, but I think we are in the fact that we probably have more vendors at our rodeo than most rodeos do. And we’re able to have them in places inside the pavilion and the outside as well. So, we’re serving our alcohol at the bar inside, and then we have a beer truck outside as well. I think that helps with a lot, that we’re just able to do everything right there.
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SF: Do you have a favorite rodeo memory from that – were you at the first rodeo that Arizona put on?
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RT: Yes.
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SF: Do you have a favorite memory from that?
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RT: Well, not from the first one. And I have a favorite memory, but it’s not a pleasant memory: one rodeo, and it was probably in the ‘80s – mid to late ‘80s or early ‘90s. The weather in Phoenix is usually really good. We do rodeos now in February. We changed a few years ago, but they used to be January. Well, one year it actually snowed. And there was so much ice. I was secretary at that rodeo, and we didn’t have an enclosed area to work. So, go out in the morning, just ice all over the tables. I tried to work with gloves, I couldn’t. And I remember saying, “I will never be secretary of this rodeo again if I work outside.” So that’s one of – probably the best memory I have. That’s kind of an interesting one.
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SF: How have you seen – how has planning the rodeo changed from that first rodeo or any planning you were involved in in the ‘80s to this upcoming rodeo?
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RT: To me, I think we probably have more of a committee make-up that makes the decisions for the rodeo – not all of them, some, of course, the Rodeo Director makes, or the Rodeo and Assistant Rodeo Directors make. But that’s probably the biggest change I’ve seen. What we’ve done, different people and having them do different tasks. Let’s assign someone as Vendor Coordinator, Entertainment Coordinator, Awards Coordinator, things like that.
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SF: You mentioned camp events earlier. Do you like the camp events?
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RT: I do. I think they’re very entertaining and when the public comes, especially if they’ve never been to a rodeo, it’s exciting for them to see all this going on. You know, they’re interesting. And what a lot of people sometimes – not so much anymore, I guess, it’s just certain groups – will think it’s abuse of the animals because of way we do the event. And it’s not because IGRA, at the international level and local, is all about animal welfare and not mistreating them in any way.
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RT: So, I think the camp events are very interesting. It’s exciting when, for example, in Wild Drag Race, when the drag is getting on the steer and having to stay up there to get across the line. Maybe you fall off, your partner helps you get back on, and back and forth until the time runs out. So, that’s probably, to me, the most interesting next to Goat Dressing. And that’s another fun one.
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SF: Have you ever participated in the Wild Drag Race?
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RT: Just a few times before.
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SF: What role did you play?
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RT: I think I did – held a steer most of the time.
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SF: So, you were never the drag?
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RT: I don’t believe so, no. That’s just not me.
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SF: What do you think of royalty in the rodeo and the role that they play?
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RT: I think our royalty people are very integral, a very important part, a necessary part. Because I look at them as goodwill ambassadors for the association, and they are our major fundraisers. They have that expertise to entertain crowds and to bring in money. So, without them, I think we would be hurting ourselves.
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SF: How have you seen the role of royalty change in the rodeo over time?
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RT: Well, we used to have the Miss and Mr. category, and Mrs. We have now, Mr., Mrs., and Miss, and a MisTer, a drag king. So that’s the biggest change, that we’ve added that category a few years ago.
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SF: What do you think of those new categories?
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RT: I think it’s essential to have it, because – just the community is everywhere. It’s in other associations, the Pride associations have categories such as that. So, to stay up with the times, and to be inclusive, and to let everybody who wants to be a part, I think it’s absolutely essential.
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SF: How long have those categories existed?
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RT: Oh… Well, our MisTer, we added that just a few – I can’t remember, maybe three or four years ago. But, the Miss and Mr., I think have been in existence pretty much since we started the royalty. And it wasn’t as much competition way back in the early days as it is now. It was, but not to the extent it is now. So, probably in some form or other, we’ve had those categories since 1987, probably. A long time.
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SF: Yeah. Have you had a lot of participation in the Mrs. and MisTer categories, specifically, since they’ve been added?
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RT: In our local or at the international level?
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SF: Um, both.
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RT: Locally, we’ve always had, or generally had, a good response for the Miss, the drag queen category, and the Mr. And occasionally the Mrs. We did, one year – or a couple years – we had the MisTer, a drag king. So, that’s one that’s getting more people involved now. At the international level, we now have a MisTer 2020 and a first runner up. So, more people are starting to see the importance and how they can be involved. So, I think it’s growing, and it’s gonna continue to grow.
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SF: You mentioned earlier, you said you were a scorekeeper at one point, for the rodeo. Do you still do score keeping?
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RT: No. I was scorekeeper and Secretary, both. I’ve done both. But no, I – we have to recertify every year, and I chose not to recertify for 2020.
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SF: How long have you been scorekeeping for? What years did you score keep for?
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RT: Well, when the certification program began, again, I think – I can’t remember the year, I should – but it was maybe ‘87, ‘88. Way back. I was grandfathered in as scorekeeper and secretary. So, from then until through 2019, I had those positions.
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SF: What made you interested in scorekeeping?
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RT: I don’t know. I really don’t know. I guess just because – and I prefer the secretary position over scorekeeper, very much so. I guess maybe what had a lot to do with it was, because of my professional work: working in offices and having worked in positions with classification, and – I don’t think it exists anywhere anymore – as an actual secretary or clerk typist, and things like that, and just having the experience from the office atmosphere, probably is what made me more interested. And knowing that was a way that I could participate, and I could give back something.
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SF: So, what do you do outside of the gay rodeo? You mentioned it a little bit.
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RT: Well, I’m actually retired from state service, state government, but I work out of my house now, fortunately, as executive director for a tribal workforce group in Arizona.
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SF: So, what does that entail?
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RT: I do research. I plan all our meetings. I coordinate an annual conference every December. I attend meetings on behalf of our chairperson or on behalf of myself. I am responsible for ensuring that minutes are done and distributed from every meeting.
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SF: So, kinda similar to your work with IGRA and your local association. Is that why you originally decided to get involved as secretary?
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RT: I think so. Because of my previous work and, actually, of course, when I started doing it, I was still working. I had not retired. So, I think that’s it. Because it’s something I knew I could do; it was kind of related.
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SF: Yeah. Have you ever attended any of rodeos outside of the gay rodeo?
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RT: No. I think that once I’d seen a little bit of bull riding, but not a full rodeo.
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SF: Is there anything that you think, personally, makes gay rodeo special or unique?
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RT: Yes, I think the fact that somebody who identifies as gay, or lesbian, or just supports other groups, that you can feel welcome. You can feel a part of it, and you don’t have to fear any retaliation by participating.
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SF: So, you’ve been involved in gay rodeo for a really long time, so what has made you keep coming back every year?
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RT: Because I like it, and I like being around the people. And it gives me something – an outlet to do other than just work.
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SF: So, you mentioned dancing a little while ago. So, how long were you involved in square dancing?
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RT: Well, from 1986, and then we disbanded... probably... maybe in the early 2000s. Something like that. So, at least something like that.
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SF: Do you still dance?
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RT: No. No, I’m not as limber as I used to be.
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SF: Did you enjoy the dances at the gay rodeo?
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RT: Oh, yeah. We had a lot of fun. I enjoyed it very much.
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SF: Do you have any memories that you’d like to share about any of the dances you attended?
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RT: One, I think from our own association that really I loved and the crowd loved. We were able at one of our rodeos at Corona – normally no vehicles are allowed inside the pavilion, but we square danced to “Pink Cadillac,” the song. So, we borrowed a pink Cadillac from somebody we knew, and eight of us piled into the Cadillac, and we drove in through the pavilion. And then we got out of it and started dancing. So, that was one of the best memories about square dancing.
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SF: That’s great. And you’re in the Hall of Fame, right?
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RT: Yes.
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SF: What year were you inducted?
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RT: 2014.
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SF: What was that experience like, being inducted?
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RT: It was emotional. It was a real honor, something unexpected. But it just made me realize more how much people did appreciate what I had done.
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SF: Um, let’s see. Oh, have you found – do you feel like you found a family or community within participating in gay rodeo?
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RT: Yes. Definitely.
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SF: Could you give any examples, or have any memories you’d like to share of finding that?
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RT: Well, I think the big thing is just, from the beginning, getting to know people and where they made you feel welcome and part of it. That was the biggest thing. Because having never been to a rodeo or anything like that, not know what to expect. But it’s like people who have been there take you under their wing for a while and let you, you know, get used to everything. And they’re there to answer questions and help you along the way.
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SF: What do you think it means to be a cowboy?
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RT: Some people I know say they’re a cowboy. And to me a real cowboy – and I don’t want to be negative about our gay rodeo, because, yeah, I think they’re cowboys/cowgirls – but a real, real cowboy is living on the ranch, actually working with the cattle, and being able to ride, and really work with them that way.
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SF: Would you say you’re a cowboy?
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RT: No. I’m not a cowboy, but I identify with being around our cowboys.
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SF: Do you wear Western wear at all in your everyday life, or just when you’re at rodeos?
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RT: Sometimes I’ll do it in everyday life too, depending on where I’m going, what I’m doing.
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SF: Have there been any other rodeos that you’ve been to, besides just the Arizona one?
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RT: Oh, yeah, I’ve been to a lot of them in different states and in Calgary. And I’ve worked at them a lot as the secretary.
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SF: Do you have any favorite rodeos outside of the Arizona one?
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RT: It’s hard to really say I have a favorite, but I would probably – and I’m not really sure why, I think I have some reasons – but I would probably say two of my favorites are the Missouri Gay Rodeo, which is called the Show-Me State Rodeo, and then Diamond State Rodeo when it’s held in Little Rock. And I guess maybe it’s because, having started growing up initially in Oklahoma, that they’re more like the people that I’m used to, or was used to before. Kind of in the same local. So, I think those are two of my favorites. The Zia Rodeo in New Mexico is another one. But somehow, I think I kind of feel better about some of the smaller ones than the larger rodeos.
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SF: Why do you say you like the smaller ones better?
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RT: I didn’t know. I don’t know that I really like the smaller rodeos better, but the ones I mentioned seem at times to be smaller. And I think it’s more just the kind of people, the areas they’re from.
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SF: Is there anything else you’d like to add about your experience of working with IGRA for so long?
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RT: Only that I feel very blessed to have been able to be involved, and to continue to be involved, and to feel that I’m welcome to come back at any time if I, you know, say if I want to be secretary again, that I could run for that position with no negativity from anybody. And I think just knowing I can be part of something.
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SF: What do you see for the future of IGRA?
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RT: That’s a hard question. Let me put – I want to say that I don’t know what I see that’s the future. I want to be careful how I say that. But what I want to see is continued growth, better communication, and encouraging more people to be involved
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SF: How do you think IGRA can reach out to younger generations and bring them in?
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RT: I don’t know. We’ve dealt with that for years and we keep bringing it up every year. There’s a few younger people now, but not anything like we need. And, I guess, probably using every means – social media means – we can, is gonna be the only way to reach them, and to really let them know that, you know, you don’t have to be a cowboy or a cowgirl to be involved in gay rodeo. You can do other things. You can be a supporter, you can be a member, or just go to the rodeos and have fun.
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SF: Great, well, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.
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RT: You’re welcome, thank you.

Mahlon Lovell

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Renae Campbell: All right, so we're recording an interview. This is Renae Campbell and I'm here with Mahlon Lovell—did I say it right?
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Mahlon Lovell: Lovell. Lovell.
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RC: Lovell. Um, and we—it's November 11, 2019—and we are at the International Gay Rodeo Convention in Denver, Colorado. And so, can you start by telling me where you were born?
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ML: Well, I was born in Taipei, Taiwan, actually.
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RC: Oh.
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ML: Yeah. And my dad was in the Air Force, so that's where he met my mom. So, and then I’ve lived in the United States probably since I was one, if not right before.
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RC: Okay. So, then where did you move to when you moved to the…?
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ML: So, then my family—my dad and I—moved to Phoenix, Arizona, when I was three. So that's where I pretty much grew up. So, I’m from Phoenix. And, uh, yeah.
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RC: Okay. So, did you—would you consider that more of an urban upbringing? Or a rural upbringing?
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ML: Um, urban upbringing. I was more urban ‘cause I was in the central city. So, yeah. But I have friends who lived in the rural areas.
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RC: And did you—were you around horses or cattle at all as a young person? Or was that later?
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ML: No, it's—again, I have some friends and I did do some traveling when I was a kid. I got to go to camps and stuff like that. So, I—actually, ironically, growing up, there used to be a horse property around the corner from my apartment, which was right there in the middle of the city. Because there are still some areas in Phoenix that have horse properties in the city. And so, I’m familiar with horses. I wasn’t brought up with horses, and I didn’t ride them regularly. But I’ve had experiences with horses—a little bit.
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RC: Okay. And did you go to high school there, as well, in Phoenix?
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ML: For the year that I went, yes. [laughs]
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RC: That counts!
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ML: I got my GED. So, yeah.
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RC: Where did you go to get your GED?
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ML: At one of the community colleges in Phoenix.
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RC: Okay. And then, how did you become involved with this?
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ML: Ironically, I was kind of involved with, I—my first experience with rodeo was probably about twenty-five years ago. I went to Phoenix. Phoenix has—is part of the IGRA, so they have a rodeo in, back then, I believe it was January. And I went to my very first gay rodeo. I was probably about 23, 24. And then, later that year, I went to my second gay rodeo, which was in California. And that was really my big experience. Because the first one, I was just there and walking around partying and drinking but the next one, I was actually looking to see what was going on with the rodeo and everything else.
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ML: But then, I didn't get reacquainted with the gay rodeo until probably about—probably about six or seven—no, it's been about nine years ago. I was part of a nonprofit organization in Phoenix, and the rodeo, and one of the other organizations that was attached to the rodeo. My organization was one of their beneficiaries. So, I would have to go and participate in those things. And so, when we would set up booths at the rodeo, I would volunteer. You know, doing the—watching the gates, opening the gates for the tractors and stuff like that to clean the fields and all. And then, later on, I was asked to become part of the organization that helped out at—ran the rodeos. And the Gay Games were in Cleveland a few years ago. And that year, they included the International Gay Rodeo Association, and so they included the rodeo in the Gay Games. So, I got to go and participate in part of that. And, yeah, ever since, I got more and more involved. Then I got asked to become—to try and be a royalty member. And this is—this was my second try and I got, I got on the team.
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RC: And so, you are currently royalty.
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ML: I am currently—I am current royalty. I'm First Runner Up for the Mr. title for the IGRA.
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RC: Congratulations.
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ML: Um, and… [Mahlon enters into a side conversation with an IGRA member, to protect privacy, approximately 4 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] …I will be current as of the first of the year. I’m 2020. So, I’m Mr. IGRA First Runner Up 2020.
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RC: So, you’re the 2020?
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ML: Yes. Yes. [Voice of IGRA member in background, to protect privacy, approximately 1 second was deleted from the audio track and not transcribed]
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RC: Okay.
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ML: So, I’m currently still a local title holder, which is Mr. Arizona Gay Rodeo Association. […] We had this contest last month at finals. And part of—part of this—part of the requirements to get this, we have to either participate in two events at the rodeo or work under an official. And so, this year—pardon me—this year, I did a few rodeos where I timed. I was a timer. So, we kept time for some of the events.
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RC: Okay.
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ML: So, yeah. So, we—we get involved as well. I have a knee problem so I can't participate in the rodeo, but I try and participate wherever I can.
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RC: Yeah. So, kinda going back briefly to—what was your introduction to IGRA? You know, you said you went in Arizona. How did you find out about it? Or…what, um, what led you to it?
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ML: Well, back then I was hanging out at the local bar that was really one of the bars that started—helped start the rodeo. And so, they had advertisements up. And then a bunch of friends were going out, so I said, “Okay, let’s go.” So, I went and that's pretty much it—just word of mouth. And then, ironically, the—when I went to my second rodeo in California, back then I guess they had community members that were just—did their grand entry. And they asked me, like, “Hey, do a grand entry!” and I said, “Okay.” So that was—I guess that would technically be my first introduction to actual—some of the… pageantry of rodeo. I don't know if you want to say pageantry, but some of the….
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RC: Performance, maybe?
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ML: Extra. Extras of rodeo—not the actual events, but the recognition of the associations and so forth. I got to be a part of that and I was like, “Oh, that’s really not me.” And again, my real introduction to really get involved was when I was part of the nonprofit in Arizona, and it being a beneficiary, and then going out and volunteering, and stuff like that for that. It was—that was my real big introduction. And making friends with everybody.
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RC: And what was the name of that organization? The nonprofit?
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ML: The nonprofit that I was affiliated with was the Joshua Tree Feeding Program. And it's a—it's basically—it’s a food bank that focuses on the HIV-AIDS community. People living with HIV and AIDS. So, fully community supported and everything.
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RC: Um-hum. And did you do that as a volunteer or was that your job at the time?
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ML: Yeah, it's a volunteer organization. So, there are no paid—there is no paid staff—so I did that purely on a volunteer [basis]. But I was on the board; I was their fundraising coordinator. So that's how I got involved with the other organizations that were raising money for us. And you got to see what those organizations did. So that's why I started volunteering—to get involved.
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RC: So, were you working at the same time as that in something related? Or was that just the….
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ML: Actually, no. I've been on disability for fifteen years. So, at the time, I wasn’t working and so I was just volunteering. So, I was always looking for stuff to do to keep busy and felt that it was also a good way to give back to the community and stuff like that, instead of just sitting there twiddling my thumbs all the time. So [laughs] so, I kind of have to be active, you know. It's—I couldn't think of any other organizations besides the nonprofit that I was part of. In fact, I got involved with a couple other non-profits, too, as well as Arizona Gay Rodeo Association and then, in turn, International Gay Rodeo Association. So, I'm very community focused myself.
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RC: So, had you ever been to a rodeo, um, before? Before you went to the….
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ML: A regular rodeo? Oh, yeah. In fact, back when I was a little child, my dad was a member of the Phoenix Jaycees, which are no longer. And they would hold a rodeo every year. So, yeah, as a kid, I would go to the rodeo. I was, you know—every once and a while and watch the rodeos but not really involved in them, until I turned my 20s—is when I really started looking, and seeing them, and saying, “Oh, there's a place for us.” […] So not really. As a child, I would go to different rodeos, but not in that capacity that I do with the rodeo associations—gay rodeo associations.
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RC: And can I ask when you—it sounds like you came out at some point in between there?
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ML: When I came out? I came—really, I came out—I always knew when I was a child. I knew. But I came out when I was 17. But still didn't know anything about rodeos until I was probably about 23, 24—didn’t know anything about the gay rodeos, I should say—until I was about 23, 24.
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RC: Yeah. And so, having been to both kinds of rodeo, is there a different feel for you being at IGRA?
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ML: Um, only because, from a spectator’s standpoint—and it's been so long since I've been to a regular rodeo—I mean, I've seen a couple here—but I think most of those, from a spectator’s standpoint, it's pretty much serious. It's—the thing that I noticed the most is: in regular rodeos the men do these events, the women do these events. And our rodeos—in the gay rodeo association—it doesn't matter what event we have. Men and women can participate in all of our events. And that's something I really like, because we are very inclusive. And just because we're the Gay Rodeo Association doesn't mean you have to be gay to be a participant. So, that's the other thing I like about our association—the gay rodeo association—is we are truly all-inclusive.
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RC: Nice. And so, can you kind of talk a little bit about some of the different roles that you said you were? A scorekeeper for a while?
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ML: Well, I wasn’t a score keeper, but I was—so, I volunteered—I used to always volunteer. So, I’d either, you know, watch the—a gate for—the contestants’ gate. To make sure that no one went back behind the chutes or anything like that unless they had a contestant badge or were, you know, associated with the rodeo. And from there, from watching the gates or gates to open and let the tractors in and out. So, security basically. I would do that.
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ML: And then, when I started running for royalty, I knew I had to volunteer under an official or be a participant in the rodeo. And I knew I couldn't participate in the rodeo, so I started looking at stuff, and I got into the arena crew the first year that I did it. And I had a—I learned a lot, had fun with that, and then over the last couple years, I did timing. Which you get to—that one I like a little more because you get to actually watch some of the events, but you have to also keep time, and make sure you're paying attention, and stuff like that. You also learn a little more about the events, I think, in timing versus arena crew.
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ML: The arena crew, you go, you learn the events that you're setting up for, so you know certain things. But in timing, you actually get to watch the events, and then see and observe and see how it actually is played out. Versus, you know, “Oh, now I have to make a line this way and that.” But now you get to see what happens when because of that. So, those are pretty much it. And then I—I will go around selling raffle tickets, I’ll go and I’ll help the gentleman back here that was setting all these clothes up. He's—he takes care of all the merchandise for International Gay Rodeo Association. So, every once and a while, I’ll help with that and so forth. So, wherever I'm needed, really, is where I volunteer.
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RC: Do you have a favorite event to watch?
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ML: My favorite event to watch…. You know, I have to say that I don't have a favorite because I don't get to. I mean, I don't sit there and say, “Oh, well, this event is going, I'm going to go watch the event.” I'll go and, depending on my schedule, I may sit and watch. Pole bending is a fun one to watch. In fact, I find myself watching pole bending the most. And then, I think one of the—two of the most fun ones to watch—would be goat dressing and wild drag, which are camp events. Which is something else that our gay rodeo association has that the regular rodeos don't. Because, you know, I mean, they have mutton bustin’ for the kids and stuff like that, which we don't have. But we still have something to—to have fun as well. And, ironically, wild drag is fun to watch. But even though it's a camp event, it is one of our most dangerous events because people do get injured in that one.
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RC: Yeah. So, you're a fan of the camp events being included in the array?
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ML: Yes. Yeah. Because it's like, it's not—that's something else, you know. It's like in the regular rodeos, I know they have the mutton busting for the kids, but it seems like that's the only real camp event that includes others. Because sometimes, at some of our rodeos, we will do community goat dressing, which will allow anybody to come out and do the goat dressing event. So that’s the community event that we include. But the camp events, it kind of breaks it up, because it's not so—it’s not everybody's so serious. You got to make those poles, you've got to do the flags, you gotta rope—you know, get that rope around it—the animal.
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ML: It's this is purely by fun, especially goat dressing. You got two runners. One has a pair of underwear on his hands and tries to get it—and they both try and get it on to that goat. I think that's—that’s fun to watch. Especially when, because we have—not only are the contestants involved as well as the goats, but we have one of the—one of the royalty members—one of the Miss Royalty members—they will go up there and they'll become the goat weight. So, they'll go sit on whatever apparatus that the rope is tied to, just to weigh it down so that the goat just can't take off and run off.
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ML: And sometimes they get involved, whether it's, you know, the goat runs around them, and the contestants are trying to catch the goat, and they run over the goat weight. Or, they decide at the end of it that they're not even gonna get that goat, so they're gonna go and they're gonna—instead of putting underwear on the goat—they go put underwear on the goat weight. Michael’s had that happen once. [laughs] Or twice. Or twice. [Voice of other IGRA member in background, to protect privacy, approximately 1 second was deleted from the audio track and not transcribed]
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RC: You gotta be ready for anything, huh?
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ML: So that's why that one's a fun one. Wild drag is fun because you've got—you've got somebody in drag trying to get on the back of a steer [laughs] and ride it across a line. So, those are the—those are two fun ones. The other camp event would be steer deco. And, really, that's just tying a ribbon to the tail—which is a is a difficult one—but the two fun ones would be goat dressing and wild drag.
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RC: All right. So those are probably up there for your favorites?
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ML: Yeah. I want to say, as far as camp, those are my favorites for camp events. And then I'd probably say Poles; Poles are the favorite for the regular events. Because it just—weaving through those six poles twice, you know, and seeing who can do it fastest without knocking poles over—it’s very, it’s very intense. And it’s good to watch the skills of both the horse and rider because that's the one where the horse and rider have to work as a team.
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RC: Nice. And then, how did you decide that you wanted to become involved in royalty—or running for royalty?
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ML: I've had, over the years, I’ve had friends that were royalty and so I was watching. I was observing them and everything like that. And then a couple years, they kept asking me, “So, when are you going to get involved? When are you going to run for royalty? When are you gonna?” I’m like, “I’ll think about it. I'll think about it.” And then probably about four years ago, when I was—it was four or five years ago—our former vice president of Arizona Gay Rodeo, Michael Brent, came up to me.
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ML: And he knew me for years—since the first one I went to back in my 20s—he knew me and he actually sat me down once and he says, “So, you're running for Mr. next year.” And I said, “Um, that wasn't a question.” And he goes, “No, it wasn’t.” So, I was kind of voluntold that I was going to run for royalty, and I did. And I used that year—that cycle—as a learning experience to see what was expected and everything else. And there were seven Mr. candidates, and I came out in—I came in fifth out of seven. I was right there in the middle.
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ML: And they said, “Are you going to do it again? Are you going to do it again?” I said, “Uhhhh….” Before the contest, I was like, “I’ll think about it. Let me go through this.” And then as soon as the contest was over, a couple people were like, “So are you going to do it again?” And I'm like, “Okay, I'll do it again.” And so, I did. And ironically, this year my goal was to come in the middle. There were four of us this year and I was like, “If I come in the middle, I'll have either second—I’ll be second or third, but I'll be on the team.” And so that's what I did. I accomplished my goal both years—both times.
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RC: Nice! And can you talk a little bit about what the competition is like? The different things that you do?
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ML: Oh, sure. Well, the competition—so if we if we start on competition day, […] Friday morning, we wake up—or we get up—and we go into this room with all the candidates, and then we get the rundown. And then we have to—we draw our numbers to see what order we get called in. And we sit there, and we wait. And when they call our number, that's when we have to be escorted into the room where there's a panel of judges. And we introduce ourselves. And then they—they allow us to sit, and we sit. And then they start asking questions.
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ML: And, basically, it’s questions to find out more about us—find out our knowledge about rodeo and the organization. And then, also to just see our personality and see how well we interact and deal with that—being asked questions about this stuff. And then, they score us on that; they also score us on our—on how we—our appearance and everything. And then, after that's done, we go, and we relax for like an hour. And then we have to get ready and go—go to the rodeo grounds—and then that's when the rest of the competition is.
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ML: Oh, I did skip out: there is an opportunity for—we have a, the option of—doing entertainment or horsemanship. And so, horsemanship—if you do a horsemanship—you submit a video, and then they will view that before they interview you. […] This year we didn't have any. Then, that night, we go and then we have two—we essentially have three categories, but it's in two segments. You've got Western Wear and Onstage Question—and Presentation, excuse me, Onstage Presentation. And you just come out looking your best. And then—then you pick the envelope and they ask you a question, and then you answer the question.
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ML: And then, the next segment—or the final category—would be Entertainment. Then, basically, you just go out there, and you entertain, and try and get them to laugh. Enjoy yourself. And then they score you on all of that. And then, we have to rate—we have to make 75 percent of the total score in order to qualify to be sashed. Then, of course, then they go from there. Black sash would be the highest score, red sash is the next score, and then white sash, which is Second Runner Up, would be the third highest score.
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RC: What was your entertainment like?
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ML: My entertainment? I had fun. I was told, “Make it fun. Go out there and just have a ball.” So, what I did [laughs] was, I picked a Clay Walker song called, “Long Live the Cowboy.” It's a fun song in itself. And I came out wearing an inflatable horse with the little mini legs, ‘cause, you know, it’s like the horse and rider. And, I came out wearing that, so it was like I was riding a horse out on the stage. And I performed “Long Live the Cowboy” and had everybody laughing. Looking at the scores, I did score the highest, so everyone enjoyed it. [laughs]
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ML: Ironically, that was the one category that I scored the highest, which is—and then I scored second in interview. And then, I guess my Western wear really wasn’t as popular as everybody else's. [laughs] I think part of it was it was the tailoring, because I'd been losing some weight, and so I didn't want to go out and get it tailored and then all of a sudden still have it either too loose or then all of a sudden I gained weight and then it being too tight. So, I was—it was a little too loose on me—and so I think that kind of marked against me. But, because I scored second in interview, and then first in entertainment, and then last in there, it put me—it kind of averaged out.
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ML: So that's how I became—I got First Runner Up, which I'm fine with, again. Because I made the team. That was my important thing. Because that's the other thing I like about our royalty is: it doesn't matter what color our sash is. Because you're on the team and you work together with the whole team. And that's something I really, really enjoyed about it. And that's why I said I said, “Okay.” [Man approaches the registration desk with a question; to protect privacy, approximately 5 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] [Renae pauses tape]
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RC: So, we just paused the tape, but you were saying that you like that it's part of a—being royalty is part of a team.
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ML: Yeah, royalty is a team. And it's great. Even when I ran the last time and I didn't officially make the team, I was still part of the team because, you know, everybody that was royalty that year, I worked with that whole year and everything. And even though I didn't get sashed, I was still hanging out with them. And helping them out whenever I could, you know, and stuff like that. And to this day, they’re still—we’re still friends.
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ML: And, in fact, ironically, the vice president of IGRA right now, Michael Butts (aka Mipsy Mikels), is also—was also the Miss the year that I ran for—she was Miss AGRA, Arizona Gay Rodeo Association, the year I first ran. I was First—ironically, I was—First Runner Up for AGRA for that year. And so, I was on the royalty team—the local royalty team—with him and worked all year. He actually got the Miss IGRA title that year, along with another candidate—or another team member—on our AGRA team also got a black sash, which is the main title of the category. So that was the MsTer IGRA. And then, ironically, her wife got the Ms.—the M-S—red sash. So, the Messrs. were the only one that didn't sash on that team. But we were fine with—we had a blast.
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ML: And I learned a lot. […] And ironically, the Miss—the one that got the Miss IGRA, she is the current vice president, like I said, of IGRA. And so, she’s—he’s—I keep going back and forth because in face/out of face half the time—but he’s a big resource for me, helping me. Any former—that’s the thing—any former royalty that's still associated, still involved, which there are a lot of them, they are great resources, and we’re always here. And even when I'm done, I will always be there as a nice resource to help bring up the next people that are interested in royalty and stuff like that. And not even just royalty. The whole point of royalty is to go out there and promote the Gay Rodeo Associations, and then help each individual one with their rodeos and help fundraising. And spread the word so that, hopefully, we can be a viable organization for years to come.
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RC: Yeah. So, then during the year, some of your duties as royalty are that fundraising aspect?
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ML: A lot. I think the majority of our duties are fundraising, actually, whether it be for our home association or our other local associations. When we are—when we actually become the international title holders, we are required to raise money for the International Gay Rodeo Association first, and then…. But we still help out, you know, wherever we can. And it doesn't even have to be rodeo associations that we go and help out. We help out with, you know, the Imperial Court. Each state—a lot of states have Imperial Courts as well, and so we work hand in hand with them and do fundraising for them.
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ML: In Arizona, I help out with a few of the leather associations and other groups that they have fundraisers. And, you know, again, the non-profits: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, some of the other non-profits that do fundraising. It's like we're always there to help. And it's also another way to help promote the rodeo association with other groups. So that's our main purpose—is to raise money. Not only for the rodeo association, but to raise money for the community and spread the word about the rodeo.
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RC: And some of those—the people that you would raise money for—do you get to pick a few of your own? Like, do you bring with you, um, groups that you want to make sure to…?
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ML: Yeah. Yeah. For Arizona—our requirements to even run for the title for Arizona—we have to do—we have to raise money for not only the local rodeo association, we also need to raise money for a nonprofit. So, we—so, when we announce our candidacy, we also announce who our chosen nonprofit is. Which, mine was always Joshua Tree. So, then we raise money and everything like that. So then, when we do get the title, we still raise money. We still raise money for the local association, and then our nonprofit as well. So, just because, you know, we become a title—an international title holder—you raise money for the International Gay Rodeo Association, but we still also go out and we, you know, we like to support whoever asks us.
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ML: We like to try and be there as long as we can or whenever we can. But there are our own associations, or organizations, that we really enjoy raising money for. So, we're always looking to—if they have a fundraiser come up, nine times out of ten they'll say, “Hey, can you be a part of it?” And we're like, “Yeah.” If we're not at a rodeo, or another rodeo event/function then, majority of the time, we're like, “Yep.” We're right there. So, that's the other thing I like, is just being able to give back whenever we can. And also, it helps that I'm still on disability, so I have a little more free time than some.
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RC: It sounds like it keeps you busy.
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ML: Yeah. Because—and I find I have it easy—because I'm on disability. Because a lot of my team members, they have real jobs. They have full time jobs. You know, and they're constantly working, so it's great to, where I can, fill in wherever I need to, and stuff like that. So, it’s like, I have a feeling that—or I feel that this, this was kind of what was supposed to be for me because I had all this free time and I was able to do this. And whether I had the sash or not, I'd still be volunteering and doing it.
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RC: Yeah. So, was that kind of the idea behind having a team? That then one of you fill in for the others?
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ML: Yeah. And that's the thing. Because last year's team only really—they had somewhat of a full team, but their—they had some issues because a couple of them, they couldn't make it to all the rodeos and everything like that. So, having a full team, that means you can actually go in and split. And these people can go to these rodeos, these people can go to these rodeos. So, you know, it makes it easier. There have been years where there's only like three people on a team, or two people on a team.
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ML: And it makes it difficult for those two or three people that make it to every single rodeo in the season. But we like to try and have at least one royalty member at the rodeo. Sometimes it doesn't happen. There have been times in the past where a rodeo didn't have any royalty members and, unfortunately, scheduling still is an issue. So, sometimes they can't make it or last minute they were gonna—they were supposed to be there and then, all of a sudden, they got called into work or something else happened. It happens. But we try to make sure that we have at least one or two royalty members at each rodeo to support.
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RC: Do you know if it's always been a team approach? Or is that—has that—is that something that has evolved?
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ML: Um, I think in certain aspects. It's a team, but then […] the thing about having a team of people is, not only—they’re individuals as well. So, they might have some personality conflicts or whatever, but we try to look past that and work past that because we're like, “This is not about us. This is about, you know, raising money for the community and for the rodeo.” But there are times where, you know, personal—personalities—just… they overpower the person. And then, yeah, I guess there have been times where, you know, certain individuals might not want to be a team player. But we try not to put it out there so that the public sees it. It all happened behind—behind the curtain, so to speak.
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ML: But, for the most part, we try to be a team. And I think in the past it's always tried to be that. You know, that's the whole point of having a royalty team. It’s just: go out there and just be the best you can. It's not about—it's not about, “Hey, I'm Mr. and you're only the First Runner Up.” It's not about that. Because we are a team and that's something we talked about before the competition. And then it's something we restate after the competition. It's like it doesn't matter what color that sash is, it's a matter of what you do with it and how you move forward. And what you do with it, again.
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RC: So, are there any things in the upcoming rodeo season that you're particularly looking forward to doing as a…?
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ML: I'm going—I plan on going to a few rodeos that I haven't been to in the past. And we're really just going out there and experiencing a few new things. I get—one of the also benefits of becoming a royalty team member on the International circuit—I get to go to some of the local associations and actually judge some of their competitions. Even though we’re gay, we judge all the time. [laughs] [Renae pauses tape]
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RC: We took a brief pause there, and then we're going to return to taping now.
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ML: K.
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RC: We are sitting at the booth. What is this—the registration booth?
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ML: It's the registration booth.
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RC: So, people are coming and going. Um, so let’s see, where were we? Oh—I think we are pausing again. [Renae pauses tape] So, I think you were talking about recruitment. 
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ML: Yeah. So, part of—one of the other things about being part of royalty is, you go out and you not only try and recruit your—the people that take over next year for your, you know, your royalty, or to run again and so forth, but you also try and recruit by going out and letting people know about the gay rodeo association. You try and get more people interested. And, in turn, they’ll possibly be interested not in—not just into royalty, but as—interested in being competitors. […] Even if you don't have experience with horses, we have events that don't have horses, or even animals, involved. So even if you're scared of animals, we—there's team roping on foot. There is an animal involved but you have—the only contact you have—is trying to get a rope around its neck and then you let go of the rope. So, you don't even interact with the animal beyond that.
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ML: And then […] there's the horse-riding events, which are the barrels, flags, and pole bending, as well as the mounted roping events. So, there's something for everyone, I think. Again, we have the camp events; we have the goat dressing. So, all you're doing is going to put underwear on a goat. You know, it's great. No matter what your skill level is, we have something for you. And then that's the other thing I like about the rodeo—this gay rodeo association—is that, even if you’ve never done any of it before, the other contestants that have been around, they're willing to come in and help you and get you involved.
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ML: One of my team members from the last time I ran for royalty—that was on the royalty, that made it to the international royalty—one of them, the one that got the MsTer category, which is the female who dresses up like a male and entertains as a male, she decided to get into—involved in rodeo. So, she did chute dogging that year. And other contestants that have been around, they went in and they showed her how to do it. And that first year, she buckled. She buckled. And then, this year, she not only did chute dogging, she got into—she got into another event. Or actually, let’s see, so she did—oh, I think she did calf roping on foot. Yeah, so she did calf roping on foot. And that, as well as, I think, one of the camp events. And so, she's buckled. This is only her real—really her third year—second or third year—really get involved in competing in rodeo. And she's already buckled like two or three times.
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RC: Wow.
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ML: Yeah. That's something else, it doesn't take skills. But just getting anybody involved, that's the whole point of this is to go out and just—because if we don't, then it gets stagnant and people—people age out. Then what are we going to do? So, without the royalty team going out and promoting, there's—that’s, you know, letting people know about the gay rodeo. Because I still—gay rodeo has been around for… thirty-five years… [Mahlon enters into a side conversation with an IGRA member; to protect privacy, approximately 30 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] …so, yeah, about 40 years. And even to this day, I still have people like, “There's a gay rodeo?” [laughs]
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RC: Uh-huh.
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ML: And we’re like, “Yeah! And it's fun. Come out.” [Someone approaches the registration desk with a question; to protect privacy, approximately 3 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] [Renae pauses tape]
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RC: So, what do you think about the future of IGRA… [someone reads a list of names in the background; to protect privacy, approximately 3 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] Do you think there’s a strong future in recruitment?
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ML: Um, Yeah. We’re—we do get new people involved all the time. In fact, in Arizona, we have a member who just joined the gay rodeo this year. [Mahlon enters into a side conversation with an IGRA member; to protect privacy, approximately 10 seconds were deleted from the audio track and not transcribed] And he got Rookie of the Year. So, he came in strong and showed. And, as Mike was saying, that we—we actually had two in Arizona that first-time joined. But the one who got Rookie of the Year, he came in strong.
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ML: We do get new contestants and new people involved with rodeo. In fact, one of the candidates in Arizona that is running for the Ms. (M-S) title in Arizona, she's—this is—she’s new to rodeo and everything else. And so, she's here this weekend as part of the Arizona delegates—the delegation—so she can learn as much as she can about rodeo. And she's interested and she's asking questions. And it's great because it shows that people are still interested. And so, that's—I think as long as we can keep the interest there, and keep the lines of communication open to the younger generations—to the people that, you know, find out about rodeo and they're interested—just show them that we're welcoming and open.
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ML: And just saying, “Hey, what do you want to do? What do you want to learn? What you want to know?” Like you, you know, you're trying to find out—you’re asking us questions. Yep, I'll answer questions. That's what we're here for. But I think I—it’s one of those grey areas because, you know, rodeo is fun and everything else but, just like some of the bar scenes, people are getting stuck on their computers and their phones and it's harder to get them to look up and see, “Hey, there's an event going on here.” “Oh, yeah. Okay.” [laughs] You know?
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RC: Uh-huh.
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ML: And it's just—it’s a matter of, not only are we fighting with all the other events that are out there, but now we have to fight and try and get the people—get the younger generation is, I feel like they're closing in and becoming more—not introverted, but they're more—because they're still talking to their friends, but it's not face to face, it's very computer oriented or phone oriented. And it's like, I know of a couple of people who’ll be in the same room and they'll just be texting each other or, you know, it's like, “Dude, you're right there. Go talk to them or whatever.” […] And I get it, because some of these people—we’re gay so we can be catty—and some of these people, they're actually texting each other because they're talking about somebody that happens to be over there. But still. [laughs]
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RC: Huh. [laughs]
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ML: But, you know, I think, again, rodeo has—gay rodeo has—been around for officially 35 years but really 40. I think in some aspects, it'll still be here. It may not be as big as it once was. You know, it is it has dwindled but it's—I think it’s just like everything. It’ll ebb and flow. It might not ever be as big as it was in its heyday, but I think, in some form or fashion, we'll still be able to keep it alive. Especially as long as we can keep the interest, and get people involved, and show them it’s fun—come out.
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RC: Do you think the demographics are changing at all? Either in terms of like, age, or maybe racial diversity, or ethnic diversity, or anything like that? Do you see that happening?
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ML: Age? That's part of the—the age is part of the issue. Because the majority of our competitors have been there for 20 to 30 years—since the beginning. We have some members that are—have been here since the beginning. And, sad thing is, some of them are still competing but they're starting to age out. They’re getting to that—you know, being injured so many times and bucked off a horse, or a bull, or steer, or something like that so many times. They're like, “I can't do this anymore.” So, it's a matter of trying to get the younger generation. Fortunately, we are getting some younger people coming in, like the rookie of the year that I was talking about earlier, he’s like early 20s. […] And so, we are getting some younger ones, but not enough. We would love to be able to get more. The—our women demographics, the female demographics, I think is a large—there are some rodeos I think I see more women than men.
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RC: Oh.
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ML: Some, not all. Or a pretty even amount. And the fact that our events, whether you're male or female, you can participate in every single event. So even if—I mean, one of my friends—one of the people I consider a friend, you know, a rodeo friend, she—I met her about four or five years ago—I met her, she was riding steers. And then she was gonna go ride a bull. That was the year I met her, was her first time. She was gonna ride a bull. Unfortunately, that Saturday she got injured so she wasn't riding much after that first event. […]
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So, she rides bulls and steers. I know some girls that get out there and they cover and the guys don’t. You know, and then there are some—so, sometimes there have been some events where, again, the women buckle and ribbon, and there's been a couple of times where the men don’t. And it’s the ones you would expect the men to get it versus the women. It's like sometimes the women outshine the men, and it's great. And it’s great because our association—our rodeo association—allows that. And the men don’t get jealous, you know. They’re like, “Yay!” They may get upset because they didn't cover, or ribbon, or buckle, but they're just as supportive of them and everything else.
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RC: That’s great.
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ML: That's the thing I love about this association.
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RC: Uh-huh. Nice. Well, I think it's getting a little loud in here.
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ML: Yeah, I think it is.
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RC: So, I'm going to ask you one last question, if that’s okay?
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ML: Okay. Sure.
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RC: And this is one we're just asking to everyone. And this is: do you consider yourself a cow-person—a cowboy or a cowgirl?
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ML: No. I consider myself somebody that wished they were—wished they were raised with horses and stuff like that. Because I am very envious of quite a few of them. Because, I do, I love horses; I love animals. And again, I have friends that do have that stuff. And yeah, I think—I don't know if I would be any different had I been raised with it or not. But, no, I don't consider myself a cowpoke, so to speak.
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RC: Okay.
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ML: But I'm glad to have friends that are.
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RC: Well, very nice. Thank you very much for…
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ML: You’re very welcome.

Ann Kinney

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I am here with Ann Kinney, it's September 11, 2016 and we are at the Rodeo on the River in Duncan Mills, California. Can I ask what year you were born?
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Ann Kinney: 1996, I mean 1961, sorry, there we go. Edit! 1961.
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RS: And where were you born?
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AK: Bowling Green, Ohio.
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RS: Is that where you grew up?
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AK: No. I was only there for about 3 years. My dad sold farm equipment so he would get transferred every 3 years. And we moved to Minnesota, and then about 3 years later we moved to Sacramento, and lived in town for 3 years and then they bought 40 acres. 40 acre ranch in Harold, California and so I from about age 9 to 18 I grew up there.
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RS: And you said there was about 40 acres. Did they do cattle or farming?
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AK: Yeah and we tried our hand at raising some dairy calves and moved on to angus beef.
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RS: Did you work on the farm pretty consistently?
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AK: Oh yeah. Yeah. I had irrigation to do and chores to do before I went to school and when I got home. We had a lot of horses, did a lot of horseback riding and had a pony cart for my little pony. All of my friends and I would tear around the countryside on that.
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RS: Did you have siblings?
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AK: I have a brother who's almost 3 years older than me, and I have an older sister who is about 13 years older than me.
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RS: And when did you first come across the gay rodeo?
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AK: Well my first gay rodeo I went to was when I was living in Dallas, Texas. And went down to the Houston rodeo, and didn't realize then that I could be in it. And then it was '96. 1996 was the year I first got started in the rodeo.
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RS: And had you done any rodeoing before that?
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AK: No, none whatsoever. Did some roping on the ranch but other than that, never. I always wanted to try my hand at bronc riding. That was a thing I had a passion about for some reason, so that's what I was mainly focused on getting in to.
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RS: Had you ever gone and watched a lot of rodeos growing up?
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AK: Oh yeah, went to a lot of rodeos. I had one birthday when I was a teenager that my dad said for your birthday present we're going to go to the Del Rodeo and Comanche Rodeo and all these so every weekend we were going to a rodeo, so that was pretty cool.
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RS: And why were you living in Texas? What had taken you to Texas?
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AK: Had some friends that were going, and I, you know, was pretty young out of high school and just thought why not. So I went to Texas and lived there, I think, about 4 years I lived there.
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RS: So after you saw gay rodeo were you pretty hooked?
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AK: Well like I said I didn't give it much thought when I went to that rodeo 'cause I wasn't really thinking, "I could be in this, I could do this." I would have liked to have started then, 'cause that was probably 1983. I would have liked to have started then. It would have been a little easier on my body then. So that would have been great but like I said I didn't give it a second thought that I could actually be in it.
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RS: When you went to your first one were you out at the time?
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AK: Yeah. Oh yeah.
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RS: Can I ask when you came out?
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AK: Um, gee. I was probably at least 18, I knew I was gay when I was like 11, so before…well, actually before I was 18 because I was going out to bars that I had no business being in. So yeah, before I was 18.
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RS: And did your family react well to that or was it a struggle for them?
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AK: They kind of had denial issues about a lot of things. My parents were older. My mom was 42 when she gave birth to me, and she thought I could do no wrong or, anything that would disappoint her so…it wasn't really talked about…I had a little bit of a drinking issue and I've been clean and sober 26 years now. So even with that, there was denial that there was a problem. But probably in the '90s is when it really became more of an issue and at first my dad really had an issue with it. My mom just kind of went, you know, "it's okay, it's my baby" you know so. And then my dad got over it too. After my mom passed away my dad moved out to California and lived with me for a little over a year and he got a little okay with it.
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RS: So you would have been in your 30s when you really started competing. How was getting into the sport at that age?
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AK: As far as what? Physical fitness?
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RS: Mhm.
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AK: Well, we could always be more physically fit. I don't think I was in bad shape, but I could have been in a whole lot better shape to be doing what I was doing. And then, I think it was in 2000, at finals, that was the first year that I actually qualified in broncs for finals and went to Albuquerque. I made my ride on Saturday and, on Sunday, when I came off the bronc I came off on the left side and landed on my shoulder and I was sick. I had enlarged liver and spleen and had no business being there. So when I came off the bronc, I actually landed on my shoulder and split my spleen in half. I got up and walked out of the arena and I just had all this pain. I didn't know that was internal bleeding. I went over and watched a few more people ride through the re-rides and then when I went over to the other side to pack up my gear. It was Chuck Browning or…anyways I started getting faint, dizzy, and [Chuck] asked me if I needed a medic and I said I need something because I started feeling like I was going to pass out because I didn't realize I was bleeding internally. I spent at least a week in Albuquerque in a hospital. I had to get surgery and get completely cut open and get my spleen removed, so that was exciting. Didn't stop me—that was exciting.
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RS: Have you had other injuries since then?
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AK: Not too many, I don't think. I've had some bad bruises. I don't break real easy so that's pretty good. And actually getting my spleen out helped a lot of my health issues so, I don't know what was going on there, but I mean I've been banged up pretty good but nothing…nothing too bad. Nothing broken--we'll put it that way.
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RS: So, as a woman was it ever frustrating that you couldn't bronc ride at mainstream rodeo?
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AK: I think that had I been younger, I would have been quite frustrated. Ssome of the women I know did ride 'cause there's the Women's Professional Rodeo Association and I know at least one woman who competed with us that also competed in that and it was always kind of my goal to ride as well as her. So, I always liked when she went out on her bronc first and I was like okay I'm going to do it like that. It really helped just, you know, when you watch something that's good and then you go okay that's how it's done. I think if I had been younger it would have been really frustrating, very, very much so. Because it was a lot of fun, and my mom asked me before she passed away to stop. And then after she passed away I started bull riding because she never said don't do that, so I started riding bulls. I didn't do that for very long actually, I don't even know if it was 2 years. So I did that for a little while just kind of to get a feel for it and see what it was like.
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RS: Are you still competing?
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AK: Up until about 5 years ago. I've been off work, I have a bad back and arthritis. I'm trying to get all that healed up, so I've done a little bit of calf roping on foot and some of the easier stuff. As far as any rough stock goes, I'd say those days are pretty well over. I just want to be able to ride my horses at home. I'll be happy doing that.
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RS: And where do you live now?
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AK: Up in Loma Rica, it's above Marysville.
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RS: You mentioned earlier that you were married. Is your wife involved with the rodeo at all?
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AK: Yes, yes, she actually loves it a lot. We have a long history, we actually were together in the beginning. She was 19 and I was 20, and because of my drinking problem that was on and off 3 times. She actually came to Dallas when I lived there, and then we moved back out here. Then, we were apart for probably 20 years and ended up getting back together. That was in 2008 and she jumped right in and she can throw the rope like she was born that way. She, like [in] her second rodeo, she won a buckle so that's really awesome.
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RS: [Coughing] Excuse me. That's amazing.
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AK: Mmhm.
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RS: Do you guys travel to many of the rodeos now?
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AK: No not for the last few years we haven't. We, well, one, I've been disabled and then she-both of us-got in a car wreck in June. Got hit by a guy who fell asleep at the wheel, so she's not here and probably next week she will be a timer--she's not going to do any roping or anything.
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RS: And how did you get involved in the leadership of your local association in Sacramento?
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AK: Cause somebody's gotta do it. You know it's too bad we don't get more participation, volunteers. We usually end up with a lot of volunteers but as far as year-round, some of the people who have been doing it a long time are kind of tired. I can't say that I've actually done a lot. I've volunteered here and there. I was the president one year, I think that was 2000, I don't know what year that was. Maybe 2009 or ’10, I don't know. We need more participation. A lot more people to get involved. We need some younger blood coming into the rodeo so that we can have some bronc riding at our rodeo again 'cause nobody's doing that anymore seems like, so it's very few and far in-between.
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RS: Yeah why do you think that it's such a challenge to get younger people involved?
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AK: I really don't know and I would like to figure that out. It's a rough sport, so I think that if you don't have it some sort of…[if] you're not an adrenaline junky or have some kind of country or farm life in your blood...I don't know. Maybe it's like me, I went to my first rodeo in ‘83 or ‘84 and didn't even realize I could be in it. I think more people need to know they can participate whether they have a horse or not. And really go out and have a good time, you know.
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RS: What are some of the changes you've seen happen from the late '90s ‘til now?
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AK: I think just people getting older. We need some young blood coming in. 'Cause all the people here at this rodeo, the comradery between us is just amazing. And it's been great being friends with them on Facebook and getting to know them better, 'cause we don't always spend a lot of time visiting at rodeos. We spend more time working than playing, than visiting, you know, so that's been really nice too.
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RS: Now as a woman in the association do you feel like it's pretty evenly split between the sexes or is it pretty heavily male-dominated?
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AK: I think it's pretty even. There's a lot of women involved in it. I mean there's probably more men. I don't really know what the numbers are. I haven't really paid attention. There are a lot more men that like rough sports than women do, you know, so that would make a difference. Some of them try chute-dogging and wrestling a steer and go, “Oh God, no, I'm not doing that again.” Or bull riding and bronc riding and they get hurt real bad and go, “I'm not doing that again,” so yeah you know it's a rough sport. Even barrel racing and flag racing, if a horse goes down or something like that I've seen people get hurt pretty bad—so yeah you've got to be up for the challenge.
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RS: When you were competing and winning, were you able to bring home much prize money?
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AK: No. No but then again I've never had a horse that I used in rodeo. I have horses at home now and it's kind of like a "they're ready and I’m not" sort of a thing. So, I've never really gone out for all around cowgirl or anything like that. With bronc riding, when I was mainly doing bronc riding, and chute-dogging and calf-roping, I think the first time I went bronc riding I took home twenty dollars. You know, it wasn't much. If they don't have an added purse of money then you're you know...If there are less contestants in an added event then there's less purse money to take home. So the event, my favorite, always had just you are lucky to have 6 people so you know.
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RS: Were you ever witness to any sort of displays of homophobia at a gay rodeo?
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AK: No, more so the PETA people, witnessed that…them protesting outside of our rodeos but, not too much usually. The people that come to the rodeo...I've never seen anyone protest, let’s put it that way. The people who show up are pretty open to it.
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RS: What about at mainstream rodeos? Any comments you've received or anything like that?
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AK: You mean straight rodeos? No, I haven't. I go to them and watch them, but I haven't been in them. I think probably the one person...there was a stock contractor, his son, and I wasn't there, I can't tell you exactly what was said, but I heard that he made comments about the gay rodeo thing. Yeah, you know it happens.
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RS: Do you think that that sort of homophobia in general is dissipating since the overturn of DOMA and legalization of gay marriage and all of that?
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AK: No, I actually I've been paying a lot more attention to political stuff as of late and I think there is probably a lot more of it actually. But we don't need to get into that. You don't want all my opinions on all of that.
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RS: Well I probably do, but I don't make you I won't make you share.
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AK: We'll talk about it when we we're off the tape. [Laughs]
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RS: Well, what really…was it mainly the ability to compete that drew you to gay rodeo or was it a sense of community? What was it that really drew you in and kept you here for so long?
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AK: Uh, because I've always been a cowgirl. My dad, when I grew up, he was farming on a ranch in Wyoming and my mom was a cook and I had always seen pictures of them doing their cowboy stuff and if there's that one thing that you ever wanted to be in life, that's it for me. So then, coming into this and actually being able to participate in the even that I choose...it's a freedom to fulfill dreams. I'm one of those people that, when I'm old and sitting on the porch, I don't want to be going, "I wish I would have tried that." And I won't be, I will have tried it. If it's something that I wanted to do, I will have tried it. It's the community that keeps you coming back. All those people out there keep you coming back because it's a big family and we're all real tight. You just know that they're there for you.
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RS: What does it mean to you to to be a cowgirl?
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AK: Oh boy, I'd say the first word is down-to-earth, honesty. It's a…it's a noble-ism in a big way to me, because when it comes to history the one thing that I was always drawn to in American history is the frontier. Everything about it. The struggles, the hard work, and I think you either have that in your blood or you don't. I think most cowboys and cowgirls are willing to work hard for everything they want and they are going to be honest about it and probably pretty upfront about what they like and don't like so you don't have to second guess. There are a lot of things [but] that's probably one of my main things in life. What I don't like is meeting someone and if I don't feel like they aren't real, I turn around and walk away real fast. Whether it's from bad relationships or whatever, I know it, I had a lesson. I learned it. So, I just like that the people are good. They're good-hearted.
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RS: Some other people have pointed to you as a person who is willing to teach when someone maybe showed up with less experience that you throw in and help them learn and I was wondering if you could talk a little about those experiences of working with people who maybe didn't have as much experience with stock.
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AK: The experience of working with them, let’s see...if I look back...I'm not sure where to go with that. But it really feels good. I mean, I had people do that for me. I didn't know how to ride a bronc. I had people who took the time to give me tips and show me things, sometimes after the fact. I preferred beforehand. So I've tried to give information beforehand so that they know what's coming. To see them succeed and, you know, jumping up and down I mean it's thrilling. You can't even--unless you've been on a bronc or a bull or something like that--with the adrenaline rush, you can't really explain it. I guess maybe if you’ve jumped out of a plane and you could compare it somehow like that, just what it does for them. Like Joe, he just really dug into it and loved it. He was good at it, and it felt good to be a part of that.
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RS: And were there many people who showed up who were raised in urban areas and had no experience whatsoever who were willing to jump in and learn?
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AK: Usually on a less extreme event you know, which sometimes you go please don't do that but…I had a friend who actually decided to get on broncs and we were actually talking at the time and she decided to do one handed instead of two handed and flew off and broke her arm pretty good, um those are the kind of things you don't want to see happen. Plus another young women that rode broncs and got bucked off over the top of the horse and the horses back feet went into her back and broke her back. I've seen some bad things happen. I think that people maybe don't realize how extreme it can be. So it's much preferred for me to like yesterday we had two of our friends at our hose and we were teaching them how to work. We were practicing how to rope and calf roping--it's good though to, you know, watch them. To pick up the rope and be struggling and struggling and then all the sudden you seem them putting the rope back together and make a loop and know what they are doing. Yeah, I do love to teach and it doesn't really matter what it is--rodeo or not--I like to teach.
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RS: That's great. Is there any other experiences you've had with gay rodeo that you would like to talk about that I haven't asked you about yet?
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AK: [Thinking]…Nothing really off the top of my head. It's fun, whether you're getting drug through the mud or the dirt. It's fun.
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RS: Thank you for talking with me.
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AK: You're welcome.

Lorry King

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Lorry King. It's November 20th, 2016 and we're at the International Gay Rodeo Association Annual Convention. So can you tell me about where you grew up?
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Lorry King: I was born in Hawaii but I grew up in Southern California.
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RS: Can I ask when you were born?
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LK: 1948
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RS: And did you live on a ranch or in town?
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LK: I grew up in the city in Los Angeles but my family has a ranch to this day in the central part of California. And because my parents were divorced and I lived with my mom, she, during the summers, you know, she worked, and had to do something with us. And so she sent my brother and I to her cousin’s ranch. So I spent every summer from the ages of five to fifteen on her ranch. And so I had my own horse there. And my cousins, I have cousins there who are older than me who were in rodeo. Girls—so they were barrel racing only. But I you know learned to milk cows and cause it was a dairy farm too and take care of the horses and all that stuff.
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RS: And when you would go out there for the summers I mean did you go until you were 18?
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LK: I went regularly every summer from five to fifteen and then after that it was just from time to time.
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RS: And did you do any equestrian events or barrel racing yourself at the high school?
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LK: No, I didn't. I was just there in the summers. So I would attend the state, the county fair was always held in that city so I always attended. Or this close by town, she lived out in the country, so I would attend the local that rodeo every year. Like I said, my cousins, my girl cousins, were barrel racers so I learned from them and attended things that they were in. But I never competed myself.
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RS: Were you interested in competing?
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LK: I probably would have been if there was something available to me but it just never came up while I was there.
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RS: And what did you do after high school?
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LK: I went to college and I got a degree in Mexican American studies with a minor in Spanish. I lived in Mexico for a while. I became a Vista Volunteer which is like the domestic Peace Corp. I worked on the border and then I joined, I started working with the federal government as a social worker in a program for the disabled and elderly.
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RS: And where do you live now?
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LK: Now I live in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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RS: So how do you identify as far as sexuality?
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LK: Heterosexual.
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RS: And are you married?
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LK: I'm married. Forty years.
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RS: Wow. How did you meet your spouse?
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LK: We lived in the same dorm in college.
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RS: Do you have children?
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LK: No
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RS: How did you become involved with gay rodeo?
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LK: I had, when I was working, I had a…my sort of best friend in the office was a gay man. And my husband was working nights and so, you know, I would go home to an empty house every night, not having children. And my friend said, “You know, there's this country western bar in town, would you be interested in learning dance, you know, country, line dance and country western couples dance?” And I said, “Oh, that sounds like fun. I'll go with you.” So we started going there one day a week and taking lessons, learning to dance, and we met people. We had a lot of fun. And then he said, “Did you know that there's a gay country western bar in town?” I said, “No, never knew that.” And he said, “Well, would you feel funny going to a gay bar?” And I said, “No, I'm going with you and I would be okay.” He said, “Because they give lessons on a different day of the week.” So we started going there and I realized there was some of the same people there from that other bar, some straight and some gay. And so we started going two nights a week.
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LK: And pretty soon he said, “Do you know there is such a thing of gay rodeo?” And he knew I knew about rodeo, and I said, “No, didn't know that either.” He said, “Well there's going to be one in LA the next weekend would you be interested in going.” So I said, “Okay sure that'd be fun.” So we went and it was so much fun and when I found out there was a charitable aspect that appealed to me and so, just sort of couple things happened at the same time. He and I started going to gay rodeos, and we felt like well we should volunteer, we shouldn't just go and sit in the stands, so we started doing that. And at the same time, one of the people I danced with at both of the bars, a gay man whose profession was a dance instructor, he had been competing in different kinds of competitions, but one of the parts of competition that he had been competing was gay rodeo dance. And the partner that he had been competition with decided she didn't want to do it anymore, so he had asked me to be his partner. So now I was competing at dances as well as volunteering.
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LK: And you know this as well as anybody, if you're a volunteer and you're have any responsibility, you know, you show up on time, you do your job, and, you know, are a good volunteer then you get asked to volunteer more. And then pretty soon you get asked to do more and more and, you know, next thing I knew it's like, “Well would you chair this committee? Would you do this?” So I sort of got sucked in, first to the Los Angeles chapter of the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association, which is California's member association. And then my dance partner and I started driving out to Palm Springs which was about a forty-five minute drive from where we lived—‘cause we lived east of LA—because they had a really good dance club on a different night of the week. So we would drive out there every Sunday night and we would dance. And we would see a lot of people who were members of the Los Angeles chapter of the Gay Rodeo Association but they started saying you know that's too far away and it doesn't really address our needs and we need to form a chapter out here in Palm Springs and so that happened. And I was one of the seven founding members of that chapter, it was called the Greater Palm Springs Chapter because it included two counties and so I became an officer of that board.
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LK: And then I retired and moved to Las Vegas and the assistant rodeo director in Las Vegas had heard from the president of the Palm Springs chapter they were friends and he said, “Oh one of our members is moving to Vegas you really need to snap her up ‘cause she does a good job.” And so I was approached, “Well would you join the Nevada Gay Rodeo Association?” And I said, “Sure, I always intended on doing that.” Anyways and so I did. And within a year or so I was on their board. So it’s just grown from there really. You know, being elected to different positions and appointed to different positions and working behind the scenes on rodeos, I've never competed, never really felt interested in competing, but production: being assistant rodeo director; being the dance chair; being the rodeo secretary; all that sort of stuff.
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RS: So how many years now have you been actively involved?
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LK: So I think it's probably eighteen-ish years.
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RS: So late 1990s.
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LK: Yeah.
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RS: Did your spouse ever get involved with you or was it pretty much just an interest of yours?
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LK: Yeah, he never really was that interested. He, strangely enough, was born in Texas. And you would think…but he was born in El Paso and raised in Dallas and he's just an urban guy and isn't interested in riding, isn't interested in rodeo at all. He came to the Palm Springs rodeo, finals rodeo, because the finals rodeo is put on by the Palm Springs chapter and I was a big part of that and he wanted to support me in that and then he came to the Laughlin finals rodeo because I was the Grand Marshall and he wanted to see me and take pictures and everything. And he came to all my dance competitions. Which was interesting because they were all held in gay bars and for a straight man that's a hard thing, especially this was in 2000 and 2001, and you know a lot of things have changed since then. But he has totally embraced a lot of friends that I've made and we've traveled with them, we go to each other’s homes and so, I mean he absolutely never had any kind of a problem with “gay,” so to speak. I grew up, one of my cousins, my barrel racing cousins, is a lesbian. And my family always supported her and her girlfriends and there was never any problems in our family about it. So I grew up not having any issues, you know, and then and my husband, although he grew up in a pretty conservative Texas family, for whatever reason none of that was imbued in him. Maybe because he went to school—college—in California you know, he really has never had any prejudices or any problems whatsoever. It just isn't something he is interested in.
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RS: Did you always feel welcomed as a straight woman?
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LK: I did, but, you know, to this day a lot of people don't even realize I'm straight. Just because they don't expect it. They don't—if someone is here, you kind of expect that they are gay, we aren't all. In our, in Nevada, for instance, we have quite a few contestants that are straight women. They came in through barrel racing which is a very “girl thing” sort of still. And as you heard in the convention, one of our new members of TGRA who brought a new event to us, she's a straight women and there's a couple of others in the audience and men as well. So, there aren't that many of us, but I think it's just you just kind of assume: it's a gay organization and so she must be gay. So along the line people get to know you and realize, “Oh you're straight? Oh I never knew that!” But no one has ever said, “Oh I never knew that,” and walked away from me, you know what I mean. There's never been…I never felt any prejudices whatsoever against me at all or any feeling that, “Oh well she doesn't understand.” Or, “She can't do the job.” Nothing like that, ever.
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RS: Do you think there's more straight women than straight men?
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LK: Yes, I do.
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RS: Why do you think that is?
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LK: I think because of the contestant base, the barrel racing brings in the straight women.
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RS: That's really interesting. As a straight person in a gay sports organization do you think you have a good or a different perspective on potential discrimination people face? Do you hear comments from other straight people out in the world that you kind of want to protect people from?
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LK: Yes, in fact I tend not to say…I don't broadcast to people. There are a lot of people who know I'm involved in rodeo, and when I just say It's a charitable rodeo organization and I don't say “gay” ‘cause I don't, even if it's someone I know doesn't really have any kind of a prejudices, I just don't want to get into it. I don't want have to explain myself. I don't want to have to…Recently, for instance, in the Las Vegas newspaper the South Point Hotel and Casino and Arena, which is where we've had finals the last two years, every week they have a column, an add, where they list all the upcoming events in their arena. And so of course World Gay Rodeo Finals is listed. And I take an exercise class three times a week and one of the ladies in the class, just chit-chatting, I didn't bring it up, she said, “Did you know notice in the South Point list that there's a gay rodeo coming to town.” And I said, “Yes, I did.” “Well, I wonder why they need their own rodeo?” And she wasn't saying anything bad, she just honestly said, “I wonder?” And I so I said, “Well I think it's because they're not welcome in the straight rodeo, the PRCA rodeo, or the straight rodeos. They don't feel welcome there and this is a place where they can feel safe and welcome.” And she said, “Well that makes sense.” And that was the end of the conversation. She was fine. And I had that same conversation almost word for word with some very very good friends. My oldest friend, we've been friends since we were eleven years old, she lived in San Diego. When I was in San Diego for the rodeo, I said, “Okay, well, after the rodeo let me…” I stopped by and spent the night and visited with her. And at dinner her husband said, “Okay explain to me why is there a gay rodeo?” Exact same conversation and again I explained it and they understood.
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RS: Do you think, do you think there's a perceptible shift in American culture in accepting gay people and gay lifestyles?
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LK: Absolutely. Absolutely, you know, when I grew up, there just…you just never…Well, for instance, the man that I was good friends with where I worked, when he came to work, he was not out and he and I tended to…we just happened to be where we had to work very closely together and became good friends. And so one day, he told me and he said, “Because I feel there wouldn't be any problem with you,” but he said, “Keep my secret. Don't tell anyone else in the office.” And this was in maybe, you know, ‘93 or ‘94 and he said, “You know, my last job I was open and I was treated horribly and I don't want that to happen again.” But by the time I retired from that job and he was still there, which was 2001, he was open and everyone in the office knew. And part of it might have been they had all gotten to know him. They knew him first as just a coworker and liked him and then they found out he was gay. If he had walked in gay, I don't know the difference. But the world has certainly changed. You know, it doesn't…you almost don't even see…even though there plenty of gay bars around, you see also bars that are not identified with plenty of gay people in it. A good friend of mine from Nevada, his company transferred him, he lives in northern California now in Santa Rosa, and I said to him, “Well have you found some gay bars in your area, places to go?” And he said, “You know what, there aren't any gay bars.” But he said, “Doesn't matter,” he said, “Any bar that I go to there's no problem. I see gay couples there and no one giving them any issues at all.” And the whole gay marriage, I mean that's just so monumental.
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RS: As a straight women in the early ‘90s not only being told by a close friend but also circulating in gay bars and seeing people what did it feel like to sort of have that responsibility? To have people secrets and make sure that you didn't accidentally bring harm to someone? What did that feel like to you then?
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LK: Hmm, I don't, I don't know, I mean I just I knew from the news and from reading things how badly people could be treated. So I was just something that I knew I would never betray.
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RS: Were you ever with someone when a homophobic attack happened or anything?
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LK: No.
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RS: And you said particularly dance brought you in. As IGRA has developed, it seems like the dance part has sort of drifted away do you think that makes it harder for people to join or…?
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LK: Well, it certainly excludes a group that we could get to join but I think part of it too is country western dance in the United States has declined. That whole urban cowboy movie thing really pumped it up. For instance the bar that I started going to was enormous and really really popular but even before or I guess about the time I moved away, it had changed. It wasn't even country anymore, ‘cause it didn't have the clientele anymore, and that was a straight bar. It's just, in general, in the United States there isn't as big an emphasis on country western dance or isn't as much interest in it as there used to be.
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RS: Why do you think that is?
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LK: I don't know. It was so sort of a fad, you know. And it's just like other things. Now, I think because of the shows on TV, ballroom dancing is kind of a fad. And maybe that'll go away, too.
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RS: So there was a proposal for a new dance event do you think that will that'll help try to bring in people who might still be members of those of those hardcore square dancing, clogging, line dancing groups and try to bring them back into the sphere of gay rodeo?
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LK: I hope so. I hope that and I think that's what the chair wants to do is use that not only as a great dance event but to use it as a platform to show… And, you know, I would hope that there would be some videos on the wall of the rodeo and plenty of information around and people wearing shirts that identify them. And I think it would be any IGRA member’s…it would be there job almost to not only be there to dance but also to talk about who's putting it on and, “You know you might be interested in coming to one of our rodeos,” and kind of doing some recruitment.
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RS: Was there a particular moment when you were at a rodeo or at a dance event where you were just like, “This is this is a place I want to be I want to invest, obviously a lot of your time in?” Do you have a particular moment you remember where it was just it just sort of clicked?
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LK: I think it was just early on when I heard of the charitable part of it. When I saw how much money was going out to various organizations and not just gay organizations, you know health organization and cancer organizations and women's groups, and Planned Parenthood and, you know, all kinds of things. That's what made me want to say okay, I wanted to give my time to something here's one that combines my interest in rodeo, my interest in dance, and my interest in charity. This is perfect and the fact that it happens to be gay doesn't really matter.
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RS: And what do you think that means for I mean these are people who at times have been rejected by communities and yet they just keep giving, what do you think that says about the people who are involved in gay rodeo?
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LK: It says a lot, about their heart.
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RS: Yeah. Have you gotten a lot of personal support from people in the community? How would you characterize your sort of the environment of gay rodeo?
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LK: Very definitely very welcoming. And, you know if I run for an office it's not like anyone ever says, “Oh well don't vote for her ‘cause she’s gay, I mean ‘cause she's straight ‘cause she can't represent us.” Never, never. I mean I think I've won every election I've run for. And actually I've been approached to do things that I didn't feel comfortable with. I've been approached to run for president and I keep telling them, I don't think that's appropriate for a straight person to be president of a gay organization. I've been approached to run for royalty. And the same thing I keep saying that's the face of the organization that's the PR arm and I don't think it's appropriate. So that tells me that that I'm welcomed.
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RS: Do you still dance?
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LK: I don't, I hurt my back and I can hardly do it anymore.
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RS: Do you try to at least have some of the fun at after parties as much as you can?
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LK: Yeah, I still, I mean, I don't drink and I don't smoke so I don't go to bars. And unfortunately in Las Vegas, it's not like in some other parts in the country, the bars you can still smoke, so I kind of I try to limit myself. But to a rodeo it's different. I always attend you know the events after the rodeo and the dances and the listening to the music and that sort of thing.
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RS: And some of the initial friends that you started going to the events with and getting involved with are they still involved?
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LK: Yes, yes, yeah. In fact, that friend of mine, the colleague from work, he is a certified official.
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RS: That's really fantastic. Um, is there anything you want to say that I didn't directly ask you about?
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LK: I don't think so.
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RS: Thank you so much for sharing your perspective I feel like you know it's a unique place to be in, and I'm sure everyone really appreciates your support.
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LK: Thank you.
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RS: Thank you.

Roger Bergmann

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield, I'm here with Roger Bergmann, past IGRA president. It's November 19th and we are at the International Gay Rodeo Association Annual Convention 2016. And yeah, could you tell me a little about where you grew up?
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Roger Bergmann: I grew up in Northwest Montana, in Kalispell, Montana, near Glacier National Park. And, as a youth, my parents never went to the annual county fair, but I would ride my bicycle to the fair in August every year and leave it leaning against the fence and stay there all day for the four days. And there would be a rodeo on the weekends and I'd go in and watch the rodeos.
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RS: What did your parents do for a living?
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RB: My dad was a full time meat cutter, had his own meat shop inside of a small grocery store. And my mom worked as a secretary at various small businesses around town after I was about 6 years old.
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RS: Did you guys live in town?
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RB: We lived in town, only like a half a block from the downtown area of Kalispell, which when I was growing up it was about a town of 15,000 people. Now it's probably about 45,000.
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RS: Wow, did you stay in the area after high school or?
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RB: I was there until I was 21 and I had gone to the University of Montana, I graduated from college in 1971. The Vietnam War was still going on but I had applied for a conscientious objector’s status with the selective service and was granted that. I thought I would be drafted because at that time they were doing a lottery system for people being drafted and the ping pong balls…it's just like lotto, they had numbers on ping pong balls and my April 18th birthday came up as number ninety—so I knew I would likely be drafted. So instead of waiting for the draft to happen, there was a period where—it was very confusing, but the selective service law had lapsed but I knew it was going to be re-instituted by congress so I went ahead and volunteered for my alternate service, and ended up going to California for the alternate service for something called the California Ecology Core, which is now the California Conservation Corps.
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RS: Wow, so you were really coming up in the thick of it there.
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RB: Yeah, at the time I did not realize or accept the fact that I was gay or I could have gotten that for a deferment for the selective service. But, I did get deferred as a conscientious objector.
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RS: And were you involved in any relationships at the time?
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RB: Uh no, I didn't actually come out, even going into a gay bar until I was almost 31. And I ended up in a long distance relationship with someone when I was probably close to 40.
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RS: And where did you move to when you left Montana?
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RB: Well, I was yeah, when I left Montana for this alternate service it was in Bishop, California. Bishop was a small town of about 8,000 people and outside of it was this California Division of Forestry Center and it had previously been a minimum security prison camp for people to fight fire but in the early 70s, California courts were realizing minimum security prisons back onto the street so they had four of these camps that hold 80 people were empty so Governor Ronald Reagan and the state of California created the California Ecology Corps so they could fill up these centers to have bodies to fight wildfires and do public works projects when there weren't fires.
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RS: ... So during this career you're doing, were you starting to grapple with your sexuality at all? What was the sort of culture like?
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RB: Well, the Forest Service is a fairly conservative organization, especially when I first started. It was about 1977 that I became full time with the Forest Service rather than seasonal jobs. And at this point I still had not accepted my own sexuality, it was about 1981 that I finally went into my first gay bar. And I was nervous as could be when I was going in. It was a bar called the Eye Beam in San Francisco and I loved to dance, so I would always go out there, I wanted to be ready to dance at nine o’clock nobody goes out ‘til 10:30 but I'm there early. But as soon as I got into the bar and walked around there were a few pool tables and people playing pool and I felt totally comfortable and at ease and, felt that yes, it's not just a curiosity. I am gay.
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RS: And did being in that look, that community make that better for you? Make it…?
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RB: It made it better for me in my mind, but I was still closeted with my friends and family. But I quickly told my best friend who lived in Bishop and my sister about a year later and my parents about three years after I first went into the bar, I was about thirty four I guess when I told my parents.
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RS: And how did your family take the news?
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RB: My sister, no problem. My parents, really no problem. It stunned them, but there was no rejection. My father thought and verbalized, “Oh this is just a phase, a curiosity, it'll pass you'll get married someday.” And I said, “No, that's not going to happen.” But there were no problems. My mother discussed things about my relationships throughout the years, my father never really talked about it. I didn't push the subject with him but we had a very good relationship. I know he loved me, I was with him the last three months of his life, helping take care of him every day, and it was, I feel really fortunate with the family that I have.
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RS: So how did you first hear of a gay rodeo?
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RB: Well, after I had gone into my first bar in 1981, in San Francisco I saw a flyer on the wall for the National Reno Gay Rodeo which was the first gay rodeos that were held. They started in 1976, I believe it was, by a man named, Phil Ragsdale, in Reno, Nevada. And I went to the rodeo in August of 1981 shortly after I had gone into my first bar, because of the flyer that I had seen. So there were about 8,000 people in the stands. There was only one gay rodeo a year at that time and that was in Reno. A lot of people from San Francisco and Los Angeles would get up there for the rodeo. And I went, from 1981, I went every year until they closed. They had their last rodeo which I think was 1985, I believe. They started in ‘76 and they had nine rodeos before they ended up going into bankruptcy and not having another rodeo. But by that time, it was probably about 1983, I was at a parking lot country western dance there during the rodeo weekend and I heard a couple of people talking next to me and I didn't know who they were, and I didn't approach them but, one man had a very melodic voice, I mean it was a voice you could not mistake. And I found out later that it was Wayne Jakino who was a co-owner of Charlie's in Denver, Colorado, and he became one of the first rodeo announcers for the International Gay Rodeo Association. And he was also the founding president of the IGRA. And he had had a voice that was unmistakable and just really pleasant announcing voice. But I heard him talking about the group from Colorado and how they had to get more people to come out to Reno for the rodeo.
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RS: That's amazing. What would an average weekend at the Reno rodeo look like? What were you doing?
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RB: That I'm not going to talk about. [Laughter]. Those weekends were pretty wild. That was a just at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. I came out to my first bar in 1981, and it was shortly after that I picked up a San Francisco…I can't remember what the…The Bay Guardian, Baysomething…the gay newspaper up there, and they still didn't call it AIDS it was just this, “the gay disease” and some other kind of non-specific name. Nobody knew what was causing it or anything. But there were the dances, I would go to the country western dances at the local bars, they didn't have anything really at the rodeo grounds the first year. But then Joan Rivers was the grand marshal for one of the events, and they did have a big night time party at the Washoe County Fairgrounds after the rodeo with Joan Rivers there. And that was where the first concept for the Mister and Miss and Ms IGRA came from, but they only did a Miss competition at the National Reno Gay Rodeo. And they would raise money starting in 1976, they were raising it for muscular dystrophy mainly. And then later on they also raised money for the local senior community and the seniors would come out and help at the rodeo.
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RS: Now as it started to grow and become more of an association were you involved with that?
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RB: As I said, the Reno rodeo ended in about 1985 or probably ‘84 at that last rodeo I, the Sands Hotelin Reno was the host hotel and a gay group called Great Outdoors was hosting a dinner for just anybody that wanted to go on Friday night. So I went to the dinner and ended up at a table of eight sitting next to Al Bell and his partner Pat McGrath who were just getting ready to open up a country western dance bar in Long Beach, California and so I was visiting with them throughout this period of this dinner and I told them I was an avid country western dancer so I got to know them and started going to their bar shortly after it opened. And Al Bell was the founding president of the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association, GSGRA, and even though I lived about five hours from Long Beach, I didn't really go to their meetings but I got involved I became a founding member of the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association. And went to their first gay rodeo in March of 1985 and in September of 1985 was the first IGRA convention that was held in Denver, Colorado and the four founding groups, Colorado, Golden State—California—Arizona Gay Rodeo Association and New Mexico and also Oklahoma was there to be seated as the 5th group in September of 1985. I went to that convention only knowing Al Bell, really and I sat in the back of the room and wasn't even sure if I was allowed to be there. But nobody said anything about I couldn't be there and I met John King who was the president of Arizona Gay Rodeo Association at the time. And a number of people and kind of was brought into the fold. John King has been a good friend ever since. Al Bell has passed away a number of years ago. But so I was at that first convention and had a good time meeting people and seeing the organization of the International Gay Rodeo Association.
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RS: So how many people total were probably at that first convention?
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RB: Oh that first convention there were probably less than thirty maybe and most of them were probably from Denver. I mean there were a few people from each of the four founding associations and and Oklahoma which was the fifth that came in that same year.
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RS: Now do you like all forms of dance or country western most particularly?
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RB: I like all forms of dance but I mean when I was in the 6th or 7th grade, a lot of people went to our church and learned how to do the Fox Trot and the Waltz and the two step and then we all went to the school dance and did none of that.
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RS: Yep and so as the rodeo got underway with the association did they usually have dances along with them?
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RB: There were only four rodeos that first year, really. And dance was very popular, country western dance was extremely popular in the mid-80s to about 1997 there was a lot of country western dance, a lot of country western gay bars, and that's where we drew most of our spectators from so—and that was before there were a gay cruises and gay travel companies and a lot of other options, so the fact that the gay rodeo association had had come out and we were having four rodeos and then five rodeos and then six rodeos a year a lot of these dancers would plan on going to those rodeo events because each of them would have a good country western dance usually at the host hotel.
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RS: And why do you think country western was so popular at that time?
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RB: I honestly don't know how it happened. I mean, I grew up in Montana and I hated country western music. When I was living in Bishop, California, it was a five hour drive to get to Los Angeles but I went down there in…you know I came out in the spring of ‘81, Valentine's Day weekend was my first time in a gay bar. In June, I went to the gay pride event in Los Angeles, and I heard some people talking about this place that they'd gone to the night before and they talked for thirty minutes about how much fun it was and everything and before they told the name of the bar and that it was a country western bar and so I went there that night. It was called the New Town Saloon on Santa Monica Boulevard. And it had swinging doors just like a saloon, but I stood outside for a minute looking in at everybody dancing and then I went in after I had saw how much everybody is smiling and having a great time, so I went in and a I saw this guy I'm 6 foot 2 and this guy was about 6 foot 5. And he was leading people in a good dance and so I asked if he would teach me how to dance. First I complimented him on how good he was so that he would feel obligated to dance with me. But he took me around and showed me how to do the two step and I fell in love with it right away it was everybody was having so much fun. And probably just a few weeks after that weekend I had to go back to Pasadena for a week of training for the Forest Service and every night I drove over to West Hollywood and learned more about how to dance, learned how to lead instead of just follow.
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RS: And you said you started to have a long distance relationship?
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RB: Yes, that was with somebody from Seattle. At that time we had a Northwest Gay Rodeo Association, it doesn't exist any longer but I had actually gone I had an older friend who traveled a lot he had an extra discount ticket to fly up to anywhere, so we flew up to Seattle for the weekend. We had heard about this great country western bar in Seattle called the Timberland, which had been they were in an old lodge building of some sort that had this beautiful wooden floor and all four sides of it were these chairs for the officers of this moose lodge or whatever, elks club, or whatever it had been it was it was a beautiful old building with this huge dance floor and we went up there for the weekend and my first night there I saw this blonde, blue-eyed boy dancing the line dance and beautiful smile and having a great time. So I asked him to dance and we danced the rest of the night and the rest of the weekend and every rodeo I would go to by this time I was a rodeo judge, but so I would be going to all the rodeos and he would travel to the rodeos and meet me and then I would fly up to Seattle for a weekend or he would fly to Los Angeles for a weekend. But he had a good job with Boeing, and didn't want to quit and leave and I had a good job a with Forest Service and didn't want to quit that or transfer so it was a long distance relationship for a few years until he passed away from AIDS.
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RS: And what year did you meet him in?
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RB: Uh, that was probably about 1992.
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RS: And so, you were getting more and more involved?
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RB: Yes, we skipped the part where ‘85 I went to my first Los Angles rodeo and I did travel to all of the rodeos as a dancer and spectator that year of 1985. In 1986, I went to the rodeo and there was a sign on the door as I walked in saying that they were looking for people that wanted to judge the gay rodeos, well when I was growing up in Montana, and even in to high school, I would go to the local rodeo and I would try to guess what the scores were going to be. You know, I didn't know anything about how the judging took place but I would see what the judges were doing and then I would watch the ride and see how close I could get to how they were scoring. So I kind of enjoyed the watching rodeo and thought I could become a good judge, so I volunteered and spent that weekend in Los Angeles with Casey Jackson from Colorado, who had experience in rodeo long before IGRA started. And she had been a bull rider and a rodeo competitor and she was the training coordinator for the rodeo judges. So I sat with her through that weekend and also then went to the Denver rodeo and the Oklahoma rodeo that year and after three rodeos with my prior experience as well, they felt that I was ready to judge rodeo so I got certified as a judge—the second person to be certified as a judge for the gay rodeo association after the Oklahoma rodeo and I judged my first rodeo in November of 1986 in Dallas. The first year that we had the wild drag race. Which was a disaster, we thought it was going to be a great easy event and as soon as the gates opened, we all started blowing our whistles and stopped the event. And everybody got together to talk about how we could fix this and make it work.
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RS: Do you know what the inspiration for the event was?
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RB: John Beck from Colorado who has been competing since the very first gay rodeo in in Colorado, in fact I believe he also competed at one of the Reno National Gay Rodeos before this formation of the IGRA. And the first Colorado rodeo was before the formation of IGRA as well. He, he can say it better and hopefully you'll have a chance to interview with John too, but he just says I had a dream. And it was more like a nightmare. The wild drag event is usually just a steer with a twenty-five foot rope on a halter. A woman is holding onto the rope ten feet from the gate, as the gate opens she holds that rope and the other two people—a man or a woman in a in a drag outfit wearing a wig and some type of a dress—and a man are standing about forty feet away, they run up to help move this animal across a line seventy feet from the gate I believe it is, and then the drag has to get on and ride the steer back across the line. The way the rule was first written was as soon as the gate opened they were supposed to go out towards this line but stop the steer and get on it and ride it across the line away from the cutes but when that first gates opened those steers took off and were all at the other end of the arena before anybody had a chance to get on it. So that's when we revised the rule that it instead of having to get on before they cross the line they had to take the animal across the line and then bring it back.
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RS: It's good trial and error. So did you ever compete yourself in any events?
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RB: I did actually. That first year that I was getting trained as a judge I had not competed yet in in Los Angeles or Denver, but when I went to the Oklahoma rodeo which was the 3rd rodeo where I was getting trained as a judge, I also competed in chute-dogging for the first time. And I had never really seen it so I thought well I'll just watch people go out and then I'll learn it. Well, the first day I was the first person to go out, so I didn't get to see anybody else do it. I dogged the steer in about nine and a half seconds the first day. And then I watched people and the second day I got it in about four and a half seconds. I never did win any buckles, I won a few ribbons. I did some other events, I did—our first we did wild cow riding at first for a few years before we changed it to wild steer riding. The wild cows were more difficult to ride because at that time we also had wild cow milking. So we were using the same cows and they would jump around in the chutes because they weren't with their calf, that's because they still had milk—so they were pretty wild in the chutes. And so we didn't keep that event very long before we went to steer riding. But I never made a successful steer riding. I just…I rode horizontal a lot. I always hit the ground.
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RS: Did you ever get injured?
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RB: I spent a night in the hospital after a hard fall in Los Angeles. I collapsed my lung.
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RS: Yeah, that's scary. That's scary. But no real interest in in sort of being a bronc rider or roper?
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RB: I love to dance and I didn't want to screw up my dancing. My grandfather danced until he was in his late eighties.
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RS: And how did you get involved with the leadership after becoming a judge?
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RB: Well, I started judging in 1986 and in the spring of 1993 I got a phone call from Wayne Jakino, the founding president of IGRA, and said that he had been talking with some of the other people: Les Campbell was the 2nd president, some of the vice presidents, trustees, etc. And they had…as a judge I had been going to all of the rodeos and at that time, with only four and five and then six rodeos a year, they were having a board of directors meeting before on Friday before each of the rodeos. And I would get in on Friday so I would go and attend the meetings so I was aware of what was happening already and I knew all of the people that were on the board. But they called and thought that I should run for president and I said, “Well, you caught me totally off guard. But I'll think about it.” So I thought about it for a couple of weeks and called back and said that I would. And when the word got out that I was going to run for president nobody else did. And I was voted in by acclamation since nobody else was running against me. And I ran a second year and then the man that I was dating in the long distance relationship passed away in 1994, and I had planned on not running so that I could spend time with him. But when he passed away I decided I would run for a third term. So that I would keep busy over the next year, and so I ran. I was president from 1993 through 1995.
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RS: Did it help to stay busy?
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RB: It did. It kept me busy. It kept me involved with people so that helped get through the grieving period.
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RB: Was the community helpful?
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RB: Yes, yes.
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RS: What were some of the challenges you had when you were president?
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RB: Well, rodeo was growing rapidly. I became president at a time when country music was still on the rise and in 1993 interest in rodeo had grown tremendously. Every year that I was president we brought in two or three member associations. I can't remember now what all they were but every year we were seating new groups and I think our total, the total membership, nobody is a member for the International Gay Rodeo Association you are a member for the association the state association that are affiliated with IGRA, but through all of those associations there were somewhere between 6,500 and 7,000 members across the United States and Canada. The ARGRA, Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association was one of the groups that came in while I was president. So there was always, there was a lot of growth happening and we still didn't really have cell phones and email was not very popular at that time in ‘93, ‘94, ‘95. I was getting written letters, I was making a lot of telephone calls, but it had to be on a hard line, not a cell phone. So I guess those were the challenges.
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RS: And so, as you said this was a time of rapid growth, were you as president going to a lot of these events yourself?
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RB: Well, as I, as a rodeo judge and…
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RS: So you're still judging while being president?
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RB: I was judging while president. I was one of the main judges for a while. There were three of us: Chuck Barackman, myself, and Mark Friedann. Neither of them, none of us are judging anymore but one time we were called the three musketeers cause we seemed to be the three judges that were being picked for most of the rodeos. There were not a lot of judges at that time. We were, I was involved in also training new judges so we could build up the pool of judges. But I judged rodeos for a total of sixteen, a little over sixteen years. And I was judging while I was president so, I could get to all of those rodeos because I was usually judging the rodeos.
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RS: Wow, and I mean this is really you know the ‘80s, early ‘90s with the AIDS epedemic. How did that effect the feeling of rodeos and gay culture?
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RB: At that time the main focus, I mean IGRA and our member associations tried to be involved in raising funds for different charitable organizations. And in the early years, 1985 through probably about 19… maybe all the way to 2000, the main focus of all of the groups was to raise money for different AIDS organizations. Now we’ve branched out and more it's breast cancer, we do things for equine organizations, children’s organizations, we've branched out into a lot of areas not just related to assisting people in the gay community but also other areas.
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RS: That's amazing. Were they still pretty big parties or as they grew were they getting more focused on rodeo?
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RB: Well, the rodeo was always the main focus of the weekend and most of the rodeos in the beginning also had some kind of a dance venue at the rodeo grounds, but they would always have a Friday and Saturday night party with big dancing especially on the West coast: Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Denver, and Albuquerque. Not so much in the eastern area, they would have parties at the local country bars. There were some, even Texas and Oklahoma I remember having big dance parties at the very beginning but those faded away a little bit. Washington, D.C. had a couple of big parties at the Post Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. Different areas—as the as the dancing became less popular, it was not the main source of our spectators, they had to draw more spectators from their local area than plan on the dancers coming in from around the country. Because other things were happening: gay cruises, gay softball, gay basketball, I don't think there’s gay basketball but there's something or other, soccer, rugby, there's all sorts of things that are taking people from the gay rodeo events that that were so popular at the very beginning.
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RS: And how…what was the interaction between the rodeos and the communities that were being hosted in did you experience any homophobia?
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RB: Yes. Not so much in the larger cities but I remember the first time that we held a rodeo and I don't remember the name of the city I think it was Enumclaw, Washington. It was about sixty miles south of Seattle when the Northwest Rodeo Association held their first rodeo. The word had gotten out in the community that there was going to be a gay rodeo and when we went over there the morning for the first rodeo there were mostly high school kids and maybe a few people in their 20s holding up signs picketing the gay rodeo and having a lot of anti-gay slurs which I'm not even going to bother to mention.
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RS: And as you work with the communities do you people gay or straight express surprise over the gay rodeo at all?
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RB: Well, even to this day there's people in the gay community that are surprised to hear about it. I mean, a lot of people now find us on the internet, they type in gay, and just find out what’s out there and that's how they stumble upon gay rodeo, and so that may be how there's an event in their area or one that they want to travel to. And within the last ten years there's quite a few straight people that now compete in our rodeos because we are open to anybody that wants to compete and there's a number of people that are very good, especially in horse contestants, that come to our rodeos to compete and they've been very supportive of our membership. Recently, one of the first contestants for the Nevada Gay Rodeo Association, Richard Armstrong, was discovered to have a brain tumor, and he had had surgery, he just actually passed away three days ago. But about a month ago we had a fundraising effort in Nevada, in Las Vegas, and it was the majority of people there were straight people that had known him through the roping and riding equestrian groups, thousands of dollars were raised to help him with his medical bills.
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RS: Let's see, so would you consider yourself a cowboy?
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RB: No. [Laughter] Even though I did work on a cattle ranch after I graduated from high school, the summers I did work on a cattle ranch. And mostly the first year just dealing with getting in the hay for the winter season but the following three years I did work with his livestock. Grooming them, brushing them, washing them, and showing them on cattle shows. After I graduated from college and was able to work with them longer into the fall, I did actually go with him to the San Francisco Cow Palace for the Grand National Rodeo that’s held there in October. That year they had a special show for Polled Herefords, which is what he raised. So my picture is actually hanging on the wall in the Cow Palace Center in San Francisco. But it's way up high and it’s this picture of the entire rodeo arena with about a hundred animals being led in by people and I'm leading four animals, four bulls, into the arena for this spectacular show that they did for the rodeo.
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RS: But you wouldn't consider yourself a cowboy?
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RB: Not compared to these people that can ride a horse really well. Even as a judge I was able to ride a horse but I'm not a…I don't consider myself a really good equestrian person.
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RS: Do you still dance?
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RB: I still dance, as much as I can. At sixty-seven I've got some problems with my feet but I still dance up a storm when I can.
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...

Tennent Emmons

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm with Tennent Emmons at the Texas Tradition Rodeo outside Dallas. It's April 1st, 2017. So, could you tell me when you were born and where you grew up?
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Tennent Emmons: I was born in New Jersey in 1957, so I'm one of the older contestants in the rodeo circuit. I did not start the rodeo circuit 'til approximately 1993. So, I was about 36 years old when I got involved in the rodeo circuit. I had taught country western dance for a little while and got connected with the rodeo system through an ex of mine, back in the ASGRA days, which is the Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association out of Washington D.C. in the metro area. And I've been competing, I've been a certified official, and now I'm Mr. IGRA 2017 first runner up.
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RS: That's fantastic--so what was it like growing up in New Jersey? What was an average day like?
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TE: An average day for me was mostly isolating in my room. I didn't get out too much growing up. I was shy, introverted--still am. Since I'd felt I was different from an early age I didn't do a lot of socialization, didn't want to get in trouble, didn't really get harassed or anything, maybe once in a while, but not anything that some folks go through.
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RS: What did you parents do for a living?
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TE: My dad was a truck driver and my mom was a seamstress. I was the first one to go to college out of my family. My dad had to quit school in 8th grade and go to work back in the '50s. Mom, unfortunately had my sister, [laughs] well fortunately had my sister so...then growing up I was more of a mama's boy and my sister was the daddy's girl. Dad got me into horses. He grew up with a horse. I didn't, but I've always had a love for horses and during high school that's how I would pass my afternoons was to go out trail riding in New Jersey.
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RS: Was there like a company that did that or did you stable your own horse?
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TE: No, it was an independent company. Gentleman's name was Mr. French--probably has deceased since then. God rest you, Mr. French. He allowed me to go on the trail rides by myself after going there several times and trusting me on a horse and I do not have a horse. It's one thing I miss out of the rodeo. Being a title holder in IGRA requires you to either doing horsemanship or entertainment. I am thankful for the support from my home association Great Plains Rodeo Association they help me with securing a horse for the horsemanship portion of the title comptetition. The President of GPRA told me after I won my association Mr. GPRA title, "We may have created a monster after I did the entertainment portion. Like I said, I was an introvert mostly.
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RS: So after high school where did you go to college?
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TE: High school I took 3 years off and worked at a veterinary hospital then worked at a human hospital and the patients ar similar, they bite. [Laughs] So then I went to college in Nebraska. Up and left New Jersey and went to Nebraska for a different atmosphere. Didn't do much in country western or anything back in the late '70s early '80s. So, yes, that's my dated years. I returned to New Jersey and after a couple years back there, I had gone out to Dallas with a boyfriend for his birthday and did a trail riding before we went back to New Jersey. It was too hot and it was just walking and I wanted to experience riding and I went to a western wear place--I was going to start going to country western bars because a friend's daughter was coming to NJ for a visit - she was from Oklahoma--so I felt I had to have authentic western boots, and asked the owner of the store, "where you could go horseback riding in New Jersey" and right off the bat he told me about a city slickers type vacation in Montana. I did that vacation for 4 years. So, for 10 days, we were in Montana and worked on a ranch for 7 of the 10 days. Not a dude ranch, open-range ranch. Slept in tepees in the open-range. I picked up a lot of horsemanship during the vacations.
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RS: That's great. What was it about horses and riding horses and working with them that drew you to it?
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TE: Basically, in the genes, I guess. Even though I'm a Jersey boy raised two miles from the shore, we were the Garden State, there were horses there. My aunt married a gentlemen who trained trotters. They had a pony and a horse out on their farm and I would ride their pony because I was small and I was young at the time and I said, "I can't ride that big horse - he is too big." [laughs]. But it has just been something inside me that really loved horses and riding.
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RS: So when did you come out?
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TE: Little a bit of a long story. I came out in college to a few people and then I finally came out to my mom at about 32. When I spoke with her she kind of knew, she just waited for me to tell her. Of course, I was the one that ended up bawling when I told her and she was fine. She said, "I love you no matter what," and then she was concerned I was getting on a train to return home with red eyes. So, she was very protective mom.
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RS: And did your siblings know?
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TE: My sister and my mom came out to Oklahoma from New Jersey for my 50th birthday and I actually came out to [my sister] at that time. I was playing a softball tournament that weekend, it was co-ed team and the girls were very out, so I told my sister, "Just to let you know, by the way, I'm gay," and she looked at me and goes, "Hon, if I didn't know by now...". She had only met all my ex-boyfriends not as boyfriends but just as friends. [She's] very supportive, along with her husband and my neice and nephew. I came out to my father not too many years ago, we were not close. He just skipped over the subject and didn't really talk about it. My parents separated when I was in high school and I didn't have much of a relationship with my father afterwards.
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RS: And when you came out to some friends in college...that would have been the Reagan years, what was the culture like back then?
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TE: Now my memory isn't that great about that time. I was still kind of isolated myself. I knew more about gay, lesbian things through the women’s center in Nebraska and knew more lesbians than I did actual gay men. But I kept it hidden, but I think people probably knew.
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RS: Did you feel any difference between the culture in Nebraska versus New Jersey?
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TE: Actually, I've been lucky that everybody’s been treating me fair. I worked at a YMCA which, the issue never came straight forward, but they said to just be careful, keep the doors open and windows blinds open, things like that. One parent or child did say something about my orientation apparently. My director said to just be very cautious, but was still very supportive. Nebraska had some support...getting kind of mixed signal. A college friend who learned late I was gay, mentioned to his sister not to long ago said, "You let him watch your kids, really?" It was a little heartbreaking but I understand people's feelings--they need education. And they know who I am.
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RS: And was it a foregone conclusion that you would go back east after college? Did anything try to keep you in Nebraska?
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TE: The only thing that kept me in Nebraska...I was there for 7 years, I stayed 2 years after graduation and started the 2nd degree, I started to be perpetual student. There was a job opportunity back east. Plus Mom having a little bit of influence. Being a mama's boy you know. She asking when you're coming home and getting a real job. Although I worked for the Easter Seal Society and I mentioned summer camps. She might nat have thought that was a full-time job and only part-time, but I also did fundraising during the year for the society and then did the summer camps. So I ended up going back home for 10 years. Worked in and around New Jersey for 5, and then in New York City for 5 years. The first year I was working in the city I met a boyfriend and introduced me to the IGRA Rodeo circuit, ASGRA, Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association in Washington, DC and then a 2nd boyfriend--you know I sound like I've been around [laughs]--he said if you really want to rodeo you need to go out to Oklahoma. So I went to Oklahoma, loved it, and went back for 3 years before I decided to move there.
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RS: Wow. Can I ask, were you living in the city as well as working there?
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TE: I lived in NJ and commuted to NYC and worked in the Chelsea section of NYC. I now live in Oklahoma City and I work in Norman at the University of Oklahoma.
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RS: What do you do there?
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TE: I'm a senior academic counselor. I counsel petroleum [engineering], geology, and geo physics majors at the Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy. I've been there for about a year and a half but I've been doing higher education for about 15 years.
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RS: What did you do prior to that?
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TE: Prior to that I was a recreation therapist. I counseled senior citizens in their housing for support, so more social service type jobs. Recreation therapy and nursing homes and YMCA's in New Jersey. In NYC, I worked for the Village Center for Care - AIDS Day Treatment Program and I was a rehabitation tech and also weekend cook, which was unusual, but they loved my food.
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RS: How did you become involved with that and what did that feel like to be helping these people?
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TE: I had moved back to New Jersey and a very good friend of mine, Barb had connected with 2 facilities who served persons with HIV/AIDS. I also worked at an AIDS foundation for children as a weekend caregiver for children whose families were in the hospital or sick with HIV or drug abusers. So we took care of the kids while they were in the hospital and she then connected me with the Village Center for Care. She has been a good friend of mine since 1986. I was a rehab tech with Village Center for Care. We did a lot of support for clients. We were their day treatment program. I'd take them to emergency rooms, psychiatric emergencies, medical emergencies, doctor appointments, housing appointments, etc. I was the case worker with them to help them with clothing out of our clothing bank, and again cooked their meals on Fridays and Saturdays and just provided day-to-day support for them.
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RS: That's amazing.
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TE: So I did that for 5 years and decided to move to Oklahoma.
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RS: So can you tell me about that first gay rodeo you went to and what it felt like?
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TE: It was amazing because I'd never seen a few of the camp event that differ from the "straight" rodeos. I've seen rodeos, but not the community of gay rodeo and was hearing all these terms, slack - asking contestants to volunteer to go earlier in the day when they have too many people in one event and may extend the time of the afternoon performances late or fill in time prior to Grand Entry - presentaion of rodeo officials, associations and flags, US & Canada & Associations. I was going to volunteer, but learned it was only for registered contestants. Thought they meant any volunteer from the audience, truly a rodeo virgin. I had no clue of the rules and regulations in the rodeo and that was my first experience. Then going to the Oklahoma Rodeo my second time, my ex-boyfriend's friends were officers with the Rodeo association and I started learning what went on behind the scenes. I watched the events and learned the rules. My 3rd Rodeo, ASGRA - I started to compete and then next OGRA rodeo I went out and assisted the rodeo director in getting it prepped and everything. Learned about officials and timers. A lot of times you start as a timer at a rodeo and then you work your way up to be a certified official if interested. It just takes some time commitment and everything, but the community that meets up at the rodeo, the support of the community is just wonderful and that's why I've done it for 20-plus years.
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RS: Did you start to get involved and actually competing?
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TE: Yes. My actual second year in ASGRA I decided I was going to compete. I did goat dressing and I pulled my hamstrings--both of them--running in boots. I do not advise anybody to run in boots. [Wear] tennis shoes or cleats, and stretch before you run if you haven't done it for awhile. I did chute dogging, and it's all technique. I don't have the technique down, don't have the ribs to kind of support my twisting. Those are the two events I started in and I've progressed to steer deco and wild drag. I did steer riding, which has gone by several names--steer riding, junior bull riding, back to steer riding.
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RS: How was that experience?
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TE: That was awesome. You're there for 6 seconds if you make it that long. I didn't quite make it, but it was just the experience of being on top of a steer and trying to have that control.
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RS: What are you competing in today?
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TE: Today I'm competing in calf roping on foot. It's less harsh on the calf--we're doing it on foot, so we're not pulling the calf back after he's running and trying to tie him down or anything. That's what our rodeo is all about, you know, safety for contestants and safety for the animals.
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RS: What other aspects of rodeo, other than the rodeo proper, maybe the dancing or things like that, brought you in and got you involved?
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TE: There're some [rodeos] that have a lot more horse contestants in their rodeo, there are some that people watch and then go for the evening dances. The dances are a good time and fun because you get to meet new people when you're dancing. You have strangers who come up and ask you to dance. After a while you're like, "Ooh, a new person." But yeah, your community just keeps growing from the rodeo. New people every year.
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RS: So, back in the '80s and '90s when there were a lot more country western bars, did you see any of that in New York?
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TE: Yes. We had one big place called Yellow Rose in New Jersey and I started dancing there. My dance partner Cindy and I, danced every Thursday night for a year, and then we went on the cattle drive together. Then we were asked to join a dance group and through them we started teaching country western dance. Since working in New York, I was able to connect with a group whose name escapes my mind. It used to be Gotham Rodeo and I started teaching there...Big Apple Ranch is what it's called nowadays. They've been in existence this week for 20 years. They were involved before I left 20 years ago when I moved to Oklahoma, but their new name Big Apple Ranch started 20 years ago.
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RS: And what all do they do?
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TE: They do a lot of basic dancing, socials, fundraisers. They have a group called Prairie Dogs, Manhattan Prairie Dogs. And they go around and perform. They are a part of Iggly Wiggly which is the International Association of Gay and Lesbian Country Western Dancers. I hope I quoted their name correctly. I had been part of going to SoCo southern country music down all in the south, part of the south-east, part of the states, and they would have yearly conventions for country western dance and we would teach and just participate in socialization. Ever since I've been in Oklahoma I haven't been doing as much dancing, so I do it when I come to the rodeos.
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RS: Can you explain country western dance? Are there numerous types of dancing?
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TE: Country western dance is a style. It's two-stepping, it's West Coast Swing, it's line dancing, some places do more line dancing--regional--than others. Big social dancing. Mostly country music, but the dances can be mixed with updated music, contemporary music. But it's a pattern.
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RS: So, you've been doing this country western dancing, do you think that it's as popular as it used to be in general in the U.S.?
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TE: I think it's lost some of its popularity. The music has expounded multilevels. But I think with the changes in society in general, people like the music but just don't go out as much as much as they have in the past. Some do, it's just regional, pretty much state by state I think.
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RS: What do you think drove that western bar boom in the '80s and '90s?
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TE: Of course we have to talk about Urban Cowboy with John Travolta. That was a big thing and it was out in the movies. It got out there, not just localized. It got out into the country, into the world and everybody saw how much fun it was. And of course the outfits people were wearing. A lot of people started enjoying those outfits.
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RS: And was there a pretty good space as a gay man to fit into that western [scene]?
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TE: Not as much. Basically I started in the traditional straight bar or whatever. Cindy knew, I came out to her a little bit later, but she was so accepting and we talked about the hot men and stuff. But, they were accepting. It's one of those where some still do have an issue with hearing the word "homosexual" or anything and feel uncomfortable with it. But a lot of them may not even know. You know, it's just how the other person is.
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RS: So when you had danced in New York you had a female dance partner. When you danced at the gay rodeos could you dance with same sex partners?
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TE: You can do either. Occasionally we would go to some of the dances and we would go same sex. Not often. It just depended on the atmosphere and who was there and if you felt comfortable doing it so.
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RS: How did you get into the entertaining side of rodeo?
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TE: As I mentioned earlier I was introverted to an extent. I'm one of the introverted extroverts. I found that our rodeo system had been losing some associations and I felt strongly about the rodeo and the community. I wanted to add as much as I can to pull people back who have left. Sometimes you get tired over the years, but you try to get the community back together and still try to grow it. So, I put my bid in for Mr. GPRA and won the title and started getting some people back a little bit. A little at a time. Like I mentioned also, they created a monster sometimes. I get a little wild and crazy on the floor while entertaining. I was not an entertainer prior to that, but I love to dance so I added the dance with the lip syncing. If I live sang I probably would have cleared out the rodeo. Would be a good ending to the rodeo, time to go home folks.
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RS: So what are your duties as first runner up?
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TE: Duties of a first runner up is to support the rodeo itself, IGRA. Support our royalty team. If Mr. can't be present I would step in as a representative. We go around and promote the rodeos, help organizations if they need any kind of advice, educate the community, fundraising is a big thing with royalty. We fundraise for IGRA itself and we have charities that we donate to. We've donated approximately $4.3 million plus in the 30 years that IGRA has been in existence. The 3 charities that we have are Stupid Cancer for adolescent cancer, Equest horse therapy program, and Joshua Tree, an HIV AIDS pantry who supports the individual and, if they have pets, their pets and everything.
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RS: That's wonderful.
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TE: So we are a big fundraising Organization for charity.
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RS: Over the last 20 years, have the efforts of the royalty changed or stayed the same?
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TE: I think they've changed because of new gender issues. We're trying to educate the community on gender issues and the equity of everybody being treated equally, to be recognized, to understand the person is the person and not to look just because they've changed their appearance or anything. So that's the big thing, the educational aspect of the rodeo. Charity work has gone on for years, and it continues. It's hard work, I'm not going to lie about that. It's hard work. You have your local community that you work with, you work within your state, there's regionals, region areas, or divisions that you have all across the United States. We had Canada. We have a representative from Australia.
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RS: So how many rodeos are you looking at going to in this one year?
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TE: I have to keep looking at my work schedule, too. I'm looking at approximately six. Standard is four for royalty, and then finals and Convention. So we have a pretty busy schedule.
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RS: Yeah.
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TE: And unfortunately I started the new job a year-and-a-half ago, so I was limited on how many I could have done. Now I'm adding up my time so I'm able to get to some of the other rodeos.
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RS: What really dictates which rodeos you can go to and can't?
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TE: We have 4 divisions and they would like us to attend at least one per division. Some of it is of course crosswise for us getting to and from the rodeos whether it's air fair or driving. Time off of work. A lot of associations try to help us out by giving us a room--or the royalty-- a room for the night, helping us get back and forth from the airports for the contestants if they let them know they need to.
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RS: As royalty, what do you do you while the rodeo is going on if you're not competing in events? What do you spend your time doing?
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TE: We are basically the spokespersons for IGRA. We go through the crowd, meet the crowd, we do fundraising, so that's a little bit of what we do throughout the day. We're basically the upfront representatives. They see who we are and people start asking questions and we educate them on what the sash means, what our title means, what IGRA means. And a lot of times it gets personal and sometimes gets teary eyed going through it and realizing how amazing it is.
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RS: Can you tell me about a couple of your pins, your broaches?
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TE: Each of the other contestants give us pins to [represent] who they are. Several of course are of the AIDS ribbons; my horseshoe is from my Mister--the actual title holder--for luck; the beautiful horse pin is from the president of my local association, Jeff Germany; and this heart is for my husband and of course it's right over my heart. The angel in my right shoulder...this is where it gets teary...is my mom. Passed away 2 years ago and she was a big supporter. She loved to hear about what was going on every weekend. They just represent who people are in our organizations. They're kind of their "icon" I guess nowadays--I'm not a techy--but who they are and what represents them.
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RS: Was your mom ever able to make it to a rodeo?
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TE: No, she didn't. I was able to show her some of the videos that are on the IGRA website and YouTube and everything so she got to see some of that. But I would call her after if I got hurt or anything and she would go, "Not again."
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RS: So it seems like you've had a lot of female friends over the years--how do you think IGRA does with gender equity as far as women being involved in the association? And has that changed over time?
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TE: They've always been supportive of women being involved. It's an open organization. We don't discriminate against gay, straight, lesbian, we are all inclusive. Yes we do have gay in our name, but it's all inclusive. Women can be in the same events as men--we do compete against each other, not against the opposite gender, but in the camp events they can combine and some team events they can have male/female. But in a lot of the others it's females against females and males against males. Also with transgendered people we recognize what they identify as. We don't say, "No, you're born a man you're competing with them." Whatever they identify with we respect that.
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RS: And how does drag performance operate at the rodeo? Do you see much performance as far as drag queens and royalty or as entertainers?
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TE: Well our Miss IGRA is a drag queen. And she represents drag queens very well. When they come to registration they are either in face or not. When they compete they can be in face or not. When they perform they actually are in face, or what we call painted. When they're in public with their sash they usually have their face on. The men are lucky, we're just natural beauties [laughs]. Yeah, exactly thank you for laughing too. We also have the new Mster--it's not new, it's been around--where it's a female to male representation.
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RS: Do you currently have a titleholder for Mster?
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TE: We do not for Mster. Hopefully we will have a couple next year. We have a Mr., Miss, and Ms., which is a female as a female, but we do not have a Mster yet.
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RS: What about other forms of diversity. Has the association been predominantly white? Do you have a large group of people of color participating?
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TE: We do have several participants that are African American, Asian, but generally still mostly Caucasian.
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RS: Why do you think that is?
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TE: Opportunity I think. Just getting to the place, the openness of the person, feeling comfortable. Oklahoma has a big black rodeo. They started...well it's been around for decades--Oklahoma's Boley Rodeo. Just depends on the area that we're at, and how many are interested. It all comes down to the interest in rodeo, country music, things like that.
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RS: That's great. As far as the experience of the rodeo, how has your day-to-day of what you do at the rodeo changed from the '90s 'til now?
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TE: In the '90s I was just competing, or I was working the rodeos as a certified official. I actually did secretarial a lot--that's usually an all-day process. If you time, you can time so many of the events, or you can have some time off. In secretarial we have usually a secretary and a secretary assistant, so we kind of rotate duties. If you're competing, sometimes you're there for your event and then you can hang out or leave or whatever. Now, as [royalty] title holders, pretty much we should be representing the rodeo all day long, from morning to night. We perform the shows to do the fundraising for the rodeos. Tonight, we have an Oklahoma tea party where Great Plains Rodeo Association is doing a show for Texas. The money is going to go back towards Texas for the charity of their choice. We feed them, we provide the entertainment, we bring auction items. During the day we have silent auctions that are available for fundraising also. Again, we just go throughout the crowd and socialize and promote the rodeos.
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RS: That's great. Do you miss the wilder days of all day competition?
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TE: Yes and no. The older I get no. But it's the adrenaline you get when you come back to the rodeo. You feed off of everybody's excitement and their positiveness for the rodeo.
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RS: So what do you think the future of gay rodeo is?
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TE: I'm looking bright for it. It's such an inclusive community to be involved with. We're trying to get the young whippersnappers--which is what I used to be called when I was starting out--involved in making it grow, because our population is growing and it's for a worthy cause. I mean if you can do it for a worthy cause, it should be growing.
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RS: Now, you mentioned you have a husband.
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TE: I have a husband.
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RS: Are you legally married?
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TE: We are legally married. We got married 3 years ago--March 22nd this year. We went back to New Jersey and then in October, Oklahoma pass the same-sex marriage law. We've been together for 21 years in October. We didn't meet in the rodeo, we met at volleyball in New York [laughs]. He limits his time on rodeos. He is a performer. He's performed for me in my fundraising and been very supportive of the whole issue of me being rodeo. And does his theatre and shows.
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RS: How many rodeos would he make it to this year?
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TE: He usually makes it to the Oklahoma Rodeo. They changed the rodeo to a barrel and pole event this year. He was hoping to make it down to Texas but we also have furry children at home that he's taking care of.
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RS: Can you tell me about those furry children?
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TE: We've had Bullwinkle who is a 16 and a half Jack Russell Terrier. And then we have a new one, Herbie Husker. Yes, I'm a die-hard Nebraska fan and alumni. And he's 7 months old now. He's a handful.
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RS: That is a handful.
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TE: We usually take them to Lance's moms to babysit, but Herbie is still too much of a handful for her. And Lance is originally from Texas so when we met and I told him I was moving to Oklahoma he's like, "I'll be closer to family." And we saw them as much as we did mine in New Jersey which is only 40 miles away and we saw them maybe 3 times a year. [Laughs] Rodeos came first, then family. Oh wait, rodeo is family. Which we haven't talked about. You build a very strong family with rodeo. We're like brothers and sisters in arms.
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RS: Has there ever been a moment when your rodeo family has come to your rescue and helped you out?
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TE: I think every event. Every fundraiser I do they are there supporting me. During the competition for Mr. IGRA they were there, just saying, "Be yourself, go out there and do it, you can do it." When a contestant gets hurt, we rally around the contestant. In Arizona, we had a couple people hurt and contacted them to keep the support and get them back in the rodeo.
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RS: So would you call yourself a cowboy?
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TE: Inside, yes. Outside people are like, "You do what?" [Laughs]
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RS: Would you wear Wranglers and a cowboy shirt to work?
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TE: I don’t as much, because we have to wear professional dress. I have worn my jeans but of course--this is bad--if you notice, they're a little tighter than usual so I really couldn't wear those to work.
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RS: What does "cowboy" mean to you?
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TE: "Cowboy" is, which I forgot to mention is what we also promote, is country western lifestyle. It's basically having...well, for me it's really the country inside, and then I bring it out to the rodeos. It's a lifestyle. It's a way of life. It's being there for your family. It's just down deep. For me it's kind of hard to explain because I didn't grow up on a farm or ranch or anything like that, but I know the passion people have for that way of living. I see it in the people with their horses.
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RS: If you could own horses, would you?
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TE: I would. I would. I was hoping to have one in the 20 years that I've been in Oklahoma, but I had to adjust to a new lifestyle in Oklahoma.
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RS: Well, is there anything else you want to mention?
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TE: It's been a wonderful 20-plus years in the rodeo circuit. I'm so proud to be part of it. It allows me to be who I really am from the inside out.
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RS: That's wonderful. Thank you for your time.
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TE: Thank you. If you notice it's getting a little teary here, a little watery eyes. [Laughs]
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RS: Thank you so much.
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TE: Thank you.

David Renier

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with David Renier. It's September 10th, 2016 and we are at the Rodeo on the River in Duncans Mills, California. What year were you born?
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David Renier: I was born in 1961.
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RS: Where did you grow up?
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DR: San Diego, California.
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RS: Pretty urban area or…?
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DR: Very urban.
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RS: Did you had you ever worked with stock?
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DR: My family had a dairy outside of San Diego…so I grew up around cattle and horses my whole life. And then our family ranch is about 20 minutes east of San Diego so it's not actually in San Diego. I live in San Diego now but our ranch is outside of San Diego.
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RS: So do you commute now?
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DR: Yeah it's only about a 20 minute um drive from where I live.
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RS: That's nice. So you grew up around dairy cattle. How did you first get into rodeo at all or gay rodeo specifically?
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DR: Well, I was in traditional rodeo. I was in junior rodeo and high school rodeo and then I went and did some open rodeos after high school. And then a friend of mine told me about the gay rodeo and I was 21 at the time and wasn't really sure I wasn't out at the time so I wasn't really sure I wanted to be part of it. It was in LA at the time and so I went down and I entered one event just to see if you know it was something wanting to do. I did my first event and was hooked. Unfortunately, you had to enter both days on Friday…so I stuck around the weekend and watched everybody and was hooked after that.
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RS: And where was that rodeo again?
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DR: In Burbank.
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RS: In Burbank.
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DR: Yeah.
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RS: And what year was that?
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DR: I don't remember.
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RS: Long time.
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DR: Well it was, well it was ‘86.
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RS: ‘86?
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DR: 1986
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RS: Excellent.
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DR: Yeah.
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RS: Which event did you enter?
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DR: I entered calf roping.
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RS: And how did it go?
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DR: I won my first day of calf roping and that was all I got to do.
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RS: How have…have you always done that one event or have you done multiple events?
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DR: No, I typically, I run in the quarter horse circuit as well. So I run barrels and poles, I calf rope and then team rope head and heal.
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RS: So you trailer your horses?
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DR: Yeah everywhere yeah.
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RS: How is that experience?
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DR: You know I've done it forever so it took me twelve hours to get here. So I'm kind of used to being on the road with my horses and my dog.
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RS: Do you ever caravan with other people or are you pretty solo?
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DR: Once in a while…I had a partner…he passed away from suicide in October of last year so…I'm not really used to traveling alone so this year has been a little tough for me.
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RS: Yeah, that would be a very hard adjustment.
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DR: Yeah.
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RS: Have you ever done any of the rough stock events?
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DR: I did when I was younger. I thought that bronc riding would be fun, but I found out it was not as fun as I thought it was going to be. So it was a couple of rodeos and then I was done with that part of my career.
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RS: Have you ever been seriously injured?
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DR: Oh yeah, I've had three reconstructive surgeries on my knees, my arm, yeah stuff like that.
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RS: Stuff like that but always ready to…
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DR: Oh yeah ready to get back on.
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RS: Did your partner rodeo at all?
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DR: He didn't. He rode but he didn't compete. He was just he liked to kind of just be the cheerleader and behind the scenes kind of guy and yeah.
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RS: You said you were involved with the Quarter Horse Association…
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DR: Uh-huh.
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RS: On either that or mainstream rodeos have you ever um, sort of personally run into any homophobia?
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DR: You know I was lucky, with that…I started young, so I grew up with you know a lot of the people and I was friends with them, you know, prior to me coming out. And I slowly came out to the people that I trusted. And those people were always supportive and were always there for me in case there was any problem. And I think that they kind of embraced me because I grew up with them, you know. It was easy for me. I wasn't coming into a sport unknown.
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RS: Do you feel like you've always identified as a cowboy sine you were little or was that something you came to?
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DR: Oh yeah, yeah. I had my first horse when I was two. My dad got me a horse, of course we worked on a ranch so we were always riding horses and moving cattle.
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RS: Is the charitable aspects of gay rodeo something that drew you to the association?
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DR: Oh yeah, definitely back in the ‘80s when I started I had a huge amount of gay rodeo friends and though the 80s most of them passed away unfortunately. And it was a main way to raise money to help with people with HIV and AIDS. And that aspect of it in itself was something that I felt you more compelling to do because of that. It was, you know, I love the sport but then that you know an added bonus that we could provide that.
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RS: Yeah and in addition to that what other…was it just destiny? Did you find this space or what other things drew you to the gay rodeo community?
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DR: It was definitely a sense of family. The comradery. And, you know, you can kind of say…like you know when you're really good friends, you don't have to talk every day. We have a rodeo every month sometimes you see them more than you see your family. It’s definitely a family aspect and great friends and you know that's one of the main things.
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RS: Were you ever involved in the leadership?
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DR: No. No.
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RS: Never interested in it?
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DR: No, I'm kind of just behind the scenes kind of guy.
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RS: What do you feel like your major accomplishments have been in competing?
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DR: Well I'm probably one of the most winning cowboys in the gay rodeo. That may just be because I've done it for so long. But yeah, I've won every championship that there is.
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RS: Being at the gay rodeo have you ever experienced any homophobia here, from protesters or comments from people who may not be attending?
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DR: You know I've seen them but it's very minimal. I think that we have a great amount of people here that are well versed in speaking to those people. So usually what they do is they go out and try to educate those people. And a lot of times you know it changes their mind once they find out that the way we treat our animals is much better than we treat ourselves. The other day, I had a cut, I went to my medicine cabinet and I couldn't find a band-aid I went out to the barn looked out in my horses Cabernet and I had gauze, I had all this stuff. I was like: “I don't even have a band-aid but my horse has a whole tackle box full of first aide stuff.” …Once people see that, you know, we take care of our animals. Like I was taught that as a young child. My parents taught me take care of your animals before you take care of yourself. They eat before I eat, you know. So I it was taught to me as an early childhood thing.
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RS: Do you feel like there's any push back in the larger gay community that, you know, rodeo is not something gay people should be doing?
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DR: No, no, it's especially in San Diego. I'm the only gay cowboy in San Diego basically that competes. And, you know, a lot of them don't really understand what rodeo in itself is let alone gay rodeo and, so you know, being from a town like San Diego, it's pretty much like, you know, the anomaly.
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RS: Do you dress in Western wear on a daily basis?
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DR: Absolutely not. I do not. There even is a bar that is a country western bar and I don't dress up to go dance or any of that. I'm very much a baseball, t-shirt, kind of shoes kind of guy.
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RS: The association doesn't seem to have a lot of people who are younger…is there an issue with recruitment or anything among….
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DR: I think for one thing, rodeo is not a cheap sport, especially, I have two horses you know I've got to bring my horses. It’s expensive, so for a young person these days the cost I'm sure is an issue. And also I believe there are just not as many farmers that are ranchers anymore and so I think that that that itself has less people coming in.
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RS: Have a lot of the people coming into the association…did they mainly grow up on farms and ranches or were they just enamored with the cowboy lifestyle?
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DR: Yeah I don't think, I think there is probably a handful of us that were raised on ranches, but I think the other people saw it and perhaps when they were younger their parents didn’t live in a place where they could have horses. And now as adults, they’re, it’s you know, something that they wanted to do ever since they were little and now they are living out their dream.
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RS: That's understandable. Are there any particular incidents that stand out to you of just feeling that this was a place you could belong in those early days? And a place you wanted to invest in?
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DR: Yeah definitely, I like I said I participated in, you know quote, unquote straight rodeos. But when I came to the gay rodeos there are some aspects of my life that I didn't share with people. I wasn't walking around with my boyfriend, you know, it definitely was a place that made me feel safe and secure and able to be the authentic me.
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RS: And when it comes to identifying as a as cowboy what does that mean to you? What does it mean to be a cowboy?
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DR: Well, I think that there's like a lot of you know different I guess ideas of cowboys. I guess, like if somebody was to ask me if I was a cowboy, I don't know that I would necessarily…I think of a cowboy as a father as that was his living, like that was his life. And he lived and breathed it. And you know I'm lucky enough to be able to do it on the weekends so I guess I am a cowboy but as far as my thought of a cowboy that would be more of my father or something like that.
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RS: More of every day….
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DR: Yeah, like that's how you make your living kind of thing.
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RS: Yeah.
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DR: The hard way.
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RS: What do you think the future of IGRA is? Is it going to keep growing?
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DR: You know, it's kind of a frightening question because I've asked myself with the lack of new younger contestants coming in, us older ones, I was doing every event and each year I kind of cut back a little bit more and a little bit more--just you know partly like having knee surgeries and stuff like that. I could say my hope is that it continues. But to be honest I don't really know that that will happen. And I also think that, not that there's not a need for the gay rodeo, but with today's life I think people are feeling more comfortable and confident of going to open rodeos and, you know like I…I don't know like there more money for us to win obviously. So if they feel accepted at an open rodeo they would probably be like it's a wiser for choice to make more money.
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RS: What's the main difference between the events, I mean the rodeos as a whole between something you would have gone to in the ‘80s ‘til now? Do they look pretty similar?
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DR: Not at all. Back in the day, there used to be thousands of spectators and thousands of people there for the evening parties and hundreds of contestants and both of those have dwindled.
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RS: Why do you think that is?
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DR: You know I'm not exactly sure why that is. I think that a lot of rodeos that were the bigger rodeos are no longer like San Diego and LA and those really had a big following and they were always a big production. And both of those rodeos have been cancelled and so.
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RS: Can I ask why?
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DR: You know I'm not really sure if it was financial reason or people in those areas just weren't interested in putting in what it takes to put one on.
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RS: But you continued to do it even with smaller crowds?
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DR: I do, like I said it's kind of like seeing my family you know and my rodeo family. So it's nice to come and spend time with them. We will be on the road now for ten days together. It's kind of fun.
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RS: What do you do with all your buckles?
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DR: I either give them away or my nieces and nephews take them from me. Or if like they are special ones like my first and second ones that even I have a big display-like coffee table I've got them in there. But like one of the things for us contestants that have a lot of buckles if we see a new contestant, we usually give them a buckle and say, "This is your buckle until you win your own. When you win your own, you can give it back to me.” So it's just kind of one of those things to make those people know that you're are supportive and we believe that they will give it back one day and have their own to wear one day.
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RS: Does it influence your broader life in particular ways at all, relationships or job or anything?
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DR: Well since my partner’s death, suicide, I've now started…I've created my own foundation and am doing a bunch of stuff for that and my rodeo family here…I've had more support than I ever thought was imaginable. When that happened, I could probably tell you that almost every member from IGRA contacted me to let me know they were there for me. You know it's something that I always knew like if something happened in my life that I would have them at my back and it's surely come true.
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RS: Alright, thank you so much for your time.
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DR: You’re welcome and thank you.

David Hallwood

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with David Hallwood. It's November 19th at the International Gay Rodeo Convention, 2016. So, would you tell me where you grew up?
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David Hallwood: Pardon me? Oh, I grew up in...a small town in the middle of Michigan. I'm the oldest of five, oldest of two. I do have some step-brothers, or half brothers and sisters, and that stuff. Grew up in a single-parent household basically and stuff, in a small town. Grew up on my grandparents’ farm for the first part of my life. And then after my grandparents passed, we got our own place and and that stuff. Mom wanted her own house for so much, she finally got the money saved up and we actually built it ourselves, and that stuff. So, most of our time as kids was basically swinging hammers and that stuff. Yeah, it was a great experience because I learned a lot of stuff about repairing my own home now that I'm older, and all that stuff. But, yeah, that's basically my life in a nutshell.
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RS: Did you go to college?
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DH: I did about a year of college, and from there went into the military. Was in the U.S. Navy for about four years and was a hospital corpsman.
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RS: When did you go in? What year?
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DH: Back in ‘80, ‘82.
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RS: ‘82. And did you like your time in?
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DH: Oh, I had a great time in the military. A lot of ups, I think most people... it's like Israel. In Isreal you’re required to do military service, I think the same thing should be done in the United States. I did a lot of growing up in the military. Whereas I... I went in when I was 22. So, I was just wandering away not having any real direction in my life, and after that got out, I got started. You know, got back to getting my life on track.
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RS: And did you go back to Michigan when you were out?
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DH: Oh yeah, yeah. When I went out, went back home. Then started working in the automotive industry, or automotive repair. I've worked for car dealerships for 38 years now. In the service department, where you drive your car in and say, “My car's doing this.” And I write it all down. I'm the go-between between the technicians and the customer, and that stuff.
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RS: So, good people skills?
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DH: Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, it's like… Let's just say it's an interesting job, it's never boring. It's like there's always something new.
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RS: And do you identify as gay?
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DH: Mhm, yeah.
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RS: When did you come out?
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DH: Oh, to myself, back when I was like sixteen. To my... then I went through my “trying to straighten out my life” period, with the church and all that stuff. That didn't work. And then I went in the military, and then, finally, when I was in the military, I finally said, “Oh, hell with it.” But, that again, like Lisa said, that's back during Don’t Tell, and all that other stuff. So, you had to be, you still had to be closeted in the military. But I was out with my friends. I actually got thrown out of the military because I was gay. Someone had turned me in, and went through a couple months of hell and that stuff, and finally it was all over.
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RS: Were you already out to your mom and siblings?
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DH: Oh yeah, my family knows and has known for years. And those in the family that don't know, oh well. I'm not going into the priesthood like Grandma wanted.
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RS: And when did you find out about the gay rodeo?
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DH: Oh, it was… A friend of mine was moving to Denver and they were putting, and Denver was putting on the rodeo that weekend. So, I rode out with Jody when he was moving his stuff and we went to the rodeo. Well, I sat and watched and it was a lot of fun. And then a buddy of mine, named Jim Brown, I got back home, he came back from LA, and he was involved with the LA rodeo. So, we decided to start the Michigan group. And there was probably about nine of us all meeting in this one bar, this one night, and said, “That sounds like a great idea!” Little did I know it would take over my life. It's like, I still see those people, too. You know, we still keep in touch and that stuff. But I've been doing this, oh, since 2004. So, when we first got started in that stuff, and we put on about six different rodeos throughout the year, and that stuff. It's kind of hard up in Michigan, because it's getting the money together and raising funds, and all that other stuff. And it gets expensive to do, but every time we have done it, we've always had a good time. And a lot of the same people come back and that's stuff and help. And I've made a lot of friends through the rodeo.
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RS: Will you guys be putting on a rodeo in the next couple of years?
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DH: Possibly. It's like, I won't let them do it until they have the money.
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RS: That's probably a good idea.
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DH: Yeah. I don't want anyone going into debt or anything like that. You know, and it's usually me. ‘Cause then I go, “Okay, here's a check, take this, take this.” And you know. But, it's, like I said, the comradery is the main thing. I consider these people my family. When I was, when I lost my job, because of the downturn in the economy and that stuff, flew out to Arizona, had a place a stay, had a job the next day. Had people helping me with whatever I needed out there, and stuff. Plus, people I knew, and all that stuff. I was also asked to come to Philadelphia, Washington DC, LA. All of my friends were saying, “Come out here, there's jobs out here, come out here.”
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RS: That's amazing.
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DH: That was, that's one of the good benefits of it and that stuff. Like I said, likely I've worked the chutes crews since I was... Well, I started out on the arena for a couple of rodeos, and then one day, a friend of mine she says, “Come work the chutes with us.” And I'm going, “Okay!” And from then on, I was hooked. So, you know, I don't get to travel, I don't get to go as often as I'd liked to anymore, because of the job, and that stuff because I work a very demanding job. And every other weekend. So, if it doesn't fall on my weekend off, I don't go. But, like I said, it’s... I'm the trustee now for my organization for the last nine years. So, I try to make all the board meetings and all that stuff and I've always worked the production end. I've never competed or anything like that. But still, there's parts, like when you're on the chute crew, it's like you have family. I mean, Minnesota, Lisa, Sandy, and I, we all share a room together and just had a blast. I learned a lot of things too. But no, it's like I said, it's hard to describe unless you're actually involved in it. People around here always want to know what's going on in your life. And we may not see each other for six months to a year, but it's just like old home week when you’re together and that stuff.
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RS: Is convention a particularly joyous time?
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DH: Convention is a chance where you get to bond a lot. You don't have the rodeo going on, ‘cause, like I said, when rodeo is going on you're busy. You're constantly going 90 miles an hour, all day long. Where, at convention it gives you a chance to sit back and discuss things. You may not agree with each other on things. But it’s just like any other family, you're still family. And we get things worked out and that stuff so.
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RS: Do you like going to other types of rodeos or is this?
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DH: I've only been to one other rodeo performance that wasn't a gay rodeo. And it's, like I said, I was sitting in the stands watching and I'm going “God, this is boring.” It's, like I said, I was used to being down in the middle of things and if you're not in the middle of things, it's kind of boring. I mean watching the first couple times, I watched, it was really fun. But then, once you get involved, you're... It's like I always say, it's hard to go sit and watch a rodeo for us now, cause we like to be down and get our hands dirty and that stuff.
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RS: Be a part of it.
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DH: Right.
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RS: Did you ever want to to do judging or anything like that?
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DH: I was a chute coordinator for about, oh, five, six years. I volunteered for quite a long time and then finally someone said, “Why don't you get certified?” So, that took about three years to get through the program, and once I got through the program and I was, you know. Another friend of mine from LA, Tom Brennan, he got in and he got his chute coordinator, too. And so it was basically we were, essentially we were getting invited everywhere. Either I would be assistant, and he would be the coordinator, or I would be the coordinator, he would be the assistant. So, we were a good team and we had a lot of fun. I used to have a lot of people from my own associations since we didn't put on rodeo's all that often. They would come and volunteer at the other rodeos around the country and that stuff, working chute crews and arena crews and that stuff.
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RS: At any of the rodeo's you've been at, have you experienced any blatant forms of homophobia from the community at all?
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DH: No. Course, if I did I didn't notice. I'm kind of one of those big old happy guys that everybody's afraid of. I come in, I’m know I'm kind of scary. They’re not really going to say anything unless they have a crowd. But, no, I've never experienced that at all.
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DH: In fact, we've had some of the straight kids come in and compete. Like in Kansas City this year, we had a straight bronc rider and he got hurt and it was like, when he woke up on the ground, all the sudden there was all these people around him that are concerned on what's happened. We were up there blocking off from the audience while we were looking at him making sure he was alright and that stuff… He woke up and he was underneath Denise's knee, and Denise is like “Are you-” and stuff. And he just thought that was just so weird, cause usually at the straight rodeos if he fell off his horse and got hurt, they put him on a stretcher, roll him out, take him off to the hospital, and that would be it. After, cause he was injured quite badly, so after the rodeo a lot of the people from the Missouri association that lived in Kansas City were coming to the hospital to make sure he was okay and all that kind of stuff. And he thought that was just, so much different, you know.
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DH: I mean, we've got some girls from Texas that are straight women bull riders. And one of the women is here this weekend, and she says, “You know, it's really-.” You know, because they, she's faced a lot of stuff from straight cowboys. A woman riding bulls is just not done. And she says with our group everybody encourages her and cheers for her. And she thought that was just so different. Which, talking with other facilities that host rodeos and that stuff, they always say that we're you, they always like to have us come in because we're so much different and that stuff. We are sort of friendly you, we clean up after ourselves, we try to help out whenever we could. If something goes wrong we're not ready to fly off the handle and all that other stuff so. So, IGRA is a great group to belong to. Like I said, I'll probably remember doing this til the day I die. But it's like, I always know that I'll always have friends and family.
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RS: Is there any other type of gay group that you belong to?
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DH: I belong to the Meltantin Trailer Campers which is a camping group up in Michigan. I belong to other different small things, and that stuff. But it was like, this is the group… This is my vacation, my time, my hobby, my gets we away from my normal job so I can get my head clear and all that other stuff. It's like, I may go back a little exhausted but my boss is always glad when I get back because I'm so focused on everything that I do.
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RS: And would you consider yourself a cowboy?
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DH: Not really. No. I'm just a person. I'm just you… I have cowboy friends that have ranches and all that other stuff. Not me, no. I live in a suburb. It's like, I do have a pickup truck and two cars, but… as far as…. I grew up on a dairy farm and that's, and I really didn't get to experience all that stuff of running it and stuff as I was a kid. It was a big playground for us. But when we, and when grandpa needed help, that's when we were there with what we could do. But as far as being a cowboy, no. No. I like to ride, but trail ride. I don't compete and all that stuff, but I do like to have fun. Let's just say, I'm a gay guy that likes to have fun with the gay cowboys. But like I said, I've been involved, like I said, when you're involved with the production side of rodeo there's a lot of different things you do than being a contestant and that kind of stuff.
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RS: Is there any particular production that you were involved in that you were just the most proud of?
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DH: Well there's a lot of different things, and they all run together, okay. As far as being absolute, when I was a chute coordinator I loved the job. It was... I liked having my crew. It's like after the rodeo we'd all go out to dinner together and catch up and that stuff. And I knew of the people that were on my crew that I could ask them to do anything and they would, and that stuff. The hard part was worrying about them, that they were going to get themselves hurt or something like that, you know. You know, Aaron Couple in Palm Springs, last year, a stock contractor told me about this bull, it'll charge. And I saw it coming down the thing as I'm walking back to get out of the way, and all of the sudden it charged at me. Fortunately, living with a rodeo clown, I learned how to turn out from the bulls, and all that stuff. Something you do for your own survival and that stuff. But as far as being proud of things. I'm proud of the accomplishments that my association has done. The things they are doing now, the people they have in now, our association, since it's hard to put on rodeos, we do other social things together. They'll have picnics, they'll have dinners, they'll have, if we have a bar night, then pretty much everybody tries to show up and help out with it. We've got two miles of road in Westland, Michigan that we clean up, and there's a sign that has our name on it and all this stuff that we are responsible for, two miles of roadway. So they’ve become more of a social group and that stuff so.
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RS: And you said you had a roommate who was a rodeo clown?
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DH: Yeah, that was Jason, when I was down in Arizona. He, Jason, works as a clown. Jason works as the manager of the trailer, people who haul their trailers down and stay in Arizona. Jason's also rodeo clown, he's announced, he does sound equipment and photography and all that stuff. That's his thing. So, he did learn a lot of stuff from the bullfighters, like how to get out of the way, and we always talked about it.
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RS: So, where are you living now?
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DH: Now I live in Fruitport, Michigan, which is between Muskegon and Grand Haven, right on Lake Michigan. So, I was in Arizona for eight years, then went back home, cause I'll always probably be living in Michigan sometime in my life. But, I got too bored with the scenery in Phoenix. It's all beige and I needed some color and that stuff. I'm one of those people, I don't mind winter, never have.
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RS: So when did you move back?
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DH: About three years ago. But my mom's getting up there, so I'm the typical gay son. Living at home with mom, taking care of her, but I think it's more the other way around. Cause she runs circles around me. Even though she's…. let’s see mom’s 87 this year, but she still gets out and mows the lawn and snow blows the driveway and all that. You know, she may not do it as fast as she used to but it still keeps her going and that stuff.
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RS: Seems like a tough lady.
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DH: Well like I said, she built her own house with two young boys... She's a depression era baby and she grew up on a farm. And you learn to do it for yourself.
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RS: Well, is there anything about your experiences with gay rodeo that you want to talk about that I didn't ask about?
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DH: No, pretty much I'd say that's about it you know.
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RS: Well thank you for taking the time.
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DH: Alrighty.

Curt Westberg

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield, and I'm here with Curt Westberg*. And it is March 6th at 10:13 am. Thank you so much for doing this with us. I appreciate your time. So can you tell me what year you were born?
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Curt Westberg: 1962, July 25th.
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Rebecca Scofield: And where were you born?
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Curt Westberg: Missoula, Montana.
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Rebecca Scofield: Amazing. How long did you spend in Missoula?
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Curt Westberg: My dad was a grad student getting his master's there, so I think we moved away when I... I have some memories, but they're real...two, two and a half, three, maybe.
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Rebecca Scofield: What was he getting his master's in?
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Curt Westberg: Organic chemistry.
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Rebecca Scofield: What career did that lead to?
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Curt Westberg: He was an atmospheric chemist at WSU, actually for...he got hired at WSU in '71 and retired from there in...I don't know, probably 2000 somewhere, you know, 30 or 40 years or something like that.
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Rebecca Scofield: Wow. So was there a place in between Missoula and Pullman?
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Curt Westberg: He got his Ph.D. in Seattle. So we lived in Seattle through first grade, and then he post-doc'ed in Edmonton, Alberta, for second, third, and fourth grade were in Edmonton. And then we moved Pullman when I was in fifth grade. I no, first, second, third grade, were in in Edmonton, and I moved to Pullman in fourth grade year.
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Rebecca Scofield: Wow. What was that like going from Missoula, which is pretty big and pretty rugged we'll say to Seattle to Edmonton.
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Curt Westberg: I was so little. I mean, I just, you know, it was...I don't...I didn't have any impressions of it or anything. I remember a little bit of that moving from Edmonton to Pullman, which was Edmonton was big city, too, and that was back in the days when there was so much freedom for kids. I mean, we used to run around Edmonton, just my buddies and I, fourth grade just everywhere up on campus and take the bus downtown. And, you know, it's amazing. I can't imagine my kids having that level of freedom. [laughs]
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Rebecca Scofield: So did you have siblings?
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Curt Westberg: I have a younger brother....a younger sister and a younger brother.
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Rebecca Scofield: Were you guys very close growing up?
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Curt Westberg: Yeah. I mean, we...
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Curt Westberg: We were close. We fought like, well, my brother was nine years younger, and so it was...I wasn't the best of older brothers. And my sister and I fought like crazy until we got into college. Then we got to be good friends. We're all really good friends now, so.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. Sounds pretty typical.
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Curt Westberg: Yeah.
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Curt Westberg: Watching my own kids, that was the case. They tolerated barely tolerated each other in teenage years and are super close now.
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Rebecca Scofield: Just got to get them through.
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Curt Westberg: Yep. Just got to get them through. Yeah. Just have to be adequate. That's what I learned about parenting. You don't have to be a perfect parent. You just have to be adequate.
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Rebecca Scofield: That's good advice. Much needed advice. So when you all moved to Pullman. So your dad joined faculty?
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Curt Westberg: Yeah he was an associate, then got tenure somewhere in there, probably late '70s. And he was he headed that laboratory for atmospheric research for a lot of years there. He's a super bright guy. And you know, brain works different than mine. Very, very locked on and focused and bright did a lot of really groundbreaking work. He did a lot of the early methane work, biogenic methane work with cattle and livestock and jungles and all kinds of things.
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Curt Westberg: So fascinating.
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Curt Westberg: Yeah pretty fascinating. I got to do a lot of research projects with them. And I put my actually when I was going through school, he'd get the consulting projects and I'd do the analysis on the gas chromatograph and stuff like that. So I learned a lot of skills that I had no theoretical background for, but [laugh]...I knew how to do the work.
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Rebecca Scofield: That's amazing. What's your mom do?
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Curt Westberg: She stayed at home until we were, you know, until my brother... They were high school sweethearts in Yakima. Grew up in Yakima and got married. My mom was 19 when she had me, which is just...it's hard for me to imagine. And then so she was she didn't finish college, stayed home. I think she always felt, you know, ashamed of that. And then she was a good mom and a really good mom; is a good mom. And then she went to work for a bank. She would started being a bank teller. And then she got moved. So she worked pretty hard for...till I moved away after I got out of college. I went to WSU and moved away after that. And I'm not sure quite when she quit, but, uh, but she had worked at Siefers for a long time.
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Rebecca Scofield: So where did you guys live? Like in Pullman or on the outskirts?
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Curt Westberg: We had a little house on Gladstone Street in Pullman, which is an easy walk to the university and lived there until...this is a kind of funny story. Lived there until I started riding. As a freshman in high school I needed to reinvent myself and fell in with the cowboys and started riding bulls because I didn't have a horse. Right? So I started riding bulls and my mom hated it. And my sophomore year for Christmas, they got me a horse. And so then we had the horse. Right. We were living in town in Pullman. And so between my sophomore and junior year, they bought a ten acres in Colfax and we moved over there. So I had a place for the horse and that was nice, actually.
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Rebecca Scofield: So then were you still commuting to Pullman for school?
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Curt Westberg: No, I went to Colfax. I graduated from Colfax High, so I spent junior and senior year in Colfax, which was a ton of fun. It was really fun.
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Rebecca Scofield: Did you keep your same friend group when you moved?
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Curt Westberg: Some. I'm still friends with a lot of them. We had a pretty tight...I, you know, a lot of us went to WSU and so we had a big kind of built in group that was tight. And we still...I mean, my best friend lives in Moscow. And we he sat down next to me in a health class when we were freshman in high school and I was an asshole to him. Can I swear on this?
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Rebecca Scofield: Yes. Absolutely. It's encouraged really.
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Curt Westberg: Yeah. I was not...because I was like, "I want a popular guy to sit next to me." I didn't know who this guy was. And then when we went to a party and drank together and talked about hunting and you know, we just...he and I had a ton of similar interests. And so we got to be really good friends all the way through college. Oh, still.
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Rebecca Scofield: So did you do high school rodeo? What were you...?
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Curt Westberg: I did junior rodeo and then I did high school rodeo and then I rodeoed in college at WSU for a couple of years.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. I was wondering if WSU had a team.
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Curt Westberg: They had a rodeo team and [Dolly ?] was the leader of that. Yeah, it was fun. I wasn't, I was never top notch talent, but...but it was a blast. I had so much fun.
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Rebecca Scofield: Where you guys travel to compete?
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Curt Westberg: Mostly just...probably the farthest we went was what used to be Treasure Valley Community College. Yeah. TVCC and Blue Mountain and Idaho had a rodeo and I don't know where else we went, but that was about as far, you know, regional.
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Rebecca Scofield: Did you ever go into PRCA at all and think about it?
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Curt Westberg: Never good enough. I hit a point in my sophomore year where it was rodeo was a blast and I was drinking way too much and I wasn't paying attention to school and it just kind of was like, "No, this isn't the path for me." I don't have the background, I don't have the skill. And I'm not willing to work hard enough to get the skill. And so I just concentrated on school and kind of quit rodeo and I still team rope. Team roping was what I like to do. So I still team rope on and off. But my brother actually was good. And he was nine years younger, so I'd already started all this stuff and kind of laid the groundwork and he really took it and ran with it and went to nationals but he never got his card either. And his kids, one of them, one of my nieces I think she has her card, and they were good enough. But they just, you know, it's, it's kind of like...
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah, it's a whole lifestyle.
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Curt Westberg: We come from a really academic family, and I never realized how pervasive that was until just looking back at the decisions I made. And it always kind of went not towards academics with me but just kind of, "That's fun and this is life," right?
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. That it never felt like a career path.
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Curt Westberg: No. And I didn't have the desire or the competitive edge or the money. Frankly, it takes a lot of money to do that stuff.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. Absolutely.
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Curt Westberg: Unless you're a rough stock rider. And even then it then...I didn't like doing that so.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. Did you continue to rough stock ride after you got your horse?
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Curt Westberg: As soon as I could quit. Every time I got on a bull it was like an out of body experience. [laughing] I'd get tunnel vision and I just, you know, I couldn't keep [on]. I don't know how those guys do it. It's not how my head is wired or wasn't back then. And so now I just I like the horses.
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Rebecca Scofield: And so what was your degree in at WSU?
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Curt Westberg: Wildlife Biology. Loved animals, you know, and it was a little bit of...I realized it probably in my thirties that it never entered my head that I wouldn't get a Ph.D. Right? Because everybody I knew, right, my dad, all most of the people we associated with were professors or they were grad students, and everybody was working towards that goal. My dad never said it. I mean, I think he would have wished he was a hired man. He would have rather been a rancher. Right. And so it wasn't any pressure. It was just I never even considered not doing it. And so I remember the day I woke up and thought, "Thank God I don't have to get a Ph.D." This is after I'd gotten a master's and I'd been accepted to a couple Ph.D. programs. And I just had a moment of clarity that it was not...I wasn't going to...I wasn't in a mental place, you know, having watched enough Ph.D. students torture themselves for long periods of time, I just knew I didn't have it in me.
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Rebecca Scofield: So. So you said you were pretty avid hunter?
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Curt Westberg: Yep.
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Rebecca Scofield: Did that play into what you wanted to do?
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Curt Westberg: You mean for life?
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah.
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Curt Westberg: What I wanted to...
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Rebecca Scofield: I mean, in terms of wildlife biology.
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Curt Westberg: Yeah, I mean, that was part of it, certainly. My dad was a super good teacher, so super good teacher about respect. And he was a scientist; always questioning, "why is this..." "Why does this work the way it is?" "Why do you think this works the way it does?" And ecology. And it was just fun. And frankly, I had to get...I had to do something. You know, I was in school, and I needed to...I figured out...I started in engineering because that's where my dad said, "That's where the money is." And then I took calculus, said, "No, we're not doing engineering." [laughs] I was always good at math until that. That was a nightmare. And so then I kind of bopped around and it was always between English...It was always between...I love to read and I always kind of have wanted to write, never had the skill to or never had that whatever it takes, you know, whatever writers have to do that. But and I had a super instrumental, a couple of profs at WSU in elective classes.
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Curt Westberg: I took out literature of the American West class from a guy named George Watkins. And he was an old cowboy, smoked a cigar in class and just cowboy hat guy. He was funny and he's super bright and it was really it was a wonderful class and that and then I took a Shakespeare, a couple of Shakespeare classes, from Professor Bruce [?] over there. And that just opened my mind. But it was like, "What am I going to do with an English degree, right?" And so I finished. And I love I love the Wildlife Biology, too. And so I did that and then and then went to work for one of my dad's colleagues. He was at Washington State, and then he got hired at National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. So I moved after college, I moved to Boulder and he said, "Come down, I'll get you on the payroll for six months as a visiting scientist, and we'll see what happens." And, you know, I could have stayed there, and I could have I could have continued working there for longer than I did. And, you know, but I kind of realized that's where I realized, okay, I'm not a scientist.
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Rebecca Scofield: Right?
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Curt Westberg: I mean, caring, you know the old joke, caring more and more about less and less. Right. And I just couldn't generate... We were doing like the funnest science there was. Tenth percentile science. Right. Just trying to answer just the broad brush, big questions about the beginnings of climate change stuff, really. And it wasn't enough. I just knew I wasn't going to be good at it. I just couldn't generate...
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Rebecca Scofield: The enthusiasm?
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Curt Westberg: Yeah, the enthusiasm for it. So I did the prerequisites to get into a Lit program in Boulder and did a master's in Literature there. And, I loved it. Oh, my God, that was so fun. I was just a hick from Pullman, and going in, it was a heavily, heavily feminist department. And I mean, I thought I was pretty bright? [Laughs] I got in there and our first couple of classes I was in, I'd open my mouth and I'd have these women, scary women come tell me, "Just why don't you just not say anything for a little while? Just listen, alright?" They were great teachers. It was so fun to be surrounded by people that just had the same passion that I did about literature; it was awesome.
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Curt Westberg: And then I taught. [laughs] And I hated it. [laughs] I didn't hate it, but I just was...It was like freshmen comp? And it's just like there's three people in the class that care. Yeah. Right. And the rest of em are just in there checking a box. And it was just like...So I would show them... Finally, I just got frustrated and...how can you?... Plus, they can't...They don't have a background. You can't manipulate [their writing]. You're supposed to be helping them manipulate their writing. And you can't manipulate your writing if you can't write a complete sentence.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. Right.
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Curt Westberg: And so I finally just bailed and started... It was at Southwest Missouri State, and I went back there chasing a relationship, which is a whole different topic. And I just ended up showing a movie like I showed Harold and Maude. And we read A Modest Proposal, and I just had them write about those things and I made it through. But it wasn't what I wanted to do. I got accepted into a PhD program in Literature at Oklahoma, there was a guy there that I can't remember his name now, but there was a critic there or a professor there that I really wanted to study under. American West is what I would have done. Probably really early American West stuff and I TA'd for Patty Limerick. She wrote a book called The Legacy of Conquest, which was an awesome book. There's something about the West. I grew up here. It's in my blood. There's something about it that I love, and it's super interesting.
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Rebecca Scofield: Absolutely. And if you're working with Patty Limerick, you're right on the cusp of New Western Historiography and this...
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Curt Westberg: Redefining the whole discussion.
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Rebecca Scofield: Like away from wagon wheel [western history]
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Curt Westberg: Exactly.
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Rebecca Scofield: So that's super fascinating to be right in there.
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Curt Westberg: It was fun and the entire time I was drinking, right? And I wasn't taking advantage of the...I got some intelligent regret about my past. I mean, I think everything that I ever did got me sitting in this chair right now. So you can't second guess stuff. I really like where I'm at. But intelligent regret around missing the opportunity to just...I just can't imagine how wonderful it would be to go back to school and just have nothing to do but learn.
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Curt Westberg: I'm kind of old...getting to be an old fogy, but, it's wasted. It was wasted on me a little bit. I mean, I learned a lot and I learned a lot of social...I learned lot of stuff. But the opportunity and the time.
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Rebecca Scofield: What is the saying? Youth is wasted on the young?
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Curt Westberg: Youth is wasted on the young! It kind of was. And in a lot of senses with me, it would have been nice to have had... But then I also look at the people that were super locked on that knew and they missed out on youth really. So I don't know. What do you...what can you do about it?
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Rebecca Scofield: It's hard to ever see a path in which someone appreciates every aspect of life.
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Curt Westberg: Right. It's all that magical thinking about: woulda, coulda, shoulda, right? But it was interesting. And then, you know, I took a job as a...I went to work...Well.
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Curt Westberg: So while I was in Denver working and doing my masters, that's when I first went to the rodeo, the gay rodeo. I never even imagined such a thing was even possible. Right. It was early on. It was probably...it must have been around 86 or 87, one of the first Denver rodeos. And I went to it the first year. And then I'd met-ca-n I say people's names?--Dave Stinson, who I'd met him at a summer party, some friends through in Missoula, and he was wet behind the ears cowboy from Philipsburg, Montana. And I'd never met anybody quite like him. Still a really good friend of mine. We talk a lot and we'd been talking and he'd decided to come down and so he ended up pulling a couple horses down. It was so amazing, right? It was...I was listening when you guys when you had the talk and it wasn't this, "Oh, this is a political statement I'm making," it was just dang fun.
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Curt Westberg: I don't think kids. Kids? I don't think people nowadays know what it was like in the 80s. I did not have a single role model, period. Right. Everybody that I ever saw I didn't relate to. And I thought I was alone, especially in Pullman. And not out of the closet. I was not out and proud. And Denver was wide open. I remember walking there's a bar in Denver called The Foxhole. It had a Sunday afternoon beer bust, volleyball net. And I walked in there and there was 600 guys. And I was just...I mean, it was a bit of a spiritual experience for me. It was unbelievable to know that there was...kind of knew it it by that point that I wasn't [alone] but to see it in that kind of volume, it was so fun.
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Rebecca Scofield: So can I ask how you identify in terms of gender and sexuality?
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Curt Westberg: Well, I'm not sure I understand those terms anymore, but my gender is definitely male and my sexuality is 90...I mean, I had a girlfriend in college and it's 95% gay. I've never had a relationship with a woman after I came out of the closet.
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Rebecca Scofield: And how young were you when you came out?
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Curt Westberg: Twenty. It was my senior year in college, so I must have been 22 or 23. I'd kind of got to the point where it was: do this or I don't know what's going to happen if I don't. I couldn't keep lying. And I had two sides of my brain and they didn't talk to each other. And except when I was drunk. It just got untenable. I just can't deny it anymore. I have to do this. And it was interesting.
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Rebecca Scofield: So I feel like you have a very interesting background because you grew up in a really rural place, but also in connection to a university. And so what was your kind of feeling growing up? Were you afraid of coming out?
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Curt Westberg: Oh, my God. I it's the last thing in the world I wanted. I just I wanted to be...I wanted to be like... I wanted to just fit in, right? I was always kind of a weird kid. Kind of by eighth grade, I'd kind of learned the social skills to fit in. And I didn't want to jeopardize that. And again, there was no framework for it, really. The amount of change that has happened in 40 years. I never thought I'd ever see it. It's just astonishing. It was not a conversation. It's not something I welcomed. And once I came out, I had some really good...I had a couple of guys that were so kind and so gentle early on.
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Rebecca Scofield: Were you worried about your parents at all?
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Curt Westberg: Oh, hell, yeah. I never did tell em. I never did tell them I got drunk at a party and told my sister because she was feeling sorry for herself. And so I said, Well, what about this? And, and so she told them. My dad was...I thought my dad would be the one that had the problem with it. And neither of them had big problems with it. But my mom was the one who really had to work. My dad was just like...I don't know. My dad was not an expressive guy, let's put it that way. I never knew what he was thinking. He was incredibly kind with his time. And I knew...we never got told he loved me, but I knew he loved me because of the amount of--unbelievable amounts of time--that I was included with him. And I was in Denver right by that point.
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Curt Westberg: I was in Denver by that point. Two things were going on. I'd come out of the closet and I'd kind of figured out I was an alcoholic. I got down there and I just kind of I kind of just distanced myself from everybody. Maybe three or four times a year, I'd come home sometimes for Christmas or Thanksgiving or something like that. But but I was not an active part of their lives for many, many years, actually, which is another intelligent regret. Frankly, I have not had...I've had nothing really overt...I've had one good friend that I've never talked to since he found out. And that's it for me. Which I don't know whether...I don't know how to parse that really because I read all the stories, I hear about all this stuff, and it's just so not my experience. And I don't know why that is, and it's not like I've been not around. I've never really identified [why].
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Curt Westberg: That's not 100% true in Denver. It was wonderful. I had a big group of gay friends. But the reason we were friends, because we played basketball, we played volleyball. It was sports oriented. I've never really got into the whole...I don't know. I'll keep it at that. And then my ex I was with--I was married to a guy for 20 years, married for five, but with him for 20 years. We adopted kids real early on, in 2000. We were in L.A., I was in L.A. at that point. And so we were kind of on the front wave of the gay adoption. People had been doing it, but all of a sudden, a lot of people were doing it. And we had. And so we were like our own--I mean, we'd go through the airports in Salt Lake and all these places--we were like our own gay pride parade.
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Curt Westberg: I mean, it was impossible to not know. Somebody joked, "All you need is a Native American and you're going to be your own gay pride parade." Because our daughter's Black, is half African-American. Son is blond haired, blue eyed. Two guys. And people would look and they just...you could watch them try to figure it out. But we never got any...the only blowback I ever got was from the gay people, which is really interesting. I was thinking about this the other day. Really, most of the homophobia that I've experienced in my life has been from people in the community and not outside it. And it's there's this, I think there's this.... And mainly that's because I didn't I you know, I never...I don't know why. Never been able to figure it out. But I didn't I didn't try really hard either. And I don't know if that was threatening or what but...
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Rebecca Scofield: And so for those instances of homophobia experienced from from other gay people, where they upset about your kids?
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Curt Westberg: Mostly was around the kids. When my daughter was a month old, we went back to Family Week in P-Town with a bunch of friends, L.A. friends. And we just had a ball. And I was packing around Sophia and the Baby Bjorn and Kenny in a backpack on my back. He was 18 months old. We got some pretty...people in restaurants and clubs, gay people just kind of chipping, "Selling out, buying babies, doing all this stuff." That's the only really the only instances that I can think of that coming up in my life. And I I've lived in Oklahoma and South Dakota. I was just in South Dakota for two years, three years, and I was team roping with these rednecks. And it was awesome. I don't know. I guess one of the ways I put it is I didn't demand their respect before I earned it. And that's just been my experience is once they know who you are, then it's just you. And it's not...it has never proven to be that big a deal. But if I'm coming at of them before they know me and demanding that they respect me, or treat me different or whatever, then...I've never done that, so I don't know what would happen if I did that.
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Rebecca Scofield: So by the time you're roping in the Dakotas, did you have your family with you?
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Curt Westberg: We had divorced by that point. My kids were in college, they were older at that point. But it was obvious that I wasn't...I had a buddy that we're pallin around--a long story--but not a partner. And he's a straight guy. But we were always together. And I know they were all talking about it because I roped with the same club and I got to know them. And so they were like, "Why? Why is there no women around this deal ever?" I can just imagine the conversation, but never got any shade from any of them. It's interesting. I find that interesting, actually. I don't know how to parse it exactly, but I'm blessed. I feel lucky. Cause I know the horror stories. And I'm not dismissing, I'm not diminishing that, I'm not saying that I did something right and they did something wrong. I just I don't know why I've gotten to not have that as my experience.
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Rebecca Scofield: So what were you doing for work when you were in L.A.?
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Curt Westberg: And so I quit teaching school at Southwestern Missouri State and basically left that relationship and moved down--Dave Stinson and another guy, George, had gone into business training barrel horses. Breaking colts and training barrel horses. Futurity horses; basically running in the futurities. I just said, "Hey, can I can move in? I'll pay rent. I can feed, I can ride." And so I got to ride really, really high dollar horses for a year. It was super fun. We just had a ball. It was just an absolute blast. And I taught a couple more sessions at the community colleges and I canvased for the National Toxics Campaign. It's kind of where I learned that I was good at sales. And then again, it was like, okay, I could have stayed there. There was no forward direction. So I took a job with a family friend back in Seattle that had started a company and wanted some help. And I didn't need much. And so I could come in and work there for three years and kind of learned sales.
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Curt Westberg: And then I answered an ad in the newspaper for my career at a company that wrote and built software packages that sold to construction companies. Accounting packages for construction company; started out as a salesman in Seattle, moved, told them I was going to move to L.A. cause I'd fallen in love with my ex, and just said, "I can do this from home. I'll just work for you down there." And they took a risk back then and it worked well. I worked for that company until 2017 and ended up working sales manager, VP of sales, bought in--they offered me an opportunity to buy into the company in 2008. So I bought into the company and mortgaged everything I had and bought into the company and we sold it in 2017. So it worked out pretty well. Yeah, and was super fun and I loved it. I love sales. Sales is fascinating. It's the only thing that's kept my interest because it's always different. You never know what's coming. It's just talking to people, which I'm good at. And I like that.
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Curt Westberg: And I respected the heck out of the guys I worked with. And they're really smart and I was good at it. And it paid. You know there's a reason why salespeople get paid a lot. Because there's not very many people that can do it, which I learned once I went and tried to hire salespeople. And it just doesn't, right? I could never figure out why they were willing to pay me the money they were paying me, because it's just like all I'm doing is talking to people. This is like the easiest gig in town. And boy, when I started trying to hire them, it was like, "Oh, no wonder." It's kind of like how I never could figure out how I got A's and B's in college until I taught college and read the papers. And I really I could have wrote about anything. If you can write a complete sentence and sort of logically present an argument: A or B. Because when you're reading 40 papers that you can't decipher. It's just astonishing to me.
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Rebecca Scofield: So what was the if you don't mind me asking, what was the name of the company?
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Curt Westberg: Dexter + Chaney. We had 1,000-1,300 customers or so. When I left, the average sale was around $60,000 or $70,000 back then. And we ushered it through a lot of changes in technology. And it was really well run. It got bought by Bain Capital, actually ended up buying us through another company, but a company they owned. Our biggest competitor ended up buying us. And then Trimble, which is the big giant in the construction industry, bought them after that.
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Rebecca Scofield: So what took you away from L.A., then?
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Curt Westberg: Sales Manager. I got promoted and I needed to be--they were okay with me selling in L.A. and not okay with me being a sales manager in L.A. And so I commuted back and forth for a couple of years because we had kids. My partner had a job and so we had to make that work and moved to Seattle.
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Rebecca Scofield: What part of L.A. did you live in?
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Curt Westberg: Mid-Wilshire. San Vicente and Hauser. Walking distance to The Grove and La Brea Tar Pits. It was neat. I loved L.A. It was awesome when the kids were little. As soon as they hit school age, you are looking at back then, $12,000 a year for kindergarten for each kid, out of net. It's like, there's just no way. And the public schools were just not an option, right? I mean the elementary school they would have gone to is four blocks away and it had metal detectors for first graders. You know, it's like no, we're not doing that.
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Rebecca Scofield: So they spent most of their growing up in Seattle.
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Curt Westberg: They're Seattle kids. We waited until they graduated. We moved after we sold the company. Kenny had, my son. Had he or my daughter? Well, no, they were both...They both were done right around the time that we moved back there. And they both went to University of Wyoming. My son graduated. My daughter, she's kind of like me. She was like, "Why am I here and why am I wasting your money?" And so she bailed on her senior year and she'll probably go back... who knows, life takes you.
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Rebecca Scofield: And so what part of Seattle did you live in?
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Curt Westberg: Lake Forest Park. So just 140, about 145th, 155th in there. They went to Shoreline schools and that's where I started all this. That's why mainly since we had the kids, I mainly identify with other parents. In L.A., there was a big group of gay parents that had adopted kids at the same time. But when we moved away from there, the kids were old enough to make their own friends. You don't have any time to have friends or make new friends. It's like you went through this all has been a huge part of my story. And I got sober in '98. So I've been going to a lot of AA meetings and if you tie into that crowd, it's a serious social--you get a lot of friends fast. And so [I] mainly identify with sober people and identify with other parents. And that kind of describes it. Now I'm here, it's kind of the same here.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. So what brought you back?
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Curt Westberg: I'd gone to Rapid City to work for some friends and that ran its course and I bought a recruiting company. I'm a headhunter now. I bought a recruiting company and I could do that from anywhere. And so I started that. Well, I bought a franchise, so I started the company and did that and then met my current partner, Keith. He and his kids, one of his daughters was in Bellingham. His son was in Oregon. My kids were--Kenny was still in college and Sophie had moved back to Seattle. Kenny was going to move back to Seattle. And so we was like, "Why are we here? Right? We're 1,400 miles from our people." And we loved it. We had got at a ten acre place, an arena, horses. And it was a neat place. But it just was too far, too far away. We didn't want to be that far away. So we made the decision and moved back here and love it. Actually, that's really fun. I was a little worried about Keith. He came from Jackson Hole. He'd spent 40 years, had a career in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And how do you top Jackson Hole? You can't. It takes a while to learn to love the Palouse. But once you do, it's really a wonderful place. And he's got the bug now.
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Rebecca Scofield: What's it like living in Palouse?
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Curt Westberg: I love it. It's a great little town. Yeah. It's like being back in the fifties. They blow the fire whistle every day at noon so people know when it's lunchtime. That was like when I was a little tiny kid that used to happen. And then I've never been in a place since then that did that. And every noon. And it's like 50 feet from our house because we....So just like every day at noon, it's like the fire bell goes off. And the people are wonderful. It's a really neat mix of--kind of like my life-- actually. It's a really neat mix of academics and old farmers. And everybody just seems to get along. I've never even had a negative interaction out there, you know, just super welcoming. They spend a lot of money on the city.
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Curt Westberg: We couldn't believe this: the pool is free if you live there in the summer. We're both busy, but we're trying to work our way in and give something back. And it's a neat place. I really like it. And it's, you know, 16 miles from Pullman, 16 miles from Moscow. We looked in Moscow and when we bought the market was crazy. And we had a budget we wanted to stay in and nothing in Moscow was working. And he didn't want to live in Idaho because he'd lived in Wyoming, which is apparently better than Idaho. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with here, but he didn't want to live in Idaho. He wanted to live in Washington. And neither of us lived in wanted neither was I. I lived a long time in Pullman, and I never felt like Pullman had much. It's never connected with the town. It's so dominated by WSU, it's really difficult to have its own soul.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah.
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Curt Westberg: Moscow does. And so Palouse was a great. We bought a little farmhouse in the city. First time I've lived in the city for quite a while since Seattle and 900 square feet. Built in 1892, one of the original houses out there. It's really in great shape. It's super cool.
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Rebecca Scofield: The sort of political mix of Palouse, being from Moscow, I always hear Palouse is this great little tiny liberal dot. Does it feel like pretty welcoming to you?
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Curt Westberg: Oh absolutely. Like I said, I've never had anything that isn't just a positive friendly interaction out there. And I don't go looking for it, but it's so awesome.
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Rebecca Scofield: So what's your kind of take on that? You mentioned this earlier, and just like the amount of change that has happened for LGBTQ people over that span of 40 years? What's been your experience as things have changed? And do you think could things change back? You know, how do you feel about right now?
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Curt Westberg: Astonishment, basically, astonishment. Will and Grace, right? There's just been some...media has really I think one of the reasons and just basic human goodwill. It's like more and more people coming out and more and more people know peopl. It just took on a life of its own. The marriage thing was astonishing to me. I couldn't believe that that actually happened. And be careful what you wish for because then you get all the problems. [laughs] The law of unintended consequences.
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Curt Westberg: It was really a good thing that I couldn't that marriage wasn't an option or I would have been involved in more divorces; more than one divorce. And do I think it can go back? That's a big question. I think there's two narratives, at least probably thousands of narratives, but there's two major narratives going on here. There's the normal everyday interaction that people have, and there's what we're being fed, right? And the divide, the division and I think that the two are not conversant, right? And, frankly, I have problems. I have big problems with both sides, the fringes of both sides. And, you know, I think most people, when it comes down to other people are in the middle. Both of the extremes are walking around looking for a reason to be pissed off, right? To be offended, to be scared.
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Curt Westberg: And I don't think there's very many people in either of those camps. I'm reading a book right now that I'm kind of wishing I wasn't reading. It's a kind of a political...it's a near-future. It basically takes where we're at right now and rolls it out 15 years. Just takes the narrative through 15 years with climate change, with the politics that we're in. And it's frankly super frightening. I think humans have an amazing capacity to ignore the big picture--to ignore the forest for the trees. I have to always remember there's billions of acts of kindness happening every day right in the world. There's far more kindness and love in the world than there is the crap we read about. But all we see is that most not all, but 99% of what we see is the horror. And then you sit there and you get more and more insulated, more and more polar[ized]. And there are no answers for it, right? I mean, the far left scares me as much as the far right does, just for completely different reasons.
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Curt Westberg: But in the end, it all comes down to...I don't know. So I think a lot about it. In terms of me personally, I think Keith and I are going to probably...I don't see how they can roll marriage back just because it's gone far enough and maybe states can take it back. Maybe the Supreme Court will do the same thing that they did with abortion and throw it back on the states. And in that case, then it's like that's why we're living in Washington. Just I'm hoping that something somebody wakes up. And has a message. The thing I cannot believe is how out of 350 million people, the two people that are running for president are the best we can come up with. It's just...it's tragic. Right. But then who in their right mind would want that job? I mean, I figured that out a long time ago. If you want to be president, you're immediately disqualified. [laughs] There is something seriously wrong with you. I think it should be...nobody asked me. [laughs] I got a lot of ideas.
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Rebecca Scofield: So as you as you moved to Seattle and then L.A. and then back to Seattle, did you stay involved with rodeo?
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Curt Westberg: No. Once I left Oklahoma, I pretty much...just like in college. It was just like, "This is problematic. I don't have a horse." I lived in Seattle, all the rodeos were Denver east, pretty much. I could have kept doing it, but I got involved in relationships and life and work and life just took its own course. And you know what? Again, it was like, it's fun, right? It's fun, but it wasn't...And then actually it's so funny because Denver right before COVID. So 20--, it must have been 2019. I went to the Denver rodeo. It's kind of going the way a gay bars. It's like "we just call it rodeo." My kids are like, "It's just a bar. We don't call it a gay bar." There's no need. So they're not so much of a need anymore for that for the ghetto. For, "That this is a gay bar. And that's not a gay bar." Now, it's like my kids, I used to ask em, "Do you think that guy's gay?" They go, "Never thought about it. And why does it matter? Why would you even...? Who cares?" Right? I mean, it's so different.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah.
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Curt Westberg: I went to their prom--I was a chaperon at one of their dances in high school, and it's like women, lesbian couples, gay couples. My kids have three or four friends that are transgender, that I watched play soccer when they were five. And it's just a different world for the next [generation], for the younger people. I try, but I'm stuck in the '80s thinking. My upbringing--'70s, '80s--and it's hard to imagine that it doesn't matter. And so no I didn't stick with the rodeo stuff until we went back to the rodeo and that was a blast. We had fun. You know, Candy Pratt, is a friend of mine. I knew her when I lived or got to be good friends with her when I lived in Oklahoma. And a bunch of the...a few of the old guys were still around. Dave Stinson didn't come. He's pretty much quit doing it. And you know, we're getting old. But we had we had a lot of fun actually.
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Curt Westberg: But it was a it was a kind of a shadow of it itself. I mean, the year before I moved away, Dave and I actually won team roping at the finals. And we did that a couple of years in a row actually. I was never all that good, but I was good enough. It's such a beast. It's such a beast of its own. And that's what's sad. It's inclusive in a way that you just go to a PRCA rodeo and there's no there's no inclusion there. Those guys are top athletes, are riding $100,000 horses. It's fun to watch, but it's not a participatory event. And that's what I that is both. When I first started the first rodeo I went to, they still announced the names of the horses that the people were riding, which coming from high school, college rodeo, kind of the hardcore rodeo scene, that was, "oh, this is a different place. This is different."
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Curt Westberg: Back then it was still in its beginnings. And there was just a sense of for me and I think it was pretty pervasive, there was just a sense of newness. And relief and gratitude and not a lot of politics. You know, I see you guys studying this stuff now. And it was interesting experience for me to listen to that talk because it's it was never about that. And some of the questions that, "What was their race?" Looking for things. Now, first of all, if you think about it, there's 20% of the population is African-American, and the filtering that goes down to having somebody even know what a rodeo is enormous. And so...but I never saw even hint of that anywhere there, Black guys were just guys. There's one thing I love about the LGBTQ community...or I'm not sure if it's still that way, I haven't been really involved in it for so long...but it seemed it just was there, just wasn't any of that stuff, at least in my experience.
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Rebecca Scofield: So you've talked about some identity categories like parent and salesperson.
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Curt Westberg: Yeah.
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Rebecca Scofield: So one question that I always ask is: do you consider yourself a cowboy?
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Curt Westberg: Probably. Just more in the what the ethic represents. Just a way of thinking. Do I get on a horse every day and go chase cows around? No. I think there's something that I admire greatly in the no bullshit. And there's a lot of ignorance everywhere. I think that some of the values that I that I've got and that I've identified come from there. Because those guys in South Dakota, they would never talk politics. We never talk to religion. And that's just my...they were willing...there is no way I was going to do that. I don't care. That's personal. That's none of my business. And it will interfere with our relationship because I'm going to say, how could you vote for that idiot? And they're going to say, well.... It's not a way to foster connection.
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Curt Westberg: And connection is one of my huge values.I don't have to have the people that I connect with think just like me. And I think that's a cowboy [value]...especially older. Wisdom comes with age. I don't know how to answer that question. I'll think about that question. Yes. Yes. And one of the things I dislike about-- I dislike this in anybody--is being in love with my own ignorance. And there's a lot of that, but there's a lot of that everywhere. So how do you filter that out from the...I like the good things about being a cowboy.
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Curt Westberg: And if I had to pick one thing, that's probably what I'd pick. Except I was sitting in...I'm an on again and off again vegan. I have all of a sudden fallen onto this Buddhist path that I didn't expect--came out of nowhere. I'm a team roper. I'm gay. There's one of me right now. If I wanted to feel unique, I could. I don't like feeling unique, right? I like being connected to people and noticing the similarities rather than the differences. So I've had some good teachers--some really good teachers--cowboys and others that really taught me I think what's important: compassion, love. Not: how do you talk? What are you? I get scared sometimes about the direction things are going in. Just everybody seems to want to be unique and recognized. I think there's some...I don't know how to...I got to do some more thinking about it.
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Rebecca Scofield: Do you think that it plays into American individualism a lot versus--I spent a year in Japan and there it is so focused on the collective. And so how in America do we balance this desire for individualism? But also when does it get to the point that then we have no meaningful categories?
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Curt Westberg: It's a legacy of conquest, right? It's hard to shake our Puritan roots and it's hard to shake our westward [movement], or "Give me room. Don't tell me what to do." And a lot of what I share, it's really hard, right? It's a great experiment. And I think we're in an interesting phase of the experiment right now because I think both sides are trying to do the opposite of that. The right wing is like, "Give me...I want freedom as long as it looks exactly like what I think freedom looks like I want to have freedom. I don't want you to have freedom." And the left is...we're going to get to where we can't have a conversation anymore without offending somebody. Probably doing it right now. [laughs] It's just not conducive to any kind of collective goodwill. What I'm trying not to do is just buy 40 acres in the mountains and get some solar panels, right? I mean, that's a such a temptation. I know I could live, right? There's days when it's just like, "Oh, Let's just do that. All right? Let's dig a well and get some solar panels and grow our own food."
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Rebecca Scofield: It's hard to keep opting in.
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Curt Westberg: It is hard to keep...that's a great way to put it. It's hard to keep opting in because we're not getting much back other than fear. Just seems like we're so dominated by fear, which is if you look at the big picture stuff like climate change and rampant capitalism, capitalism driven by quarterly earnings. Capitalism pointed in the right direction is an incredibly powerful thing. And it's so not pointed in that direction right now. It's completely out of whack. And I'm not a Marxist. I just think that what government's job is: to steward--in America anyway--a steward to capitalism. And we've missed the point on that. Because we've created a political class. It is so astonishing to me. You don't have to look very far in history, over and over and over again. What happens when you concentrate wealth? What happens when you concentrate wealth? What happens when you concentrate wealth? What happens? You guys don't end up well. You think you would have learned a lesson This time will be different, right?
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Rebecca Scofield: I mean, in general, they don't like history.
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Curt Westberg: No, that's fake news.
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Rebecca Scofield: It's hard to learn from it...
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Curt Westberg: French Revolution is fake news.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. I think it's really interesting that you've talked a lot about this very particular place you came from. I mean, were your parents religious at all?
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Curt Westberg: No, no, I still, to this day, have no idea whether my dad believes in God or not. He just did not...it was an absolute…I never...and our relationship was such that I would have never asked him that question. I think they felt like their parents weren't particularly [religious] either. Neither of them. My father's side anyway was teachers and college academics. And I just think that...I don't know what they believed, frankly. I think my mom and I have talked about it. I think she has a concept of a higher power. I don't if she's ever really defined it. We went to church on Easter and Christmas. I tried a couple of times when I was young to generate some belief and just never took. The questions were too great for me. I could never divorce myself from, "How does this really work? I don't quite get it." It just never it never passed the sniff test. And I got sober when I was 30, I guess I was 36, 35, 36, somewhere in there. And it's not a religious program either.
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Curt Westberg: But it does require something other than you. Alcohol, it's been your god. Now, it needs to be something else. It can't just be you because it's too strong a god. That's basically how to put it. And so I generated enough of one to put it in the place of alcohol. And I never really, couldn't go much further than that. I've tried all kinds of things. And that's basically what got me sober was a spiritual bankruptcy. I just knew there had to be something else to life and I couldn't get it. And AA lasted for a long time. And then just recently, it's still astonishing to me that there's these guys--that people that have been thinking about this stuff for 2600 years. Not about god, but about how the brain works. And why does this happen? Because it was always the big question for me is why does why does the same event have two different out[comes]? The same thing happens to two different people and they have two completely different [reactions]. I just I don't know. I've just gotten really intellectually, extremely intellectually, extremely interested in it. And it just appears true to me. With a capital T.
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Curt Westberg: It's like AA, they don't ask you to believe in anything, right? No, there's no god. It's: here's what I've found. Go try it yourself and see what happens. So it's exactly like AA, it's really interesting. I think that if I write anything, I'm going to write about that. So that's currently--it's kind of turned my world upside down. It's like I'm looking at things different. And really when it comes down to it, it's like all religions, right? Be nice. Love your neighbor. Religion--organized religion--has people involved. And once people get involved, right, then all bets are off. The basic teachings of all of them, I think--I haven't studied the Muslim religion, I haven't I have a little know a little bit about the Hindus; I know some about Christianity, and I learned a lot about Buddhism--and they're all saying the same thing, right? Love. Compassion. You're not the center of the universe.
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Curt Westberg: How do you how do you deal with this stuff? And it's seriously comforting to me in a way that I never thought religion could be comforting. It's just, "oh, okay. Well, I don't have to..." My marching orders are clear and I don't have to just be lost in trying to create some meaning out of whole cloth. I have absolutely zero idea where it's going to lead, but it's definitely... Just meditation alone. That's where it started with me was I meditated for a year, there's this program called Mindfulness in Recovery, which is a mindfulness based kind of in addition to AA. It's not 12 steps. It's like, no, this is about mindfulness. But the program itself is for people in any form of recovery. So if you consider yourself in recovery, you belong there. And it's 24 minutes of meditation a day. And I did it for a year. And I started it just [specific form of] meditation, just breaths, just calm, abiding, concentrated on my breath, trying to concentrate on my breath and watching what my brain does.
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Curt Westberg: And it's like, Oh, my God. It's like this thing is out of control. One of the teachers I listen to talks about it being like a horse. An untamed horse. Your brain is your thoughts, your ego, whatever you want to call it, is it just jerking around all day? You can't do anything with it until you tame it. She's like a horse. You can't take a mustang, throw a saddle on it, and expect it to run the barrels. You got to train the damn thing. And so it's really been interesting and it, like AA had for me, the effects it's having on my life are never what I expected. I always expect euphoria. Left to my own devices, if I'm not euphoric there's something horribly wrong with the world. And that's just, that's just insane thinking and it led me...basically what I've been led around by my most of my life, right? Is that nope, this is going to make me euphoric.
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Curt Westberg: And then you get the euphoria for short periods of time and then it's gone and then you suffer and you try to get it back and it just creates this grasping, right? There's more and more and more. It's the basis of some of the problems in our society, I think. Is it? I think we have a spiritual illness in this society. And, you know, and I don't know what the answer is, but I'm enjoying the journey I'm on at the moment and you know how that relates to anybody else. I don't even know. I know how hard I've had to work to get here. Just really the large chunks of truth I've had to swallow about myself. And if I would not have been going to die, I would not have. There's no way I would have done it. So I look at my friends and it's like, Yeah, yeah, good luck. Right? It's just tough. We believe what our brains tell us hook, line and sinker. Every single time, even when it's telling us to don't have a sandwich, you're fat, have a sandwich, you're hungry. And then the same voice, same brain gets in a big fight with itself about what you should do, right? It's like insane. It's like crazy.
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Rebecca Scofield: So you talked about how, you know, the way in which he really was not political. Right. And you talked about how connection is really important in that in the...
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Curt Westberg: I'm sorry to interrupt. It was political. It was a big fuck you. There was an underlying... It was: "No, we can do this. You can't tell us not to do this. Come try to make us not do this."
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Rebecca Scofield: Yes. Yeah.
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Rebecca Scofield: And I think that's probably what researchers will talk about is like even when it when it wasn't necessarily...
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Curt Westberg: We weren't in there feeling this self-satisfaction about being political. We were just having a rodeo.
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Rebecca Scofield: But that it had political implications.
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Curt Westberg: Oh, absolutely.
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Rebecca Scofield: And then you were talking about how you sort of avoided talking about things that are going to come in the way of connection with people at straight rodeos. You have to be like, "Why did you vote for that person?" Was it the same at the gay rodeo that you didn't talk about religion or you didn't talk about politics or? Or was or was there some sort of...
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Curt Westberg: It was a pretty homogenous community when I was doing it. We were all liberals. And I did talk about it back then. I didn't learn that until recently. Not to talk to people about that stuff. [laughs] I used to have a lot of opinions that I was willing to share with people. And we had such an overriding common theme. That it kind of pushed all the differences to the to the back. I mean, there were people that I didn't want to hang around and there was people that I didn't want to hang around. And half of it generated by sexual attraction. And, you know, there's always that. It was a place...It was a place. And by the time the last couple of rodeos I went to we were we were rock stars and I was young and, you know, young. I was young and I was young and....[laughs] It was really, really just ego driven fun. It was it was great time.
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Curt Westberg: And the gay community is cursed with substances. You can't have a conversation about the gay community without talking about substance abuse. You just can't. Not everybody in it is abusing them. But, I mean, all you got to do is look at meth in the gay community. I'm probably stepping on more people's toes. But but it's just tragedy, right? Because there is a sense of...Well, I don't know if it attracks. I don't know and it's everywhere. It's not like I don't know if it's any greater in the gay community than it is in other communities. But I've certainly noticed that in the gay community and being sober in that environment was strange. Yeah, it was weird.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah, were you sober?
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Curt Westberg: I was not drinking. Because I knew I had a problem. And when I drank, I didn't know if I was going to stop. And I couldn't not for any extended period of time. Two things that make me an alcoholic. And so I pretty much didn't...I'd pick men that would take one look at my drinking and go, "We're not having this. If you want to stay with me, you're going to stop drinking." And so I'd quit, right? And I'd be increasingly miserable. You can't take away your medicine and not put something in its place. And codependency is not a good answer for that. So there were times when I did and times when I didn't. Generally, I'm not one of those people that every time I drink was horrible. No, I had a great time. It was just unpredictable.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. I mean, I would assume that's part of what drives addiction is because you do have a good time.
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Curt Westberg: Oh, it scratches that itch, right? That I want to be euphoric. I know how to be euphoric. Three martinis. Right. And I have a sense of euphoria, but it doesn't last. And then I chase it, and then I end up doing pitifully and incomprehensibly demoralizing things.
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Curt Westberg: I don't remember your question so well...
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Rebecca Scofield: When you look at the archive of of gay rodeos, there's a lot of focus on the parties or when I went to the 2021 Denver and they had the party busses running from Charlie's. And it seems like that was so much a part of the...
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Curt Westberg: I remember when Bud Light agreed to sponsors. Or one one of the beer companies agreed to sponsor and it was like huge deal, right? But that's everywhere. And we have such a weird relationship with it. But yeah, definitely, it was about the party, right? It was not a professional sport. It got to be more that way. I think by the time I was quitting and there was enough money in it. It was big enough that there was enough money in the jackpots, that it was starting to attract people that would have never gone to one before because they could win. And the competition was still...For the money, the competition was not the same as the other rodeos. And so we got to be more serious. But rodeo is not any bastion of mental health, just regular PRCA rodeo is not a bastion of mental health. It's a tough life and there's a lot of there's a lot of [substance] abuse. It's just the way it is.
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Rebecca Scofield: And certainly being...I was a young, straight woman around rodeos and they seemed like great places to meet cowboys.
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Curt Westberg: Oh, my God. Yeah.
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Rebecca Scofield: I mean, does it have that feeling of just sex and alcohol and a good time?
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Curt Westberg: Absolutely. I mean, can we get candid on this?
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Rebecca Scofield: Yes.
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Curt Westberg: Okay. I think that straight men and women and maybe gay women, maybe lesbians, too, don't understand what being gay was and probably still is like. Which is: I could get laid as much by just walking to the grocery store. That sounds egotistical, but it wasn't. I mean, I'm a decent looking guy. I'm not, you know, but I'm not the best thing in the world. And it was just never a problem. Right. And I guess just like, you know, I had a friend who used to say, women need a reason and men need a place. Right. [laughs] I'm not sure if that's offensive or not. But, it's, you know, I've had this conversation with my straight friends a lot over the years. It's like, "You guys just have to work so hard for that."
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Curt Westberg: Especially the single ones. You know what I mean? It's just this this whole dance where, you know, it's not the same. Yeah, that's exactly what it was about. But, but everywhere was...going to the grocery store was like that, right? I mean, going to any bar. There was really one..."Oh, I'm going to go for the camaraderie." No, you're not. Right. Well, let's not fool ourselves. [laughs] I don't think it was any...that was just a natural extension. It wasn't anything...And it was fun because there was more people that, if you like that kind of thing, there was more people there that were kind of concentrated.
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Rebecca Scofield: Did you see long term relationships, marriages, partnerships emerge out of that culture? I mean, that's a big thing in straight rodeo. You have like the buckle bunnies and, and lots of emphasis though on sort of eventual marriage and things like that.
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Curt Westberg: I don't think I saw anything any of that more than anywhere else. I don't think it was...I think "I want to go land me a cowboy." Right. I think and they landed them cowboy and then it has predictable results generally. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. It depends on the players. And so it's you know, it's but I don't... It just was about...most of the guys...shoot a lot of the guys who were competing, especially in the horse events, it was a way to get together and compete that wasn't available. That wasn't really available in other places. I mean, you could go to team opens and stuff and that's fun, but not with those people.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah.
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Curt Westberg: Right. And so there was a tremendous sense of camaraderie and just shared purpose and fun around it that that was more around the rodeo--just being able to do this. Frankly, I was just absolutely amazed that...I was just absolutely amazed. I couldn't believe that it was even happening in the beginning, you know? And then it got serious. I mean, I missed the serious years, but I heard a lot of stories from Dave and Candy, and it got serious. There was a lot of money in it and big crowds. It's a little sad that it's not, you know, that it's run...And I don't know if it's run its course or not. I know Candy has been president and I know that there's still a community there for sure. But now it's more of a...I think from what I gathered from the Denver rodeo, it's more of a...it's not drawing new people in as much as it did. I think it's more like a team roping club, right? You know, people that do it and enjoy it and have fun and trade their money back and forth, and that's great. I mean, and who knows what will happen in the future, right? And I'm not that's not in any way a diss on the thing. And I don't think anybody's doing anything wrong to make that different. I think it's just it's just a function of of where we're at society wise, you know?
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. You had mentioned that kind of the wages of success. But yeah, we no longer have to ghettoize or put in niche spaces. But there is a sense of sadness.
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Curt Westberg: Oh yeah, it would be nice to just go to a gay bar and know that it was like the old gay bars were. Right now it's like, well, not that I couldn't go to bars, but I don't. But and plus I'm, you know, Logan's run for gay people. You know, I'm 60. [laughs] I'm that guy. It's definitely a young man's game. Which is fine. That doesn't even bug me. I don't have a lot of interest in that anymore. And I think that's the reason--I think the young [people] they've got big groups of friends. They still may get ostracized by their parents and stuff, but not by their friend groups. Right. They just go to a bar.
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Rebecca Scofield: I think especially the emergence of apps, the ability to meet people online.
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Curt Westberg: Oh, my God. That changed absolutely...I mean, that's like, why would you go? It's insane for straight people. Why would you go anywhere? Right? Why am I going to go spend 20 bucks on a drink when I could just swipe left? Or swipe right? Or whatever you do. It's just...it's instant. It's like social...Absolute antithesis of those things or just the the absolute essence of those things. Just because we can doesn't mean we should.
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Rebecca Scofield: Well, I think it goes back to what you were saying about connection. And so it's like it gives us so much, but also...
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Curt Westberg: Well, after my ex and I broke up, I played on those things, right? And it's just like, it's super convenient and interesting. I mean, sociologists must just be having a ball right now.
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Rebecca Scofield: Well, so I really want to ask you, because you have so much background in this. I mean, you've you've read historiography on this stuff. You've read Western literature. A big question I always get it is like, can the cowboy be a liberal icon?
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Curt Westberg: A liberal icon?
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. Is it too grounded in these really brutal histories about the legacy of conquest? Can it be an icon for inclusion and diversity and celebrating different pasts than all of these things? What are your thoughts on that?
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Curt Westberg: Well, I think individual cowboys can be that.
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Rebecca Scofield: Mhm. Mhm.
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Curt Westberg: I've never, I've never even entertained that thought. Could it be...? I think it could be... It could, I think it could move people back to the center. I'm not sure it's ever going to be the, you know, it's not going to be the...what are they going to call it? Cowperson?
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Rebecca Scofield: Cowfolks.
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Curt Westberg: Cowfolks
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Rebecca Scofield: Cowfolks comes up a lot at the gay rodeo on and off, I think particularly for women, even people who, you know, are trying to talk about all of gay rodeo, not just cowboys or cowgirls. They get tired of saying the same thing right.
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Curt Westberg: Cowfolk makes sense. There's nothing wrong with that. Although "folk" is on the Stanford list of words that you can't use now. [laughs] So just saying. Could it be? If it can get divorced from either side, then, yes, I think it could. I think there's the potential that maybe it could be a rallying point for some sort of sanity in the discussion. You know, there's good things over here. There's good things over here. We're going to land in the middle. We're not going to demand that everybody do everything exactly the way I think they should. And we're not going to think that everybody's exactly the same. And there's only two of these and there's only one of those. And so could it be that? I think cowboys are historically, "Don't tell me what to do." They're freethinkers. Right? In a lot of ways sometimes I just like any there's... they're people. So there's thinkers and there's not thinkers. And, you know, the sex appeal, it's going to be hard to maintain that in the face of...it really is an ideal looking at the past.
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Rebecca Scofield: Mhm.
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Curt Westberg: Right. Which was never true in the first place. Just read Lonesome Dove. I mean it's just like oh my God, what a brutal...what is the word...short, short, brutal...there's a saying about life. It was a brutal life. And they were just trying to live. You know, it's like a mountain man. They just idealized this mountain man. Tough, rugged, individual. They lived like forty years. And usually died horrible deaths. Right. It was horrible. That was George Watkins' big message. That everything you've read is bullshit. Right. It's not that. And I think that's true. You know, I think anybody who looks from the outside and says, "Well, this is the cowboy way," and all that kind of stuff. It's like, "No, there's not such a thing." And so, you know, is it as good an icon as any? You know, probably. I mean, in a could. Right.
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Curt Westberg: Who knows? I mean, people are astonishing. Right. Who knows what's going to happen...if social media takes it up and, you know, could be. But I don't think...I think that the days of idolizing that lifestyle are...there's too many problems. It's fine as long as everybody looks alike. Right. It's fine as long as everybody thinks alike. It's fine as long as they're cultural experience is homogenous. And it's not trying to go back there or trying to put a new one in its place. What does that look like? And can you morph it into that? No, it'd be a long slog. I guess, what is the reason for that? Is that are rallying? What is the reason to do that? Do we want it? Do we want to take something that used to mean this and then change it into meaning this? I don't know. They need their own. They need to come up with new icons. Let this stuff die a peaceful death. Because it's I guess part of it is we don't accurately view reality.
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Curt Westberg: And so we're continually making decisions based on a delusional view of reality. Right. We refuse to look at...We just don't want to. Our brains won't. Right. We can think about it for one second. Like this for example: death is certain, but the time of death is uncertain. So if you knew that, right? If you really knew that and could keep that conscious, how would you live your life? Well, you'd live it in a whole different way than you...I would live it in an entirely different way than I live it right now. Because what is important, right? That question just says, "Okay, if I was dying tomorrow, what's important? How am I going to spend my next 24 hours?" Well, you never know. Right. And so we can't do it. Our brains, evolutionarily are not, do not allow us to do that.
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Curt Westberg: Unless you just sit on a cushion for a lot [of time], but it's a full time job to just try to keep...I mean, I can keep that thought in my head for about 30 seconds and then bam, I'm off on something else. And so I just think that...I don't think there's much value in defining redefining something from the past. I think you're just you're always chasing...it's always going to be, "what isn't it?" What is it? What is it not? And so I don't know. I think, if you really look at the reality of it, it was never an icon in the first place. It was a short, brutish life led on ignorance.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah.
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Curt Westberg: And everybody looked the same. There was mostly... And the ones who didn't, we killed. I mean, why would we want to rewrite...? And then it goes back to your question earlier. Well, do you think of yourself as one? Well, probably. What does that mean about you? Who knows? I like that...there's something about the individualist...Not that I can do everything myself, but that there is personal responsibility there. I do have a responsibility to others. And to myself and to the environment and to all these things. I think that there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing that puts the cowboy out of that. But when you're, I don't know, trying to take it and make it into something else, I don't know. Where did that question come from?
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Rebecca Scofield: Some of my students ask, really, you know, because like, obviously I'm a lefty professor. Right. And but I study mythology and cowboy...
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Curt Westberg: The Virginian, Owen Wister, James Fenimore Cooper.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yes, exactly. How this all emerged and but I grew up in Idaho too, I grew up around cowboys. Like the pictures of my grandpa on the ranch with chaps. And my mom inherited that ranch. And so for me to I get asked this a lot with my friends and students of like, "Was this even an icon that that should be used by queer people or by...?" And so I think for me, I really liked what you were saying in terms of whenever we reappropriate things from the past, it's never going to be an actual image of what was the past.
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Curt Westberg: Well, because the past wasn't one thing ever.
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Rebecca Scofield: Ever. I mean, even if we look at cowboys, the conditions in which they worked would have been radically different in Texas than the Pacific Northwest. I mean, everybody's life is so full of nuance.
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Curt Westberg: Exactly.
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Rebecca Scofield: And so it was already an amalgamation and icons are always already constructed.
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Curt Westberg: Well, if you define it as people who chase cows around. It's a pretty select group. There was there never was very many of them in the first place.
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Rebecca Scofield: Especially open range, we're looking at maybe a 20 year time span.
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Curt Westberg: The 1850s, maybe the 1860s to 1890s, maybe in...
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Rebecca Scofield: Before barbed wire.
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Curt Westberg: Yeah. And then even if you put all the cowboys that have ever been...even if you define it liberally you put them in a room or put them in...I don't know how many it would be, but it wouldn't be that many.
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Rebecca Scofield: But I really like to quote this Ralph Lauren ad from the eighties that if you're an American man, somewhere deep inside is a little bit of a cowboy.
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Curt Westberg: Oh, absolutely. It's the Marlboro Man.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. The way it has spoken to larger groups of people who live outside of that, like working class lifeway.
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Curt Westberg: They want to feel some way differently than going into a cubicle every day makes them feel.
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Rebecca Scofield: Mm hmm. Right. Mm hmm. And a lot of people have said, I think it was a quote by a leatherman, talking about how Europe has Beowulf, you know? Right. They have these past...
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Curt Westberg: Vikings.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. Like, what is our past? Our past is the cowboy.
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Curt Westberg: Cowboys, right? Oh, absolutely.
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Rebecca Scofield: The way in which you construct your own identity based on shared ideas about the past.
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Curt Westberg: That's absolutely true. It's the overarching. Right. Where does that leave women? It's like, who's the woman's ideal?
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Rebecca Scofield: I don't know. Especially since even in rodeo women bronc rode all the time in the 1910s and '20s. And then that was completely expunged by rodeo queens in the '20s and '30s. And it completely sort of rewrote that narrative of like, well, women have never bronc rode.
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Curt Westberg: Oh, they were tough...I mean, I think a lot of that is come about that gender, the gender and what's the word? The gender fixity. Has come about relatively recently. I mean, women pretty much ruled the world for about 390,000 years.
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Rebecca Scofield: And the way in which all the markers tend to change over time. In some societies, obviously it's women's job to work in agriculture and other societies, no women can't work in agriculture. And so, it's all just so it's like you said.
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Curt Westberg: I wrote about this all my masters. I mean, Richard II was one of the plays that we read and I think it was Richard II or Edward. One of the...the guy who gets killed with a poker. Richard II, I think...the subjugation of women really came about, "Well, you know who your kids are? I don't know if those are my kids." And it came about with the with the concentration of wealth. I want to make sure that my genetics is getting what...I mean, this isn't radical thought, but. I think that homophobia was the same thing. It wasn't so much about...I think guys have always screwed around. It's not like this just came out. This just happened--as much as the Christians would like to think that it's because it's brand new. It's always been there. I hate to tell you, it just was never nobody ever until the class system. Right. And you could take a commoner and make them a noble. Right. And that was why they killed Rick. Not because he was gay. They killed him because he did that. He threatened the power structure. They could have cared less who he was fucking. I mean, it was just that he subverted. And I think that there's a lot of that.
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Rebecca Scofield: One of my good friends is the ancient historian, and you look at practice versus identity and yeah, people have had sex with other people of all kinds for millennia. But as long as it didn't threaten the power structure.
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Curt Westberg: The power structure.
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Rebecca Scofield: I think that is crucial to get students to understand.
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Rebecca Scofield: Well, and I think since the '50s, it wasn't as big a deal that I can tell from reading and stuff. It wasn't that big a deal until really until women started... until the '50s, really '40s and '50s--when the men went to work, the women stayed home. They were set, there was one income. And the two income thing is a hit on the power with power system. You guys have more chance to succeed than I do. And that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah right. Yeah. I think it's a some really interesting stuff about how we how we think about the past, how we construct our identities around them. And even I definitely, obviously participate in this a lot being from Idaho.
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Curt Westberg: It's like our operating system.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so my final question before I let you go. So Gay Rodeo is one of those interesting places that actually brought gay men and lesbian women together, which often didn't happen. You know, bars were segregated.
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Curt Westberg: They were segregated.
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Rebecca Scofield: And so how was it since you were there? Kind of as it was beginning...what were the discussions around that? How did women operate in the system? Did they feel super included?
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Curt Westberg: They ran it most of the time. Take everything I say worth a grain of salt. They had more energy, more organizational energy than most guys. Right? They were good at it. Not all of them. But you know what I'm saying? I mean, they just and they were willing to step up. Right. And it was wonderful. I mean, that was one of the best parts about it for me was the ability to not just know gay guys. Right. To not just have male friends. There's a lot of and that's probably where that came from because I didn't have a lot of...I didn't know any...Where would I ever meet them? I think actually that's really interesting. And I think that they talk about the gay agenda a little bit. Your question is he gay agenda. So when you all sat down and tried to come up with the gay rodeo theme, now, who got decided to do this and who got decided to do this? And there was none of that. I mean, you get three gay guys together and you can't decide where to go to lunch, right? I mean, it just happened, right?
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Curt Westberg: And the people who were willing to do it stepped up and some of them were lesbians and some of them were gay men. And so there was never this...there was people that definitely would go after the sponsors. I played on in a gay basketball league in Denver. And we actually played...No, it wasn't....There wasn't a gay league. There was...we just played in basketball leagues and we were a gay team and everybody kind of figured it out. But we played the police... that was a planned political statement, much more so than I ever saw around the rodeos. And I wasn't at the table either in most of it. I mean, I was closer by the time I quit, you know, in Oklahoma than I was...But I was I didn't want a clip board. I didn't want anything to do with that. But I know myself well enough that I can't keep my ego out of the way far enough to be an effective planner and those sort of things. And so I don't...maybe they did have meetings about that stuff... I don't know really. But I kind of I kind of doubt it.
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Rebecca Scofield: I mean there was definitely some discussion about whether to call it the Gay and Lesbian Rodeo Association or just the gay association. There's definitely some discussions about women's safety in the arena and things like that.
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Curt Westberg: Safety like...?
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Rebecca Scofield: Well, there's some men who talked about like, "Are women going to get injured doing this and then we're going to look like a bunch of bad guys?" So that came up.
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Curt Westberg: Why don't you let the women decide if they want to do that? Really? Are you making a decision? Are you, like, speaking for all women? [laughs]
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Rebecca Scofield: Yeah. I think that was the response of the women who were involved. [laughs]
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Curt Westberg: Yeah. I mean, I could see the gay rodeo just easier, right? I mean...should probably shut the mic off. It's just easier, right? It was just easier. And you didn't want to put...you don't have to have an explanation of the thing on the sign. When you say gay rodeo, it's assumed that or nobody's going to be surprised if there's lesbians there. I mean, and especially back then. And maybe that's probably way too simplistic. I don't know. I never heard any discussions about that. And I don't even know if they sat down and maybe they sat down and decided to call it Gay Rodeo. I mean, it just that's what it was. [laughs] I think it's a descriptor. It's not a title.
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Curt Westberg: Having felt disenfranchised when I first came out and really when society actually really did, you know, you have to be careful, right. Of where you are, what you're doing. And I'm starting to feel that same thing from the gay community and what's happening with the with the mass amounts...Not that it shouldn't, not that it shouldn't be inclusive. I don't know where to go, but I don't feel the same...I'm just a regular old 60 year old gay guy. I mean, I'm just like I'm just I'm like the straight guy of the gay world.
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Rebecca Scofield: Yep.
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Curt Westberg: I mean, is that...? Am I reading that wrong? I mean, that feels really...that makes me sad, right? I don't know how to have discussions about gender. I mean, I can. I'm not dumb. I mean, I can. And I don't care. Right? I have zero question about my gender and I have zero question about my sexuality. And both of them are like...it's like going back to foundation horse racing stock right now. It's like, okay, that's all old stuff? And now all this new cool stuff is going on, right? And I don't even know...I don't even know how to talk. I don't know when I'm offending somebody. I don't ever mean to offend anybody, but I don't know how to do it. I run into it in AA. I run into it everywhere now. And I try my hardest, right? My kids will tell me, "you can't say that." It doesn't happen very often. I mean, I'm pretty astute. Occasionally they'll give me that look and it's like, [sigh] I might want to think about that...my daughter, especially, "Ah, think about that one a little bit more."
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Rebecca Scofield: Mhm.
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Curt Westberg: I just feel, I guess, left...not left behind. But left behind. I'm probably not alone in that. I would guess, you know. So it'll be interesting and that's fine. That happens right. I mean it's great. I'm glad...that's why I was willing to come out of the closet in the first place. I didn't keep it serious. I knew what the ramifications of that were going to be. And I'd had hopes. That, okay, if I could do it, then maybe it'll make it easier for somebody else. And I'm not sure I ever had that thought actually, that's probably way too grandiose for what I was thinking at the time. I've certainly adopted that as I've gotten...as I've been in situations where it's easy to hide. It's easy for me to hide. I can hide, but I don't all the time. Sometimes it's in business, especially, sometimes it's just none of nobody's business.
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Curt Westberg: And I'm not asking them, "Who you're sleeping with?" You know, it doesn't come up. But if it comes up, I don't hide. Right. And so, I'm hoping that it makes it easier for somebody else, especially in AA. I mean, that's where I probably put far more effort into AA and sobriety than I do into being a good gay boy. I never like parades. I was in a couple of them I don't like gay pride parades or I don't...especially when I quit drinking. That really alienated me from the big events. Because it's fun for a couple hours and then it's like, I got to go home now. You guys are getting boring. So it's really interesting. It's interesting. Yeah, that's a whole nother topic. Getting old.
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Rebecca Scofield: Okay, Well, I want to be mindful of your time. So, is there anything else you want to mention before we wrap up?
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Curt Westberg: No. I mean, I'll be interested to read the work you guys are doing. Because it didn't seem like anything worth studying when it was happening. It was in a very tawdry way, it was very wholesome. There was a wholesomeness to it that...because the values...there is values in rodeo. It's a value driven...in a lot of ways. I mean, that's idealism. That's idealistic, of course. But at its base, it's spiritual. Even though I don't 100% agree with the spiritual nature of it, it is a lot of...it's spiritual and family and all of these things that are themselves, the values themselves are good values. How they're expressed is an entirely different thing. But the values themselves are good. Right. And it had elements of that...family was all of us. Spirituality was this nature of being free. And so, I mean, my memories of it are...I didn't do it until I got sick of it. Right. Which I think has happened.
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Curt Westberg: Like with anything but for me it was transformative, really. It was just like, oh, we can do anything. What a world we live in. As long as we're in a big city. And there's lots of us. There's lots of us. [laughs] It's all so wonderful talking about this stuff. It's interesting, a little bit broader conversation than just rodeo. Well, I think it's good. It would be nice if we could keep it could keep going because it does give a sense of community, but a sense of community that probably is sorely lacking right now. I mean, where do they, you know, now that we're all homogenized into it, where do we go? Maybe that's what we're seeking with all this differentiation, right? Is, oh, "I want that sense of community." And I don't know the answer to that. So I think I've gotten my sense of community from other places besides that. And so I guess and that's how, you know, those options are always open to anybody. But it was a good one. It was a really good one.
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Rebecca Scofield: Thank you for sharing today.

Tre Brewbaker

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Tre, Mr. NGRA 2017 and were at the Texas Tradition Rodeo outside Dallas and its April 1st, 2017. So can you tell me what year you were born?
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Tré Brewbaker: 1982…long time ago. 
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RS: And where did you grow up?
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TB: I grew up in El Paso, Texas.
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RS: Were you more in town? Were you out on a place?
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TB: I was in town, I lived in the city. Well east El Paso which is now center of El Paso, so yeah I lived in the city. 
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RS: Did you have much experience with stock growing up?
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TB: No, my family is traditionally stock car racing, dirt tracks so the communities are very similar, the experiences…however, animal interaction was minimal as a kid.
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RS: Were you at all interested in…like did you want to go ride horses at all?
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TB: Absolutely, I think anyone who lives and grows up in Texas it's like in your blood. It's very…I think it's culture. Like I feel like the way I was raised and when I grew up it was just there's something…horses are amazing and they're majestic and they are powerful there are just so many positive words I can't think of any negative ones. And who wouldn't want to be involved in something of that nature.
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RS: What did your parents do?
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TB: My dad is an architectural engineer and a general contractor now currently its yeah… And my mother stayed home and worked stayed at home so we could have someone there she didn't want to put us in daycare and have someone else raise us. So it made it tough sometimes…eventually she worked you know side jobs.
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RS: Side jobs. Do you have siblings? 
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TB: I do a bunch of them. I'm the oldest. My parents were divorced so we have step and half-sisters. I have a full brother, a half-brother, a half-sister, and a step-sister in all reality I have 4 siblings. I don't treat any of them different to me they are all the same.
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RS: That's great. Were any of them interested in animals or horses growing up?
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TB: My…I think every girl that I've ever known as a little kid wants a pony. So my sisters totally did…they ended up in music which I'm very thankful for. It's a lot more affordable. And they love it. But they again rodeo's expensive, we couldn't afford it. So I think just going to the events was our extent of it which was just as good for me.
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RS: So how did you end up in New Mexico?
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TB: I you know you hit that age where you go I have to get out of the house. I'm a very independent person, very go getter. And so I said you know what I want to move out and I met a friend who races and uh he was just getting out of school and was like I've got this house you should move in we can split the rent it was one of those weird things where you are 20 years old and said let’s do it and so I did. And I moved to Farmington, New Mexico which is in the middle of nowhere and the Four Corners and it was fun and everything else is like a series of events that happened that led me to Albuquerque. 
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RS: That's amazing. So you are in Albuquerque now?
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TB: I am.
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RS: In town or outside of?
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TB: I'm right on the edge of Albuquerque and everyone says you live to far away I do live like 20 minutes from the center of town which for us is no big deal but you tell everyone else and they are like, “That's so far.” 
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RS: Do you do you have any stock now?
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TB: I don't. I don't. 
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RS: So what do you do for a living?
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TB: I am a social media specialist for T-Mobile. 
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RS: Oh wow.
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TB: So yeah, I love my job. I absolutely take every chance you can cause you never know when it's going to work out and it did. I love it.
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RS: That's really good.
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TB: If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here.
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RS: How long have you been working for them?
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TB: I've been with T-Mobile for 5 years this May, so 5 years next month, oh my gosh. And it's been amazing. They are very supportive. They know that my title that I'm part of the rodeo that I was Mr. New Mexico Pride last year and they supported that tremendously. 
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RS: That's right.
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TB: Very exciting.
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RS: So how do you identify in terms of gender and sexuality?
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TB: I'm a male. I'm a dude. And I'm very comfortable in my own skin, I guess, and I'm gay.
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RS: So how was dealing with your sexuality growing up?
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TB: Hard. Very much so. And that's internal. You grow up in Texas right you grew up with a southern values that doesn't change nothing has for me but the you go through the “something's not the same.” You don't realize it til like afterthought. And then, “Okay, well maybe I can convince myself otherwise.” So I went through that and that didn’t really change. So I was like, okay. You get to that point where you accept it, where you are like, okay this is me. And then you have to start planning…oh I'm a thinker and a planner and an overthinker and such so it's planning I literally sat there and when am I going to tell anyone? And how? And am I prepared to lose everything I have and start over. That answers is always no.
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TB: You got to the day where it was a yes. And it's extremely emotional. You have that one person, if it wasn't for some of my friends who were like dropping hints like they knew it wouldn't have happened, yet. I came out very late publicly to my family. It wasn't a negative experience per say a lot of people say it was but I didn't get shunned I'm happy with that. I'm thought I was going to lose everything and I didn't. I don't have the same relationship with my parents, but I still have a relationship with my parents and that's something that I think they still struggle to this day. But they know and I don't hide it I just don't talk about it. And so, it is what it is. 
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RS: And they are they still in El Paso?
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TB: My mother is, and my dad is in Arizona now. He moved there for work and so they know. We've talked about and my mom and I talked about it once. She's very religious but not crazy religious and I say that loosely because everybody's definition of crazy is different. And you know I'm spiritual as well so that makes it even more confusing, but I think you know my parents always taught me that it's me and my relationship and that's all that matters. So that's what I do.
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RS: And you said you were Mr. New…?
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TB: New Mexico Pride last year?
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RS: Wow. So question? Did you come to performing through rodeo or come to rodeo through performing?
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TB: Great question. I am…I don't consider myself a wonderful performer. That's something that I think some of these people that you'll see this weekend are just amazing. Where I became a performer was, it's for charity. You stand up there and lip sync a song which we do out loud in a car and it's super scary. It's very awkward with a queen or someone in a costume it's very easy because you become something else. And I on stage I mean, “How come you don't have a stage name?” I spent 26 years trying to be someone else, I don't want to be anyone else but me. And so, when I perform, I perform something that's me. I show everybody who I am. So it's a little different from what you will see in other people but I was known to make people cry. I'm very emotional on stage in whatever it is. Because I think that's what you are there to see some sort of emotion, laugh, cry, scare whatever. 
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RS: What's your favorite thing to perform to?
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TB: I love my country western music. I love country western. See that's what took me to rodeo. I had a friend who came up to me and says you need to run for this. Well, four years later here I am. And I didn't know he was our Mr. [title holder] five years before that. So he was there to crown me and it was a huge deal, for him and for me. That was his legacy. He got to pass it on to someone. I said, “You know I don't want to do pop. I'm like the worst gay ever. I don't…I'm not a Beyoncé fan. I'm not…I hate glitter and the rainbows. I'm not that person.” Once I was able to accept that, no, I'm going to be my own brand because there's gotta be someone out there like me and I'm hoping that one person gets to see it and that's where everything took off.
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RS: Did you grow up listening to country?
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TB: Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
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RS: What's your favorite performance you've done to a country song?
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TB: Great question. Most memorable favorite it’s [inaudible]. I'm performing that here in a few minutes. It's huge. So when I won Mr. New Mexico Pride I was invited if I won to perform the next night at an event, it's like a victory show kind of one of the clubs in town perform. And I had my birthday party the same night, so I was double booked, and you make things happen you just figure it out. So I said okay and we worked with everybody and when I was there and I performed this song that I'm about to perform. It's Jason Aldine, “Gonna Know We Were Here,” because I wanted that to be my motto for the year. Because it says, “We may not be around in 20 years, but they are sure going to know we were here,” like leaving your mark. I think that's what everybody wants. When I got out of the car, I felt like a million dollars that night. It was better than when I won because it was real.
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TB: The next day or no, I left the bar, finished, packed my clothes, ran to the car, cause I had to be somewhere else down the road at another bar, I get in the car and the music's playing and it's stops and that song comes on the radio live. And I have no idea why or how or what…I couldn't make that up. I mean, yeah, I could [laughs] but you know that's one of those weird things. And I was just like totally overwhelmed with tons of emotions. So then I was like I'm changing my song and doing it again at this bar cause no one was there to see it. It just made me feel good cause it tells me what I need to do. Like it reminds me of my job and how it feels like that day. So I nobody here has seen me perform it but one person, so I was like well I definitely want to do an up-tempo, lively--I want people to know who I am. And it's it doesn't say I it says we. Cause it's everybody we are a team.
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RS: That's so amazing. 
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TB: It gives me goosebumps. 
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RS: So how did you find out about the gay rodeo?
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TB: How did I…oh my gosh I'm like on everything. I'm social media crazy. How did I learn…? I'm trying to think way back. Someone had a flyer or poster or something. Oh wait! You know what way before that, I found out Nevada had one. I didn't know we had one, but I was in Vegas with my then fiancé now husband and we were in Vegas just on vacation. It's a cheap vacation from Albuquerque, it’s right down the road. And we were at Charlie's in Vegas and they had a poster. And I was like, “Oh I wish we had something like this.” Well, a year later I found out we do. And so I was like, “Let’s go!” And that's when I met Jessie and Jessie’s the one that got me, he pushed me, “This is what you need to be doing. This is where you need to be.” And he was absolutely right. 
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RS: That's amazing.
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TB: I haven't been happier.
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RS: Do you compete in the rodeo?
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TB: We get a lot of firsts. I am about to compete as soon as I finish performing for the very first time tonight in two events. 
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RS: What are you going to do?
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TB: I’m doing goat dressing which have you seen goat dressing? 
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RS: I have seen it, but you can explain it. 
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TB: Goat dressing is crazy, ultimately, and I was telling them this was my way of getting everyone in the rodeo. They were like, “What do you do? Do you ride bulls?” No. No, I do not. I'm not in shape not that I should. I'm like, “You've seen those bull riders.” They, you, they, no. I mean would I love to, I have more respect for them than any other athlete, but they are just amazing people too. But in goat dressing you're basically putting underwear on a goat. I mean that is the gist of it and if you can do it faster as a team then you win. And people are like that's hilarious, no way. And I'm like, “Show up and find out.” I'm like, “Why don't you do it?” “Well…” “What you can't put underwear on a goat?” And there's no no in there. And that's how you build our numbers and so I'm doing that one and doing wild drag race.
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TB: That is insane. And I’m doing it with two people I just met. One of them I haven't met yet. I'm doing it with Josh from Australia, and he and I were just talking and next thing you know I'm on a team and this girl Ashley from New Mexico, also. So it's really cool that I said well we were on your team but now you are on New Mexico's team. So we are really excited to have him on board and it's gonna be entertaining we will go with that I have no idea what to expect.
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RS: And are you guys hosting finals this year?
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TB: We have two events in two months. We have the Z Regional Rodeo in August 11-13th in Santa Fe, and in my hometown of Albuquerque which is 50 minutes South, in Albuquerque we will host the World Finals. 
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RS: That's amazing.
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TB: And the IGRA royalty competition as well. 
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RS: Wow.
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TB: Lots of pressure. Oh, I love it. It's totally like perfect. It's nerve racking because for the first time we've had it, all of our past royalty members are out of state or wherever. They are not really involved anymore because there has been a large gap. So I'm really excited to have our IGRA team. They have been extremely helpful like, “How can we help you? Here is our guide.” They have been very helpful, not telling us but guiding us. And it's been it's nice to have thirty people from across the country being there to help.
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RS: And you were mentioning kind of a gap that happened?
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TB: Seven years without royalty. We are the first team since seven years.
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RS: Why do you think that happened?
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TB: A lot of things, I think the there's a change that's happened and thankfully…I don't know 100% about this, but I have my theories based on research and talking to people. We moved our rodeo from Albuquerque to Santa Fe for due to sponsorship…it's a good thing actually, looking at a bad thing it was a better thing to move it financially because we got more money to pay our contestants and such like that. However, in that it is an hour away and all the epicenter everything is in Albuquerque so getting someone it's the same thing as being in Denton having people to drive from Dallas, you think it's not big because I drove ten hours to get here, to me it's no big deal for thirty minutes.
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TB: But asking your people to drive past eight different things that they normally go to, to something they aren't sure about, outside in the hot sun. We've changed it. Now we have a night rodeo, one of the only night rodeos so it's under the lights which is really cool, it's outdoors in the wonderful August air in New Mexico. So it's going to be something different and it worked last year, now that we have a royalty team. I wanted it, and I was like I need to can I told my Miss and she'll tell you more about how that process went I guarantee she will it's a really good story. About how I convinced her to do it and I didn't convince her but she I won't ruin the story but you will wanna know that one. It's and it'll tell you who she is. So it was a wonderful deal and I forgot the question because I started rambling. 
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RS: That's fine. We don't need to stay on topic. Can you tell me do you do other things in the gay community other than just rodeo?
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TB: Rodeo takes up a lot of our time now, every chance we have to raise a cause we are going to. When we do it one dollar at a time. And I love it. Like I absolutely love it. I still help the other organizations we have several of us who are the heads of different organizations. The Imperial Court System um, the Pride organization, um, we have an organization called MM Power which does a lot of HIV outreach, so we directly connected with them as well. We are trying to work on mending, not mending, building stronger bridges, they are there, but they need to be more solid and it's really working. Someone kind of had to take the reigns and then it's always nice the new kid in town and the rodeo’s the new kid in town again. So it's like the new shiny thing that everybody wants to be a part of and we are totally embracing that. And so we're you know hey well come over here we will be a part of yours too, let’s work together. So it's one in the same we all have the same goals. We are doing something for someone and they give us something we can do in a safe place, which is crazy. 
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RS: So I know we have to go pretty quick but just I know that a lot of the older members have expressed sort of a frustration of getting younger members and you’re obviously a younger member.
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TB: I love that.
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RS: What do you think is that sort of drew you to it, kept you here, and how are you going to draw in other young people?
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TB: I love the southern lifestyle. I love the everyone’s welcoming. I mean you're here everybody’s so nice and genuinely nice. There's nice cause you have to put on a face, but you don't get that here. Everyone's literally like, “Hey, how are you doing?” And they actually care like they want you to talk to them. They were laughing yesterday cause it took me two and a half hours because I was like oh my god I saw someone and I have to say hi. It's a family, a real family and a lot of us are here talking about earlier is that family is not as strong but it's still there, but you miss that feeling and you get that here. We all understand each other. We are all so different, but…I mean when I left Phoenix it was like I'm not going to see everyone for four weeks. Seriously, four weeks, get over it, right?. I had so much going on in those four weeks I didn't know what else was I going to do, right? But it was crazy how much fun it is.
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TB: As far as getting the youth involved, we knew that was going to be big. Our average age was in the 40's before we joined, before we joined. I don't know that actually, we were included in that number cause it was the end of the year and I'm like, “Oh my gosh, how are we going to do that?” The reason for us, is that again the Santa Fe is very much older community, traditionalist type community very gay friendly. Albuquerque is as well, but is much younger. It's where the bars are, the inner city, it's where all the…it's the city right. So were okay, if I told you, “Hey, there's a rodeo this weekend.” So? Okay so we are going to go put underwear on a goat or we are going to put drag queens on bulls. That's where you get the youth. The camp events are designed to get the youth involved but if you don't tell them about it… I mean you can tell the story two different ways you're going to get different results. And we are seeing it.
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TB: We are seeing it in major numbers. And I'm excited, I can't wait for the end of the year so I have quantifying results and I can say this isn't my thought, this is my results. And if it wasn't working, we already changed it. Now we are going to make mini-rodeos in our bar we are using stick horses instead of real horses we are going to get a blow up sheep for our goat and were are going to make them do that, we are going to teach them so they are already involved. The other thing I've learned in promoting, cause I do a lot of race car promoting, when you go to a race you don't know anybody there, you're not going to [stay] you're going to leave. You are going to eat a coke, drink a beer, or you are going to eat a coke, eat a hot dog. [laughs] Drink a beer and go home.
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TB: Now we have drag shows during the rodeos, so you need to tell them there are other events. It’s a daylong thing. Then you have to tell them, you know, hey, introduce them to the cowboys and the cowgirls so they know who to cheer for. And that's something we are working on because we haven't seen it enough. When they are out there announcing who they are, tell me where they are from; tell me who is from New Mexico. I found out my teammate in wild drag is from New Mexico and I didn't even know her. Of course, it's a big state so it's very possible but if I knew I'd be cheering for her. That's what we do. We are going to watch tomorrow, I've got a big New Mexico flag, we are going to be waving it. We are going to try something different and as soon as you start trying something new, you aren't getting anywhere so we are blowing the box up.
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RS: That's amazing. 
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TB: We are trying.
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RS: Well I'm looking forward to your performance. I'll let you go, but thank you so much for your time.
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TB: Okay it was a pleasure. Absolutely, thank you. 
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RS: Thank you.
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TB: And anything you ever need let me know. 

Kelly Poorman

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RS: Hello, this is Rebecca Scofield with the Gay Rodeo Oral History Project, and I'm here today with Kelly Poorman. We are meeting via zoom because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I'm in Moscow, Idaho, and it's 10 a.m. on May 5th, 2021. Kelly, do you want to say where you are right now?
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KP: I am in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, and it is 1:00 here and it's about 58 degrees. I don't know what the temperature is there.
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RS: Today it's supposed to get up to 82 here, which seems aggressive.
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KP: A little bit.
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RS: A little bit for me.
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KP: Yeah.
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RS: OK, well so if you wouldn't mind sharing, what year were you born?
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KP: I was born in 1948.
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RS: And where?
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KP: Makes me seventy-two. And I was born in a hospital about 10 miles away from here. This is actually my hometown that I'm living in. And it's pretty neat. I'm in this small town called Boalsburg, as I said. And according to Pennsylvania, we are the birthplace of Memorial Day and I live on Main Street, which means I have the best porch to sit on when we had the Memorial Day parade.
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RS: That's gorgeous -.
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KP: If I'm not in it!
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RS: And was it a pretty rural town when you were growing up?
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KP: We were about three miles away from the home campus of Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, about 85 miles northwest of Harrisburg. When we had students in here, we go up to about 100,000 people living here. With the pandemic we're down to about 50,000 or so. When we tailgate the...I want to say arena, because we're talking about rodeo, the stadium holds 110,000 people. So during the football games, we we are the third largest city in Pennsylvania at that time. So, yeah. It's rural. Yes. I mean, five miles away from here, you can step in cow patties. But you can also see a Broadway show when they open back up over at the university, so.
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RS: And the house that you're in now on Main Street, was that the house you grew up in?
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KP: We moved here when I was 10 years old. Now I'm sorry, 5 years old. And it's a 12 room house and it's 6 down, 6 up. Upstairs has always been an apartment. It was on the... It was supposed to sell for $18,000 dollars and my parents said, "We can afford 15, so we'll counter with 12." So they countered with 12 and the lady was a friend of my mom's. And she said, "OK." So we got a 12 room house for $12,000. And 7 years ago, the house across the street from me sold for a half a million dollars. So my mom always said, "You're sitting on a gold mine." And I didn't realize it was the house she was talking about.
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RS: Did you have brothers and sisters growing up?
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KP: I have three sisters. I had three sisters and a brother who passed away when he was a week old. So I...he's in my heart, but I never really ever get meet him. I still have 2 sisters living. 1 of them passed away right after my mom did. I came back to...I lived in L.A. for 25 years and I came back to caregive or to see my mother. And I came for 3 weeks and 2 weeks into my 3 week stay, she had congestive heart failure and a torn rotator cuff on the same night. And my nephew was here, but he was sort of in a room and he never came out. And I really feel that if I hadn't been here, she would have been dead. So I stayed to be her caregiver and she was kind enough to give me the house I grew up in for a dollar. And she'd say to me, we'd be out places, she'd say, "You know, I haven't ever seen that dollar." I give her a dollar and say, "Here, take a taxi home." She was a character. I get my sense of humor from her.
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RS: What birth order are you?
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KP: I have 2 older sisters and they're both still living. And then me and then my younger sister passed away.
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RS: And so you were a middle kid. Do you think that...
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KP: I was the only...I was the only son and I used to get tormented a lot. You know, I would be out shoveling the sidewalk in the snow and my sisters would be at the window drinking hot chocolate and... And I was also a big old sissy, which didn't help at all and used to get terrorized at school a lot. So it was not a...it was not a happy life. I don't remember a lot of growing up.
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RS: What did your parents do for a living or with their life?
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KP: Well, my dad was an ironworker, and he was also an abusive alcoholic. And he didn't stay. When I was 10, he would beat my mom on a regular...regular occasions and then he started beating us kids and my mom put a stop to it, kicked him out. She worked three jobs. We'd go to a babysitter in the afternoon and we ate Chef Boyardee ravioli three or four times a week, so I can't even look at a can of that in the grocery store anymore. Ugh! But, you know, we always had clothes. They weren't always new. She was shunned at our local church because she divorced. Which I thought was very hypocritical, and I'm still a member of the church. Go figure. I'll tell you about that later.
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RS: So you're the middle kid. You moved into town. Were you around horses or cattle at all growing up?
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KP: I didn't get on a horse until I was in the military. Some friends of mine in the military had horses and I rode horses there. And I don't like...This is such a cop out, but I don't have the hips to ride horses because they're, you know, they're big and my legs don't spread that far and in that position. And the first time I ever rode was bareback. And we're going down this road or this path. And the horse started going faster. And I said, "Whoa." They said, "No, no. He knows, he knows what's coming up." And we turned the corner and there was this log and we went over the log and I landed and spoke soprano for about 3 days after that. So and then I had another problem with the horse. And I've not actually been on a horse at the rodeos that I've been to and I've been to 133 of them.
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RS: So. Wow. So you're kind of a town kid. You had your sisters. Close, close friendships at all in middle school or high school?
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KP: No, as I said, I was very heavy set. I was very effeminate. I had friends here in the little town, but no really close friends, you know. I went to a vocational school where we weren't integrated in with the high schoolers. So, we were in a certain, you know, clique, not...I mean, and that's a negatory word. You know, we were the Vo-Tech guys. We were the dummies. Yeah. And now the dummies are making forty-five dollars an hour as a plumber, you know. Yeah.
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RS: So I absolutely understand that. Yeah. So how did you feel... So first of all, can I ask how you identify in terms of gender and sexuality?
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KP: I, on the Kinsey scale, I identify [as a ] 5.2. I was married to a woman for 8 years. Don't be shocked. In fact, I have a little comedy routine about it. We married 8 years, 2 of the happiest years of my life. It was it was 15 minutes here and 20 minutes here. And then after 3 years, I found out she was bisexual. I had to buy things for before she'd have sex with me. And then after eight years, it was a different kind of bisexual: Bye, I'm not going to have sex with you anymore. So that's my comedy routine. And she lives in Texas, by the way.
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RS: So I still get along with her.
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KP: We do. We're Facebook buddies and. that's a whole 'nother story. I really think God put her in my life to save my life because we met at well before you were born. We met in 1978 and separated and in 1986. And by that time, that was right at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and I was monogamous and to my wife. And by that time, I knew what HIV AIDS was and I knew and I am still negative. I actually just went and had a test and still negative. So.
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RS: And growing up, you said, you know, you sort of presented a little bit effeminate and that caused some bullying in school...
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KP: A lot of bullying in school, and that was one of the reasons why my mom got divorced, because my dad would beat me when I wasn't...wasn't...masculine enough.
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RS: And, you know, growing up, did you have any sense, maybe not just that you were different in terms of gender, but were you aware at all of your, like, same sex attraction or anything like that?
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KP: Oh, yeah, from a very early age of. When I was 16, my mom, I was driving with my mom, I was learning how to drive, I was going to take my driver's test and we were coming to an intersection that wasn't an intersection, it was like a curve. And and there were trees. You know, if you didn't turn, you ran into a little trees, big trees. And she said to me, your sister told me you were a homosexual. Is that true? And I said in my mind, I'm going, "All I have to do is speed up really, really fast and hit that tree and I'm not going to have to answer that question." But I curved enough. And I said, "Yes, it's true." And she said, "I'm glad you finally figured it out." I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "I've known you were special since you were 5 years old." You know, and I figured it out when I was 7. So I was an early blossomer.
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RS: And had you told your sister or had...
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KP: Yes, yes, I had. I actually had a nervous breakdown. When I was 16, I was in the hospital a while and the doctor said, "Well, it's all in your head," and... This might be telling stories but she's not ever going to see this, she was pregnant at the time. She told me that and I said, I swear I won't say anything and then I told her I was a homosexual and she said, "I swear I will not tell anybody." And I left and my mom came in and she said, "Your son's a faggot." So as we were driving, you know, and, you know, my mom and I just finished that, she said to me, "Is your sister pregnant?" And I went, I could tell and really get back at her. Or I could just I could just be a human being about this. And I said, "I'm afraid you're going to have to ask her that question." And I pulled off the side of the road and I turned off the car and I said, "You need to drive. I have a headache I can't drive anymore."
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RS: So do you think your family was pretty supportive?
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KP: My mom has always been supportive. My dad, not so much. And he passed away a number of years ago, and I think it was early '80s from emphysema and he lived in Tucson, but my sisters would really care less. Now, both sisters are very, very, very supportive. They appreciated that I came back and caregived my mother for 6 years before she passed away, and you know, we're very close now. Thank God for cell phones because, you know, I have a sister in Florida that I talk to whenever I want to for free, you know, and my other sister lives real close here. So.
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RS: So after high school, did you...you had mentioned the military. Did you go into the military or...?
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KP: I went into the military, yes.
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RS: Which branch?
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KP: I went into the army. And as I said, I was heavyset, and I was very effeminate. And it did not fit right with me that I should be in the military. And I went to to the medic a lot. And finally, the medic said, "Are you homosexual?" And remember, this was back in the '60s, so it wasn't a don't ask, don't tell situation. I said, "Well, yes, I am." And he said, "It's not going to get you out of the army because we're at war." It was during the Vietnam War. And he said, "You're just going to have to, you know, not worry about it." And I said, "You're not going to tell anybody, are you?" And he said, "Oh, no, I won't tell anybody." And that was a lie. He told my drill sergeant. My drill sergeant was a little Hawaiian guy with an attitude and and and he was always on everybody's case, and he actually showed kindness to me.
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KP: I might need Kleenex because he took me in his room and he said, "You know, I talked to the medic, and I know you're a homosexual. If anybody gives you any problem about that, I want you to tell," which shocked me. And from that point on, I said, "I'm going to make the army a career." At least for the four years that I had signed up for and I did and I actually reenlisted and I was an openly gay soldier during my MOS (military occupational specialties) training, I was in ground control approach radar, which I didn't realize was the radar that they put into rice paddies in Vietnam. So about halfway through my training, which I was failing miserably because I'm not technically oriented. My commanding officer and his XO invited me into their office and the commanding officer said, "I understand you're a homosexual." I said, "Well, yes, I am." And he said, "We can't give you a security clearance because you're a homosexual. So you can't, essentially go to Vietnam and get shot up in a rice paddy." I was like, "ahhhh."
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KP: So I went into the military photography and that changed my life. I love photography, number one. And I also met this guy named Richard, who was straight and and didn't...I grasped what photography was: we went in and we did all the all the chemicals and stuff. I loved that, in the darkroom and and the different things. And we had speed graphics. I don't know if you've ever seen a speed graphic? [RS shakes head] It's a big...if you've ever seen a Superman, old Superman thing where they have the big cameras and they pulled it out and put it, well, that's what we had. And so Richard said, "If you teach me how to be a photographer, I will teach you how to be masculine." And I went, "You can't teach me how to be masculine, I'm a homosexual." He said, "You can be anything you want to be.
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KP: You just have to realize that what you're comfortable with." And so he did it through aversion therapy. Whenever I had a limp wrist and there was a lot of them at the beginning there, he would Indian burn me. You know how Indian burn. Yeah. And if I would sashay. He would thump me in the spine and I would be retching on the on the ground and he'd walk by going, "Watch what you're doing." And when I tell people, you know, he taught me how to be masculine, I skipped lesson 4 and 18, I can't remember what they are. But he, I really feel, saved my life. And in the military also, I learned about theater. Fort Riley, Kansas, had an incredible theater program that I got involved in. And on stage, I thought these characters were coming from outside me. And I realized at a certain point that it was coming from inside, and that's when the light came on that I could be anything I wanted to be, and that's it. I came up with this and I like it.
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RS: So when you when you entered the military was that, do you remember what year that was?
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KP: It was '67. It was a year after I had graduated high school.
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RS: So big things are happening in America in '67.
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KP: Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah. And I reenlisted to go to Hawaii to work in my MOS because they spend $32,000 to teach me to be a photographer. And then they sent me to Fort Riley, Kansas, as a mail clerk. And I had nothing to do with photography whatsoever. So I reenlisted and went to Hawaii for four years as a photographer. They could not let me out of my MOS or they would void the contract. And then they said, "Hey, we'll give you a little bit more money if you come in for 6 years." And I said, "Sure, what could go wrong?" Well, I went to Hawaii for 4 years and then I went to Fort Hood, Texas. West Fort Hood, which is not even connected to Fort Hood. It's like 5 miles away. So it was pretty desolate. But I got involved in the theater there and I actually asked if I could go in to work for the theater there, and I did. And I and it was it was another wonderful experience. I have friends from Fort Hood that are still, I'm friends with them, so you know I'm godchildren, that I'm a godfather to 2 of the children that were born. So, you know. Wonderful Life.
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RS: What was it like living in Hawaii at the time?
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KP: It was the best. Schofield Barracks is in the middle of the island. I don't know if you've ever been to Oahu, but as a photographer, I got to do everything. They sent me to Maui on maneuvers as the photographer. They sent me to the Big...I was connected...our photography group was connected to the information office. So they sent me to the Big Island of Hawaii to go up on the on the mountain that had snow on it and take pictures of women in bikinis and men in shorts. I wasn't too impressed with that. But but this entire time I was openly gay and I and I worked with the theater there as well. I took pictures of hurricane disasters. I took pictures of dead bodies. I took pictures of Officers' Wives Club fashion shows. In fact, I was the first person ever to have a photograph of an officers' wife fashion show in the Army Times, which went all over the world. So it was pretty exciting. And whenever they...whenever I went to Texas and they wanted me to reenlist. They said, you know, "We'll give you a promotion," you know, and so and so forth, and I really prayed about it because....And. And the answer I got was, when you're in 19 years, they're going to "discover" that you're a homosexual and kick you out and you will have wasted 19 years. And so I got out after 8 years.
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RS: And did you experience, you know, anti-gay sentiment? And was it did you experience any of that in different places or... Were people pretty, OK?
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KP: It was actually, you know, for the most part, I mean, you know, in Killeen, Texas, I had an apartment in Killeen and I would walk down to get a drink down at the gay bar, which was nonexistent. But, you know, and one night I was walking back to my apartment and a car stopped and three guys came out and and I ran back to where there was a lot of people, some people that I knew because I knew I was going to get my ass kicked. Am I allowed to say that?
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RS: Yeah.
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KP: Sure. Why not?
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RS: Yeah. I'm sure there is some scary moment.
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KP: Oh, yeah. There's scary things about anything, you know. But when I was some basic training, I, I somebody attempted to...three black men attempted to rape me. And I'm a big guy, I'm 6'1" or was before I turned 70, and I'm a big guy. I was able to to get them away from me. But you know, after that I was really afraid of black people. And then through theater, I met black people and people are people, you know. If you treat people with respect, they will treat you with respect and if they don't get them out of your life, you know.
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RS: Did you have any romantic relationships with people in the military?
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KP: Are you asking if I had sex in the military?
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RS: I am.
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KP: Yes. I had no relationships in the military. I had a lot of sex. My mom said, "We're going to send you to the Army to make a man of you." I joked when I got out of the military, I joked and I said, "It made me several men."
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RS: So how did you meet your wife then, your ex-wife?
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KP: Well, it was actually in Texas. I met her to the theater and...We were both actors, and in the first show, it was called Private Lives by Noel Coward and, in the end of the show, the characters got together. And then we were in a different show called Of Thee I Sing, and at the end of the show we were together. You know, I'm a bit of a smartass. I don't know if you could tell that so far, but I enjoyed her sense of humor. She was a dance teacher. She had a dance studio, right, and I had seen her like years earlier, she had been a senior in high school and I saw her as Guinevere in Camelot, but I didn't see her through the whole show because they had 2 women to play Guinevere. And one of them played the first act and one of them played the second act.
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KP: So I saw her and it was really interesting anyway. You know, we're laying down during rehearsal where it's a break and we're laying down and...She said, "What side of bed do you like to sleep on?" I said, "Well, I'm pretty much on the left side." She said...I said, "What about you?" She said, "Well, usually the bottom," and that really... And it was very confusing to me. And it was also very confusing to everybody that knew me that I would be interested in a woman. When I told them that I was getting married to a woman, she almost hung up the phone thinking it was a prank call. But but like I said, we were married for eight years and we're still friends today. So no children. We didn't have any children.
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RS: And did you get married as you were leaving the military?
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KP: Ah no. I left the military and went home for a while and then went out to California. And I got married about 2 years after that. But see, it's funny how you are indoctr...indoctrin... It's funny how you believe things that you're told, OK, I knew I was homosexual. I did not...I was told that if I were a homosexual, I couldn't have physical relations with women. Ever. And she came out to visit me in California when I was staying with my best friends. And she was there for a week and we slept in the same bed and nothing happened the first 2 days, and then we sort of messed around the second 2 days, and then on the last night before she left, you know... I had been afraid earlier in the week that I wouldn't get hard; well, I got hard. Then I was afraid that if I put it inside her, it would get soft. And then the last night, we feared that it would never get soft again. [laughter] It was the light came on, the light came on. So it. You could use this, you can't use this, but anyway.
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RS: I do think you're getting a little bit too, is that previously this had all been set up as a binary like you were either gay or you weren't gay, right?
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KP: Yeah.
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RS: Where I think today we have much more of a spectrum. And I think younger people are understanding sexuality differently in terms of being openly bisexual or gender neutral or...
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KP: Right. Yeah, well, it's like what I said earlier, on the Kinsey scale, I'm a 5.2. Obviously, I had relations with my wife and I'm also attracted to women that can kick my ass. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Angel. You know, women like that. I, yeah...
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RS: That's wonderful. So while you were married, where did where did you all live and what were you doing for work?
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KP: We lived in California. I was trying to be an actor and she was trying to be an actor out there as well. That didn't work out. I worked all kinds of stuff. Like I said, we were only married for a total of...we were together a total of 8 years and... By the time she left, she hadn't done...we'd done see a community theater, but not, you know, and she was a little excuse me. She was a little angry with me because, you know, we would go to auditions and I would get parts and she wouldn't. And she's gorgeous. I mean, and she's a dancer. She had legs that started at her armpits, just a wonderful dancer. And she still is.
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KP: And she wouldn't get the parts that she wanted and she would get very angry with me. And, you know, I'd say I want to I want to go on a diet. And she said, OK, but I was going to make the chocolate cake. Yeah. But anyway, she left and so I did more community theater. I worked in a bakery out in Westwood for a long time and it was off and on. And it was...the lady was Armenian, I can swear at you in Armenian. And she was the baker to the stars. I mean, she had pictures of people up on the wall.
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KP: Her co-owner was Barbra Streisand's stepsister. Barbara used to come in all the time and get sticky buns, Philadelphia sticky buns right out with it. I was just talking about this the other day. Olympia Dukakis used to come in all the time. Yeah, I know. And when I...the day she came in and I just found out that she had been cast as Anna and Tales of the City. I said, "Oh, my God, I can't see anybody else in that role." She said, "I hope I do her justice." And she was tiny. She was just this tiny waif of a woman. But she could act her way to heaven. Where she is now. Absolutely. I met a lot of people in there. A lot. Madonna. And Sean Penn used to come in, so it was a fun place to work.
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RS: Yeah. Were you were you part of, you know, the kind of emerging gay scene at all, or was this when you were still married and pretty monogamous and...
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KP: Well, no, I...I was...I've never been part of the gay thing. I'm so not stereotypical of a gay person. I have a green screen so you can't see the mess behind me. But right about that time is when and it was well before Craigslist or any of that stuff. I met a guy named Steven who I dated for about 20 minutes. And part of that 20 minutes was we're going to go to the gay rodeo. And I'd been to the gay rodeo before. And because I was supporting this hairdresser that worked about three doors down who was dressed as a woman and miss, Miss L.A., Miss L.A. Rodeo, and I went to support him, her and it was like it was a lot of fun. And then when Steven said, we're going to go to the gay rodeo, I said, "Oh, shirtless cowboys and dancing." He said, "No, no, we're going to work in the arena." I said, "Not in these new boots, we're not." And when I went to support my friend, it was a Sunday night when he was entertaining and that's when they gave out the awards.
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KP: And it was really interesting. You know, they had All Around cowgirls and All Around cowboys and they would call up the women for All Round cowgirls and they would shake hands. Right. And the guys would come up and they would go, "Oh, sweetie, girlfriend," you know? And when the guy won it, his name was Greg Olsen. This was a long time ago, so. He wept in his hands. He wept that he had won best All Around cowboy for the weekend, and I said, "This is a place that I need to be." And then I didn't think about it until Steven said, "We're going to work in the arena."
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KP: And I went and I always joked that the first cowpile I stepped in, I was home. And I've never been around animals like that at all, you know, I'm from the middle of Pennsylvania. There are farms around, but I never got involved in any rodeo situation at all here. And it changed my life. The rodeo. Rodeo taught me a lot of things and one of the main things, I might get emotional, one of the main things is: we as gay people, all our lives have been told you can't love somebody for any length of time, it's all a sexual thing, you know. If you stay together, you're not going to stay together long. And I met couples.
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KP: The first rodeo I worked in the arena, there was a couple from New Mexico that had traveled there, two men, that had been together for 35 years, 35 years, and there were other couples as well. You know, Carl and Dave were from San Diego and they had been together 17 years. You and it was such a mind-blowing thing to see this where you'd been told all your life that this was never going to happen. You know and if I'd seen this earlier in my life, I might have had a really totally different life. I'm still single. I have a cat that's about it, it's the longest relationship I've ever had. He's just turned 7.
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RS: So what do you remember what year it was that you went to your first one?
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KP: I cannot remember. I have...I have a...a bag. Then I got going to a rodeo one time, will you excuse me? I know right where it is. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. [long pause]. OK, so one of the great things about living in L.A. was you could fly anywhere in the country and even up to Canada for like one 100 bucks round trip. And I was in the Burbank Airport, and they just canceled the flight for 7 hours, so I was there for 7 hours. I couldn't go home, you know, and I found this. And it looks like the sidesaddle, right? So I started putting these you get tags whenever you go to the rodeo and you put them on your belt loop, or if you're too old to look at the belt loop, you hang it on a lanyard. But these are the first 25 tags that I had. And I don't know if they have the year on it or not. '95. I think I started in 1990, I think. But. It was just a really neat thing, and then I had so many of them because I've been to the 133 that I'd said, you know, this won't fit through the TSA at the airport didn't enjoy that too much. So I stopped putting any more on that.
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RS: So you went to the first one and, you know, stepped in the cowpile and really felt at home. How did you...did you start volunteering with the arena crews? How did...what were your next steps?
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KP: Well, the arena crews...when Steven took me there, I was in the arena crew, right, but there was no such thing as an arena crew. And I looked at the at the line up and I knew I didn't know even know what was happening on the line. And there was a lady named Casey Jackson, tall, good-looking woman, who said to me, "OK, this needs to go out next, be ready for that." And I said, "OK." So the first day it was rough because I didn't pole bending. You know, you need you need a tape measure. Oh, there's one right there, you know, so that was the first day and then they did it for two days, Saturday and Sunday. And then the second day, I got everything lined up and I got somebody to help me, Steven wouldn't help me because Steven was the gate guy. So Steven didn't last very long anyway. So the second day I had it all lined up. And the second day is traditionally a shorter day anyway. But it was a lot shorter because I had had everything lined up. And so. We finished the rodeo, it was it was a wonderful, wonderful two days, I was exhausted, and then the next year I didn't do any other rodeos until the next year.
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KP: And when I showed up to be a volunteer, Casey was there and she said, you know, I said, what do I do wrong? She said, "I remember you from last year and you did a wonderful job on the second day. You're going to be in charge of the arena." And I said, "No, no." She said, "Yeah, yeah." And you didn't say no to Casey. You didn't. So I did it for the weekend. I had three volunteers to help me and everybody else had had. They had these vests on to denote where they were, except the arena crew didn't have any vests, so I didn't know who the arena crew was. So but we went through it. And at the end at the end of the rodeo on Sunday night, excuse me, Casey said, "I have never, ever run a rodeo as efficiently as they did with you working in the arena." She said, "Never, ever leave the arena." And with the exception of one time when I worked behind the shoots, I've always been in the arena or I've been an entertainment rodeo clown in the arena still and.
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KP: I remember the first time that they actually called me an arena setup coordinator and I was the first of its kind and I bought some brand new jeans and they were white. How stupid was that? And I had a radio on and I wasn't going to have to get in the pens or anything. They said you don't have to get into the pens. And then a dear friend of mine was struggling with calves. His name was Carl. God bless him. He's passed away. And I got in I dropped the radio down. I got into the pen, and within two seconds I had a green streak down my leg on my white jeans. I never wore them again, ever. Not even the rodeos. But, you know, and then I got to go places they would invite me, places.
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KP: I went to the first rodeo up in Calgary, Canada, Alberta. It was a wonderful, wonderful space. The arena was here. There was a campground here where we put up tents and trailers. And then on the other side was a building that had dance floors and kitchens and all kinds of stuff. And for the entire weekend, you never had to leave. It was it was like a bubble. You didn't have to leave. And there was nobody having problems with anybody else except late at night when people got really drunk. You know, and I got to go to several of the I went up to about 15 of them and then I got involved, really involved with my church. So I was not able to to go up to two once after that when they went to Strathmore. Yeah, I never went to the Strathmore when it is just at this at this ranch, which I loved, I loved. So.
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RS: So as you're getting more involved with the gay rodeo, are you doing. Did you do any events ever?
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KP: I've only done one event and that was calf roping on foot and I bought a new rope. And. I failed miserably. So I gave the rope away. So. I.
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RS: That's amazing. So with your with your clowning, had you had were you just channeling your theater experience and what was what was the experience of clowning like? What was your routine like?
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KP: Well, with clowning, I was the entertainment clown. When something was happening at one end of the arena, I was on the other end of the arena doing stuff like I had a six-foot PVC pipe that I could baton twirl. You know, and I had jokes, really terrible jokes, oh, my God. You know, and I made up a character. His name was Avis T-Bone MaGroin. And he was from Mooseanus, spelled the way it sounds, moose anus. And we weren't in any state because no state had Claimmus, in fact, that was on our town sign saying Mooseanus, no state will claim us. Our neighboring states were Arkansas, Texas, and Rhode Island because it was a long, long place. So, you know, so I give that give that to the people. And they would, you know, it was just all fun, you know, but I only did that I only did that about ten, ten or fifteen times. Not, you know.
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KP: When we get to my book, I'll tell you one of the inspirations I got from the book and a life lesson when I was writing the book and Roman and Jules is my first book ever. And I wrote that when I was forty-five. No. It was 2000. So. I'm seventy-two now, so that would have been. Anyway, but it was my first one, people had told me all my life I couldn't be a writer and so I would write maybe. A page, two pages and then go, well, I can't be a writer because I can't spell. And so at a late age, I wrote a short story when I worked at the at the bakery and it was 14 pages, it was a short story. People read it and they were very affected by it. So I started writing this book about gay rodeo and I thought it was going to be a short story. And it's I'm not sure how many words it is, but it's not a novel. It's a novelette or.
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RS: I have it right here
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KP: With? Oooohh! Oh, wow.
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RS: Maybe I would say I don't know. I know a lot of people have written about this link, you know, so in book format, it's about a hundred and sixty pages. Yeah. And it has a full story arc. So I'd say, oh, it's a novella and a novel,
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KP: OK, novella and a novel, absolutely.
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RS: So yeah. Why don't we talk about Roman and Jules.
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KP: Excellent, well I've been to, I've been to sixty-five rodeos at that point and I'd written this short story and then I thought I'd write another short story about the rodeo and then it kept growing and growing and growing and growing and to the main characters, one of them is gay bull rider and a straight bullfighter who become really close friends. And I really needed the feeling. A bullfighter has when he's going in to save somebody. So we were in Ramona, California, and the wonderful and God bless him, David Pizzuti was our clown and I had known David for years and years. And I said, "David, what goes through your mind whenever you're in there saving somebody?" And he said. "Well, actually, nothing, because I just go in and my hands go where they need to be." I said, "David, you are so full of shit." He said, "No, no, really. It's like God directs me where my hands need to be." I said, "Yeah, whatever, David."
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KP: So that day I was the latch puller. There are two people with bullfighting, bull riding. There's the guy with the rope that opens up the gate and there's the latch puller. And these were these were new shoots. So they were they were tough to get open. So I stepped in front because it wasn't coming up. And the Cowboy is going like this, you know. So I stepped in front and I opened it and I try to get back to the other side and the bull came out. And hit me in the ass and I went hit me in the wallet and when I carried it in the back pocket and I went up three feet. Landed on my feet, went to the top of the fence, went to the fence on the top of it, and I hadn't thought about it, it was like God was telling me where to go.
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KP: And I looked up and I said, "God, if I ever need that lesson again, I'm going to I'm going to believe the person." Right. And I had always had a lower back problem. And I thought I was going to be crippled the next day. And when I woke up, I didn't have a back problem and I haven't had a back problem since. So whenever I hurt my neck, somebody said, go play with the bull again! And I went, eh, no. That's only going to work once. Ramona had, we had porta-potties, of course, and Ramona's porta-potty company had a picture of the guy on the on the door sitting on a toilet. Right. And their motto was, your crap is our bread and butter. I'll never forget it.
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RS: So as you're developing your story, how much of of the characters are coming out of people that you knew?
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KP: Well. I changed the names to protect the guilty, except for one, and I kept his name in there, but there were a lot of things in there. The story about Seattle and what happened up there, there was not a shooting up there, but everything leading up to it, like like the SWAT team up there, that was all true. When I walked up and the guy handed me a target and said, put this on your back because they're going to there is talk. And this is how long ago there wasn't chat rooms. It was just boards. And in one of the boards, somebody had said, "My scope, we'll zero in on the pink triangle really well to shoot these faggots, you know, and so there was SWAT team up in the mountains in Enumclaw was it was funny because there were two ways to get to Enumclaw from the hotel where we were staying in Seattle.
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KP: And I went the back way and it was real foggy. And I stopped in front of this house that had a Confederate flag and a white supremacist flag and the American flag. And it was foggy and there was an old goat sitting right underneath the flags. And I did not have a camera. If I had a camera, that would that would have been perfect. But it was really, really redneck things when one of the bed and breakfasts up close up to Enumclaw found out was a gay event, they canceled everybody's reservation, you know?
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RS: Yeah, that was one of my questions. If if not, I mean, obviously, the book deals a lot with homophobia and transphobia, and violence. And I was wondering how much of that was based on your experiences or experiences of people you knew?
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KP: Well. It's really interesting because. There is homophobia even in the homosexual groupings, you know, there were clicks inside of the rodeo and still is to a certain extent, I call them pretty horse people in my book, but other people have different names that aren't quite so kind as that because, you know, there there's a feeling of superiority if you're if you're a horse person. I'm not saying that everybody has that, but there is a certain amount of people, but they have grown out of it, I've seen, you know, when I've gone to the later ones. The shirt I'm wearing is is from the gay games that was in Cleveland seven years ago, Cleveland and Akron, you know, and just to see some of the people that came for that, that had been little snots growing up in the rodeo thing and had totally changed. You know, it was really great to see.
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RS: And I think at the center of the story is this really beautiful relationship that, you know, I really enjoyed it because of its complexity and the way you're capturing human relationships that transcend those easy binaries. And, you know, I was wondering, especially with Roman being a straight man who has come to terms with his own homophobia and how damaging that had been in his own life. If you knew people like that at the gay rodeo who came as a self-identified straight, people who were working through their own sort of family traumas.
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KP: Um, when you're when you're at the rodeo and like I said, it's a lot of a lot of ways it's like a bubble. But you get really, emotional when somebody is in the arena. You know, whether they're gay or straight or whatever, and their parents are up in the stands, you know, you just. I don't I don't think parents that had felt homophobic would show up like that, you know? And some people brought their kids that were, you know. Non-binary. Now we know it is non-binary to show them a different side of homosexuality. You know, I mean, Toddy from Victor Victoria at the beginning of the movie, he sings and at the end, everybody's applauding. And he says, “You're very kind.” In fact, you're one up every time. And that's what happens at a rodeo. You know, you have men that identify as big, strong men but happen to be gay.
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KP: I ran into this straight cowboy that thought he was going to come and get all of the money because he was straight, you know, and it was this was just a damn gay rodeo. And he almost lost his life because he was being stupid and wasn't doing everything that he did in the straight rodeo. You know, you just and you just look at them and shake their head, your head at them. It's like, yeah, you may think that this is going to be a walk in the park, but. But it's not. It's not. I wanted to mention something about protesters, we were at Annapolis, Maryland, doing a rodeo for votes for D.C., but it was in Annapolis, and it was a beautiful, beautiful area. The protesters parked their cars in in our parking lot and then went out with signs and protested about homosexuality and how dare they? And we locked the door on them and they couldn't get back into the parking lot [chuckles] because they were protesting us.
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KP: So we just closed their doors and they said, but we need to get well, no, you don't, because this is private property and you're not allowed on our property anymore. It was the best. And the story in Roman and Jules, about the nails and the church family that came in, that really happened. That really happened. And the preacher said, after Saturday, you know, these gay people that were protesting and saying they're going to hell came out and helped us. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm not coming back here tomorrow, and if I do come back, it's not going to be to protest. It's going to be part of their family because, you know, I mean, it's hard it's hard to hate somebody that is kind to you. You know, and I found that a lot in in all kinds of rodeos.
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KP: So. Yeah, I miss my rodeo, I went to a lot of first rodeos, the first rodeo up in Chicago. It was in February, but it was an indoor arena. OK, but the ground that they use all the time was outside. So they brought it in and put it on the arena. And it was it was mud. Mud, and they have these and I'm not exaggerating. One-hundred and one-hundred and twenty-year-old carriages that they were going to bring out the drag queens in to go around the arena, and they got stuck in the mud and broke the axles [laughs]. And and and I'm going to mention Clarence. Clarence was the stock contractor and he stood about five foot one and was about that amount around. And he was a good old boy and I said, “You know, I understand, Clarence, that there are some women out there underneath the mud somewhere” - he says, "Don't make me no, never mind it now, if there are men there, I'll go out." And he came out to me right there on the arena. And it was and he was such a wonderful person.
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KP: He would pick up hitchhikers and take them places. You know, he brought a lot of them into his into his ranch to help. One of them. Thought he could get a bunch of money him, killed him. Clarence was just the most caring, wonderful person in the world, and he died, and I and the guy said, "Well, you know, it was a he was a homosexual and I didn't feel comfortable with it, so I killed them because he was a homosexual." And luckily, if I remember correctly, he didn't get away with that defense. He was pretty much of a scumbag anyway, so.
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RS: Well, I noticed that at the end of ruminant and Hillary Clinton is president, and I really enjoyed the epilog and had, by executive order, made gay marriage legal. And I'm wondering, you know, as you know, since you wrote this book, how the world has changed in ways that you maybe for, you know, for saw a little bit and maybe ways that that have been unexpected to you.
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KP: Well, it was called. It was called. Projecting this is the way I wanted it to, you know, and if 10 years after that it would have been 2010, that would have been great, you know, and it and it came around that it just wasn't Hillary Clinton that that had to do with, you know. Yeah, it. I. To see people. That had been together thirty-five years, and if one of them died, the other one would have been kicked off the land. You know, just sickened me, sickened, and that happened, it would happen, you know.
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RS: Do you think since gay marriage was legalized, that things have culturally have gotten better?
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KP: Oh, yes, oh, absolutely, absolutely. You know. People are coming to the rodeo to get married now, you know, or they are married, you know, men and women as well. You know, I mean, lesbians and gay men are getting married and bringing their spouses into the rodeo community. I want to I wanted to share something with you early when I was doing rodeo. I'd never met a trans person ever and, I I met this woman at one rodeo and the next rodeo, I met him. And he was about to get married to a woman. And they wanted children and they had. They had a. A folder of men that we're going to be the sperm donor, and so they were asking what we all thought we were in in the arena crew, but who we thought would be a good one and you would have died at some of the comments, you know, we had to write down. Number three sounds good. Number five, not good for you, but just have him leave a deposit. It was just the funniest thing, d’you know, and that was my first experience knowing a trans individual ever.
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KP: I had never known a trans individual and. And now I know a lot of them, and I just didn't know that I you know, they came out as trans, you know, men and women, you know, we just did a Calgary. Went from this little place and they just had a rodeo in 2019 at the stampede. One of the stampede arenas, which back when we first started the rodeo up there, there was nobody allowed to be in the arena if they if they define- themselves as gay. And now we had the whole gay event in Calgary, and that was wonderful. And one of the one of the instigators of the reboots is a trans activist female up there, you know. So, you know, it's just. It. It's interesting now when I look at people - especially non-binary - then you don't know if they were a man or a woman, you know, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
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KP: You know, I have buttons about beloved children of God, we are all beloved children of God. I want to show you a sash that was made for me. There's a whole thing about sashes in the rodeo that you can only wear a sash for so long and then you have to retire it to your to your closet. You know, I think there's like two years or something like that. I think they might have changed it by that. But I was down and I was down in San Diego and, I was doing, doing a line on the arena, and we're running a little bit late. It was a beautiful day, and I kept hearing my name being called on the loudspeaker. And I'm going, "I'm busy here. I'm busy here." And I looked around and all the contestants had lined up and they gave me this sash and it says, Miss Kelly girl. And they presented it to me.
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KP: They stayed up till 4:00 in the morning, very drunk to finish it, and there used to be used to be glitter all over it. [chuckles] And it's so old that there's no glitter. But they have they have a lot of things that, buttons and pins and stuff, and so I collected a bunch of pins and put them on my sash and this will never go out of style. Whatever rodeo I go to, I can go to it. And I have a funny story. When I had a little bit of money, which was a long time ago, I used to get things for the people that work in the arena. And one of the things is this. And you might not. It says, Proud to be Kelly crew, and then I had a pink triangle, and so I hadn't seen a lot of the people for a long time because being in Pennsylvania, it cost a thousand dollars to go anywhere from where I live. And so, I went to the gay games seven years ago and I had this proud to be Kelly crew button on there. And this guy came up and this is a guy that had worked 30 rodeos with.
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KP: He said hi, "Hi, my name's Chris." I said, "Hi, Chris," knowing full well who it was. And I had a big bushy beard at the time. He said, "How do you know Kelly?" And I said, "Um, I am Kelly." He went, "Oh, my God!" and jumped into my arms and his husband turned around and said, "What the hell's going on?" And Chris goes, "This is Kelly! This is Kelly!" And he went, "THE Kelly?" "Yah!" So he came over. The three of us are just hugging. And it was just the best, the best moment of my life. It was one of the best things. On your list, you wanted to talk about religion?
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RS: I did. I wanted to especially bring that up since you had just mentioned your pins and how what role faith plays in your life.
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KP: Oh, well, if it. It's the most important thing in my life. In in the book, you read about the blessing to the arena. And that actually came from - I read a book called Coyote Medicine, and it's a true story about a man that was half Native American and half white and how he was pulled back and forth between modern medicine because he was a doctor and shaman medicine. And, you know, and they talked about blessing of the Hogans and things like that. And it really touched a nerve with me. So one year I had this bag of cornmeal in a, you know, like a little plastic bag and did the blessing of the arena up at the Las Vegas in the ninety-five-degree weather. It was brutal and I had a black felt hat on. I was really stupid. And then it got so important for me to do that. It did centered me and I would do it both Saturday and Sunday morning is centered me the first thing in the morning to do that to, you know, whether it did anything or not. So a number of years ago my when my mom was still alive, we had the porch fixed and one of one of the guys had this really great pouch on his belt. And I said, "Wow, where'd you get that pouch?" And he happened to be Native American. And he said, "Well, I make it myself." And he actually made me a pouch. That. Opens and closed, and I said, "It needs to be really, really tightly woven so the cornmeal doesn't come out," and he made it for me and cost me one hundred bucks, I think. And it just and I have one of the important things is knowing north where the north is.
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KP: So I have a compass in there and then I just go and get cornmeal at the grocery store wherever I go to. And when people see me headed out in the morning with my pouch, they, they come in, they walk with me or they want me to stop by their their horses stall with them being there so I can bless them. And as such it's such a. A spiritual moment in my life, I as I said earlier in my life, I was very effeminate and I had something very wonderful happen in my life right after Easter. I was in the choir loft and it was warm and there was a whisper down the alley, and when it came to me it said, take off your choir robe because it's too warm. And I said, "In my mind. Christ died on the cross for us, and we can't be uncomfortable for 20 minutes," and there was a window to my left and there was only a window to my left and I heard somebody sigh like you finally got.
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KP: And I looked at it and it was God and he spoke to me and in just seconds he told me I was a perfect person. And that everybody was around that was around me was perfect. We just all had to realize that. And that was so profound for me that, needless to say, I was the only one that where the fire rope on the way out processing and I went to the pastor who I have trouble remembering his name because he profoundly hurt me and. I told him what happened, I said, "I felt the presence of God this morning in church." And he said, "What part of my sermon did you feel the power?" And I went, "Uh..." And I told him what happened, and he said, "So you didn't get it from my message?" I said, "No." He said, "Then it probably wasn't God." And. It crushed me. And I stepped away from the church, and right after that I went into the military, and I stepped away from God. And luckily, God had a bigger step, and he's always been with me.
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KP: In fact, I didn't realize how, you know, people saw me doing the blessing of the arena. But they also, you know, I'm a very. I don't know if you believe empaths, I'm an empath, the one time that I worked behind the chutes, I couldn't stand it because I could feel everybody's emotion, you know, so I couldn't I couldn't be there. I had to be out in the arena. And then when I came back to caregive my mom about five months after I got back here, there was a phone call for me, and that was before cell phones. Somebody actually had paid to call me and it was one of one of the ladies she and her wife/girlfriend had adopted this son who had leukemia. And they wanted me to pray for him. And I didn't realize that I had affected people with my spirituality that much and that, you know, and then being back to the church, I've been very vocal about being openly gay. In fact, I wrote a book I wrote a play actually about some things that happened to me when I came back and they said, "Oh, we love you, we love you." And then they invited me to be a mentor for the confirmation class and then they uninvited me. And they had said, you know, we have enough people, but they told me the reason why I was being uninvited was because it was just boys in the confirmation class.
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KP: So basically they were thinking that I was a pedophile. So we came out the other end of that. And, you know, I had written this book about rodeo. So I really felt that I could it would be very cathartic to make a play about it. So the play was about fifty percent to fifty-five percent. True. And the rest was made up and then it got produced at several different events. And I had such a wonderful response from it that I wrote a book based on the play. And they're both in the same volume and it's called All the Little Children. And. So I'm very spiritual, we are coming. We just celebrated our second year of becoming open and affirming, and that's to LGBTQA -plus everything else, disabled, you know, mentally handicapped, so and so forth, you know, and I wanted it done twenty-two years ago when I came back, but I would not have been able to do it without the people that did it this time, you know.
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RS: Do you think when you came back was that, so you had mentioned it became harder to participate sort of in your rodeo life. Did a lot of that energy go into the to the church that you grew up in?
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KP: I think it did, yeah, I think it did. And caregiving my mom to she you know, I think you have to have an advocate. You have to have an advocate and nobody advocated for her. When I started back when computers, I actually won a computer on a game show online. You know, if you were one of the top three people at this live game show, you got a computer and I got a free computer. Anyway, I looked up all the medicines and I said, this person that's dealing with her is not when I'm reading all this stuff, it's not helping her. It's counteracting another medicine. Right. So being an advocate is important. So. Anyway, you know, just being a caregiver for my mom and being a part of the church, I've had some really hateful things said to me and said I got a letter from this lady saying, I know you're part of council. The letter I sent has nothing to do with you. And the next night when I went into counsel, they read the letter and it was saying how terrible homosexuals were and you know, and of course, she had said to me, "Oh, no, it's not about you." Well yah, it is about I have to I have to leave the room. I sat and wept at the bottom of the steps. At one point, I wanted to leave the church and our pastor at the time, I went in weeping to her and saying, what do I do? I think I need to leave the church.
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KP: And she said, "Talk to God about it." She didn't give me direction. She said, "You know, just put your put your faith in God and he'll give you the direction." And after a summer of going to different churches that were open and affirming already or, you know, different denominations without that specification, but a different name for it, I came back to the church because God said, "This, this is your family. You need to help your family open up to everybody." And now we have we have gay and lesbian people here that are proudly open. You know, my mother said to me one time when I came back, I said, hey, tomorrow's coming out today. What should I do? And she said, if you came out any further, we need to put a tether on your leg. I miss her every day. She was a character. She was just a character. I wanted I wanted to tell you one other thing. There's a curriculum called Our Whole Lives. The curriculum has to do with sexuality and spirituality. Have you ever heard of it?
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RS: I have not.
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KP: No? It's wonderful. It's put out by the United Church of Christ, which is the denomination I'm in and also, universal, you know, universalists
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RS: Universal Unitarians,
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KP: Yes, Unitarian, yes, right, and it's a combination and it talks about sexuality. And here I am being a media whore again. I wrote another book called And a Child and one of the characters, one of the substories, in that is about a transgender boy. And I thought, you know, it's not going to be affective in this really small area. And when the kids in the curriculum got to the LGBTQ, they wanted something more than the curriculum. So we went to the Gay Straight Alliance in State College and they sent over a panel of four people, four kids. And then the adviser was a lesbian. There was a gay boy. A straight ally, a bisexual girl and a transgender boy. So it was indeed something here. And I love talking about myself and I apologize.
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KP: So the boy was talking and he's doing this and crossing his legs and everything. And then the straight girl was talking about being an ally and so on down the line. And I knew most of the kids in the group. There were 10 kids and there was the pastor female. And then it was a married couple that was helping with it. And I said, hey, you kids know me. You know, I've been around for a long time. I've yelled at you for running through the church. I've been openly gay. I've not ever been afraid of telling you that that God loves me no matter what. I used to be very feminine and very. Just queer and uh and I and I found out that that isn't necessarily who I have to be. I can be anything I want to be. So I have chosen to be this. And if you don't like it, too bad. Right.
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KP: So the pastor said, OK. And I said, thank you. And Pastor started saying something and the gay boy said. Can I say something? She said, sure, and he said, I want to apologize because. I was being very effeminate because I thought that's what was expected of me. And I'm not traditionally that way and the other three went, he's really not. He said, I thought that's what was expected of me and I'd like to be my true self now. So and then we had a two hour conversation after that. It took me about three days to realize because of what I said, this boy realized that he didn't have to be anything but himself. And that made me feel so good. OK, I'm sorry. So.
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RS: I know you said you've been really involved with your church even through this last year of Covid, and I'm wondering if you could talk about what this last year has been like for you both in regards to your church family and the rodeos and and just how you've navigated that as someone, you know, living in a small town in Pennsylvania during Covid?
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KP: During Covid, yeah, yeah. Well, obviously, rodeos are off the board right now. I was I was honored to go up to the Calgary rodeo. And it was it was pretty much a nightmare going up there because my luggage got lost and so did I. And it was terrible. But it was wonderful. It just to be around like-minded people is just an amazing feeling. It's just. You know, and I got to I got to go around and bless the arena. You know, I had people come up to me on Friday and say, "You gonna bless the arena tomorrow morning?" And I said "Yah, I'll be here." I actually had to find cornmeal. There was no place around me. I said, "I need cornmeal." So they made sure I had corn cornmeal in the morning.
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KP: So my church this Sunday, we are celebrating the first year of Zoom Church. In March, we went to other people's Zoom churches during Easter that that last year we were asked we asked if we could go to our past Preachers' Zoom churches. She and she is in Kentucky, Louisville, Kentucky. And they said that we could. And then we I work on the faith formation team and the faith formation team said, well, you know, we'd really like to do is in service ourselves. And who wants to do it? And I went. Well, I can certainly talk, as you can tell, and I said, we can put it together, you know, is there anybody that can do it technically? And one of the guys stood up and that that's been a year ago. And the first thing I said was and we were really worried about the seniors, you know, which I am one.
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KP: But we're talking about people in their 80s and 90s that that would be very confused. And we started at 10 o'clock and at 9:25, one of the seniors got on the Zoom. And then another one came on and they've been there consistently every week except Holy humor Sunday didn't particularly like that. They thought we were going to have clowns on there and we did. But the first thing I said was, welcome to St. John's, where God is still speaking and where all are loved. I have done something that no other preacher in our two-hundred-year history has done, and that is I got everybody in the front row. [chuckles].
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RS: That's a good joke. [laughs].
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KP: Yah, yah. We've done is we've done this for a year. We have we have pastors that come in on Zoom from all over the country, you know, which is really neat. And I go down every Monday traditionally to sing the hymns because we worked out that singing on Zoom with an organ on the background didn't work. So two of us go down a man and a woman. Usually it's me, but we have another man that does it as well. And we do the hymns, you know, and everybody else is muted, you know. So I'm really involved in that, you know, and the children's sermon, you know, I get to do and just say I went to Cleveland the other day to see a friend of mine who is vaccinated, he and his partner that I've been talking to on Facebook for seven years. I've never met them. And I went to Cleveland and wasn't here. And on Monday when I got back, you know, for people that you really missed you in church yesterday, there was nobody to laugh at.
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RS: Do you think that that's helped people get through this year of isolation?
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KP: Say again?
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RS: Do you think that having at least Zoom as an option has helped people get through the year of isolation?
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KP: Yes, in a lot of cases, but in a lot of cases, you know, they say it's not the same. There are people that have every capability of being on Zoom and they choose not to because it's not the same, but you know what? It's never going to be the same. There there is not. There's not ever going to be a normal it's going to be a new normal, we will have we had a hybrid service where everybody was out in the parking lot last Sunday and there was some people on Zoom. You know, and then if in the Fall we have no air conditioning in our church in the fall, if we decide to go inside, you know, we will still have Zoom. Because there are people that do not want to come in the building, you know,
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RS: We've seen the same thing just with teaching.
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KP: Yah
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RS: It's never going to be the same. But there's also a really good opportunity to for people who have mobility problems or any sorts of things that would otherwise exclude them from being able to attend, let alone just illness. That I think you're right in that this is helping create a new normal and hopefully one that we can use to create even more inclusive spaces.
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KP: Right, absolutely. Absolutely.
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RS: And do you feel like it is getting better? Is the vaccine rolling out OK there? How does it feel right now?
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KP: Yeah, it is. We just we just had a survey and out of the 42 people that responded, 80 percent have had have been fully vaccinated. You know, now we have 60 people that we sent that out to, but the 40 that you know, and we are still maintaining six feet. And wearing masks, so, you know, it's it will never be the same, you know, who would have thought? You know, in twenty nineteen that things would come to a crashing halt.
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RS: Yeah, I think absolutely this is this is a good time to be recording oral histories because this is such a historical moment and, you know, do you think when do you think you would be comfortable or able to go to a rodeo again? I know they're planning on holding some, but is that something that that you think a lot of people are excited about or are still concerned about? And how do you feel about it yourself?
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KP: Well, Pennsylvania has the Keystone. I think it's Keystone. They didn't let covid stop them last year, I preferred not to go, but for more reasons than covid. We did the farm. There's a farm…farmers complex down in Harrisburg that we did our first rodeo at. And we did really well, and then the second rodeo, we were at a smaller arena, it was really nice. But the people in charge of the money messed it up really bad and the contestant didn't get their winnings. And that really that really embarrassed me, you know, because, you know, when the money doesn't shouldn't be used for anything other than the winnings and it went into the bills that even didn't get paid. So it really it was an embarrassment to me. And I you know, it's unfortunate and I don't know how to vocalize that to them, so if they have something this November, I'm not going to be going. But, you know. I guess I guess Colorado's coming up in July. I, I think that's too soon. I really do.
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KP: August I think New Mexico is having one. I, I think that may even be too soon, you know, and also I'm on unemployment, so I don't have the money unless they say here's a free paid ticket and we have your hotel. Just bring your appetite, you know, money for that. Oh, speaking of appetite, I want to tell you a story. In Phoenix, I haven't gone to Phoenix for a long time, the Phoenix rodeo there. So I went one year and being in the arena, you work late. So all the contestants had gone up to this steakhouse that they went to every year and they have a special room in the back. And there's like 40 contestants in the back there. And the staff in that room come up with a question that everybody at the table has to answer, and it's usually sexually oriented. Are you a top? Are you a bottom? Have you ever been in a three way? And you have to answer these questions.
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KP: Well, luckily, we didn't have to go back to that because we were really late and there was me and two ladies and you walk in and there's this woman standing there and she has a six gun on her hip and a cowboy hat, and she looks, you know, she looks like Annie Oakley, except maybe one hundred years old. She's old. Looks like Annie Oakley. And, "So what are y'all here for?" "Well, we'd like to eat." "Just the three of you?" "Uh, yes mam." Looked right at me and she said, "Follow me, ladies." And we have the best dinner. I haven't eaten red meat for a long time. So. So they had really good chicken. But you could see them. You looked out the window and they were they were over a big fire pit. Cooking all this food for everybody, it was funny. But but the question that the contestants had was, are you a top or a bottom? And these questions didn't come from anybody in the audience or the contestants, it came from the staff, they wanted to hear all and people were shocked at some of the answers.
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RS: I mean that brings -
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RS: Go ahead.
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KP: No, go ahead.
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RS: Got to say, that brings up my follow-up question of relationships in the military. But did you have any relationships at the rodeo?
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KP: Actually, I didn't. Uh, out of the 133 rodeos, I've only been laid at a rodeo once.
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RS: Just too busy?
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KP: And that was by accident. I meant I met this guy, we went to my hotel room and in the morning I said, Oh, I've got to get out of here. He said, so do I, I'm going to the rodeo. And I went [sharp inhale] and you know what? It's not because I didn't want to. Everybody thought I was a priest or something, that I didn't have sex. And I don't, [laughs] trust me. I'm not - at all. But, you know. But it was sometimes you just don't need sex and with rodeos, I was usually too exhausted anyway. I was talking to you about death at the rodeo before in in D.C. I, I saw two deaths Uh, there was, as I said, I'm a photographer and I had the camera and I was taking pictures. And. There was a guy in the last shoot on a steer and somebody who is supposed to be holding him, you know, so if you pitch forward, they could pull him back and the person wasn't strong enough and he hit his head on the bar and he died. And I and I almost took a picture of it, and I I mean, it's what I'm used to, you know, and I pushed the button and I had somehow turned off the camera. So God stopped my camera from doing that. And another time.
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KP: They were doing barrel racing and. The woman came out with her horse and circled around. And the horse slipped and broke his leg and it limped out and they, you know, so no ghouls were around, they put up a fence and everything and the horse had to be put down. And. It costs like fifteen hundred dollars. And the announcement came out, anybody could help with the fifteen hundred dollars [cries] and in 15 minutes it was paid for. That's the kind of people these rodeo people are. It does not matter if you're a man or woman. If you can do a job, you're in the job. I worked mostly with women arena directors. I learned so much about the arena from women. Because they knew how to do the job. It you know, it's just such a wonderful family, a wonderful community. At. The riderless horse you read, read in my book, have you ever been to a rodeo, by the way?
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RS: Yah.
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KP: OK, so I mean a gay rodeo.
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RS: Yeah, yes.
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KP: OK, all right. The riderless horse is such an integral part of remembering who we are and who is past and to hear us talking in the early years about people that have died of AIDS and then going from AIDS to breast cancer to all the illnesses, you know, it's really such a spiritual, wonderful uh, family community, especially with the riderless horse. It is just. It's just a wonderful group of people, and I really appreciate being a part of it.
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RS: Do you think a lot of other people I've interviewed have expressed concern that that, you know, people are aging in the association and there's not a lot of younger members coming in. And I'm wondering if that's something you're concerned about and what you think the future of the association is?
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KP: Well, if we can get somebody to produce my book as a movie, I think they would pique a lot of people's interest. Hint, hint, hint, hint, hint. It you know, you've got to put that out in the universe, you know. I think it needs to be more publicized. You know, back in the 90s, you know, we were we were something of an anomaly, you know, and we were on new shows everywhere, and now it's Rupal's Drag Race that's the anomaly. And we need to become an anomaly again, you know. It's funny because. You see these big butch cowboys doing all kinds of stuff, and then at night they're dancing and prancing around and just being themselves and loving themselves and loving, loving their atmosphere. We need to we need to publicize it more. Absolutely.
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RS: Do you feel like trans members and non-binary people, do you feel like they feel supported by the institution?
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KP: Absolutely. Absolutely. Have you seen the movie Queens and Cowboys?
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RS: Yeah.
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KP: Yeah, well, my friend Travis, you know, he was so brave enough to show before pictures of him, before he was transition. You know, I really I really feel the love. Through him, you know, and like I said, the trans I you know, the person came up and said, my name is so-and-so, but last year I was so-and-so I'd never remembered that. Before he transitioned. You know, in my mind, you know. So you just you just you, I think, non-binary. Would have a better chance at the rodeo than other places. I really feel that.
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RS: So as an artist, you know, it's interesting to hear you've been in these spaces - military, rodeo - and you've been in them a lot of times as an artist, as a photographer or a writer, a teacher, all of the these sort of positions. I wonder how you this has affected your art, your approach to creating things. Is it your inspiration or how does that play into your artistic craft?
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KP: Well. The old adage, you are what you eat. You know. I I wrote the rodeo book, and then I wrote the play and the book, then I wrote a book about Rose Parade floats, it's called the Long Pink Line. I should have sent all of them to you instead of just sorry about that. I mean, maybe they're on maybe they're on Kindle anyway. You know, I was involved. I mean -
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RS: I'll check,.
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KP: Oh OK. I, I had I was walking down the street in college or Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena with a friend of mine who is a florist. And there was a pink line down the middle of the street. And I said, well, what on earth? Is that doing there in the middle of the street? He said when the floats come down the street, they can't always see ahead of them. So they have somebody in the headset saying, slow down, speed up, but they can look down and they can see the pink line and they know they're exactly in the middle of the road. I said, OK, that explains the line. Why is it pink? And. And he said, well, they tried red, but it looked like blood on the pavement. And something in my mind said, I want to know more about this. And two years later, working for the same man, we worked on three rows for eight floats and I wrote about four paragraphs, but it was before I became a writer.
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KP: So I put everything in a box. And then when I was back here, I had the box sent to me and I brought it out there and I looked at the outline and two months later I had the book. And it is truly, truly a novelette because it's you know, it's really it's eighty-seven pages, you know, but it talks about there's murder and mystery. There's there's a presidential and vice-presidential story in it. There's the way to build a float. You know, that people didn't know and stuff like that, and there's two wonderful love stories, gay love story and a senior, two older people love story. And I already have them cast, by the way, Ellen DeGeneres as the as the lesbian vice president that they attempt to kill, Bette Midler as the mother of one of the gay guys. I already have it cast right here. I'm putting it out in the universe. Yeah.
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RS: Yeah [inaudible]
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KP: I'm sorry?
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RS: Just put it out there.
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KP: Absolutely. I, I work I used to work with seniors and special needs people, and there was this wonderful lady who had muscular dystrophy, who was non-verbal. But you knew when she was happy when she was sad. And one year, I must have seen her as a mermaid. For Halloween, because I had this vision of her that there was a mermaid trapped in her body. And there was, you know, and I just started writing that story, it's called The Birth of a Mermaid, if you want to look that up and you can. But, you know, it's just something that that connects with me. I have up here a sequel to my And a Child. When the boys - I'm sorry - And a Child was the story about two boys who meet in middle school, one being raised by lesbian parents, one being raised by two gay men. Did I tell you about that already? No. OK, and they become fast friends and they on down the line. They try to get a gay-straight alliance in their high school, and they run into problems, you know, and and the sequel will be shall lead them and that's when they go off to college, you know, and it's right up here. I just need to get it right here. You know, it's tough to do. It's tough to do and it's easy to do. You know, so I just need to do that. Maybe this will get me, get me going again.
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RS: And when you came back to Pennsylvania, what have you done for for work outside of writing and doing those things and taking care of your mom?
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KP: Well, writing has never paid for more than a cup of coffee. Unfortunately. I I worked at a like a 7-Eleven type thing for a while, I worked as a taxi driver. I worked with special needs and seniors for quite a while, for 10 years. And and now I'm unemployed, so. Until September and then I'll be seventy-three and everybody will want a seventy-three-year-old.
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RS: I feel like a lot of people are experiencing this, particularly with the pandemic. You know, just trying to figure out the next thing.
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KP: Right.
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RS: Everything has been hardened and also the way in which that people have sort of reconnected with their artistic selves as well,
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KP: Uh huh, yah.
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RS: Trying to -.
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KP: Yah.
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RS: To do something that feels good.
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KP: Right, yeah, yeah.
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RS: Everything feels hard right now.
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KP: It does. It really does. And, you know, and, you know, I live with my cat, that's it. You know, I don't have anybody else to at least once a year before the pandemic, I had to clean up the house for Memorial Day because everybody came to my house for I didn't have to do that last year. I sat on Memorial Day on my porch waiting for people to walk by so I could call it a parade.
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RS: Yeah, I mean, I really actually think the holidays were so hard this year, like the days, the days that we usually celebrate. Even I have two young kids and even then it was hard, like I had to really dig deep to, like, do something big for them. Yeah, because it was, it was hard.
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KP: Yeah.
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RS: So I'm wondering if you want to show your pictures and talk about them a little bit?
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KP: I was trying to figure out how to do that. Hold on. Hold on a second. [long pause] I think I got got it hold on. [long pause] Oh. OK, this thing. I told you I told you that I, I used to give little trinkets to people. And this is in the arena, we called it the Kelly crew and crew was spelled with a K. So I had reverse K's and then the pink triangle and the black triangle. And were you familiar with the Black Triangle before you read it in my book?
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RS: Yes.
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KP: OK. All right. So I did that. And then. So I'm sure that. Might take a few minutes, I'm sorry.
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RS: No, I'm just really impressed how well versed you are in Zoom.
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KP: I think the next one is. A group of people - you'll see, hold on. Oh, no [laughs] no, this happened to be. Just a silly picture that somebody took of me, I learned I learned early on that I really needed to have a sweat thing under my hat because I have no hair, obviously, and there's no hair up there to soak up the water. So I had something. So that was that was one of my entertainment clown things. I purposely skipped. Oh, sorry. I purposely skipped arena thirteen picture - hold on. Now, this this was at the farm place down in Harrisburg, and I was. I was the assistant arena director. Only because I had the biggest mouth [RS laughs] and it was a really bizarre space and I had to shout around corners to get the horses to come up, and that was me holding, holding the gate closed. And as you can see, I have a little belly, a big belly there. And I had a hat that said end hunger. So I did that. And they normally take a picture of all the women at, at rodeos. Oh, oh, I like this picture hold on. This is, this is my butch picture oh where'd it go, oh, there it is. That's up in Calgary.
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RS: That is an amazing outfit.
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KP: Isn't that great? Now this vest. See, I told you I was jealous about the vest everybody had. I made these vests for all the arena crew, and I made like 30 of them, OK? And everybody went, all these are so stupid. These are so stupid. And they took them home with them. So I don't have it. If you look really closely on this, it has a - hold on the second. It has a little horse things on it
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RS: That's amazing. I feel like that's a shirt that Garth Brooks would have worn. It's great.
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KP: Oh yeah. There's a shirt. I have a shirt here, you know. You know who Roger Bergmann is, right? OK, I have a shirt to sitting right here. I'm pretty sure this is the shirt. That Roger Bergman has. And when I saw him wear it, I wouldn't wear it again because, you know, that's so rude that somebody else would wear a shirt that you have. It's a vanity thing, you know. Let's see. Almost done, hold on. [long pause] No, that's. I, I have led such a blessed life. Meeting all these people and being surrounded now, this one. This one was. Oh, no, that's not right. Stop sharing. Oh, here it is. You can't see it very well, but these are all the people. At the gay games. And I'm the only one and I'm right here, can you see where my arrows pointing?
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RS: Yes. [laughs].
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KP: Without a hat on. There's a picture of David Pizutti that that I can't find anywhere in my computer. That. He was the most talented person in the world. He was a gymnast. I think it was a he was a nurse or a doctor of some sort. But he come in and came and did our rodeos. He was gay. He walked into a. An event. This right here is. The arena crew now has purple shirts, so that's an arena crew thing. I think that's I think that's me. Looks like my ass right there. [RS giggles] But um. So he walked into to an event where they had pro bullfighters and walked away with best bullfighter. He did he did a thing where he came out and he would put a lime in the dirt and then he would take off his pants and take off his shirt and put on a Nadia Comaneci wig, and he would go out and do a balance beam thing. And he would do a flip and land in a split. And he won with that. With that thing. See, that's me somewhere, I don't even know where that is, but that's me. I think that might be. Washington, D.C.. I think there's only one more. That I will cost you with, sorry. [long pause]
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RS: And what year did you move back to Pennsylvania?
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KP: I moved back in in 1998. We. And from then on. It costs an arm and leg to get anywhere, so. See you like this vest so much I'm going to show you another picture. And that's the shirt that that no, actually, I think it's a pink shirt, but but the shirt that I just showed you, that's the same shirt. I have to I have this black felt hat that I used to put pins on and the first rodeo they had at Palm Springs, I was running through the chutes where the calves came in and I hit a bar and all the pins scraped my forehead all the way back. So all weekend long, I couldn't wear a hat because I had these scabs [chuckles]. It was needless to say, I don't have any pins in my hat and ever again, so. So that's it.
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RS: Were you ever sort of seriously injured at a rodeo, working on the crew?
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KP: Nope. Thank God. Just getting hit in the wallet [laughs]. And I wasn't even hurt at all, it actually adjusted my back. I, I love telling that story because it was so unexpected, all of it, including getting my getting my lower back adjusted so.
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RS: Well, I think I have exhausted my questions for now. Is there anything extra you want to add?
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KP: Look at my list. You know, I think I've exhausted my list as well,
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RS: So one thing I always like to ask everybody is whether you consider yourself a cowboy?
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KP: I consider myself cowboy adjacent. I will demand the rights of any cowboy around me. But don't make me sit on a horse. But I love I, I actually I actually wrote a song that I - have you ever heard of a strum stick? A strum stick is, it's like a guitar, but it only has three strings. And I'm going to - I wrote that I have a love of my life, that, wouldn't have anything to do with me after a certain time because we weren't sexually attracted to each other, but we loved each other deeply. And he took me out on the dance floor one time. And I do you know about country dancing, slow dancing? OK, there's a lead and a follow. Well, I don't follow. And he said…He walked up and he said, “I don't… I don't follow.” And I said, “Well, I will let you lead. And I'll follow. But I'm going to have to close my eyes because I just want to take over if I see what I'm doing.”
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KP: So, the refrain of it is, if you lead, I will follow, I will follow your lead and at the end of the song, in true life, he just left me on the dance floor. And we never saw each other again. And to this day, he's still around, he's still alive. He lives in San Diego. I haven't seen him in probably eighteen years, and I still pine for him every day. And you know, we're always told that you love somebody that you have sex with. You don't have to love - you don't have to love somebody just because you have sex with them, you love them because you love them, they're your heart and he could never understand that because he's a physical person. So he took me out of his life. And I think that dance was a dance that showed him that he loved me, but he couldn't accept it, and that's been 17, 18 years.
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RS: Do you think that's a lot of where your book comes from? About that scared love?
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KP: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. In fact, he was the inspiration of the love between Roman and Jules. And all I got to say, it's his loss because I have so much love in my heart. And I want a husband of my own, not somebody else's husband - although, there's a book out called Still Straight. And it's about it is probably a doctoral thesis that this guy wrote about 60 straight men in the, in rural situations. Let me let me get you the guys then it's called, Still Straight: Sexual Flexibility Among White Men in Rural America. And. I'm trying to get to. I think the last name is Silva. Still Straight. I found it on Kindle.
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RS: That sounds amazing.
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KP: It's amazing, you know, how people. Very, very straight, but need to be with a man. For a lot of reasons.
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RS: Do you think? That pining for him made it difficult to find other partners?
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KP: There's nobody around here, you know, when I first got back here for two or three years, the Penn State had potlucks for gay men. And I went to that and everybody had a partner. You know, and I was singled out, you know, I was all by myself single and I, you know. It's unfortunate and you know, I, I, I pined for him, but - I know you don't want to hear this, but I'm 72 years old and I'm still very sexually active, which is why, you know. I went and got tested again because, you know, last weekend I went to Cleveland, but, you know, and I was both vaccinated and, HIV negative, so.
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RS: So do you think that the development of gay dating apps or hookup apps have have helped for rural men or rural women to at least, like, know who else is out there? You can check your smartphone.
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KP: Well. I only slipped three times, four times during the pandemic. And two of those times was through a dating app, and it happened to be both of them on the same day [laughs with RS ] TMI, TMI, did you know Craigslist, you know, when they took that stuff off of Craigslist? You know, my sex life hit the dirt. You know, and and I and I feel like a snob now, but, you know. I was very biased against married men. And then reading this still straight, I realize what their impetus is, is that the right word? To having sex with a man and I and I feel that I've snubbed up in a lot of people because of that, you know.
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RS: So do you use Grindr or
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KP: Grindr and and the other one, uh Scruff? Hmm, that's what I have.
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RS: Scruff, yeah.
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KP: Yeah, Scruff. And then there's Doublelist. But that I haven't gotten anything from that.
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RS: So, I mean, I'll be honest and say in a lot of my straight female friends feel the same way in rural America, just like any men who are here and straight, like our already paired off and face things. We're also in a college town and so they don't want to use the dating apps because their students will be on it. There's a lot of there's a lot of stuff to navigate. And it's interesting to think about in terms of the rodeo sort of offering a a place where you could be relatively assured of the person you're hitting on, you know, was gay and having some of those spaces die out in it, and these apps emerge. But sometimes even with the apps, you're still at a rural place you don't know.
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KP: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I'm just praying somebody contacts me and then tries to blackmail me so I can turn them in because I feel like I'm all afraid and everything. And then when they when I bring the money, you know, I hand on the money and then the police come out and go, you're busted! [chuckles]
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RS: Yeah. I mean, it has it got does it feel safer now using the Internet to find people than it used to?
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KP: It's never been, it's never been the ultimate place to go, you know, I mean, I'd much rather be in San Diego with my friend Rick. By the way, in the book, I have to tell you a funny story. I talked about the glory hole. Right? And a friend of mine read the book when it first came out. And then I went to a rodeo up in Canada. And when I came back, my mom had some newspapers on my bed when I got back. And it had a story about a math teacher that had been arrested because he had sex with a 15-year-old in a bathroom. But the teacher didn't, and it was one of his students, but the teacher didn't know it was a student and, you know, and it happened a few times. And then when the teacher found out it was the student, he said no more. Right. So the students now 18 years old. Right. And out of school and the police come to him and say, "We're not going to arrest you, but we want you to go to, you know, witness against this guy," and the 18-year-old went, "You guys are full of shit. I mean, I was the one presenting myself to him.
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KP: He had no clue who I was. So I'm not playing your game." So I, and it turned out that the guy, the guy's ex-partner that was pissed at him turned him in. So I had talked to my friends who had read my book. And I said, "How are you doing?" She said, "Well, I want to tell you, I want to thank you for something." I said, "What?" She said. "Have you read this story about the bathroom sex?" I said, "Yeah, I heard it on the news or read it in the newspaper." She said, "I want to thank you for me not being nearly as shocked as I would have been had I not read your book." [laughs] You know, you find out things, you know.
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RS: You find out things. Now, I say, I think me being a young woman in college when the oh, now I'm going to forget his name. I'm from Idaho. And it was the, you know, politician from Idaho was arrested in a bathroom. And that was very much I was like, what's cruising? And many of my gay male friends had to explain the facts of life. Right.
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KP: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know what I thought was funny? When whenever the pandemic first started and the CDC said, if you are going to have sex habits through a hole in the wall without saying gloryhole, have it through a hole in the wall. Well, if you insist,
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RS: I give it CDC recommended.
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KP: Absolutely. And this was while Trump was in office. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to swear in front of you.
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RS: Oh, yeah? Do you think so? I started collecting oral histories right at the 2016 election.
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KP: Ooh-ho [shudders].
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RS: And people in gay rodeo were really split. You know, there were there are many people in gay rodeo who hold pretty deeply conservative beliefs and who would tell me off the record that they had voted for that administration. And then there were other people who were very concerned and anxious. And, you know, I'm wondering how you felt the last four or five years. How that changed the landscape politically, especially in rural America, for LGBTQ people.
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KP: Well, I was, I was angry for four years, for six years, actually, because he started, you know. I was really, really, really angry. And on January 6th. You know, I was sickened. I mean, I was physically ill. You know, it bothered me and it scared me, you know, and, you know, thank God they didn't get in to any of the senators because, you know, they would have had blood in their eyes and they would have killed anybody, not just Democrats. They would have killed anybody. And then on the twenty-first. Lady Gaga sang and everything was all right. Garth Brooks sang, it even got better. Garth Brooks said the reason why he came out of jeans was because Lady Gaga had taken his first look. I love him. I love him.
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RS: Tough not to love. I really think Garth Brooks is tough not to love. He's loveable.
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KP: Oh, yeah. As you know, his sister is gay. Did you know that?
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RS: I did not know that. Yeah. I actually went to a Garth Brooks concert up in Spokane and almost got into a fistfight with someone who used a slur that I did not appreciate. And it makes me happy to know Garth Brooks sort of supported my decision to.
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KP: Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Whenever I hear the dance, which is what I what I talk about in the book, it just tears me up, you know, because that the last dance, you know, and you never know when the last dance is coming, so.
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RS: So do you think with everything politically happening and obviously we're a deeply divided nation, are you hopeful that things are going to continue to get better? Or are you worried that there will be another backlash that will sort of keep pushing us backwards?
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KP: I would hope. Especially with people being taken care of. That there's not going to be the backlash and also, and excuse my French, the motherfuckers that that are changing voting laws, they just signed something in Florida this morning. You know, I've already voted. We vote on the 18th. I've already voted, and it's already in there now, you know, I just. If you're going to create laws to have less people vote, then. You know, you're not in the right, and they just figured out, Georgia just figured out that it's actually going to affect the Republicans worse than it's going to affect the Democrats. From what I understand what I was reading this morning. It's like, oh, well.
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RS: Yeah, America is one of the only democracies in the world that doesn't guarantee voting based on citizenship.
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KP: Right.
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RS: Which I, I think that should maybe change someday.
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KP: Well, and also, Doug Emhoff is that is that the second husband's name said, "Why did you feel the importance to be vaccinated?" And somebody said, "Because I'm in a country that doesn't have universal health care." You know? By the way, he's a cutie, isn't he?
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RS: Sorry, I'm a big fan of Kamala. I'm sorry. I'm a big fan of Kamala Harris.
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KP: Oh, me too. Me too. See, see, I would have sex with that. She could kick my ass, but she's married.
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RS: Darn it. All the good ones are taken.
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KP: Absolutely. Well, maybe they're not taking it all the way. Read get straight. No, straight. Still straight. Still straight.
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RS: So, yeah, this has been absolutely wonderful. And so I wanted to ask if it's OK if we contact you, do you only want that to be about transcription or is it OK to reach out with other questions?
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KP: Absolutely. As you can tell, I'm an open book. I've told you about my sex life here today.
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RS: Thank you.
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KP: And I'm not even sure I mean, I'm shy about nothing.
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RS: That's wonderful.
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KP: You know, it's you have to be an open book. I was I was never more proud than went two kids in in our church [cries] going to get emotional, thanked me from the pulpit after they graduated - one was a lesbian and one was an asexual - thanked me for guidance. I mean. I am an open book. I'm trying to think if there are any other books that I've read. Oh, I wrote I wrote a Christmas story called So a Preacher and Santa Walk into a bar [giggles].
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RS: Well, I'll be reaching out to you for a list of all of your writings so I can
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KP: Excellent, if you'd like me to send you some. I certainly will do that.
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RS: Thank you so much. This is really just been wonderful. And I do hope we get to meet in person someday.
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KP: That would be wonderful. I wanted to ask you. And you're married.
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RS: I am married.
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KP: What's your husband do for a living?
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RS: He is an I.T. professional, so he works in. So we live in a small town called Moscow and right across the border in Washington, is a small town called Pulman, where Washington State University is. Oh. And I work at the University of Idaho. And and so he works at a manufacturing company out there. And yeah, he he's much more employable than I am with three degrees. Yeah. But yeah, we were very happy here. And as I think a lot of what you shared today is how important your work is for young people in your state, in your town. And that's a lot of what we're committed to here is just making sure, you know, young people in Idaho know that they're valued and they're loved and they're that we want them here. We don't want to lose them to [inaudible].
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KP: No matter what. No matter what. Absolutely. I mean, when I was a child, I thought I was the only person that had the same sexual attraction.
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RS: Yeah. And we just yeah, we want to make sure that that doesn't happen to another generation of Idaho kids, so, yeah.
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KP: Idahoians?
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RS: Idahoans. Oh, OK. Yeah, I think my children are the fifth generation of Idahoans?
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KP: Oh wow!
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RS: And on and on my spouse's side, they'd be the seventh generation. So.
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RS: Oh WOW.
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KP: It goes deep. So I really understand your story of going home and living, you know, being in the house you grew up in and being with your mom. That means a lot to me.
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KP: Yeah. Yep. She was the finest kind of person in the world.
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RS: She was lucky to have such a great, committed son.
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KP: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.
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RS: Well, I'm going to end the recordings.
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KP: OK.
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RS: And thank you so much for your time.

Danny Lee

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Danny Lee and it's May 12th, 2017 and we’re at the Hot Rodeo in Palm Springs. So if you could just tell me when you were born and where you were born?
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Danny Lee: Sure yes I was born in 1952. And I was born in a small town in England called Anfield just outside of London.
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RS: And did you grow up in England primarily? Did you family move around at all?
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DL: Well, yeah we were in England and a little bit in Scotland and we have to be careful there's a definite difference between the two. My father was in the Navy and so when he was abroad or posted away we would live with my grandparents up in Sandalund a ship-building area up in the North of England and then the rest of the time we lived in London. So I grew up sort of partly in the South and partly in the North.
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RS: What parts of London did you live in?
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DL: Mostly the North of London a place called Infield. But also a place called West Hendon which is mostly famous for its police college and Clapham Common.
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RS: Was moving around so much pretty tough on you or were you pretty used to it?
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DL: I think since I was born into it, you don't really know there's anything different. We didn't move a huge amount of the times but sufficient for me to know we were moving. It didn't bother me at all. But it probably reflects now that I'm what they call a rolling stone, I think. Home is where is wherever I happen to be and with the people that I want to be with--it's not a place, so I don't feel bad. I moved to Palm Springs last year from Albuquerque and I don't miss Albuquerque in the sense that it was my home for thirteen years, you know, it just is. So that was my childhood. We moved and I met knew people that was it.
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RS: Was it easy to make friends in new places? Did you did you ever feel a sense of loss leaving you know a young friend at all?
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DL: At this point, I don't remember. I suspect at the time I probably, I'm sure, I must have had special friends in each place…but they are all kind of a distant memory. Some people have this wonderfully sharp memory of their childhood, you know on their third birthday they unwrapped seventeen presents. I'm sure I had a 3rd birthday but I don't remember anything about it and that's the same with a lot of people they are transient in my life so they were probably important at the time but very few stick and the memory doesn't really stick. The events do. We went to a fair or whatever but not the particular person you know.
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RS: So can you describe sort of decades what was going on sort of nationally in England while you were growing up. Was it a pretty conservative time? A pretty…time of a protest?
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DL: Well, the 50s weren’t a time of protest particularly, they were a time of consolation in England from the war. And my brother was six years older than me so he has a slightly different view of it. When I was born I did have a ration book as a baby. And because a couple of things were still on ration, particularly sugar. And then in '52, just a month after I was born, the King died. So, I lived under George VI for a whole month and then ‘cause the Queen was crowned in her coronation was in '53. And although I don't remember, being one years old, that was actually when we got our first TV. A nine inch round screen TV. And all the neighbors came around to watch the coronation on the TV. So I remember that first decade really about time of our empire. The British Empire was still there, you know it’s funny at school we had these world maps the geography and huge areas were colored pink and pink meant that it was a British territory and I was talking to somebody the other day. I realized by the time I left college there was almost nothing pink left on that map. So I lived through that whole transition over a couple of decades.
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RS: Wow. Can I ask, you know, was your family sort of aware--with your father being in the military--aware of this decolonization that was happening was it something that was being discussed or did it just sort of happen?
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DL: Typically those things weren't discussed at home, you know. Clearly he would have been aware in terms of being posted to different locations but it was never a subject. In fact, politics in general wasn't a subject. I came from a working class family and the concerns were more about rent and food and getting the kids clothed and to school. Very little about politics at all, very different to where we are at now I think. But then news sources were much scarcer so my father took two newspapers a day and an extra one on the Sundays and that is where our information came from.
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RS: And as you sort of grew into the 60s and 70s how did that change, especially as you were getting older? Were you a little bit more aware of what was happening in the world or…?
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DL: Yes, I was. I think the single biggest event I remember was the moon landing. And everybody seems to know that. My father made me stay up and watch it on TV. So, yes, those major events--JFK--those kinds of things certainly stick in your mind, even though we were in England they impacted us. But in terms of government changes at home or international events, they weren't really terribly important to me then. It wasn't until I got into college where I became “radicalized,” I think that would be the modern term. I got interested in politics and very involved so.
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RS: And where did you go to college?
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DL: Teeside University, although back then it was called Teeside Politechnic. Politechnics were a fairly new idea back then and of course education to your bachelors was free in England. So I benefited very much from that system I was still the first person in our family to actually go to college and I discovered college was a great place for parties, beer, food. Oh and learning! There was learning involved too.
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RS: Hopefully lots of learning. [Laughter]
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DL: Well, yeah it turned out okay actually. I took the first computer science degree offered there and then my subsequent career was all in computers, so.
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RS: Wow. Can you describe what that field looked like at the time…obviously it's much different now.
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DL: It's about like how I viewed cavemen when I was a kid. “Oh my god they did that?” Our computers were rooms and rooms full of big whirring metal cabinets, these strange tapes shuttling backwards and forwards at very high speeds and all these cards, these cardboard punch cards, being fed into hoppers. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. And the operators trying to keep up. And then the line printers would shoot paper out at enormous speed, out of something that was the size of an entertainment unit. That was a printer, one printer. And the computer itself had as much intelligence now as gas pump. It…so I've seen extraordinary changes go on since then.
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RS: And what were you particularly interested in? Were you an operator? Did you fix them? Did you just…?
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DL: Oh well, the degree was in computer science so I covered all aspects of computers back then, which fortunately was a lot smaller science than it is now. SO it was a very broad course. When I left I started out both as an operator and a programmer. I actually had two jobs, one in the evening and one in the day, trying to save up for a deposit on a house. And so I worked…usually I worked sixteen hours a day. [Laughter] And I did that for a couple of years, just trying to get enough money together to start, you know, buying a house. And I did eventually manage to buy a tiny house. It was actually a triangular house. Back in England they would, the factory owners would, build homes for the factory workers in Victorian times. And if a road curved around a corner they just kept building all the houses were row houses so they are all stuck together they are called terraced houses in Britain. So the terraced houses would just build around a corner which mean the one right on the corner was triangular shaped, it was a wedge. And I bought one of those it was my very first house. And I bought it for about $20,000. So.
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RS: And where was that at?
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DL: That was in a place called Reading. Yeah, just outside of London. Used to be famous for its jail, amongst other things. That's where Oscar Wilde was in jail.
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RS: And were you single at the time? Were you dating?
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DL: Oh yes. I was single for a long long time actually. Partly because I wasn't apt and, you know, my sexual orientation really formed the first decade or so of my adult life. Because I had to be so careful. One of my early memories actually is I was--think I was fourteen--and there was a huge murder case in the papers and a guy called Ian Brady and his girlfriend murdered a number of children and buried them on the moles out on the grasslands. One of them was a seventeen-year-old and Brady had promised him sex. Took him to his home that he shared with Marley Hendez his girlfriend. And then he’d beaten the boy to death with an ax. And when that term when that came out in the news, I remember my father throwing this newspaper in front of me and I was about fourteen something like that and he said, “that's what happens to those people.” So you know that I would never have been able to come out to my father. I did come out to my brother. But then I immediately went back in and stayed in as I went to college and started working and you know it just wasn't safe for me until we got to the beginning of the 80s when I finally came out.
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RS: And did you know at a very young age?
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DL: Oh yes. Yes. I remember just being in the thrall…we had, after my father left the Navy, we ran a pub--a public house--and we had letting rooms, so we had bed and breakfast rooms. And there was this young guy, he must have been thirty-something and he was a construction worker. And I saw him one day in the hallway upstairs with no shirt and, oh my goodness, I could not take my eyes off of him. So yeah, I was probably about nine at the time. So yeah I knew what I liked. I didn't have a name for it.
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RS: Did you ever have girlfriends as a way to pass or to cover?
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DL: I had some very, well two, transient relationships. One for about a week or so and the other one for about six weeks, something like that. And I feel very sorry for both of those women. Because you know this was not good for them. Although one of them came out as a lesbian later so that was okay. It was yeah a difficult time for me because I couldn't be honest about myself but I also had this bad feeling about being dishonest with them. So it was a double sort of whammy, really. But yeah that was kind of then…I could you know mark the little check mark you know had girlfriend. It was not good.
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RS: When you got to college was the culture at all a little more freer could you find other people or community at all?
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DL: No, not really. I the college I was going to was in the North of England which is more conservative. If you turn England upside down it would be the equivalent of the social views of America. So the North is much more conservative than the South. So I was at college in the North and…no they did not… There was an organization that started called the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, CHE, and one guy came out as a member of CHE. And he was vilified and he wasn't attacked or anything but people didn't want to know him and I eventually got to know him and he realized that I was gay and so he was pushing me to sort of deal with it and in the end I ended the friendship because I just couldn't deal with it, you know, so. I remember him saying, "Well you're not ready now but at some point you will be," and that was that. So.
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RS: So what year about did you end up buying your little triangle house?
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DL: 1976
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RS: So really you sort of really came up in the 60s and 70s. And obviously you know in the United States that was a time of considerable social unrest, civil rights, black power, anti-Vietnam, counterculture, um did you did England or Great Britain experience those sorts of social movements at the same time. I mean, would a college campus or a young worker have experienced that sort of upwelling of youthful rebellion?
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DL: So college campus were very active politically but not on the same issues. So the black issue was very much an American issue. By the 60s the black community wasn't well tolerated in England but it was to some extent integrated. I think that started actually just after the war. I remember I was about six and my mother took me on a bus and…So we get on the bus and there is some bench seating on the front of the bus and then two seats you know across the bus further back. And there was a black woman sitting on one of the bench seats and I, being a little kid, I just climbed on the seat next to her and my mother grabbed me by the hand and pulled me off the seat and said, “You don't sit next to them they're dirty.” And so for some time that's what I thought. And then I realized, you know, that my mother had inbred racism and, you know, I didn't need to subscribe to that view point. But that had lessoned a great deal by the time I got to college. Our racial integration was pretty good, there was no integration with the gay community. And most of the politic struggles and the marches I went on were about South Africa or about apartheid in South Africa, about the minor strikes when Maggie Thatcher was trying to get rid of all the mining unions, the attacks on the steel workers, and so on and so on. And one of my favorite chants ever was we walked through London after Margret Thatcher ended the free milk for children at schools. Everyone used to get a third of a pint of milk free to guard against rickets. And she ended that. And I remember marching through London going "Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher." That was the catch phrase so we had all placards and we were chanting. So those were the kinds of yeah, there was a lot of student activity which I don't see now which is a shame. I think in the 80s people became much more about me rather than us. And I think that's a tragedy both for Britain and America.
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RS: So when did you first sort of start dealing with your sexuality maybe with a relationship or joining more politically-oriented groups? I mean how did you really start to grapple with that?
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DL: I mean for a long time it was secret and furtive and unpleasant. It was sneaked moments like um…um…what's his name? Guy from Wham? Trying to think of his name… Well, anyway it'll come back to me. George Michael. George Michael, you know his little trips to toilets in a park. This was literally the only way that gay men in England at that time could have ever met. And it was seedy and unpleasant and that's not a good basis for sex. So the first relationship, oddly enough, was with an Irish doctor in Iraq. So I moved to Iraq, I was project manager for a computer project there ‘81 through ’86. And I think it was in ‘83 that I met this guy at a party and we were both sort of loners. He offered a ride back to where I was living and we ended up in bed. And so then we saw each other for a little while that was quite an awakening for me. That I could actually not just sneak around having a little sex here and there that but I could actually talk to somebody. And you know there could be drinks before and after we could to for dinner. It didn't have to be without names and anything else.
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RS: What was sort of happening in Iraq while you were living there? What was sort of moving there from England to there like, especially as a closeted gay man?
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DL: Well, for me it was wonderful, as a foreigner. The Iraqi people are very very hospitable they love foreigners and they really can't do enough for you. And the project was paying all the costs obviously, they put us in nice hotels in Ishan and then rented housing. I was getting a huge salary because at the time Iraq and Iran were at war and so they considered it a war zone. And so I got double my basic salary and seven weeks vacation a year, so you know. I know you're at university so you’re always on vacation but anyways. [Laughter] So the lifestyle there was interesting because of the environment, the people themselves were very friendly. So food was short and if you wanted…we'd have somebody out scouting and they'd say, “There are eggs at the souk,” and so everybody would jump into their car and drive down to the souk and get a tray of eggs. Because you don't care whether you want them or not or need them you go get them because they are there. I remember cauliflowers coming to the market one day and everyone was down there and they were the best cauliflowers--you know they grew organic without knowing it was. Organic because nobody had ever told them about other stuff and these were huge cauliflowers, I mean twice the size of a cauliflower you get here. And really tasty not plain, same with tomatoes and things like that. It was more of an adventure living there and trying to plan all these things. And the work ethic is different too. Friday is the holy day and so nobody works then, but you work the rest of the week except where there's a need or it’s somebody's birthday, there's always some reason why nobody's working.
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DL: Oh yes. I traveled a number of times to New York, just for vacations but never for work. If I traveled anywhere for work it as usually the West Coast, San Francisco.
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RS: What was it like visiting America under Reagan?
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DL: Yeah, well, I was aware of things. But it was peripheral to me because I was on a vacation visa, whatever. I think it was more interesting when I actually moved here in ‘96 because at that time the Reagan era measures were still enforced. I had to…before I could actually apply for a greencard had to go and have an HIV test. To make sure I wouldn't be a liability for America. And, you know so, that was the kind of thing that hit a home later. But back in the 80s, no I just came and partied with friends, visited monuments,…my very first visit to New York I knew nothing about America. Actually, it's funny because when I was kid the thing I saw about America on TV was a whole bunch of The Virginian, The Rifleman, you know, Gun Smoke. And so I assumed a whole of America was just like that. ...
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RS: So did you ever come out to your mother?
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DL: No, I didn't. But I rather think she knew. She actually died in ’87, lung cancer. And at the time I when I came back from Iraq that I changed career and become a nurse. And, well, it was this whole story that goes with that too but we won't go there. And, so when she became really ill with it, she didn't tell anybody that she was sick and by the time she did tell us that she was sick, she was living on her own and we didn't realize and it was too late really to get anything done and she was gone in three months. But I nursed her in those last three months. Well, towards the end, we was sitting watching some game show on TV and one evening and she looked at me and she said, “Danny, is there any point for me holding on to you to get married?” And I went, “No.” And that was all we said. It was pretty clever. She knew. And sadly, of course, if she'd been able to hold on, she'd been a hundred now, but, I mean, she would have been able to hold on, I did get married. So things have changed, you know, from ’68, well ’67, in Britain when it was still illegal when I was, you know, sexually active, I was in danger of being put in prison to 2017 and I legally got married to a man. So you know what a change in a lifetime.
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RS: So how did you get into rodeo?
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DL: Oh, rodeo! I knew we were supposed to be talking about something. So, well, of course, I'd seen it all on TV growing up as a kid all part of that Wild West thing, everyone had a horse. And I was always fascinated by that. When I was about I would say twenty-three, twenty-four, a friend of mine, well his wife, owned horses. And she offered to teach me to ride. Well, either she wasn't a good teacher or I wasn't a good student. I was not good at it. And but I did go riding with her several times. She picked out a horse you know that would be gentle with me. This horse was gentle with me until he figured out he doesn't know what the heck he's doing. And so he headed for the nearest tree at a gallop. So tried to get me off. I ducked, so I survived. And she stopped the horse and everything was fine. Anyway, so that was my earliest introduction of horses and then when I came over here, living in Cupertino there was annual gay rodeo there. And so I’d go along and, you know, with my then partner Gary. He and I would go along. And we had a nice time, we didn't really understand the rules very much of the events but we enjoyed it.
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DL: When I met Bill, I moved to Albuquerque, and he was actually a member, just a supporter really not a rider or anything, he didn't compete but he was a supporter of the rodeo and I joined the local rodeo association, as well, just to support them. And then I started volunteering. So I did security, I did registration, I helped in the arena, you know, simple stuff. So I gradually, it built that it was becoming an interest of mine, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I didn't have a horse. There's a couple of events you can do on foot, but not much. So it was three years ago at the rodeo here that I met a real cowboy, well, real-ish. You know, he has a day job but he's actually, he owns a ranch, he has horses, so he's always been around horses, so he really is a cowboy, and he's an all-around champion, a bull riding champion, he's done all those things. And you know you may even be interviewing him, guy called Jody Capp, and so he got me further interested in it and he offered to teach me to ride. And I thought, well, yes, okay, I didn't do so well last time I'll try again. And he was a good teacher. And he got me riding pretty well and then I was staying with him, our condo was rented and I came down for a vacation and I stayed at his place on the ranch and um he was going to go some gymkhana and you know what a gymkhana is?
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RS: You should explain.
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DL: Yeah so a gymkhana is a…it's a sort of a poor man’s rodeo. It's mostly aimed at the more amateur riders and the kids. But it's a fun event, family event you go along and there are seven events altogether, some of them overlap with rodeo, some of them don't. There's like a potato toss. Where you have to pick up a potato riding around and then throw it in a barrel. So I went along and Jody took all three of his horses with him and we saddled them up and he said, “Well, you can ride them around, I'm going to compete in the rodeo.” And I said, “Do you think there are any of the events that I could do?” And he said, “Well there's one event where you just have to ride all the way up the arena and back again as fast as you can. You could do that.” I said, “Okay, well, I'll sign up for that.” And so I went up with him to the office and I, with some trepidation, signed up for that. And then we went back to the horses and Jody's friend Wayne who is also a real cowboy said, “So you're riding today?” I said, “Well, I signed up for one event.” And he said, “You're here now, you signed up for one, you might as well do them all.” I said, “Well, I've never tried any of them.” So he said, “Well what do you got to lose?” So, I went back to the office, I signed up for the whole event. And so then I was in seven events and I did them all and two of them I screwed up completely. I did the wrong thing so I was disqualified on those two but five of them I got times on.
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DL: So I was very very pleased, particularly the key hole, which is where you have to guide the horse into a sort of it's like a key shape chalk ring and you have to go up the sort of arm with the key and into the head of the key and turn the horse around and come back again without crossing the line and I did that! And I was really really excited, so that was that. So after that, that was in January and of course Jody was getting ready for rodeo in May and now I was hooked. And I said, “Do you think I could do something in the rodeo?” And he was looking at me like now clearly this is not a good idea. So he said, “If you want to then I will help you.” And he did and trained me and taught me to do three events: the barrels, the poles, and flags. And so two years ago I did all three of those events. I can't say very successfully, but I did all three events at the Hot Rodeo and one of the great things about this was the support I got from the real cowboys. Everybody knew that I was just an amateur here for the day and just trying it out. Nobody cared, nobody worried. I paid my money same as everybody else, so I got the same.
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DL: Everybody gave advice: how to do this how to do that. Even an actual national trainer who was sitting in the exercise ring the first day we were there. So today, Friday, people will be exercising and trying out the arena. And so I was trying to barrels and this guy I suddenly hear this voice going “[inaudible]”. And looking around trying to ride and hear this guy, this trainer actually telling me what I'm doing wrong so I tried to stop listening. He stopped me, brought the horse over, adjusted the reigns, and said: “You've got to hold here. I tied knots here so you know where to hold.” And off I went again, I did better, so yeah. I did that rodeo and then following week actually did the Vegas rodeo with Jody. Had a wonderful time did three events both times, second time considerably better. Although I was a crowd pleaser because I very nearly fell off in the barrels. And in fact you could hear this sort of oooooh, silence, and then I sort of relief as people realized I wasn't actually going to fall off, or maybe they were disappointed I don't know. So I got around the barrels I got a time on that and I got a time and came in ninth on the flags. You can only guess there were only 9 people but actually I got a time.
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RS: But still.
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DL: So I was really really excited. Took picture of the score sheet showing that I was actually and did have a time on it. The thing with flags is that the guys who are really fast they go in so fast they often will miss getting the flag in the bucket and so although their times would be wonderful, if you don't get the thing in the bucket you don't get…you know, it doesn't matter. And my time was pretty slow, pretty creaky really.
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RS: But it was a time.
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DL: Right. And most of what we did that day was entirely down to Bartender the horse, which is Jody's horse. Bartender is the most amazing animal. He's fully trained for these events. So literally I think I could have let him go on his own and he would have done it. He certainly would have done the barrels and he knew exactly where to go for the flags. It was only when I tried to interfere too much that things went wrong.
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RS: And will you competing tomorrow?
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DL: No, I'm done now. After that I went back to Albuquerque and I went to the Albuquerque rodeo since I don't own a horse and certainly can’t afford to you know buy one or rent one or whatever, I don't have a horse to compete and I don't really want to compete on foot. But I did do two events actually at the Albuquerque rodeo last year. One intentionally and one accidentally. So the first one I did was calf roping on foot and I went to the rodeo school to learn that, which again was great. There's all these people who are really skilled just giving up their time to help other people learn how to do this stuff. And in any field people talk some strange language until you know the technology and you know the language. So they teach you what it's all about too. So I did that but then while I was at registration that day two people came up to me who I shall never forget. It was wonderful, they said have you ever down wild drag and I said, “No, I haven't done it. I rode horses last year and I'm doing you know calf roping on foot that's me that's all I know.” And they said, “Would you like to do wild drag?” And I said, “Well, I don't know. That kind of looks complicated and dangerous.” And they said, “Nooo, it'll be fun.” And it turned out that there drag person had not been able to get to the rodeo and they couldn't compete without a third and so they asked me if I wanted to do. And I've always been game for anything frankly. I sky-dived, I scuba-dived, I, you know, anything that comes along, I'll give it a try. So, they signed me up and then again everybody back in the arena, you know, everyone’s all: “Danny he's never done this before he has no idea what he's doing. He has no clue. He doesn't have any of the gear.” And, you know, a jacket, protective jacket appeared, helmet appeared. A wig appeared because you have to put drag on, a wig and a dress and, you know, suddenly there I was ready to do wild drag.
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RS: How did you do?
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DL: Oh, terribly. [Laughs] A lot of wild drag as it turns out--as everybody now tells me cause, you know, I've done it once so therefore I'm an expert--but the other people tell me a lot of it comes down to the draw, you know, which steer you get. Ours was ornery he did not want to move anywhere. And so I kind of got on him--I was the guy who had to get on the back of the steer--I kind of got on a couple of times but then I was off the other side or whatever. I nearly got a hoof in the face at one point, so now I realize why you need that helmet. Umm, I don’t' care! I had a wonderful time! It's just, you know, a great activity and team work. That was great. So team work for that and then the horse events where you are in a team with the horse. But with the calf roping on foot no I can barely throw the rope in the right direction, let alone rope an animal. So I'm not doing that this year.
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RS: That's great. And how in, you know, so you've been watching rodeo at least for 20 or more years.
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DL: That's frightening, but yes.
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RS: How has the association changed over time?
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DL: That's difficult. I think…well one of the things I've noticed is there is less competitors at least to the events that I go to. I think there's been an influx of the last few years of some of the people from the professional rodeos. And they come along for the prize money and of course they win. But they aren't gay and they aren't interested in the gay culture. You know like a lot of things like square dance, gay square dance, it's not just square dancing. Well gay rodeo isn't just gay rodeo--you know, it's the parties, it's the pool parties, it's the events afterwards, the two-stepping, the whatever. So it really encompasses a whole set of things which are in themselves a subculture. And I think that's fading, as I was saying earlier that the gay culture in general is fading as we are more…I was going to say accepted I don't like that word, really. Integrated. I don't think people accept us necessarily but they put up with us and I don't care really whether they accept me or not. I am who I am. I paid my dues growing up to figure that out. And now I'm sixty-five and now I don't have to give a damn. I think that's what's happened really with the rodeo just as much as it has with other organizations in the gay world. That it's become more mainstream, but less gay. So.
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RS: Do you notice any differences living in the place like Albuquerque verses Palm Springs do you see any difference in homophobia at all between?
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DL: Yes. Well, when you're living in a city that's got maybe 8% population like Albuquerque which is declared gay or lesbian. Then you move to Palm Springs which on the last census had 53% gay or lesbian. Yeah, I notice a difference. I've been pretty much an activist all my life but pretending for some of that to be a straight activist. I think I was the only one who was fooled frankly, from what everybody tells me. My best friend, when I sat her down nearly in tears and said I've got something to tell you, “Yes, I'm gay.” And she said, “Yeah, but what's the news you know.” [Laughs] So, yes, it's very clearly different being here. I was always somebody who would get up in a public place and dance with a man, since I came out in the 80s. I would walk down the street holding hands or whatever and I would go in a gay club and not try and hide my face, whatever. That's just me. Now my partner, my husband now, is a more private person. He doesn't want to be in your face about his sexuality. He's not ashamed or in the closet at all, I mean he's an entertainer in the gay community but he doesn't want to be sort of breaking new boundaries. We went on a cruise about ten years ago. And it was the tuxedo night. Everyone’s in tuxedo and it was a straight cruise, so all the straight couples got up and starting dancing. And I desperately wanted him to dance with me but he would not dance with me. And then the other week here he did in a restaurant just got up and danced you know. It's good for him that we are in a safer place now, what feels safer.
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RS: When it comes to sort of western culture have you sort of as member you know of gay dance clubs, of the rodeo association have you ever experienced homophobic events on your way to a rodeo or at gay square dance event or anything like that? Have you actually seen homophobia there?
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DL: Yes. In limited quantities, so it's never been a real distraction. Obviously, interestingly you know we always marched in the Albuquerque gay pride and that always had a huge evangelical collection of people with hateful signs. You know, “God hates fags” and all that. And they were missing at last year’s rodeo, for the first time ever they weren't there, which was kind of interesting. I’m sorry the gay pride, not the rodeo. In terms of the rodeo, I've never seen anything. In terms of gay square dancing, yes, I've seen that occasionally because we have big conventions. There’ll be a gay square dance convention here in July. We take over the whole Renaissance Hotel here and about 1,000 dancers. And I remember a few years ago being the convention in L.A., which you would think would be okay, and there was a couple a young couple with a small child at the desk while I was there. And this woman was complaining loudly, “When we booked this hotel we didn't know you'd have all these queers in the hotel. We want you to do something about it.” The receptionist, without blinking an eye, said, “Certainly madam. I can help you rebook somewhere else.” [Laugh] So, you know, I know it's still there. It's foolish…I think some people think it's gone away, it hasn't gone away. It won't go away because attitudes of people certainly above fifty don't really change very much. They may be less expressive about them, but they're not going to change their attitude. I think our hope is that in future generations they won't learn those behaviors, you know.
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RS: So before you mentioned the sort of rapid pace of change in your lifetime to go from, you know, sexual relationships being criminalized to being able to be legally married. Do you think…has that process been very straight forward?
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DL: Oh, no. No, very convoluted and when you are within that process, when you are actually within any segment of history, as you live history, you can't see it from the outside in an objective way. So, for you, it's going to be very personal; you're going to feel the defeats very hard; you're not going to see the victories as being great victories; it's only when you can step back over the decades really, in this case, and see what happened that you can see that there is actual progress. [...] But, if I was still alive, I won't be, but if I was still alive in fifty years’ time, I hope I would look back and say, “Wow! What a precession of change in the twenty-first century, you know, how they moved from where they were to where they got to by the end of the twenty-first century.” We can just hope that that will be the case, you know, but no there's been plenty of steps forward and steps back and we think that we've won a battle. [...] I think overall we are moving forward.
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RS: So what do you think the future of an association like gay rodeo is?
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DL: Oh, I hope it's still pretty healthy, you know. It's like the gay square dance community. Those two communities and the gay bar environment, you know, those things have declined over the last decade of two. But they are still there, they still, in a smaller way, functioning very well. People enjoy the rodeo here and last year there were more people attending than previous years. So they struggle for funds, but I don't think they are really seeing a decline in the core interest in the activity, which I think is good. Whether it will change because of integration, I don't know, I think that's yet to be seen. We are still young in that process, really. We…nobody…you're not going to go to places like Texas, for example, and think you're fully integrated, that's not the case. You know, maybe California, maybe. I think there is a ways to go before we are in the integrated state and I doubt that the two--straight and gay rodeo—I don't think they will ever merge as activities, maybe they would in the future I don't know.
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RS: And you've mentioned the term “real cowboy” a couple of times. So I'm wondering if you can give me a definition of that.
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DL: Well, what I mean is there are people who are, like me, who are weekend cowboys. We go to two-steps and put on our cowboy drag. And then there are people who live out on a ranch, they have cattle, they have horses, whatever. They may well, these days, have a day job as well, so many of the guys who I would term as “real cowboys” have day jobs. But they also are very much in that whole genre. I might draw a parallel to the leather community in the gay community. There are some people who like to put on a bit of leather and go to a leather bar on weekends, you know. And there are other people living the life of leather and, you know, that essentially comes with a whole set of rules about their life. And I think that's the sort of division I'm going for really. The guys who are just weekenders and a lot of the people that you'd meet here are in that weekend thing, they like the look, they like the activities, they like to dance. But they aren't about to rush out and wrestle a cow or ride a horse..
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RS: Have you enjoyed being a weekend cowboy?
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DL: Yes, absolutely. I've enjoyed everything about my life, even the bad parts because my view is always that, everything, every decision I made good and bad all my life has brought me to where I am now. And I would be somewhere else if I had made different decisions. So I like where I am now, so all of that must have been good.
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RS: It's been amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time [to speak with me].
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DL: Alright, thank you.

Janet Stange

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Saraya Flaig: This is Saraya Flaig and I’m here with Janet Stange at the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association Rodeo on February 15th, 2020. So, Janet, what year were you born?
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Janet Stange: Born in 1965.
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SF: And where did you grow up?
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JS: Perrysburg, Ohio.
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SF: What was your childhood like?
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JS: We grew up with ponies and horses on a farm, a 2 3/4-acre farm, so we were always in the horse business. My dad was a Shriner, and he rode parades, and we grew up showing horses and 4-H through the county fair. And then we had a tri-state rodeo association that we followed growing up. When we were old enough, we traveled all over Ohio, and Michigan, and Indiana, and I showed. Then I showed in the quarter horse circuit with a trail horse. Then I got tired of the fancy stuff and said, “Dad, I need something fast.” And went into barrel racing and all that.
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SF: Wow. So, did you ever win in those rodeos growing up?
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JS: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was a – it was a big deal on that. It was, I mean – you were out there in the hot sun, and you did every event. So, we had a lot of different events back then, being young, and 4-H, and everything else. So, we used to have to do trot and canter carrying an egg on a spoon, on your horse, all the way around. And if you dropped your spoon, you’re out. Stuff like that. There was all different things – but we still had the barrels, poles, and flags. So, I’ve always known those three events that the rodeo has. We never had this calf roping. It’s always been, like, the breakaway, and the tie down, and stuff like that. Yeah. This calf roping on foot is really neat. It allows people that don’t own horses to be a part of the rodeo.
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SF: Yeah. And then, do you have any favorite memories from childhood?
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JS: Oh, my favorite is just growing up, getting on my bareback pony all the time when I was little. And going barefoot around the farm, and the fields, and just having a good old time. And it was just – I was very blessed. My parents, you know, my dad had his own businesses as a septic tank man, and we were very blessed to have those ponies and horses to grow up with. And we worked hard for ‘em.
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SF: Yeah. So, do you have any siblings?
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JS: Yes. I am the baby of four. My oldest brother used to compete in the gay rodeo circuit. He retired, and he’s the one who got me hooked into the gay rodeo circuit. I did not even know he was doing it and didn’t even know it was out there.
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SF: Wow. So how did you find out he was doing the gay rodeo?
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JS: He called me – I’ll never forget it – he called me in 2005. I was in Texas, and he said, “Sister, I’m in your state. You want to come see me?” I’m like, “What are you doing?” He goes, “I’m in the rodeo finals for the gay rodeo.” I’m like, “What?” And I worked for Coca-Cola, and I was a bartender for the gay bar for Abilene, Texas. So, I – and we – had no idea it was going on. I had no idea. And so that’s why I was like, you know, the lack of communication that some people didn’t even know about it. So, yeah. So, I was hooked after I went to his finals. I went up there and saw him and I’m like, “I can do that. I can do that.” So, I was hooked with him.
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SF: So was that – what was your first experience at the gay rodeo like?
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JS: It was amazing just to get out here and play in the dirt again. And I started with the chute dogging, steer deco with my brother – he showed me deco, how to tie the ribbon. He was the header. Chute dogging, he just showed me and talked me through it. And then wild drag, that was what I started with: three. Started with three events, and now I’m in eight.
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SF: How did you do on those first – that first rodeo?
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JS: Um, the first rodeo, it was okay. I mean, I did, I think…I can’t even remember. I think I did win. I mean, I placed if anything at that. It’s been a long time. That was 15 years ago.
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SF: So what are your eight events now that you do?
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JS: I’m now into the calf roping on foot, the chute dogging, steer deco, poles, barrels, flags, wild drag, and goats.
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SF: What is your favorite event that you do?
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JS: Chute dogging.
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SF : Do you think your perspective, kind of, changed on rodeo when you found out women could also do the rough stock events?
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JS: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I’m all for it because I hated that, you know, like watching the NFR, that the girls only get to do barrels. I’m very proud that they’ve changed a little bit now that they can finally do break away. But I love that we get to compete in our events, too.
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SF: Are there quite a few women that compete in the rough stock events?
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JS: Yeah. There was. It’s kind of dying now but, I mean, it’s… you know, we’re trying to build it back up. It’s just, it’s tough. Steers and bull riding, it’s a tough event. Chute dogging is really the best event for girls to start and to get into.
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SF: Have you done any bull riding? Would you ever want to try it?
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JS: No. I wanted to, on my bucket list, but wife said I’m too old.
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SF: Have you ever been injured doing the rodeo?
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JS: Oh, yeah.
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SF: Could you elaborate on that?
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SF: Okay. My worst injury was, I was in Little Rock, Arkansas’s rodeo and my horse – we won flags the first day, and we go in the second day to start the flag race. And I go to pick, and I pick it, and the next thing I know, I’m blacked out at the end of the dirt. And she had bucked me off. I had no idea that if you lean forward, she would buck. So, I had an L-3 eye socket crack, I had a – no. I had an eye socket crack, L-3 spinal fracture, and then a hematoma from here to here. And that’s why I wear a helmet now. Because to fix an eye socket fracture – I was lucky I didn’t have splinters, or shaved, or broken – they would take your face off to fix it. So, now I wear a helmet.
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SF: Crazy. Did that stop you from competing at all?
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JS: No. I heated, I treated it. I did a lot of medicine on my own. I went to the doctors. But it, I mean, I went to the hospital. I passed out. I went to the hospital in an ambulance. I remember that. And stayed there an extra day. I got a CAT scan and all that stuff in Little Rock. But when I got home, I treated it: ice, heat, the hematoma. And then I used my tendon machine to loosen up the blood vessels, stuff like that. So, you learn how to be a medic. Physical therapy for yourself. You know, you have to save some money.
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SF: Yeah. So, you said you competed in both, like, normal rodeos, mainstream rodeo, kind of growing up and then...
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JS: 4-H and everything. Yeah, I was in everything. The showmanship, the barrels, poles, and flags growing’ up. So, yeah, this is not new.
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SF: Yeah. So, what do you – what are some of the differences you’ve noticed between those rodeo events you competed in growing up compared to the gay rodeo?
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JS: Nothing really different there. It’s the same events, it’s just the, you know, we were younger then. And, you know, now we’re just all a big family here, at gay rodeo stuff.
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SF: Yeah. Do you think there’s anything that makes gay rodeo special?
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JS: I think it’s the people. The people and the camaraderie; that we all care about each other. It’s not, you know, I know they talked about back in the day it used to be cutthroat, but I wasn’t around for then. And it’s just, you know, we love it and that’s why we’re here is the passion, you know, because it’s not – there’s not the money anymore. I’ve seen the stories in the old films, and I’m sure you have from the archives and stuff that, you know, we used to have thousands and thousands of people in the stands, but I never got to experience that. The most I think I’ve experienced it was, Forth Worth Finals had like about 1,000 to 1,500 people in there at the Will Rogers Stadium. And that was a lot of people.
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SF: Have you competed in a finals rodeo then?
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JS: Oh yeah. I’ve been in almost every event. Except the first year because I really wasn’t – do I go for one event or not?
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SF: What events have you competed in at finals?
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JS: All of ‘em now. Except for barrels or rough stock – except for steer riding, and team roping, and breakaway, and bulls. Those four.
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SF: Wow. Have you won any buckles, then, at finals rodeo?
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JS: I finally won my first buckle with my brother in 2014 in steer deco before he retired. We finally did it, and then he said, “I’m done.” Then I finally won my first chute dogging final buckle last year, which now was my passion because I just – you know, I’m over 50 and that was my passion of getting there. I’ve worked hard, I’ve tried to encourage other women to get in there with me and play. And, yeah, they beat me. I don’t care. I love the sport. I love that event. But I don’t care if they beat me. That was my golden ticket this year because I really strived for it, and I got it by less than a tenth of a second – it was that close.
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SF: Wow. Do you have a favorite buckle, then?
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JS: That one now. That one for now. I have a lot of buckles.
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SF: That’s exciting. Do you have any favorite memories of participating in a finals rodeo?
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JS: I would say, the one that my brother and I won. That one because it was so special, and my sister was there and her husband. It just seemed more – it was a big crowd, and he cried. We got the banner for the steer deco, and it was just really special because it was our first one together. Because he already had a chute dogging buckle from years ago before I even knew he was doing it. And that’s all he had – or, I think, or something else. If he even had a goat one. But when I started competing, and then it was brother and sister, and chute dogging female and male, I guess my score started getting closer to him. He was a little upset with that.
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SF: Would your scores have beat his scores ever?
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JS: A couple times I have.
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SF: That’s pretty exciting.
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JS: He’s like, “Hummm… sister’s getting stronger.” Yeah, he’s six years older than me.
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SF: Wow. So, what was that like doing gay rodeo with your brother?
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JS: It was amazing; it was great. He taught me a lot, showed me the ropes, and I came right into the rodeo family. It was great.
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SF: Do you have any other memories that you’d like to share with your brother doing gay rodeo specifically?
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JS: Well, the other memory is, you know, that’s how I met my wife. At the gay rodeo.
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SF: Could you expand on that?
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JS: In Oklahoma City, she came with a very good friend of mine that is somewhat of my teammate. And he brought her. She never heard of the gay rodeo out of Kansas City, and she wasn’t doing anything memorial weekend. I was with my brother; we shared a room and all that because we’re teammates and stuff. And I was standing there talking to the arena director, just hanging out, on Friday, at registration in my shorts and T-shirt – just hanging out talking. And she walked in with him. And he first saw me and Todd, and he goes, “Oh, my god. You gotta meet my new friend,” and all that stuff. And he was the like showing her off to everybody. I’m like, “Nice to meet you.” And he said, “Oh, she’s going to do this. Will you help her in the girl’s side?” And I’m like, “Sure, no problem. I’ll help her,” and stuff like that. So, I kind of just went about my way, and she went about her way. Then, all day on Saturday, you know, when we start warming up – and all of a sudden, she was just sitting up there watching. Like, every time I kept going down to stretch and work out, get ready for my event, I look up and she’s staring at me. She kept staring at me. And then finally I look up at her, and then I snuck up – I thought she was cute – so then, I snuck up behind her and I said, “How you doing?” Scared the shit out of her. And she went, “Okay.” And I’m like, “Okay. You have any questions? What’s going on?” And she goes, “Nothing, just hanging out.” “Okay.”
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JS: So, then, I think it was Saturday – Saturday we were all going about our ways, picking up our bags and stuff, and going to eat. We’re all discussing where we’re going to eat. She walked by me, and she goes, “Can I give you a kiss?” I’m like, “Okay, right in front of my brother?” And my brother goes, “Sister! Stay away from her.” And Todd pulled her away and goes, “Stay away from each other!” So, it was like big brothers were pulling each other away. So then, I’m like, “You don’t pay my bills. I’m a big girl, if I want to go see somebody, I will.” So, we went out Saturday night. Had a good time, sat out by the venue pool and just talked and drank, stuff like that. And my wingman – or, her wingman – was Pepe. Pepe was our wingman. He was with us. He’s the history of our relationship. Then Saturday night came and I was pissed at my brother, so I moved out of the hotel room we were sharing and got my own hotel room. And she came and stayed with me. And this is where it comes into the two full on Sunday night, after finals and awards and stuff. She came back and we talked, and we sat up all night.
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JS: We’d been drinking and stuff; she talked about her family history. And this was Memorial Weekend – get the dates, okay. So, she’s sitting’ there telling me. And I went to bed, and she said she didn’t feel good. And I said, “You okay?” And she goes, “Yeah, I’m okay.” And then all of a sudden, she wakes me up and she’s – well, our phone’s ringing because Todd’s like, “Let’s go, let’s go.” And she said she didn’t feel good again. She was throwing up and stuff and I had slept through it. I go, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She goes, “It’s okay.” But she had told me that her dad died on Memorial Weekend of a heart attack, so it’s in her family. She didn’t want to tell him, and so he thought she was hungover. And she had to ride back with him, all the way to Kansas City, so she forewarned everybody that she didn’t feel good, and she might have to stop throw up. He’s like, “Hey, you drank too much. Blah, blah, blah.” And so, she got back home to Kansas City, and I went to Texas. I said I would take her home because I was off, and she said, “No, no,” because, you know, we just met. And so, I went home to Texas, and I kept calling her.
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JS: And then she was in the seventies – she didn’t feel good, let’s see, that was Memorial Day, that Monday. She got home Tuesday. She went to work Wednesday. She didn’t feel good again, so she called her doctors. They ran her a little stress test, and then they ran the dye tests – I guess this is only way they can tell. And she was in the seventy-second hour of finding out she had a heart attack. And they said, “Immediately turn around and come back into the hospital,” and they were putting two stints in. And I was in Texas. I had facetimed her and met all her friends from up there, and one was a good friend of ours that’s a nurse doctor in the hospital she was at. So, yeah, I gave her a heart attack. [laughs] Just kidding. But anyway, that’s our history of it, and we, you know, we connected. It was 756 miles from my door in Texas to her door. I would drive it. I would fly it. I knew all the ins and outs of American, to go San Angelo to Dallas to Kansas City on Fridays, or she would drive down. But I did most of it ‘cause I had the freedom.
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SF: How long did you drive back and forth?
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JS: A year and a half, a year and a half.
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SF: Wow. So, where do you both live now?
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JS: We got through, through corporate America. We kept our eyes out. She was lucky – her job, she asked for a tranSFer to Wichita. And I took a demo. I had my own station for FedEx Ground as a senior manager in San Angelo and gave up a cushy job and went back to the outbound as an outbounds manager – which it helped me develop for the company anyways, because my little station didn’t have that much volume and stuff. So, we got to tranSFer. And I kept watching for positions open, and one just happened to open. I actually had to – the senior manager wouldn’t accept me on the first one, so I had to, you know, so I kinda had to, almost… I drove up – Denise had some kind of function in Wichita – and I met her face-to-face. And she ended up being a lesbian. And I’m like, “This is why I’m moving.” Cause you kind of got to watch who you’re telling you’re moving and you’re leaving this corporate position. So, until you know them…. So, I physically went up there, met her face-to-face. And she goes, “Oh, okay, we’ll find a spot for you.” So that’s how we – and we just lucked out with our jobs because I was like, I didn’t wanna leave it. I was 10 plus years in. And she didn’t wanna leave hers, so that’s how we worked it out. I picked up everything from and she still had a condo. She has two daughters and a grandbaby now. They’re older, you know, 25, 26, below 30. We have a 6-year-old granddaughter, and they have cattle in Missouri. We’re three and a half hours from them.
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SF: And then you are married to her?
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JS: Yes, we got married in ‘11, 10/12. And we went to Sioux City, Iowa. Our good friend, Slick, she lives out there on her cattle ranch. And she used to rodeo. She retired from rodeo and so we all were friends then. And then my brothers and sisters – my brothers and sister came, and her daughters came and were in the wedding, and all it was all rodeo. That was our family. Yes. Came to Iowa. And we had a little reception. We had a great little venue that Slick hooked us up on. And it was just an amazing, intimate little wedding. It snowed; it was cold. But we had a really good wedding. Yeah, we did it at church. I think it was a MCC church. Yeah, we did it there. We had a great little lesbian couple venue. The food was delicious; the cake was amazing. And I just couldn’t believe how many people showed up – just 50-some altogether.
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SF: That sounds like a great wedding.
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JS: Yeah. It was not this group. It wasn’t that many of this group. I want to, I’m trying to think… yeah, because I wasn’t really knowing all this group yet, so it was a different side of the rodeo family than that.
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SF: So was it like your rodeo family from doing rodeo before?
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JS: Yeah, yeah. It was the rodeo family of earlier days. Yeah, and they’re all not here anymore. That’s the gist of it. So now it’s a new rodeo family.
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SF: So does the rest of your – do any of your other siblings do rodeo as well? Or just you and your brother?
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JS: Yep, just the brother until he retired. And now, he just plays and travels. My second brother-sibling, we share the same birthday. He owns the family business. He took it over from dad. You know, him and his wife and daughter, they ride horses. She’s a pleasure, cutting horses and all that. They did all that stuff. And my sister used to be in all this stuff with me because we were closest – two years apart. So, we showed all the time, but she quit and got married, and moved to Hawaii, and all that stuff. But she’s back in Ohio now. She’s been to a lot of our rodeos. She’s come and seen a lot in support of me.
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SF: And so, what was it like coming out to your family or friends?
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JS: It was tough, I’ll tell you that. You know why? Because the brother came out first. So, I kind of knew, and he kind of knew. And he did it first. He was in college, and I was in high school. I was in high school, and I knew I was gay – actually, junior high. So, he come home one Christmas for – to tell everybody. And I’ll never forget, in the farmhouse kitchen him and I are talking, and I said, “Yeah, brother, you can come out, but I’m gay too.” He goes, “Don’t tell mom and dad.” So, I didn’t. And he got disowned for 10 years. I never knew it. He told me that mom and dad – mom threw the Bible at him. I had no idea. I had no idea.
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SF: So did you later tell your parents?
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JS: Yeah.
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SF: Were they accepting or not?
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JS: I didn’t tell them fully. Because I’ve always had roommates playing ball – because I was in college and played ball, had full rides at the University of Toledo. I play volleyball, softball. So, I always had roommates that were “my friends,” brought ‘em home to the farm, stuff like that. I think they finally put two and two together when I finally moved in with somebody that had kids, in Texas. I actually left the university after I finished my college days; I ended up in California. So, I’ve been around. I’ve had a very, I’d say, colorful travel of the years. I went from graduated from college, met somebody, went down to Dayton. And then I went to California, followed them because they were military with kids. And I worked for Airborne Express out there. I’ve experienced being left on the street. Because she left me for a man. And bad days of illegal drugs, been through all that. So, in California, had no family, no nothing. And lost it all. And got myself up, and vowed I’d never do that again. So, yeah, I had some rough times. And I went, on my own, and saw the L.A. rodeos out in California way before – I had no idea that my brother was even doing ‘em – way before then. I saw one. I just, I was out, lonely, and saw it at a bar that was posted. So, I went to it. I was like, “Wow, that’s pretty cool.” But I was in a rut, so I just faded away and never thought about it again. Until I moved back to – I took the Greyhound bus to Texas from California. I left all this stuff in storage for 3 years here, finally got it out 3 years later.
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SF: Wow.
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JS: Yeah, I’ve had a traveling time.
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SF: And, so, did you grow up pretty religious at all?
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JS: We were Lutherans. We went every Sunday. Dad would wake us up. We’d gripe and moan when we got older, but he’d wake us up and we’d go every Sunday. In this great small town of Perrysburg, we had a great church. I really liked it, and stuff like that.
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SF: Are you still religious now?
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JS : No, we don’t. We – we’ve been to MCCs, been to a lot of MCCs. I was religious back in Abilene a lot, with the one I was dating then with kids and stuff. We tried that. We just have, you know, we have our own time with them.
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SF: So, what do you think about camp events in the gay rodeo?
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JS: I love ‘em. That’s my fave. That’s my fave and that’s – you know why? If you saw me in goats today, I picked up a rookie. I do that a lot. I pick up a rookie because it’s an easy event to show somebody to get thrilled about it. You know, because he was in rodeo school and his first experience, he wanted to try steer riding and all that ‘cause Utah – he’s coming from Utah. And he got a little hurt. And then he’s like, “Well, I want to learn goat dressing.” So, I showed him how to goat dress. And I said, “Well, you know, I don’t have a partner. Would you like to partner with me?” He goes, “Oh my god, yes.” And I’m like, “Okay.” You know, I don’t care. I want to – I want more people to have a good experience, you know, to come and stay and promote us. So, I don’t always have to win. I just want to have fun now. I’m at that age of 55. I mean, I’ve gotten my buckle I wanted. So, I’m enjoying now that I’ve been – now that I’ve hooked up with some great persons like David and Robin Kegel and Rhonda that let me, allow me to ride some wonderful horses, that’s where my passion is now. ‘Cause I love riding them, going back and riding again. And I love chute dogging.
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SF: Do you own any horses yourself?
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JS: No, I used to. In Texas I had four horses and walked away from all of it for Denise. Left it all.
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SF: Have you and your wife ever partnered up for any events before?
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JS: No. Nope, she’s the chute coordinator. But no, she competed with Todd at that rodeo, and she got kicked so bad in the arm – from him. And that’s where she thought, you know, with the heart attack, that we thought that was it – her bruising on her arm.
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SF: How has being involved in gay rodeo affected other aspects of your life?
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JS: It’s been financial. And, you know, it’s my expensive hobby, as I call it. It’s, you know, some days are tough for work. But I budget and plan. I really budget and plan so that I can do my – this is my vacation times. This is my enjoyable vacation because I can’t take it with me. I don’t have any kids. So, I plan on enjoying life. And then, once we get done, Denise and I get done with this one, enjoy life again.
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SF: Do you see yourself participating in the rodeo for the foreseeable future, as long as you can?
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JS: As long as I can. As long as my health holds up, I plan on staying.
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SF: And have you held any, like, administrative-type positions within the rodeos or your association?
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JS: No, I’m pretty much just a contestant liaison. I’ve been the contestant liaison for three years now.
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SF: So what do you do in that role?
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JS: We’re here to help contestants, especially new contestants. That’s why I’m big about them – helping ‘em through the rules, their class, or their events they’re in. To let them know the breakdowns of it, what they’re going to see, what’s gonna happen, who’s gonna ask this, blah, blah, blah. And the rules and regulations so they don’t get DQ’ed. Yeah, it’s pretty much – and I’m not, I’m like a go-to person, but I’m not official. So, I always make sure that they understand who’s the Skittles: the red, the yellow, the blues, and greens, and who go to for what. And if you have any questions, always come to us.
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SF: What is the association you’re a part of?
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JS: I’m in Red River Rodeo Association. I was in North Star with my brother forever. And then I’ve only been in Red River now after that. I think I was 10 years with North Star. It was just – my brother and I were the only competitors from North Star then. And I was out of Minnesota.
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SF: Oh, wow. And have you noticed any differences between the North Star Association and the Red River Association?
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JS: Red River is a lot easier. Well, both of them are really easy. It’s not – because we did – Carl lived in Minnesota, but I didn’t. So, I didn’t have to do anything. Red River is really easy, and we don’t require a lot of stuff commitment-wise. And then, when we have something, you know, like we always – we do a lot of rodeo schools because our President has the facility for us to do that. So, we do a lot of rodeo schools to make money.
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SF: And have you seen, kind of, IGRA or even your own associations change over the time that you’ve been involved?
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JS: Yes. Our association is huge, but they don’t come out and support. They do a lot of their own barrel racing and their own roping because they’re all from Texas. They’re big barrels and roping people. They don’t come out, to travel. They’ll come to Texas, they’ll come to Oklahoma, they’ll come to Kansas City, but that’s it.
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SF: Have you seen numbers, kind of, grow within your own association over the years, then?
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JS: Well, we’re a branch off of the – let’s see, Texas had one, two, three chapters. And we broke off from it and made our own, well our President did.
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SF: What is your favorite aspect of the gay rodeo and being part of it?
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JS: The family. Getting to hang out with everybody and socializing. But my biggest thing is being with everyone. We all care about each other. We’ve been doing this for so long, for 15 years. I have a 15-year relationship with this, with all these people. I mean, we’re just talking about – my teammates Bubba and Luke – we were just talking about how, just yesterday – because we were a six pack as a group for a while. It was four boys and Denice and I. We would get Airbnb’s, we’d go to restaurants together, we’d go do stuff, we went on adventures, we made vacations as families and stuff. And we’re all placed all over the United States. But we always flew together, worked together, and played together. And we got Airbnb’s, just had a blast. So, we were just reminiscing about all the stuff we’d done. That was in the last five years.
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SF: Wow, that’s cool.
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JS: Yeah, it really is.
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SF: Have you ever met a rodeo cowboy or cowgirl that was openly gay outside of gay rodeo?
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JS: I mean, like, are you talking about NFR people?
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SF: Yeah, in any other venue.
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JS: Not ours, right?
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SF: Yeah.
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JS: Probably not. I don’t remember. I might have, but I don’t remember. I know of some people that talked about some people.
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SF: What does being a cowgirl mean to you?
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JS: Very proud to be able to tell people that I actually flip a steer, actually rope a calf, and I get to ride a horse. I tell them, you know, I don’t wear boots all time. But I do it. I love it. I just think it’s really neat to have that on my title.
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SF: So, you would say you’re a cowgirl, then, for sure?
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JS: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I love my jeans. I love my jeans, I love my boots, I love my hats, but Denise hates me in hats – at least in a cowboy hat. And our wedding was in a cowboy hat; I was in a cowboy hat and a tux. Oh, yes, I wore my black cowboy hat.
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SF: Do you think the larger LGBTQ+ community supports the rodeo?
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JS: Depends on what city.
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SF: Which cities would you say are more accepting of…?
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JS: Of coming to the rodeos and stuff like that? Because there’s, I mean, there is some places in Dallas that does, but I don’t know... I mean, our rodeo venue has changed so much since then. Obviously, this rodeo is a different kind of LGBTQ that comes here, but their support of the buses and stuff just brings them in. Um, California, the Bay Area, has a good following. Nevada, Las Vegas does. Minnesota has one, but it’s, you know, it’s not at the arena, it’s more in town. Oklahoma used to, and hopefully now that we have it back, they’ll be there. Kansas City had one, but, you know, they – they’re a dying breed on their bars up there, too. I mean, because we’re so accepted everywhere now, it’s not just…
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SF: Do you think that kind of changes the way gay rodeo is viewed or what the experience is like of people who are part of it?
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JS: No, not really. It’s just, I think it’s just the financials. People don’t think about spending this kind of money doing this. They don’t think about that. They, you know, it’s the millennial time. It’s a quick fix.
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SF: When you say there’s like a different kind of LGBTQ+ that comes here to the Arizona rodeo, can you expand on what you mean by that?
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JS: The Spanish side. You see it. This is totally, totally because they own the Corona Ranch and Charlie’s bar, that brings them here. I mean, it’s really, really amazing. Those people out there, coming and, you know, they were a hit in our stands. And then you go out there and they’re still out there. And it’s like, “Oh, my gosh.” And that’s both nights now. Like last night, even at registration, it was packed. So, I mean, it was a lot of fun last night, too.
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SF: Is there anything else you would like to add to your experience about IGRA or any other favorite memories or stories you want to share?
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JS: Favorite memory, sure. Of the rodeo? I mean, the six pack, our family that we’ve established, is just amazing. We do have our commitments because we’re all older, and we all have professional jobs too. So, it was just – we still had our own page. We talk to each other, and we look forward to this spending time with just us and hanging out and talking, and stuff like that. We’re all – only Denise and I are together. One is in Arizona and he’s actually at his pro rodeo, so he couldn’t be here. He can’t be here because it’s on his weekend. So, he’s actually gay and nobody knows he is, kind of, sort of. He’s in charge of the Tucson Professional Rodeo. And then my buddy Bubba, he’s the San Quinton gunner in California. And Luke is in Colorado, and then Jason’s in California, in San Francisco. So those are my favorite memories of that, and then also competing with my brother, getting that. Cause that brother-sister, not too many have that brother-sister company. And then actually, we won Colorado. I won the female chute dogging, and he won the male chute dogging. We’d never done that before. And we got to compete in Gay Games together too.
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SF: What was your Gay Games experience like?
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JS: Amazing. We got there early, Denise and I, we went down to the park where, you know, they told us we weren’t – we thought we were going the right way to sign up. But we got to see everything: all the other different sports and stuff, all of the signing up and all that. We got to get some great gear. And everybody else for the rodeo signed up, like locally, back in Akron. We’re like, “Oh, my god, you’ve got this, this, this and this.” And then to go to the Cleveland Field – and I’d been there and, you know, when I lived in Toledo, so I’d been to Cleveland – and to go to that baseball field and fill it with all of us and our color codes. And then walk under the street and go into the Cleveland Cavaliers Stadium. And just like the Olympics, being called in was unbelievable – never forget it. I will never forget that. But I will never forget to talk about that because, you know, it’s kind of gone. That was in 2014, too.
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SF: Do you hope that one day IGRA can be a part of Gay Games again?
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JS: Oh, yeah. But it’s, you know, it’s overseas. I think they were bidding for one out here somewhere just recently. We were all talking about that. Here comes my wife. She texted me and I said, “I’m still here.”
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SF: Alight. Well, I think that’s all the questions I have for you. Thank you for your time.

Tommy Channel

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Renae Campbell: This is Renae Campbell and we are doing an interview at the International Gay Rodeo Association Convention in Denver, Colorado. It’s November 11, 2019—nope—November 22nd. [laughs….]. And I am here with Tommy Channel, and we are going to talk a little bit about your experience with IGRA.
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Tommy Channel: Okay.
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RC: And so, I usually like to start by asking where you were born.
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TC: I was born in a little town called Cushing, Texas. About three hours east of Dallas.
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RC: Nice. And did you grow up there, or…?
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TC: Born and raised. Nacogdoches County.
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RC: And what was it like growing up there?
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TC: I was born a coal miner's daughter… no. [laughs] I was born and raised on a farm with my mom and dad. Grandparents lived right next door and they were vegetable farmers, raised cattle and pigs. That's how I grew up.
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RC: You grew up around animals then, it sounds like?
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TC: Yeah, I did. And I had a good childhood. I had a good childhood. We didn't go hungry. We didn't have a lot of money, but we had what we needed to live.
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RC: And did you have brothers and sisters?
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TC: I had two older sisters—two older sisters, we're very close. I enjoy being with my sisters when I do go home.
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RC: So, does your family still live mostly all in Texas?
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TC: They all live in Texas.
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RC: Okay.
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TC: And I have a little farmhouse there on two acres that I was raised in. When my parents passed away, I inherited the homestead and my partner and I frequently visit there.
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RC: Nice. So, you have some fond memories of your childhood, it sounds like.
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TC: Very fond memories, yes.
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RC: And did you go to high school there?
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TC: High school in Cushing, Texas. And then attended a little business college in Nacogdoches called Massey Business college back in the day.
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RC: Okay. And then, what did you do after college?
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TC: After college, well, after that business college, my first real job that I call an extended job was for an export company, actually. They're in Nacogdoches. We exported to Saudi Arabia—to the oilfields in Saudi Arabia back in the mid- ‘70s.
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RC: Okay. And growing up, did you go to many rodeos? Was that part of your upbringing?
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TC: We did. That was—that was a pretty good—pretty much the pastime back out in the country in east Texas. A lot of rodeoing, country rodeos, yes.
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RC: And were you involved in them?
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TC: I was not at the time, no.
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RC: Okay. How did you find out about IGRA?
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TC: Well, after—after working for a few years there in Nacogdoches for that export company, I met some friends who introduced me to Houston, Texas, and discovered where I needed to be. And who I needed to be, finally.
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RC: So, was that kind of during that period that you came out, or was it before then?
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TC: No. That that was the period where I came out, where I discovered who I was—who I am.
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RC: And was that a—what was that experience like for you?
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TC: It was.... It was like a weight lifted off your shoulders. When you finally know who you are, and you don't have to pretend to be somebody that you're not to try and satisfy a religion or a family expectation. It's a huge relief to finally know who you are.
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RC: And did you have a very supportive community there, with you at that time?
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TC: My family is very supportive. In the day—in those late ‘70s, by this time—mid- to late ‘70s—it wasn't something you talked about. Families know; mothers know. I think mothers know from adolescence. It's just—I think it's an instinct.
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RC: So, then, it was your friends there in Houston that introduced you to IGRA events?
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TC: Correct. My first IGRA event was in Houston, Texas. In, um, ‘80…. Wow, can't remember. ‘80 something—the early ‘80s. And I didn't know anybody at the event. I just heard about it. Maybe I saw a poster or something at a bar or read about it, maybe somewhere that I had been. I don't remember how I heard about it. But I went, and I didn't know anyone. I didn't know a soul. But I was so intrigued, watching these events that were so—some of them—foreign.
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TC: Some of them were just rodeo events like, you know, bronc riding, bull riding, and roping—those kind of things. But they did something so unusual that I had never seen before, like a drag race, and the goat dressing, and wild drag. Those events were foreign. Something I'd never seen before. And to these people, it was—they were having fun. They were really fun. And guess what? I wanted, I wanted to be a part of it. [laughs] So, I did what I needed to do, and met some people, and said, “How do I—how do I do this?” And that's what we did.
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RC: So then did you go—uh, what was the next one that you went to? Did you immediately start attending?
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TC: The next—the next event was in Denver, Colorado. The next gay rodeo was in Denver, Colorado. And, um, that's when I fell in love with Denver.
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RC: And did you participate in that one? Or did you just, um…?
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TC: Not in the first one, no. But it was probably the next one or so. I ran right out and bought myself a horse—yeah. And my little horse’s name was Sassafras. Nicknamed Sassy, after myself, of course. And we did barrels, poles, flags—the horse events. And we, we just blended right in.
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RC: So, did you do more events than that, or are those primarily…?
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TC: Those were the primary. The camp events, and the wild drag, and the goat dressing, and […] steer decorating, now, I did those as well. Yeah, I did. I never rode a bull, never rode a bronc—no.
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RC: Did you have a favorite of those events?
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TC: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely! My horse and I, our favorite event was flag race for sure. We loved running flags.
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RC: And did you…?
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TC: A couple buckles? Yeah.
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RC: Yeah? How did you know what I was gonna ask? [laughs]
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TC: [laughs] Huh? Yeah. I sport a couple of buckles in that event.
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RC: Nice. And then have you been pretty consistently involved since that time?
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TC: I have been very involved since then. I have been president of the Colorado Gay Rodeo Association four terms, and I've been a rodeo director for CGRA, the Colorado group, I believe, three times. I've been rodeo director for the International Finals Rodeo twice—two different times. And just last year was my—I think it was my fourth term as president here, which ended in September of this year. And I have been a Mr. IGRA in 1997—I think. I think that's the year. [laughs] And that was a huge accomplishment, something to be proud of, I'm proud of. To be recognized by your peers is always a good thing. And, um….
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RC: So, it sounds like you've done the rodeo events, you've also been part of royalty, and you've been part of the administration so to speak.
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TC: Currently—I am currently—the administrative assistant. I'm the only paid employee of the International Association. And so, I'm very involved currently. Still in the in the International Association and with CGRA. I helped produce this weekend's event here: Convention.
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RC: Congratulations on pulling that off.
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TC: I think it's going very well. Thank you.
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RC: Yeah. So, when you came out to that first rodeo in Denver, was that when you decided to move out here or…?
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TC: I had already moved.
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RC: Oh, you had already moved. Okay.
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TC: I had already moved here when I attended that rodeo.
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RC: And in all the different roles that you have served, do you think that there are—do you think that you've seen a good cross-section of…?
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TC: Oh, absolutely. Going from a contestant to administration and production of the event that I love so much, it's a huge spectrum to cross. And I've enjoyed every minute of it; every event that I participate in, I love.
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RC: Nice. So, what do you think makes IGRA different from, say, the rodeos that you participated in—or saw—as a kid?
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TC: Hmm. Well, for one thing, we—the interaction from association to association, state to state, becomes a family affair—a huge social event. And it's exciting to see friends and people that you consider family at this point, you know, a few times a year. Just like you—just like I go home to see my blood family. These people are my family. I love them dearly and appreciate their contributions, you know, to our society. We have doctors, lawyers, nurses, practitioners, veterinarians in our group, schoolteachers, you name it. Sexuality has no boundaries. And it's, it's a beautiful family.
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RC: Nice. Um…Yeah. That's a lovely statement.
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TC: Well, thank you. It was not rehearsed.
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RC: It just came out that way. Yeah. So, have you ever been at one of the events where there were—it sounds like you've been on a lot of them—where they were protesting?
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TC: Absolutely. Absolutely. In the early years, in the early ‘80s, perhaps even in the early ‘90s, we experienced quite a bit of protesting. Not only—they weren't so much protesting “gay,” they were protesting “rodeo.” And what they considered animal abuse. Many signs that come to my memory first off would be, let’s see… I remember seeing this in California, particularly, that would say “Gay yes. Rodeo no.” Comes to mind as one of the proliferate, or more…. that’s what I remember.
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RC: So, you would see that outside of the rodeos as you were going in?
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TC: They would be at the entrances in the street—at the street entrances to the property, yeah. They were never allowed on the property. I mean, it's free speech, but, uh, yeah.
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RC: And does that happen much anymore?
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TC: No. We don't see that anymore. You know, freedom of sexuality, thank goodness, has become easier and more accepting today. In the last probably 20 years, you know, thank goodness.
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RC: Yes. Are there any other changes that you've kind of noticed over the period of time that you've been involved?
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TC: Well, early—in the early years, up through then, up through the ‘90s, you know, rodeo, country and western was at its height, in my opinion. We have seen a decrease in our spectator crowds and in participation—sadly. What we sometimes refer to as the Garth Brooks days—thank goodness he’s back [laughs]—but there was a period of time where it was—it was cool to be country. You know, there's a song…
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RC: [laughs] To that effect?
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TC: [laughs] “I was country when country wasn't cool.” And so, anyway, so, yeah. Things have changed. Social media has changed our way of life drastically. You, you used to have a social outlet, that was the bars, that we don't have to experience anymore. You pick up your phone and get a date.
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RC: So, do you think that a lot of word of mouth for IGRA came from different bars?
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TC: Absolutely, absolutely. Personal interaction was a big… oh, what’s the word? Medium, I guess. You know, that's—a lot of people heard about it from you talking about it in a bar or club atmosphere. And we don't see that anymore. Where we used to go into a bar here in town, in Denver, there’d be a sea of cowboy hats—doesn't happen anymore, sadly. And I miss those days. ‘Course I'm 64 years old now. I was 34 back then.
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RC: Do you ever wear your cowboy hat anymore?
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TC: Oh, yeah. Still do. Still do. Love my hats.
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RC: [laughs] So, do you consider—would you say that you dress in sort of a Western way?
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TC: Every day.
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RC: Every day?
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TC: Every day. Right here. [points to boots] Yeah, every day. I wear my boots every day. I don't wear a hat every day because it might not work—it would be in the way. But, yeah.
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RC: And what do you do now—for work?
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TC: I'm an antique dealer. Yes. So, I'm pushing, and pulling, and moving furniture almost every day.
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RC: Yeah. I can see how a cowboy hat might not work.
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TC: Yeah. It gets hot.
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RC: And then you've also said that you're currently the, um, …?
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TC: The administrative assistant for IGRA, yes. And that's a very focused job on IGRA. So, I handle all of the insurance needs, anything that the president needs from me, you know, um, to assist with. Whatever they may need, you know, me to do as far as, mostly insurance. I make sure that all of our events are properly insured, and our stock contractors are all properly insured.
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RC: How much time do you say that you—would you say that you—dedicate towards that a year?
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TC: It varies. It varies. The summer months are busier when there’s more rodeos than in the spring. You know, our finals are in the fall. It's very busy. So, it just varies from month to month.
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RC: And you've been doing that for a while, have you not?
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TC: I've been doing—I've been administrative assistant for almost, I think, about 15 years. Yeah.
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RC: Nice. And do you plan to keep doing it?
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TC: As long as they let me!
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RC: Okay. Do you have a favorite part about that position?
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TC: Uh, well, a responsibility under that is merchandising. I handled the branding—merchandising brand—that you saw downstairs for the association. I love merchandising. So, that's probably my favorite. Yeah.
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RC: Huh. And would you say that you have ever had, or have, a mentor in IGRA? Or are you someone's mentor? Is that something that’s been important to you?
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TC: Humm. I hope. I guess everybody would hope that you have a positive effect on somebody out there. I hope. I hope somebody is looking up to me. I really don't know if I can call a name, but I would hope so. Do I have a mentor? Hmm… yeah, probably so. Sadly, he's passed away.
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RC: I’m sorry.
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TC: His name was Wayne Jakino. Have you heard that name before?
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RC: I have heard that name before, yes.
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TC: He was a very special person that was instrumental in starting this organization back in the early ‘80s. If I had to look up to somebody, it would probably have been him. I didn't know him personally. Sounds like other people have mentioned him as well?
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RC: Yeah, well, I've heard his name from Patrick a number of times too.
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TC: Well, there you go. Okay, good.
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RC: Yep. It's too bad we can't interview him.
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TC: It would be an awesome interview. And there probably is some recording somewhere.
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RC: Maybe they'll find that someday in an archive.
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TC: I'm pretty sure there is. I'm sure there is. Let's see if we can't get that for you.
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RC: Yeah, that would be great. So, do you have some favorite aspects of IGRA?
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TC: Favorite aspect? Uh….
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RC: You know, like… I think you talked about the difference between IGRA rodeos and other ones. But, you know, is there something that keeps bringing you back into the fold with it? That keeps you so heavily involved?
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TC: Well, I think, I think there’s a very simple answer to that: It's my family. And I just—I would not be complete without this group of people. That's what keeps me around. I love the events. I love, you know, World Gay Rodeo Finals in the fall every year is a special event that I'm very fond of, and I take very personal interest in. And I have been involved with the production of that event for, oh, probably, going on 15 years.
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RC: So, do you always make that event every year?
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TC: Every year. Every year, yeah. Because I'm usually in some portion of production. Even if it is just providing the branded merchandise. I get involved with buckle designs often. For several years I have handled buckle designs. This past year, worked very, very closely with another team member and handed it off to her because I was so busy. She does a fantastic job—so maybe I mentored her now that I think about it. So, yeah, that's always a, uh, that's always an enjoyable task for me as well. Because I love design and things like that.
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RC: I've seen a number of those buckles on the website and….
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TC: Some of those were probably my work.
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RC: They're lovely!
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TC: Not that I made them, but just—with the buckle manufacture and design.
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RC: So, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to but, like a family, do you ever have frustrations with any parts of IGRA?
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TC: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, just like with any family. Family is family. And you don't always agree but, when you love someone, and you care about someone, you agree to disagree. And that's what you have to do to maintain. And, well, that means a lot when you can do that. That's when you know you have a friend.
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RC: Are there any directions you would like to see IGRA take in the future?
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TC: Well, sure. We need to, we need to grow our organization. But I would like to see some more public exposure. I don't have an answer to how. But that that would be, probably, at the top of my list. To expose a younger generation to our world called gay rodeo. Because there are many, many young people—and what I call young people is 30 and younger, probably—that are looking for something to call home. And looking for a family. We could be that family.
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RC: So, do you find less younger people involved?
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TC: Unfortunately, yes. Our group is growing old. You're talking to one of them. [laughs] We would love to see a younger generation. Someone's got to take over for us. Someone has to keep our organization alive. And that's the only way we're going to survive.
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RC: Yeah, makes sense. Sure does. And you mentioned earlier—just to kind of jump back—some of the camp events. Is that something that you approve of? Enjoy being part of at the rodeo?
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TC: Oh, absolutely. They're fun to watch. And I participated when I was younger. And they are fun events. But they're—they can be dangerous as well. They can be just as dangerous as they are fun. The crowd seems to love the wild drag race, probably the most of the three camp events, because it can get wild and crazy.
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RC: As the name would suggest.
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TC: As the name would suggest.
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RC: Do you have a favorite rodeo that you've been to, since you've been to so many? Or are there several that kind of...?
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TC: Well, okay. That's a great question. And I have a great answer. We produced a gay rodeo for Gay Games in Cleveland, Ohio. Well, Gay Games was in Cleveland, Ohio. The rodeo we produce was in Akron during Gay Games…. What year? What year was it? Oh, my goodness…. We're gonna have to find that out.
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RC: K.
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TC: It was a few years ago, maybe four or five years ago. It was a life changing experience to produce an event that was attended—not so much contestant-wise, but spectator-wise—to have the stands filled. Filled with countries, delegations from other, you know, from parts of the world. It was a life changing experience to be part of the opening ceremonies of an Olympic event. It really, it really was an incredible time.
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RC: Do you think that helped grow your membership at all? Is that…?
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TC: I'm not sure that it did. We hoped. But the base of spectator there was, was a worldwide base. So I'm not—I don't know if it did. But it certainly exposed us. We, uh, we showed the world, at that point, who we were. And many of them had never heard of us. So that was the intention, really.
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RC: So, I noticed that the name “International” has been in the acronym since the beginning. Do you know anything about how that came to be?
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TC: Canada. It's the United States and Canada. Canada put the “I” in IGRA. We're very proud of our Canadian friends to the north.
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RC: And then, I guess, sort of to the flip side, do you have a rodeo that you felt like… just didn't go right or… that you were less pleased with?
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TC: Well, there was but, unfortunately, I was not in attendance to a finals rodeo that was in Reno—Reno, Nevada, I believe it was—that had to be canceled because of protests, that we talked about earlier. There was a big protest and the grounds where the event was to be held ordered us off of the property. The event was not held. That's probably the biggest disappointment. Like I said, I wasn't in attendance there, but I was involved during the time. I just wasn't at that event.
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RC: And you knew many of the people who were there?
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TC: Right, right. I can't remember what year that was.
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RC: We can look that up, too.
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TC: We'll have to look it up.
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RC: Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell me about your experience in IGRA or anything else?
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TC: I don't know, I think I've said a lot. But, you know, I guess I would stress the family orientation of our group. How we, as large as we are, we're a small organization. And our representation is special to each of us. With each other, it truly is a family.
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RC: And was that something you felt immediately?
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TC: Immediately, immediately. That first event that I went to in Houston, Texas, in the ‘80s, I knew I was home. I knew I was home. Even though, like I said before, I didn't know anybody. I knew I found it. I knew I had found where I needed to be.
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RC: That’s lovely. So, the last question I always ask folks is, um, if you consider yourself a cow person—a cowboy or a cowgirl? And if so or not, why?
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TC: I'm cowboy-ish. [laughs] Because I currently don't have a horse, even though I like to dress cowboy. I like to wear a hat, my boots, and… I still like to put myself in that category.
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RC: Excellent. Okay, well, thank you very much for your time today. I know it's busy here.

Charles Hancock

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RS: Yep. Excellent. So this is Rebecca Scofield with the Gay Rodeo Oral History Project, and I’m here today with Charles Hancock. And is it OK to record you today?
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CH: Yes, it is.
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RS: Wonderful. So today is July 1st, 2021. It's about 2:00 in the afternoon in northern Idaho. What time is it there?
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CH: 5:10
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RS: 5:10. Nice evening time interview. And yes. So we'll just get started. Could you tell me what year you were born in?
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CH: 1953.
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RS: And where were you born?
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CH: Holden, Missouri.
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RS: Is that where you grew up?
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CH: Yes, I was. We had a new hospital. I was the first baby born in that hospital
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RS: Was that a pretty rural place?
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CH: At that time, there were seventeen hundred people. It was the - it was the largest school district as far as square miles in Missouri. It covers a lot of farm ground, a lot of bussing, you know, going on.
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RS: And can you tell me a little bit about your family background, about your parents or siblings?
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CH: There were seven, there are seven children and mom and dad came from they had gone through the Depression as they were growing up. And my father was in World War II, the Battle of the Bulge and the Normandy invasion. He had a brother named Emery and he, he got killed in that battle. And so Dad found out about it while he was over there overseas. And my grandfather was my father's dad. He was in World War I. So we kind of have a history of military with that. Mom, she she raised seven kids. She cooked. She made things from scratch. She also worked as a kinda like a CNA I guess back in the 60s it was, and she would work nights. And so we're kind of left alone with our older siblings. You know, they would take care of us. But she wound up being a nurse for 40 years with three different doctors in my hometown.
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RS: Oh wow.
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CH: So she's kind of famous in that town.
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RS: And where were you in the in the seven?
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CH: I was number five. And there were there were six boys and one girl.
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RS: Wow, what were those dynamics like?
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CH: Well, going up on the farm, we did not have indoor plumbing, so we got our water from the well, pump it. We had an outhouse. We had a laundry building where we'd use the old and the washing machine that had the thing you put the clothes through and squeeze out the water and. You know, it was cold, it an old two-story farmhouse that in the wintertime you go to bed and you hide under the covers so your breath would warm up underneath there. I was I think I was probably about 12 or 13 when we left the farm but my job out on the farm was to carry the milk from the barn to the house twice a day, and I had to take care of the chickens. We had banny chickens.
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CH: Oh god, I hated that rooster. He didn't like me either [laughs]. He was mean, but so that's. And we had fun, we were barefoot, you know, in the summer, we, one of our brothers had an old go-cart that he put together and got it from somewhere that was fun to ride around. And we would do hayrides. We would take it. We make our own sleds out of wood scraps and the tractor would pull us down the county road. You know, that was our that is our fun. One year the mom and dad got us all ice skates because we had two or three ponds on the property. And that was that was nice for about a year. And then we got tired of that [laughs].
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RS: Did you get along with your siblings pretty well?
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CH: Yes, yes, I did at that time [laughs]. And I guess if I was also the fattest baby. They all like to mention that, especially my mother and I'm the skinniest one now, but I was the fattest and my sister was at the age that she would take care of me a lot when my mom was working nights and stuff. So she would she was she was in the mother mode, you know she was in high school or ya know or even junior high. Yeah, she was, would help take care of me, I guess. And I think that we kind of were close to each other.
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RS: And did you go to school in town?
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CH: Yes, oh well, actually, my dad was a when he got out of the service, he went to work for Kroger Grocery. He was a manager. So we actually lived in Poala, Kansas, when I was like five years old. He managed grocery stores over there. This is back when Kroger groceries were not big stores, they were mom and pop type of things. And he actually managed two different ones that. So I moved here. I was born in Holden, and we went to Kansas. Then we came back, and I think I was in second grade, I showed up like October of my second grade year into a new school, new people, you know. "Oooh, looky there, tee-hee," ya know [laughs]. They're just hard to get, you know, but I guess they did OK. And I really I liked school, but I couldn't wait to get out. I was very good in math. I never did the trigonometry stuff or anything, but I it's funny how my skills that I learned in high school has transposed over to real life. As a contract remodeling contractor, I needed to know how to figure your square footage, just angles, slopes, different things like that.
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CH: So my math was very important. Writing a contract for the customer to sign or to look over, to go over it needed to be a proper wording and sentencing and not some Yahoo that I wanted. I wanted to be [inaudible] I was a professional, so I knew I wanted to be a good thing. When I was a kid, I mowed yards. I had a push mower, I pushed it all over town, carried a gas can. I used that money to go to Boy Scout camp and to pay for my swimming pool membership. You could go all year long for thirty-five dollars [laughs]. And I guess I was an entrepreneur growing up because I used to go door-to-door selling garden seeds and flower seeds. One time I was selling greeting cards where you got your name engraved inside, but you don't see that much, and they had to pay for it in advance, you know, and they would I'm sure some of them would say, oh, here comes that Hancock kid again, don't answer the door. I used to sell band candy bars, you know, door-to-door. I worked in my dad's grocery store as we left the farm and a hundred pounds of potatoes. I got paid a quarter for bagging them up into ten-pound bags. I just, I was always, wanted to make money and do things, and be able to pay for things myself.
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RS: So did your dad continue managing a grocery store once you moved back to Missouri?
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CH: Say that again please?
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RS: When you moved back from Kansas to Missouri, did he continue managing a grocery store?
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CH: He started his own. That's right. We had been in Kansas and he, I guess, quit quit working for Kroger and opened his own little grocery store in Holden across the street from the big grocery store. I remember it had wooden floors and had a tin can lids covering the mouse holes in the floor. And once in a while, there'd be ones that would get into the sugar, the flour, or something. And, you know, we had to clean all that up and everything but he had, there was a butcher that you he sliced the baloney you wanted. He'd slice of cheese you wanted, you didn't have a big deli and all this you didn't have all that stuff. It was just a small thing. But then he opened up another grocery store or that one, ya know, he got a bigger one, bigger space.
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CH: It was the first, first business in that town to have automatic doors open and close. And these were back when you, when you stepped on the pad and the door would open. You probably don't remember them, do you? Oh, you do? [laughs with RS] Yeah. It's not an electronic eye or anything getting your movement, you step on the pad and the door would open! And so then they would give it run by and step ya know, just for [inaudible]. I started running the cash register when I was ten years old. I got to run the cash register. That was the type of thing that if the electricity went out, you pulled the handle from underneath the counter and put it on there you crank it. [RS and CH laugh].
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RS: That is so amazing.
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CH: There are some people that didn't want me to ring up their groceries. They didn't think I was older, so. OK [laughs].
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RS: Did you have very close friendships at school?
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CH: Yes, yes, it's funny, you have best friends in school, and then later you don't or they change. But yeah, there's a, Doyne Warren, he's deceased now. He he was a country kid like me. We went to the same church. Same age in school. And. In high school, my best friend was Jerry Bohannon and. And. I wasn't, well, I guess I was popular, sort of, I was on student council, you had to be elected to that and. You know, my last two years of high school, I just kind of got out of that stuff, I just didn't, I don't know. I think I was becoming a hippie at that time. [laughs] Yes.
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RS: Yes.
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CH: Yes. [continues laughing]
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RS: So before I follow up on the hippie transition, I just wanted to talk about. So you say you're chasing chickens and doing that sort of stuff. Were you interested? I mean, did you ride horses a lot? Did you guys have cattle on your farm at all other than dairy cattle?
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CH: We had an old nag for a horse. OK? That probably should have, they probably rescued him before he went to the glue factory and uh, well yeah. And now we have pictures us kids on it ya know and things like that. We had we had two-hundred and forty acres and most of it was row crops. There was corn, beans, milo and some hayfields. We had milk cows. And it's a small operation. Milk cows, pigs, sheep, chickens. I think maybe that's about it. Yeah, but every year that somebody will come out and sheer the sheep and get the wool. The, the cows were milked twice, twice a day, and the local creamery would bring their truck out and they would transfer the milk from the milk barn into their truck.
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CH: Now, that was way back before they did all this pasteurization and everything, you know, I mean, we didn't get sick when we drank out of a garden hose. Oh, boy. Did we always wash our hands before we ate? Probably not. Mom would tell us to, but. And yah, I had I had a great time on the farm. I did. It was fun, I'm glad - I wouldn't have traded it for anything. And I think it gave me some life lessons as far as working for what you want - working to pay your own way - that type of thing.
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RS: And was rodeo very big in Missouri?
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CH: Not that I was aware of, you know, because we didn't - seven kids. I never thought we were poor, because we, we helped other families that were worse off than we were. But we, [laughs] we didn't have a lot of money. So, you know, there was no riding lessons, there was no, you know... There were band lessons, music lessons and things. But no, it was. I bet I've always thought I was either I'm either a reincarnated cowboy or an Indian, the thing is - I can't decide which it is. I'm thinking more along the lines of cowboy. I just oh, we had cowboys and Indians when I was a kid. The little men, the little figures, the little miniature - a hundred of them for a buck or something like that.
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CH: We set them up and so we'd play cowboys and Indians. I loved the Westerns on TV, you know, Bonanza, all them. And living in the rural area, there was a saddle club, we had a saddle club, which people would go on trail rides and things and they would put on demonstrations. And once in a while, a rodeo, a kind of traveling type rodeo, or regional would come and uh, set up there in our town at the uh, the one with the stockyards. But it was the horse arena. That's what it was. Yeah. Horse arena.
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RS: So were you in for 4H or FFA?
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CH: No, neither one, neither one, but I was in Boy Scouts and I was in the band. The band I started in fifth grade by the time junior high came along, which was seventh grade, me and my buddy Gary Duncan, we both got to play with the high school band because there wasn't very many drummers in high school. So that was interesting to get to go to a state contest in district contest to be with the big guy, big upperclassmen. And, you know, we're just kind of very naive and scared and, you know, a seventh grader, you know, but I still have my medals that we won. I thoroughly enjoyed band. So we were in the marching band, the concert band. We used to, we used to go to the Missouri State Fair every year they had what they call band day. Band day, if you, if your band came, you got admission is free, and then you would do a parade in the afternoon. So and you got meal vouchers too, so that was pretty good.
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CH: Our whole family played a musical instrument, I think, except maybe my oldest brother, Jim. I don't think he played anything, but mine was the drums. And my parents bought me a used drum when I started from somebody that they knew in the local area and I had it all, all them years, I finally gave it to somebody that wanted to be a drummer. So I just passed it on to him. We used to, we used to sell candy bars to raise money so we could buy new uniforms, and we did. We got new uniforms - they were pretty! And we had even had white spats and that were attached to our black shoes [inaudible] and that it was very blue and white colors. That was our, our school colors and stuff. And I had I had a pretty, pretty good time overall in school. My 50-year class reunion is coming up in September.
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RS: Exciting.
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CH: Yah.
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RS: Wow. So when you're talking about kind of growing up with that image of cowboys and Indians. What…what were the…what did you think of back then for a cowboy or for Indian? What was your image of them?
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CH: Oh, John Wayne was a cowboy, you know, that was, then I was more like, I liked Hoss Cartwright. You know, he wasn't the most popular, but, you know, I thought he was the funniest and the and then that would have been me, I think, you know, him. I would'nt've been Little Joe, I would've been Hoss Cartwright. I [laughs] you know, it's funny how TV, when you're growing up, you're a kid, it seems to be real. And you know, it's not, but you, as a kid, it's entertainment and you don't get some of the lessons they were trying to tell you, or the point they were trying to get across.
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CH: But I watch TV now and about the only thing I watch is MeTV. They have The Rifleman, Bonanza, Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke. Uh, all those. And I watch the Grit, Grit Network, which has movies, you know, constantly. It's a, I tend to decorate my house country themed, not necessarily Western, but kind of a mixture of rural cowboy-type stuff. I got a horseshoe over all three of my exterior doors. It points up. And that's for good luck. You're supposed to have that on each exterior door and - going to the gay rodeos and stuff was very interesting, I got involved with a dance group and we would perform, it was a line dancing, kind of like cloggers, that type of thing, and there are certain dances, even nowadays, where you go to the bar and you learn that dance, called something - certain steps.
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CH: Well, we had a couple of guys on in our group that they were good at choreographing things from other songs and stuff. So we would go traveling around in the different gay rodeos at our own expense. And they would let us they would give us free admission to the rodeo if we performed. And of course. "Oh, yeah, we want to perform! We want to do that." The first group I belong to was called The Kickers, and then that morphed into the Spurs and we had a lot of t-shirts, different colored t-shirts. And, you know, you had to oh, tonight, we're going be wearing this shirt, you know, and that kind of thing. So it was. Yah it was fun, [laughs] but I wasn't too serious about it - some of 'em were. But uh, it was a good time.
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RS: So after high school, did you, did you really become a hippie?
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CH: Say what?
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RS: Did you really become a hippie after high school?
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CH: No. During high school.
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RS: Oh, during high school.
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CH: [laughs] Yes. Um, I didn't get my first bellbottoms till I just graduated high school, but in high school, I would take my blue jeans and the seam down at the bottom, I would use a seam ripper out of my Mom's sewing thing, and remove the stitching and then sew in a piece of colorful material and that would make it kind of flare out. And, you know, the long hair came then. Actually, when I got married when I was 19, I had long hair that flipped up on my shoulder, kind of curled upward. And in that day and age, it was there wasn't a lot of, ya know we didn't had school uniforms and things like that. But the principal, he would tell you, you need to get a haircut. And I think we just defied him, just because we're good. I skipped a lot of school my senior year. I skipped first hour, probably over half the time. And I had two girls helping me [laughs] and I still have the same car I had in high school. And so [laughs] I'm hoping to drive that to the class reunion [laughs]. We, we had a list of excuses in the glovebox: flat tire, ran out of gas, ya know, just whatever. We we'd get to school in time for second hour and the principal would go, "Well what is it this time?" [laughs] You know.
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RS: So was any of that rebellion part of a larger political things that were going on, or was it was it just the stage of your life?
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CH: As I think it was, some of it was protest against the Vietnam War at the time, and we had the draft then. I remember when I was 17, you had to be 18 to get drafted, when I was 17, they they pulled my birth date first. First. Ugh. Then when I turned 18, it was number two-sixty-two, so I never had to go, I never got drafted, never got even letters that saying that. I went to a little bit of college, but I didn't care for it. But uh, yeah, I think that uh. You know, there was. We also we also have a lot of a race, race riots in the 60's, and we're out we're living out on the farm and we're watching our black and white TV with the antenna outside.
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CH: And we're seeing these people burning up their own neighborhoods and things, I didn't understand all that. You know, really, we weren't. It's like we're we're just isolated kind of in our own because we were I mean, you know, if you if you worked in the city, you commuted maybe in a van, bunch of you in a van or you carpooled, you know, or you tried to find a job local somewhere around there. But I think that that that really opened my eyes. The race riots and then the the protests where. Kent State. Kent State, really. That was really, um. I guess emotional for me that they. You know, they opened fire. You know, college kids are protesting, they can go out there to die. So, you know, they kept going on and on and on and every- it's still going on. They're still out there that it's. Yeah, I -
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RS: Did your -
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CH: Huh?
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RS: Go ahead.
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CH: I think it's better as well. I know. How people perceive gay people, I think is somewhat better. I'm not sure about the race issue. I don't know. I can't imagine being. They persecuted for the color of my skin.
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RS: Yeah, did your town have a large black population at all?
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CH: No, but we had a black church. The there's out of maybe 70 people or 60 in the yearbook. There might be a couple of them in senior or are senior and junior. There was never, ever a black person in my class ever in grade school or anywhere. There was uh, one family was Shocklee was their last name, and Benny Shockley, he ran a trash service that was back in the day when he had an old pick up with these sides he made on it, so it could hold more trash. He's like, come to this grocery store and get our trash. We didn't have compactors and big bins, or - it was all hand loaded. And then it was taken out to the local landfill, which wasn't even a landfill, it was just a place to dump. You know, I liked going out there to pick [inaudible] [laughs].
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CH: But uh, yeah, the Shockleys. And there was there's Reverend Thomas and another black family. And he was the reverend of the church there. I think they still I think they still have a black church there. My own town actually had a black school at one time. And out here out here, in my other room, I have a box of books that were teaching books that they used in the classrooms. I have those from that school, a friend of mine, and she asked if anybody wanted 'em. And I said, of course I do. Yeah. I don't want them to get thrown away. I'm a very big history. I like to save things and collect and I've donated some things to the archives of the gay rodeo. And I have another box sitting over here that says, you know, my family - whoops, we there?
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RS: I'm here.
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CH: Oh, it disappeared, just a minute - there, OK. [laughs] All right. Yeah, my family won't know what to do with all that rodeo stuff, so I just have to have it go to the archives.
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RS: And you said you got married at 19.
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CH: Yeah, uh huh. I had, I married a farm girl, ya know grew up on a farm, and she had kind of a rough life because her mother was ill mentally, so she was one of the older ones, so she had to take care of the rest kind of, you know, and. Yes, this was not hard, not good for her. She had a job at the local Eaton Place for many years. And she was 18, I was 19, it was after she got graduated. We had one child, a son, he's now thirty-six. His name is David, and David knows all about me, everything. They, we were actually separated when he was two months old, so he doesn't he didn't have to go through the trauma of the divorce thing like a lot of kids do. And I always paid child support, I was always in his life. You know, he turned out to be an OK guy.
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RS: So can I ask how you identify in terms of sexuality and gender?
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CH: Oh, I'm gay. Uh, some people would say I'm bi because I fathered a child. Well, yes, but I had some - some things uh, go on with when before I became an adult that involved other men, most of it was not good um. And um, in a small town and I had I didn't - I couldn't go to anybody, I didn't know you didn't know where to go to ask - my gosh, if I would have told my friends or something, I would have been the town queer. We had a town queer. That's what they called him. And everybody knew it. And. [laughs] That was that was one of my bad experiences with that one, yah.
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CH: And then mowing yards, I mowed a yard across from the Catholic Church, I was 14, so. Father [inaudible] came over and asked me if I wanted a cold drink of water, I said sure. He didn't have it with him, but we went and got it. That just took place over one summer. The other encounter was that it started out as a rape and he was a 30-year-old family friend who was known as the town queer. My parents knew what had happened. Nothing was done. And I get that I understand it's an embarrassment to a family back then, I guess there was no word pedophile but he was a pedophile. There wasn't even a term I don't think. Um, so. You know, it is very unpleasant but I would go back about once a month because. I don't know.
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CH: You have something going on inside of you, you can't help, you can't stop. You need to express that and. So and then there was the, [sighs] the I'm not going to say it was, but it was the, two of the elders in the Methodist Church in Holden. They had families both of them. There was [inaudible] was a little town, or not little, well, it was a college town about a half-hour from us. And out on the highway, they had a motel, it was called the Sky Haven Motel. And I was 14, 15 and - [pause] - there's there's, ya know I wasn't [inaudible] me and stuff. I still have not really told anybody what went on there. Um, craziness. It is not good.
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CH: You know, I'm thinkin. And thinking, oh, this is me, this is what it's going to be like but they didn't need, they didn't need - they shouldn't have been - shouldn't have been like that. Um, so, ya know - it is what it is, and uh, I didn't have to go to counseling all my life, really, so so yeah, I'm gay or queer. Or ya know, [inaudible] bag of words. And I guess it, it really hit home. Well, I got a divorce, I told my wife it was because of men and she was actually OK with that. She would have said if this was another woman, because she was very she's very a good wife and homemaker and just was, a good cook and you know. I didn't know how to do laundry! I had to call her up after we split just to ask her how to run the washing machine! [laughs]
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RS: So how long were you two together?
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CH: Uh, we were married for 12 years. And we didn't have our son 'til close to the end of the marriage. We didn't want to! She was on birth control. That was good. We saw some of our classmates, you know, out of wedlock, gettin' married all that - the babies and we saw them struggle and we weren't in that situation, so we didn't, we stayed away. We, we kind of built our careers. She worked the Internal Revenue, which she wound up retiring from as a GS14, which is pretty good. And I had my career in a remodeling contractor. So so we established our, kind of, income business stuff before we ever had had a child.
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RS: And were you living in Holden still or had you moved?
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CH: We when we got married, we rented what used to be my father's, parents' house. So my grandparents house, mom and dad had a lot of rental properties in town. So that was one of the property that had, ya know they owned it. So fifty dollars a month, a two-story house [chuckles]. That was all we had to pay for rent, and we lived there for seven years, and then we moved to a little place called East Lynne, which is near Harrisonville out in the country. And it was a house that had been moved on to a new basement because the homeowner, the original owner, built a new house and it was the old houses was in the way. So so actually my father-in-law wound up buying it and then we bought it from him.
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CH: But it needed a lot of work and I did a lot of work to it and we lived there for five years. Um, and at that time, I worked a lot in the summer, but in the wintertime, there wasn't a lot to do if you're doing roofing and painting. So I sat home and I did jigsaw puzzles, huge ones, 3000, 4000, 5000 piece jigsaw puzzles then I got tired of that [laughs with RS]. But yeah, at that point in my life, I was not doing all of the different remodeling things that I learned how to do. But we had our house payments paid up until Spring. You know, things like that, and we went on a vacation every year.
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RS: And did you have a big social network, uh friends or anything?
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CH: We had friends yah, from high school and stuff and her her family. She was she had brothers and sisters that she she was closer to them than I was to mine. So if we were hanging out, it was probably more more on her side of the family than it was on mine. Not that I didn't get along with my brothers. Well, we we just weren't a very, I don't think social family. We didn't do any huggin'. There was no huggin'. Now, mom and I hug, oh, yeah, we hug you know? And I see all my nephews and nieces there, they're hugging and all of this, and just oh, it makes me feel good that that it didn't get stuck in a rut where there was no emotional thing like that.
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RS: So when you were deciding to separate from your wife, you said that was in part because you were starting to be a little bit more open about -?
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CH: And I was experimenting. Uh-huh. And I felt guilty, um. She didn't deserve that. I was working I was doing some traveling, doing some commercial roofing uh yah know, like five hours away and stuff like that, so. I'd get a motel, these older motels where they had outside entrances and all that was maybe two-story, maybe. But uh, I stayed in them, and then once in awhile I would have an encounter. I, I didn't even know anything about gay bars or I didn't know there was one until I was thirty-one years old, I think. That was after her and I separated.
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RS: Where did you go after you separated?
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CH: Uh, well, I stayed in that house for a little while, but it had to be sold because I couldn't afford it, just my income, so we had to sell it. And I rented a place in a town about a half-hour away for about a year and then. I wound up meeting someone about 1987, '86. And we dated for a while and then we moved into a house in east Kansas City. And. Then he - [laughs] that was kind of strange. He he was a jealous person, but he didn't have anything to be jealous about. But I think what was going on was I think he was doing something on the side and figured I was too, so he would accuse me of it [laughs], so so that it'd make him feel good.
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CH: I guess so. So we actually split. Well, I had gone to see a friend of mine over the weekend when I got home. All his stuff was gone. It's all gone, and I had no clue that - but then! Like six months later, we get back together again, go get another house. So, and then, so that was a kind of a three year, three year thing. Ya know, it wasn't really a partner or relationship. You know, we didn't share bank accounts, we did our names were on things together. It wasn't really that I've had two of those in my life. And now this is just more like a boyfriend.
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RS: And were you able to be pretty out in the 80's?
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CH: Oh, yeah! [laughing] I have here in my living room I have a, it's a - I guess they call it tintype. It's a it's a newspaper article that they made it out of out of something so that never fades and all that. So. And was the Kansas City newspaper decided they were going to do a series on gay parents. So, they did a three, three-part, so three days in a row front-page news, ya know. Well, one of those days, here I am, my tool belt on, I'm working on this kitchen cabinets, you know, and my name is there. You know, and everything [laughs outloud]. And in fact, just recently when I was in Holden, my friend Sharon, who is helping me with the reunion.
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CH: She was one of 'em that skipped school with me every morning. And she said that's how she found out, about me. Her husband says, "Look at this." And she looked it and she she didn't have a clue. She didn't know at all [laughs]. So I came out big time. I, since I had a convertible I would use it at the gay pride parades that we had in Kansas City. Maybe a councilman or a congressperson from Missouri would be in the parade and they'd ride in my car or the grand marshal. And of course, we had Fred Phelps gang protest this. And it was fun to go by them and honk and wave, "Hey! How ya doing Fred!" Ya know? [laughs] Ya know, antagonize them. Oh, man. But yah -
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RS: Did your -
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CH: Huh?
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RS: Did your whole family know by the time the newspaper article was published?
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CH: And I believe so because my, well, I don't know about I don't know about the whole family and the extent that they knew. Um, I was divorced by then, and so at least the immediate family knew, and I, I'm sure they never really talk about it, so you know they never really said. I'm sure [laughs] I'm sure they do when I'm not there, and that's OK. I talk about them when they're not there! [laughs] But, yes, I I've been - mom always made sure that if I had somebody in my life that they were invited to Thanksgiving dinner. And this guy's name was Dale, the one that, the boyfriend I was with first, or twice. Uh, he -I came across a picture the other day of him at one of our family functions, ya know? Yeah, so, oh, yeah, they they know, yah [laughs] And and I, I like that, I like that I don't I don't have to hide like I used to. I just wish everybody could have that luxury that they can.
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RS: Um, and was your your sort of contracting business at all affected by having such a public, um -
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CH: It didn't appear to be, as far as I know, I actually was a member of the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in Kansas City. It was a kind of a grassroots thing that some business owners got together with me. We had a float in the parade and things like that, you know, and. And I always advertised in the rodeo program, things like that, and I would get some business, ya know. And I would get I get the ones where they weren't really wanting me to do repairs, but they got me over there with that OK? But I, I am very I am very good at weeding out those that that do that. I can tell just by having a conversation with them beforehand.
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CH: Then ask questions about their project, they kind of hem and haw around, and I needed to let these people know that this is my livelihood, you know? All right, I'll come over and do some work if we like each other, we'll go out to dinner or something, you know, or somethin' - somethin' [laughs]. Oh, yeah, there was a little bit of that. Some of them want to know if I would work naked. I said, no, no extra cost [laughs]. I very rarely did that because I always had to go outside to get tools or something [laughs]. [RS laughs] So there's a handyman fantasy, did you know that? [laughs] I was their fantasy, except, you know, it didn't go the way they wanted it! [laughs with RS] Now after I got the job done? After I got paid? Then we can talk about it.
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RS: [laughs] So obviously during the eighties, the the AIDS epidemic was happening. Did that affect, you know, how you were treated by people or how the gay community was coming together at the time?
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CH: I remember being a buddy for guys AIDS, AIDS - they're not victims, they're affected by the AIDS virus - that pertained to taking them shopping for groceries or to a doctor's appointment. And we were called buddies, you know. And I know there is so much and it's not the medical professions fault, nurses, they were afraid to go into somebody's room at the hospital, you know? They they didn't know what this was, they didn't know how to, you know, anything. So so and it's so sad that. You know, that so many people were left without proper care. But it's really nobody's fault, it was just the unknown. But they, they started having a, they formed a thing called Good Samaritan Project, and that started out finding a building or apartment building or something and turning it into affordable housing for people that were HIV positive, ya know, and that that would be rejected, in a regular, a regular place. You know, I remember that there's also a, it was an older nursing home, but it was bought and it was used for the end of life for the patients that were full blown, full blown, as it were.
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CH: There was no meds and this in the late 80s, early 90s and I remember both groups, I belonged to the Kansas City Cave Bears and I belonged to the Missouri Gay Rodeo Association. At Christmas time, we would get a list from that facility and we'd go shopping and buy things and have a Christmas party and the Rodeo people did it and the Bear people did it. And then, other times, I'm inside the facility painting, volunteering to paint. I've always, been a big volunteer. I don't know where I get that from because I don't like my family is [laughs], but yeah, I been a volunteer with a lot of things. But doing that in the AIDS epidemic. Oh, now this is, yeah. This is kind of creepy. [sighs] There was there was something called viatical or something, people could take their life insurance policies and cash them in and then when they died, that company got their, OK, but they didn't get pennies on the dollar or whatever, you know, get the full thing.
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CH: I was hired twice. Both times by a single male. Younger than me, actually, at the time. They were probably not even 40. And they hired me to come in and finish their home. They had maybe been working on it themselves. But just lost energy and could not do it. They wanted to see it done. They wanted their families to see it done. That - [long pause] doing work for them. Knowing that, the reason why we're doing it, was sad. It was, it was hard for me to go to work some days because they're in the next room and somebody's in there with them and they're throwing up and they're, you know, there's agonizing and… So, I'd do it again, if I needed to, I'd go fix somebody's house up.
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RS: Is um, is this about the time that you're finding the gay rodeo?
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CH: I found that in 1989. Yes, it was during that during my "out" period. The Missouri Gay Rodeo started off in Joplin, Missouri, and they used to have what they call roundups. And it was just a big party, you'd drink and eat, and play silly little games like the old stick horses, you know, they put between your leg and race and, you know, maybe do a blindfolded or whatever, you know, but I remember going down there. We were in the dance group. And we went down there for the roundup and performed, and that's when I joined the Missouri Gay Rodeo Association. That was in 89. I'm still - it's been thirty-two consecutive years. So, I'm pretty proud of that. And I give him a hard time! I say, when are y'all going to give me a free membership? It's cause I'm old. Ya know, lifetime membership, come on! [RS laughs] I have another friend that maybe he'd been in the rodeo just a little bit longer, we're about the same age but, you know, we're the same way - we're still around, you know? [laughs]
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RS: And do you remember, um, so, so you were going to the kind of roundup events, when did you go to your first rodeo with them?
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CH: Well, then so, Kansas City formed a chapter. So and at one time, there was Springfield, Joplin, Kansas City, Columbia came in there a little bit, St. Louis a little bit, but then they formed their own, so. We, we weren't really big enough. Felt confident enough to put on our own rodeo, so we joined forces with Kansas and Oklahoma, and we became the Great Plains Regional Rodeo. And our first regional rodeo was at the American Royal Arena up there, and we lost a lot of money [laughs] that was very expensive. And that was that was the first one I attended for the Missouri. But I had been to some others probably a year or two before performing around and different things and. Yeah, it was, and then later Arkansas joined us. So there was four! Four states, but we realized that if you're going to have a rodeo in Kansas City, it's almost always the work is done by people that live there, but yet the other three states wanted part of the cut. Well, in the same way, if we went down there for their rodeo, same thing. So we had gotten our feet wet and all branched out into our own, own rodeos, which was good.
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RS: What was it like going to those types of events then? What did, what would you spend your days or nights doing at a rodeo?
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CH: If I was just visit - I always worked at ‘em, at the Missouri. I had a job, [laughs] but I did, once and awhile, I'd get to go when we traveled with that little dance group and we'd watched rodeos, we watched the rodeo, you know, and go, go dancing at the bars at night and have parties, you know, and just, just be gay cowboys. Is what it was. And the contestants that we had, they had difficulty in mainstream rodeos, at that time, discrimination and things like that, you know, and you didn't - if you were a cowboy, you didn't want the others to know you were because they would, they'd give you a hard time about competing in their events and things. You know, we don't want none of you around here. There are no gay cowboys or whatever, you know. Yeah. So uh, they had vendors at this place. I remember buying a money clip. I still have that money clip and that I take every day with me. There was uh, I met a lot of nice people. I did. They were contestants, they were officials, they were vendors. And it was very, overall, a good experience, everything has a little bad once and awhile, but overall, I'm still there [laughs]. I started out, I had a pickup truck, so it was easy for me to go get the trash barrels, put em in the back of my truck and go to the dumpster. So that that was when I did my second year.
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CH: My first year I was security. I was way up in the nosebleed section, at Kemper Arena, where nobody was, but I wasn't supposed to let anybody in [laughs]. And so that's where I started off. And then I just I worked myself up to, you know, we had a rodeo director, Bobbie St. Jeor, is a lady but she looked like a man. She could crack three eggs at one time. She she was a cook also. She was killed in a car accident, going to a rodeo in 2004. But I used to shadow her, I guess. She'd send me off to go do something and I'd get it done, and I'd come back, "Now, what do you want me to do?" So by doing that, I learned a lot of stuff. We used to have these Wyandotte County Fairgrounds where we were able to sell food and keep all the profit, sell alcohol and drinks and keep all the profit, these other places like Kemper, we weren't allowed to do that.
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CH: So it was nice out there. But the the arena, out there. Our rodeo was usually a couple of weeks after the demolition derby. So. We'd get out there on a Friday and we'd have buckets and we're all going in a line across the arena, pickin' up car parts. Because you don't want the horses to, ya know [laughs]. Yeah. And then there were stalls. Kind of tiny and crowded, and they had to be cleaned out after each rodeo. You had to scoop it out to the aisle. That was part of the deal. And. That was probably the worst job you had to do, especially on a Sunday morning, or no, a Monday morning. Monday morning, and you've been, if you've been partying. So, yeah, that was one of the jobs people disappear.
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RS: And did you ever have any romantic relationships with anyone on the rodeo circuit?
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CH: No, and you know what, I've been in several things in Missouri, I've been barn manager like 13 or 14 times? Well, that means that I'm around all of the contestants that have the horses and things, you know, and you hear stories about what may have happened and in a stall somewhere, somebody said or whatever. Honestly, honestly, I would swear, never, ever, ever did I even kiss the man in a stall! I mean, I guess I was professional. I was, I wasn't out to, to hit on somebody that you know, that's a contestant- and they're, they're really focused on the horse and the rodeo and making a buck, getting the buckle that, you know, I'm sure things have happened with people and things that I can say that. Now, maybe if it would've somebody would approach [laughs] but anyways, yah, that never happened. But that's OK, I didn't really, I liked talking to the horses, like going up there and talking to them, the horse whisperer [laughs].
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RS: And what did the association look like, I mean, was it mostly men, lots of women?
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CH: It's always been mostly men or was. But there were several women, too, you know, and some of the guys tried to be in charge and didn't think the women should, ya know. But currently we have a woman director. Hopefully she'll get to do that next year. She's been director before, you know, some guys had a thing that, "Oh, women can't do that." But I think the horse people, and I mean the rodeo people, they're more accepting and tolerant, and know that, know that a woman can do just as - we have, there is a bull rider that goes that's in our IGRA circuit, the rodeos. Man, she is somethin', she does really well. Really well. And she's been interviewed, you may have even seen her, she's African-American, just a little small gal. But she gets her gear on and protective equipment and everything, gets up there. And, yeah [chuckles softly].
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RS: Do you think the it's changed since…in the 32 years you've been a member? How has it changed?
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CH: I think it's I think it's, I - it seems to be going by the wayside. And there's not as many associations, there's not as many rodeos, and we're not counting the Covid thing, but even before then. And I, you know, back in the day when the first gay rodeo started, the charity was muscular dystrophy. Well, when the AIDS epidemic, that was in the late 70s. In the 80s, it was more, they were raising money for AIDS charities. So all the gay people would come to the rodeo and help support the bar owners would support saying people go buy buckles, sponsor buckles. And it was like, "Oh, there's a gay rodeo. Oh, wow. What's it like? Is it like a [inaudible]?" Well, yeah. They have the same events, but they also have a few other fun ones, you know? And. I think it was important then for the community.
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CH: I don't think our government was doing anything or enough. We had to help ourselves. We had to do things for people that, you know, they weren't getting any other help. So I think that was very important to a lot of people. And nowadays, I've noticed that some of the charities they choose may be the animal shelter or you know, that type of thing. They also do, Missouri, I think, is always doing the, the youth, youth organization. You know, I'm a big supporter of that also because if I would have known, you know what - it could have been me, I could have been kicked out, you know, but I didn't I wasn't blatant about it.
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CH: I hid in the closet. If I would have come out, at that time, I may not have been able to be home. So I think it's sad, that it's, it's going. Going away, it may not completely, but also I think the mainstream rodeos is fragrant with people being more accepted than some of our people are more comfortable going to those rodeos and competing. And, I know there's some, there's always drama somewhere in the rodeo, except in Arkansas. Arkansas has no drama [laughs]. They put that fire out quick [laughs]. But uh, yeah, there's there is always conflicts things and it's never good, you know. But it is what it is, you can't you can't take a bunch of people and everything, the same personalities and yeah. You're not going to please everybody,
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RS: So you mentioned you know the, younger people might have more opportunities because of a shift in the larger culture. As someone who was born in the 50s till now, you know, for you, what was it like experiencing some of those large cultural shifts around LGBTQ rights?
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CH: I went to the march on Washington in 1993. I had a boyfriend that we lived together, but not his partner-partner, but we were pretty close. We flew out there, we stayed out of the suburbs with some friends of his. And I remember riding the train into, into D.C., that day of the protest. And each stop, more and more people were getting on the train. You're all gay, lesbian, you know, the pride colors, and you could just see. The enthusiasm and excitement on people's faces. And we marched right in front of the White House. It was awesome. I have a poster in my living room of that event and. Yeah, it's. Do you ever hear of ACT UP?
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RS: Yes.
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CH: OK, yeah. I wasn't a member, but I would support them, you know. They were doing the more hardcore protest, trying to get attention for funding and stuff like that. So, yeah, that was a very kind of activist group that was out there. And I've seen, ya know, somebody is always going to get beat up, somebody is always going to, whatever - you know, the Matthew Shepard thing is this awful. But we don't know what we don't know all the sides of the story either. We don't know [sighs] did, did he go too far, or? I don't know. But anyway. I think society is more accepting. And until Pulse, until that happened. That's 50 miles from where I live and. A day after that, I took down my rainbow flag. And I took my bear rainbow magnet off my vehicle. And it was like going back in the closet. But. I didn't want to get killed, I didn't want to get shot just because I had that symbol or they and my neighbors know our here, they know that, they knew my second partner and everything so, but I don't. I don't, I don't uh. How do I say it? I don't hit it, I don't try to be, I'm not a - that much of worry wort, I mean but I would never do that so and so we get along really well.
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RS: Do you think the last couple of years has been sort of - step back for…?
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CH: Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, well, when the Cheeto was elected. And. My whole family's Republican nephews, nieces. I think I think my youngest brother is a Democrat and his wife. Cause she says something once in a while at our family gatherings. My older brother that's living, the oldest one living, I wasn't allowed to wear my Hillary hat. But he was allowed to wear his MAGA hat. So that appears in all the pictures of that event. It was suggested to me that I'd not wear it by a sister-in-law. She knew something I didn't and he's that type of… And, you know, I never really got along with him. He tried to be my boss when he got back from Vietnam. And I was I was running around with some people doing acid and smoking pot. He tried to keep me from that. My friends were terrified of him, so they didn't even want to be around me. I remember one night, we met him on the street driving by, and I had already ducked down where he couldn't see me, but he was looking and they said, hey, if I was in their car, they turned the corner and I got out at the alley and I got out of there and I walked home that night about a mile to go home because of my brother wanting to keep me away from friends. And we still have conflicts. Still. He's the power of attorney for Mom.
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RS: How do you think they reconcile some of their political beliefs with having an openly gay brother?
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CH: Well, I wonder that, I wonder. Why? Why would someone support a platform or a person that would just as soon ship all of gay people out on a deserted island and treat us as lepers? How can family members vote for someone like that? But also my partner, Bud, for 11 years when he died, I had a memorial service. Some of the rodeo people came some of the Bear, Cave-Bears come. And. Every one of my brothers and their wives came. Now that. Them coming there was more important to me than any of my other friends that came there that night. I was flabbergasted that. Just totally I had no idea that. Bud was a very nice person. He got along with everybody and, you know, so I guess in that way they supported me. But boy, I don't kn- and, you know, I don't really talk much about it, because we know we're on opposite sides and there's nothing. You know, my brother campaigned for Donald. Actually campaigned and sold MAGA hats and then he'd say he was gonna put a sticker on my bumper. I said, "Yah, go right ahead, I'll put one on yours." I don't put up with it, I'm not going to be bullied by a, by my brother. And I think that makes him more [inaudible] [laughs].
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RS: So how did you meet Bud?
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CH: He lived in the St. Louis area. He was divorced and had a partner, he had three children, boys and I lived in Kansas City area. St. Louis, there's a bear group over there called Show Me Bears every year they have what's called a run is a big party where everybody gets together. So I just thought I'll go over there. So I went over there and [huffs] I'm not really a bear. A bear's usually bigger or hairy and all this, I'm kind of like the complete opposite, but that is who I'm attracted to physically. So I'm in this bar and I'm in front of the cigarette machine wit my arms folded because I'm not really having a good time. Nobody wants to talk to me. Maybe I appeared standoffish. But he came up to me and said something and I'm not going to repeat it, but I said, OK. And he had allegations because he was a member there. But after two o'clock, he came to my room. And it just, I did the I-70 shuffle for about a year, and both of us from Kansas City to St. Louis. Dating and I finally I gave I gave up my business and moved to St. Louis.
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RS: So how does bear culture compare with the rodeo culture?
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CH: There's similarities, there's always drama, there's always pretty people, there's always ugly people, there's always big, always little. The rodeo there, they're the people, the contestants, and they're more focused on their competition and the winnin' and it's very expensive to have all that and to travel you know, so they need to be making their money when they compete and things. The bear groups, they're kind of just kind of laid back and just want to lounge around, you know, and eat honey or whatever [laughs], but both groups are very charitable organizations too. I belong in the Cave Bears. I was one of the founding members in 1994 and I stayed for. Probably, 16 years before they disbanded.
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RS: So you said you kind of found, I mean, to some degree, you started going to rodeos to dance. Did you ever do any of the big, like, two-step dances or big dance competitions?
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CH: Not really a competition. I know there were some groups that had competitions like cloggers and things like that. And I think you would have them at finals rodeo. But we didn't get into the competition part. But just the regular dancing, tow-stepping. Oh, yeah, I did that a lot. That was fun. It's great to be dancing with a man with your arms around each other. Comfortably. You don't have to worry. You know, I do think we're getting a little bit better in society to where things are more acceptable. And people find it, find that gay relationships are really not that much different from theirs. If they think about it.
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RS: So you know -
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CH: All they see on the news is the drag queens, the leather guys with their ass sticking out, you know, that's what the news is. They want that sensationalism. What about the rest of us just walking with our kids and things?
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RS: Did you. Have a lot of Leathermen or drag queens as part of the rodeo circuit?
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CH: Not so much leather, but drag queens because of the royalty, the know each association, if they want to, they will have a competition to where these people win titles and then they go on to international rodeo and compete at finals and win that title. If not, but there's a Mr. for a regular guy. There's a miss for a guy dressed in drag. There's MsTer, which is a woman dressed like a man. And, I think there's maybe a couple others [laughs] in there that I can't remember, it's kind of like the LGBT, then it gets longer Q, X, Y, Z, plus three [laughs]. So but there's I think there's…I would say five, five titles in that, and, you know, I'm not really, I understand the drag queen thing and stuff is. But these you know, I just it's not for me, but they raise a lot of money for the rodeo association there and there, they even have requirements. They have to raise so much or they'll lose their title. So ya, know.
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RS: And are they, are they pretty visible around the rodeo grounds?
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CH: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They got their sashes on and their nails done or whatever and they're, they're usually together. And one year a few years ago there was these three guys that were just hilarious! They, they'd show up at one of the rodeos and they'd be dressed as donkeys. Or rabbits or. You just didn't know it was so funny, entertaining, entertaining, um [chuckles softly].
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RS: So I know you said you haven't really done the competition side of things, but have you ever competed in anything?
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CH: Once, once [chuckles] I still have my number, I still have the safety pins that held the number on. Uh, it was in Chicago, Memorial Weekend. Not sure what year it was, but. For whatever reason, I decided that I would be the enter the wild drag race. The wild drag race is a man, a woman, and a man dressed up like a woman. Well, guess which one they wanted me to be? Yah. They needed somebody, so I was like alright, I'll do it. Well, I'm the one that has to get up on that steer and stay on it till you get across the line. Well, I got bucked off. I hurt my shoulder. We didn't even place [laughs] it didn't go over the line. So that was my one and only and last final. Because I couldn't be injured with swinging a hammer and running saws and ladders, and so I thought, OK, that that hurt when I hit the ground [laughs] that ground is hard! So so, yeah. And I tell everybody that too, I says, I'm not really a competitor - I work behind the scenes. And I do, I like to do that, I like I like to run things back in the background. I don't need to be out there. I'm behind door number two.
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RS: So as barn manager. Do you ever get to watch the rodeo or do you help competitors get ready? What does that job entail?
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CH: Barn manager entails, pretty much 24 hours a day starting Thursday morning. Until Saturday morning. Then your job is pretty much done, everybody’s been checked in, they've got their stalls, money's been collected, if there's money and they've all registered Friday night at the rodeo so but they'll come in all times of night and day. So that's why somebody needs to be there on the ground. I slept in my vehicle many times and that's my choice, my decision. But I didn't want them calling me up and I have to go 30 miles to get there because there's a problem. So and I, I liked that. I think they liked me, too. I think they liked me because. I just.
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CH: I treated them with respect and uh. I treated them like if it wasn't for you all, we wouldn't be having a rodeo. That's true. If you don't have the horse contestants, that's not going to be a very good rodeo. So you got take care of them. You got to take care of their horses. And I think that was my, that's my best job ever in the 32 years is being the barn- uh, Arkansas is having a rodeo in, I think it's April of next year, 2022. And it's possible I may be the barn manager. I know, a couple of my lady friends there want me to be, but it's not up to them. It's up to the rodeo director to choose, ya know, and I don't live there, you know, and if they pick someone local, I'm not going to be hurt by it, ya know.
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CH: That just means that I can antagonize them all day long and I don't have to do anything [laughs]. Yeah, I'll do, I'll do something when I'm there. I'll do something. But, I've always sponsored buckles and I was a presenting sponsor in 2007 at Kemper arena it was Hancock Remodeling. I gave him a hundred bucks [later recalled it was $3,000] and I bought my sponsor [laughs], you give 'em, and I was the grand marshal that year too. They put that sash on me, and I just was, ugh. And I said, "Don't do that," and they said, "Yes, we're going to do it." I'm not a sash person [chuckles]. I still have it in the closet [laughs]. It's being donated to the archives.
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RS: So you said you moved to St. Louis to be with Bud, did you guys stay there?
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CH: No. We stayed there maybe two years and then we went to north Missouri to help a friend of ours run his properties and stuff up there to Jamesport, Missouri, which was Amish country up there in Missouri. Horses, buggies, black, all dressed in black. And you go by their houses at night and there's no electricity and things. But somewhere they do have a field where they park their vehicles and they'll commute, they'll commute to Kansas City to work. Yeah. So, the that's not very well known.
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RS: That's really interesting. So how long were you there?
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CH: Oh, a couple of years, and then things went sour with Max. He decided that he wanted me and he was going to push Bud out of the way, and it actually turned out the opposite. That made me angry. So, Bud and I moved to Harrisonville, which is south of Kansas City. And that was in 2001. And then he died in 2006. And I waited a year and then I moved to Florida.
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RS: Why Florida?
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CH: Bud died in August and then January of '07, I went on a three-week driving vacation to Florida. I went down the Gulf side all the way down and then back up the East Coast. And I had met somebody in Clearwater, which is near St. Petersburg. So on my way back, I stopped to see him again. And then, so we dated for several months, about a year. And then he wanted me to, he was retired from government. He used to work in embassies around the world. He was the one that when they'd get a new ambassador, the wife would want new draperies, so he'd arrange for that. She'd want this painted or that chair done something with, so he would arrange that. So he had that career. So I retired and moved down there. Again, retired again [laughs]. I think it's three times now.
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RS: Yeah, are you retired now?
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CH: [laughs] My Facebook says I am, and it says, call someone else. And you know, I have - I'm booked up till October [laughs], I'm supposed to just be doing part-time little bitty stuff. My, a customer of mine, I went over there today, and she, I thought she was just wanting me to go over with her again what I looked at last year and, you know, cause she's ready to do it. Then she showed me all this other stuff. I'm going, Sheila? She says, "That it?" She's going, "well no, you know there's one more-" "Um, Sheila?" [laughs] So she says, "You're going to be over here for months, aren't you? I said, "Yeah."
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RS: I mean, that's what the pandemic did, right? We all had to sit in our houses and saw how we could improve them [laughs].
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CH: But I didn't, I traveled actually. I was, by the end of August, I was gone a total of four months last year [laughs]. Yeah!
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RS: Did you go and stay with friends or?
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CH: Yeah, and if I stay in motels, I get points and bonus points. And this trip, on my way back, I had seven free nights accumulated. It's mostly staying with friends or, or my mom's house. You know but then there's sometimes I, like in Birmingham, Alabama, I had a hotel for nine, nine nights in a row, but part of that was a job I was working, and they were paying for my hotel. And like uh, this one hotel group they're offering, if you reserve two nights in a row, you get bonus points. So I'd make my reservation for two nights. Then I'd make another one for two nights, all at the same place, same room, so you got, you got like three thousand bonus points each time [laughs], so.
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RS: Usually on your big trips, are they usually in the US or do you ever go abroad?
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CH: No, I've never. I have five states left to see here and I'm not interested in going to Europe unless somebody's paying for it. But I've been barely into Canada, barely into Mexico. I want to see the Dakotas and Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. And I, that is, I'm actually planning that trip for next year and it's going to be a driving vacation, I believe. Part of it I may take the train and then come back and pick up your car or something? Not, not quite sure. But that will be, well, I'm not going to be gone as long, probably, but it will cost more money. Yeah, yeah.
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RS: What are some of your favorite places you've visited?
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CH: Colorado is my favorite vacation state, but only in the warm weather, and I've been to the Garden of the Gods and Royal Gorge, the Rocky Mountains of Pikes Peak. The Four Corners um. Um. I've been to New Mexico to a bed and breakfast up in the mountains. I like the Missouri Ozarks a lot, and that spills over into Arkansas, Kentucky's nice. My wife and I used to go on a trip every year somewhere. We be gone two weeks. Bud and I used to take a vacation every year. We had two incomes. Then, when he passed away, is like, oh. He did have some life insurance, which. I got some new vehicles, but other than that, you know. It's really, it's really hard when the income just stops, you know, and you don't have much warning. They, they said he had a year to live and he died in six weeks, so.
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CH: But, but we already had our power of attorney and financial stuff already in place uh, since we'd been together to an attorney, you know. His kids tried to take the house. I get a letter from their attorney, yah, and you know, his oldest son calls me up. About 10 hours after Bud had died, he calls me up and says, "Did my dad leave me anything?" [chuckles] Yeah. And I said, "Yes, he did Kevin, there's a shoe box here of his mementos that he wanted you to have." Kevin, I never saw Kevin again. So I still have those, these things, yah. I still, I still have some things of Howard, and. Sometimes I put their pictures up somewhere. Sometimes I take them down, they're down now I just they're part of my life, but I don't. Not going to go back there, yeah, and I know you don't want to bring that baggage into a new relationship.
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RS: Was Howard your first partner?
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CH: No, second. Bud was first.
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RS: Bud was first.
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CH: So I didn't really have a partner until '96. I had some boyfriends, but not a partner. Not, you know, an actual move-in, our own place, and he didn't like financial stuff, so he let me take care of the checking account and the bills and I did the cooking and he did the clean up. So that worked out pretty good too - and I was that, I was the repair person, but he was there getting me tools or holding the other end of the board or, you know. Just don't turn him loose with a screwdriver, he wasn't very good at it [laughs].
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RS: How did you meet Howard?
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CH: I met Howard online on a website. We had a date. And he asked me to come back the next day and spend the night. He had never done that before. He didn't do that. He didn't have overnight - he didn't have relationships, er - Howard. Howard has, Howard used to be a really big man, like over 400, but he lost a lot of weight and he was like 260 and it never bothered me what size a person is, what they looked like or what they did for a living - None of that ever bothered me. He was kind of self-conscious of it. But uh, he didn't, he didn't have a great life growing up either. His sister was pampered and he was kind of pushed aside like a crazy one and. But he got married with, to a woman that had three children. And he raised those kids as his own. And then he had two biological children from that woman, two boys. So. Howard was, Howard was a carnie. Do you know what a carnie is? As in Carnival.
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RS: Mmhmm.
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CH: OK, sideshows. He, he had a Jaws exhibit, a sideshow. He got a letter from whoever's in charge. You can't have this show. That's copyright, ya know. Well, he'd do that just barely changed something but it would associate with something, you know. So, it was the Jaws of Death, with a big shark? OK? But, that was before I met him but I've seen pictures and stuff, but he did food trucks and things like that. And his family was in it, in the business. They drove vehicles when they had to jump to another location, they ran the fish pond or you know, I am actually a card-carrying carnie now [laughs]. I have a card. Uh, the, the carnival association is just about a half-hour from me. Um, and I should go up there.
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CH: His daughter, his daughter bought a memorial brick and had it placed in the, ya know the sidewalk up there. And so I see that when I go. And uh, yeah. And she she, he was cremated, but she had a headstone created for him and it's etched in marble. It is a carnival scene. The merry-go-round, the ferris wheel and stuff. I remember going up there, um, it was one-year anniversary of being dead, and I had a little party. He was a big fan of SquareBob, SpongePants or whatever that - so I got, [laughs] I got a balloon, and hats and, I still have a pointy hat over here that, that theme ya know and. And I got some streamers and, yeah, we had our own little party.
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RS: So did you guys live together in Florida?
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CH: Did we what?
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RS: Did you live together in Florida?
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CH: We stayed in each other's house, but, when I met Howard, he had just purchased a new home that was in a bad area. But it had special financing and stuff because of the location and Howard's income and stuff. So he was just into that, getting started. I'd had my home for a year, about, so we were both of new homeowners, so we didn't. But we, yeah, we spent a lot of time together.
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RS: And did either one of them go to rodeos with you? Were they involved with the rodeo association at all?
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CH: Yes, yes. Uh huh. Bud would go to the rodeo things. Um, you know, if we lived in St. Louis and I was doing the rodeo in Missouri and Kansas City, he would definitely be with me, ya know that weekend and things like that, you know, and he'd you know, he didn't do too much as a volunteer, but he is good at sitting in the stands and yakking with people, [laughs] things like that. And that was OK. That was fine. And Howard, he went with me down to Fort Lauderdale for a rodeo down there. I was, I was the treasurer of the rodeo in Florida. So he went with me and he helped me with the money side of the thing and counting it, and transporting it so nobody would mug us. He was kind of a mean-looking sucker, big. So I liked him, having him around, but he liked ice cream too.
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RS: So with this last year, with all the rodeos being canceled, did, did that. Was that difficult to deal with for your year?
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CH: Not as difficult as it was for a lot of people. I think we've lost momentum. I think we've lost because we were we're somewhat declining as it was, just naturally, and then just to have it shut down for a whole year, year and a half. Well, what are there, three or four this year is all they're having? Ya know? So all the points from last year and this year they're going to go to next year. But, you know. People, ya know, this covid thing has changed a lot of things, the way people do things. So we'll see. We'll see what comes out of it. Maybe it made people realize what friendships they have in the rodeo, and maybe they'll come back in full force and really be a fire under 'em. That would be great. That'd be great. I wish the best for em. I'll be there somewhere.
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RS: Yeah, do you know which one you're thinking you'll be able to attend next?
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CH: The next one?
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RS: Yeah.
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CH: The Arkansas.
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RS: Yeah.
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CH: In April. Uh, Missouri may have theirs in May, may have it in Labor Day like they always did. I'll probably be barn manager again, because I know the rodeo director, [laughs] Angela, but um. You know, yeah, I'll go to that one and I'll buy a buckle, or sponsor buckles. You know, I do that. I usually, I usually spend about a thousand dollars when Missouri has their rodeo and that's just on buckles and [laughs]. One year I sponsored the porta potties. [laughs out loud] That, there's, Charles Hancock Remodeling on it and this is sponsored by [laughs] and I loved it! I - [inaudible] I'd get a kick out of it. And you know 50 bucks a porta potty and there was three or something like that. Ya know [laughs] that's good advertising! You can get a lot of people coming and going.
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RS: Those are the most necessary things at a rodeo ground!
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CH: Well, yeah, they should be sponsored, right? So and, and you know that thousand dollars is, in addition to what I spent getting there, paying for my room, and everything associated with being out of town. You know, the more, the more money that Missouri would spend on somebody like me to pay me to do that or to give me perks, that's less money going to charity. So, they already had to fly in the officials, officials, you know, provide them in hotel rooms and things, so. Oh, and I've complained, you've got to complain but. They know, they know I'll still come.
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RS: Well, I've kept you for a long time. Is there anything else we haven't talked about that you really want to talk about?
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CH: Mmm? No, I don't think so. II have a rodeo resumé. It lists everything I've ever done [laughs]. You know, all these years and stuff.
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RS: If you wouldn't mind sharing that, we would love to incorporate it to include that with your transcript.
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CH: Well, I tried to find it right before the call, but I didn't want to miss the call. So it's here. I can send that when I send you the forms I have to sign, which I got new ink for my printer today. It ran out right before I went on my trip. So, I'll go back and download those things, get them signed and do whatever I got to do and scan them or whatever and get them back to you.
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RS: That'd be great. Yeah, we just want to make sure in. Ten, twenty years when researchers are going in that they know that you were one hundred percent on board with this and you're OK with it.
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CH: I want to be. I want that to be. Yeah, because I'm comfortable in doing this. And if it helps or whatever other people. [laughs]
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RS: This is wonderful. Thank you so much for your time and we will transcribe this and we can always chat again if you if you think of more things. So I'm going to stop the recording.

Marie Antoinette DuBarry

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Rebecca Scofield: It's April 1st at the Texas Tradition Rodeo 2017 outside of Dallas. This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Paul and your stage name is Marie Antoinette Du Barry. So could you tell me first, and I'm sorry for this, what year you were born?
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Marie Antoinette Du Barry: I was born in 1980. So it was late in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I'm the only child of an only child. My grandmother owned a bridal shop. She's very well known in New Mexico, actually in Santa Fe. She owned her business for fifty-five years and I grew up in that bridal shop. So, yeah that's where I come from and that's who sort of who I am. That's sort of the great beginnings of Du Barry.
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RS: And as a little kid, did you ever feel like you were different at all? Did you feel pretty mainstream?
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MD: I was very different. I was classified as weird at a very early age. So maybe about anywhere from late kindergarten to first grade, the acronym “weird,” “you're weird,” “what are you talking about? You’re weird,” was constantly referenced because I was dyslexic. They didn't really discover it until I was maybe 5th or 6th grade, which is actually I find is really the norm for LGBTQ people. I think it's in our genetics and I think it's something that helps us cope with different abilities. So I wasn't a very good reader so that made me very obvious. I was also very effeminate, which is really obvious. And all those things made for an interesting school life especially at the beginning because kids don't necessarily have the protection from being bullied.
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MD: The protection from…because back then it was completely normal for the principal to say to my mother, “Well, boys will be boys. Boy will be boys. Your son is effeminate so you're going to have to expect some of this.” So that is sort of the beginning experience of school. I was very good at art, I was very good in history, I was very good in tests that did not involve writing or spelling. And later on as I grew up in school I started to get…they diagnosed with me with dyslexia. And actually it, what’s really interesting is, it's not a learning disability like most people say, it's actually a learning different ability. That’s what I like to refer to it as. Because it's a totally different learning ability, you learn in a very different way but boy can you store a lot of different computer stuff in your brain.
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RS: So was your mom pretty protective of you with all the bullying?
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MD: Yes, my mother was extremely protective of me for bullying. I moved schools about three or four times. I finally finished my schooling out in elementary at Gonzales. So it was always, you know, once the bullying got too much, my mom would move me, move me, and move me cause there was that constant, “oh, boys will be boys.” That kind of crazy nowadays if you really think about it.
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RS: As a mother of a son I hoped that that's crazy.
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MD: Yeah, it's intense. And it's completely…you see a lot of resurgence right now and of course this will go into forever, this interview will go into prosperity, prosperity, posterity. And we’re seeing a lot of those resurgence of allowing people to act the way…by allowing it, saying, “Oh, well, that's how people are supposed to act.” When that's not really how they're supposed to act at all. We're supposed to act much better than that. And it's shameful to see a lot of that. But it's really wonderful to see other people standing up for each other. So it's sort of this weird sort of time of vacillation of breaking with the old and stuff like that.
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MD: But my mother was incredibly protective of me. She was always afraid that I was going to get kidnapped. So really weird phobia that she had: I was born during the prison riots in New Mexico, where there was a very bad prison riot that happened at the state pen. And my grandfather actually boarded up the windows and kept her in a specific room and then put told her not to come out ‘cause he was afraid that they were going to come down the street and kill people. So and he was a police officer, so my mother was sequestered into a particular room and I think that's what caused her to be so overprotective of me. As I speak to you with a wig on my head right now so. [Laughter] It's really funny when I think I'm like ahh. So yes she was incredibly protective.
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RS: Were you able to, even though you were switching schools and sort of bullied, were you ever able to make a core group of friends or a best friend that saw you through some of that?
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MD: Yes, I had a couple, but it was more in middle school and then, after middle school, it was high school. It was sort of the time where I found it…I was very introverted in middle school because I wasn't out and then I decided when I hit high school I was going to be out for the whole experience. And so being sort of the artistic person that I was in that time and that I am now it was very hard for them to not automatically say that I was gay or whatever. And then as I got older and then I went into high school, you know all these people really admired me for coming out at such a young age and saying this is who I am, this is what I where I'm going, and I'm not going to let anybody tell me no. So that experience was very liberating in high school as a freshman. But to miss out, as me as a person, I missed out on things like I wanted to go to prom with a boy, I wasn't able to because everybody was so intimidated by being so out and being so forward about my gaiety, my homosexuality. I hate to say it because it sounds so clinical when you say “homosexuality.” My queerness. And so it's really a strange thing because boys are either attracted to especially in that age they're either attracted to you or they're not attracted to you so it's really hard experience going through high school.
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RS: Yeah. So how do you identify as far as gender and sexuality?
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MD: I identify as gender-fluid, so I don't really identify either as a boy or a girl. Though I vacillate between the two, sort of…[letting people pass by]
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RS: Now that the chatty Cathies have passed.
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MD: Gender, I mean I identify as gender-fluid. I'm sort of in between, I sort of float in between being masculine and feminine. Though I live my life as a man, I am very comfortable being a woman, dressing up as a woman. But I consider drag a very sacred experience. I consider it Greek Theatre. I consider it divinely inspired. Very sort of older than Christianity. Which is typically normal for ancient societies and then when you get into Christianity all of a sudden it sort of stopped because its considered not normal which ironically it is very normal to consider yourself both sexes or be more on the spectrum of being masculine or being feminine. So that’s sort of changeable and you can sort of change throughout your life and be more masculine when you're younger and be more effeminate when you're older or vice versa for either genders. So that's sort of what I consider myself.
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RS: That's great. And when did you first start getting into drag?
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MD: I think I was always doing drag. I think even around five or six, ‘cause my grandmother owned the bridal shop that I had mentioned earlier, I always tried on high heels, you know my grandma was using me for like dressmaker's dummy, so I was always, you know, ‘cause of course I was the right size of a flower girl at, you know, five or six. So these dresses worked really well. So I was constantly trying on bodices and trying on skirts and trying on hoops and stuff like that so it was very, very natural for me to just be able to slip into drag. But officially I started drag as a sort of as a career in six or seven years ago.
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RS: And have you always had the same stage name?
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MD: No. My stage name has changed throughout time. So the first of my stage names was Cherry Boom Boom and then later on I became Marie Antoinette Du Barry, which was the amalgamation of two women at the court of Versailles. Of course, Marie Antoinette and then Du Barry, who is sort of a lesser known. She was a courtesan at court of Louis XV. And what happened is I sort of blended the two girls together because I thought it would be really funny to have two, excuse my language, bitches sort of residing together who never liked each other and make it a full name. And so that's why I glued them together.
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RS: That's amazing. What draws you to that period of time that sort of, you know, late French empire period?
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MD: What draws me is the extreme pomp of everything, every movement meant something, every little thing you had on your dress. I mean if you had passion flower on your dress, it meant something. And women were constant rivals of each other, which much is like today. Who's wearing what? Are you wearing Gucci? Today, you know, it's Gucci or McQueen. But in those days, you had your dressmaker who you bought your fabric that had no fabric on it and thought of a dress that you wanted and then you said I want lilacs and lilies embroidered on the fabric and then. So that the extreme elegance and that extreme hard work to make such a beautiful outfit is really what draws me to it. And just simply the width of the dresses.
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MD: The silhouette is what is really stunning to me because it could be, it could be really boring. But you have a tiny little waist and then giant hips and, you know, no bosom. I think that's really, I know it sounds crazy, but it's very effeminate to me, it’s very charming and beautiful. Because how does a woman move in that? How does a woman go from point A to point B in a carriage like that? And it takes a lot of patience and a lot of grace and a lot of elegance to get into the carriage to get out of the carriage without killing yourself. You're literally, I mean without tumbling out and dying or suffocating to death. So that's why I'm drawn to that, ‘cause it's so. And everybody knows it. Everybody knows that that is sort of the height of elegance and wealth and beauty. That always impresses me and that's why I decided to choose that.
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RS: So when you officially came out and started getting more into the artistic side of drag and things like that, has your mother and your grandmother still supported you and are they still sort of part of your artistic vision?
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MD: Well, my mother doesn't really have an artistic bone in her body. She can only draw like Christmas trees and roses. But my grandmother she passed away in 2016, so this will be her second-year anniversary. She was a wonderful lady. She taught me how to sew, so the dress that you saw was I made it and you know did all my stuff on it. And she taught me how to sew and she taught me how to be a lady. She said you can show as much heaving cleavage as you want but don't show your ankles. Men don't get to see your ankles. Men don't get to see certain things. They get to see other things, but they don’t get to see other things because those are personal, those are private things that make men interested in who you are. They ask questions.
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MD: And I get that all the time. Why do you only show your shoulders? Like I don't wear triple D boobs because I don't think that's a natural thing for my body type, I think that maybe I'm a C or anything from a B to a C and I don't think it's proper to have giant boobs and give other people a false impression of womanhood. Because you don't have to have giant boobs to be a beautiful woman. You don't have to have a tiny waist to be a beautiful woman. Even though I corset myself quite a bit, in fact I wear corsets probably for everything that I dress in, but it's very important and very special to me that I don't have a very big bosom. ‘Cause I'm not interested.
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MD: I don't like padding out, I don't pad out because that's not natural for me. And I typically find that other drag queens wear pads and stuff because they've been forced into it. And if they had a choice, I think that they would go in a different, they would do other things. And that's why I used panniers, which are the hip hoops that make me look wider. Because it makes my shoulders look way smaller and it makes me look like I haven't eaten in like three days, which is perfect so, you know. Which is of course isn't a natural way that woman would ever look but in that time period it would be very normal to have a teeny weeny little waist.
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RS: So where did you start performing when you first got into it?
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MD: I started at the Closet Ball which is where like men that are in the community that haven't done drag before or have done very little drag start off as men and then change into women. And so that's when I was Cherry Boom Boom and then a friend of mine whose a producer of show the Joe Box Cabaret in Santa Fe, her name is Linda Kraus. She was the lighting person for the show and she saw me and said you really have to join the show, so I joined the show from there. And it was very fortuitous because I didn't really have an outlet, you know I would dress up to go to parties you know or for Halloween but I really didn't I really didn't have a place to perform. Because I didn't perform at all I just went out in my costumes.
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RS: Yeah, what is your sort of you know we talked about your artistic side as far as fashion goes. What about singing, dancing, any of that side?
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MD: It's very funny because I look a lot to history for, you probably I figure I look a lot to history, so I learn ancient dances like the Volta, which was a favorite dance of Queen Elizabeth, where the man, where it was sort of like a hop, skip, and a jump and then the man lifts the lady up from her crotch into the air and they say, “Volta.” It was an Italian dance, which was all the rage in her time and I put it to her modern music and it's very interesting because modern music has a lot of the same tonality of old music. And if you find the right one it's scary because it looks like exactly and people are like, “Well, where the hell did you think that dance up?” I didn't think it up, it's just an old dance that's re-appropriated. You know waltzing, I use a lot of that stuff. So, yes, I do dance.
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MD: I don't really sing. Not really. I don't…I'm not really a big singer but I enjoy singing in the car and things like that. But I enjoy lip-syncing more because you get the tonality that you want. You get the song that you want from the singer you want and all you have to do is emote that emotion. There's some people that aren't good lip-syncers and there are people that are good lip-syncers. And you just, you have to hear the music and I think that that love between music and your performance is really what conveys to the audience because you can be talking to somebody over here and look at somebody from across the room and they'll be like, “Oh my gosh.” It means a lot to them. Oh my god. So that's yeah. But I don't sing, I don't sing very well. I sing but I don't sing very well, yes.
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RS: So how often would you perform in like in maybe a month?
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MD: With this particular title, ‘cause now I'm the now reigning Miss New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association 2017, it's almost every other week. And some of them I have such a lucky sort of experience where I'm experiencing out of town so I'm actually performing outside of Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm performing in like Texas and you know Denver and things of that nature. So I'm able to show off my drag and it's…but it's very interesting because I get mixed reviews. I've always got mixed reviews on my drag because people say, “Well that's not drag.” Yes, it is. It's historically it is drag. If you look at Shakespeare yes, it is drag. You are seeing women dressed up in different time periods. Men dressed as women doing different time periods. First of all, yes it is drag. Historical drag is drag because it's in history. But I forgot what we are talking about.
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RS: Different responses to your drag outside of New Mexico.
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MD: Then there's…it's interesting because now with rodeo there are people who have certain definers or what’s called hegemony of what rodeo should look like. And I tend to step outside of that boundary of what it looks like. Because what is really rodeo? What is really western looks? Because we can look at right now with stretch jersey and stretch jean and boots or we can go back to the 1600s or go back to the 1800s and we can see woman with bustle dresses. So what is really the definer of western looks? Is it a duster? Is it all leather? Is it jeans? Because in the 1800s Levi Straus I don't even I think he had started maybe making Levi's.
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RS: For mainly miners.
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MD: For miners, yeah. And women weren't wearing pants. God forbid they were wearing pants. They were all corseted and bustled. Even the soiled dove women, which are prostitutes at that time period, were wearing, to go out in public because they weren't going to go out how they were dressed, in certain definers that defined what they looked like, you know, feathers in their hair can can girls. That is that is typically western. And then you look to modern sort of western sort of history. It doesn't just start now. It starts with polka. It starts with, you know, crinolines and colors and Annette Funicello square dancing. So you see this various range and then you see these people who tend to sometimes, they love country so much that they feel it has to be defined in a certain way.
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MD: But how do you define it? It's not just music. And it's not just fashion. It's what's inside you and sometimes it's the manners how you take care of each other with that changes that perception of western. Paula Cole said it best when she wrote her song about where have all the cowboys gone? You know, where's my Marlboro man? That's the truth of the matter. And I think with western people they have a romanticized idea of what it's supposed to look like. Jersey-comfortable, whatever. But it really isn't comfortable. Really, it's actually not a stereotype because it's really not a stereotype. It's an experience that you either experience it in your heart and you convey it to the audience or you don't. Especially as a performer you can either do it whatever you want to do it but I think it’s the gentleness that they want.
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MD: It's almost Southern in a way. Where western men are I mean I've never met nicer men than this. I mean tipping hats and being really lovely. In the gay community because it's a completely different community then if I was a pride pageant because gay men would be like a little snooty. Well not snooty but they can be a little huffy sometimes. And not all of them. But some of them. So there's that experience and with western experience they are very, very nice, it's like you experience gentlemen. And not all the time ‘cause there's some that are a little out of control but you can't do anything about that you just move on and have a good time.
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RS: Yeah this is a really interesting point you are making about the sort of historicalness of western style when you know the south west was Spanish ladies and native women and lots of different visions of femininity before bling and Wranglers.
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MD: And bell bottoms and boots because you look. I come from Santa Fe. Which is the end of the Santa Fe Trail. It ends with me. It ends where everybody wanted to go. I mean everybody was coming out to New Mexico and finding, I mean turquoise, silver, Wrangler boots—boots, and Wranglers, and concha belts. Where do you think it all came from? It came from where I come from. So I know where I'm coming from and I can play with it how I want to because I am where the Santa Fe Trail ends. But I also have the Spanish background and it’s unfair to only see the Anglicized version of “western” because there is no…even, even those gentlemen were fur trappers they were French, they were Anglo-Saxon, they were Spanish, they were—shoot, they were buffalo soldiers, Native American peoples. What is Southwestern? What is the defining moment that says, “Oh, well, that's western, a cowboy hat. That's western”? There's nothing. You can pick and choose from whatever the hell you want and make it into whatever you want. So what is it?
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RS: So have you gotten a lot of comments of like today you know you were dressed in a corset and lace and that more…
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MD: Antiquated Style, yeah.
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RS: Sort of hyper-feminine beautiful style, whereas a lot of the other women were dressed in jeans, tight fitting jeans, button down shirt, some had hats. Do you get comments on not fitting in to the other…?
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MD: I think, not I'm not going to take them as negative comments but I think that they think that it's not country enough. And ironically, it's sort of, to me and my perception, it is country it's just a different version of country. Today somebody told me I look steampunk. Steampunk western is a perfect example of a defining moment in fashion and in a visual experience where people dress with top hats they have crazy little things. They have little doohickies and doodads but they act with the same gentility they you know bustles but the dresses are short and you know the ankle breakers and things like the fans and the little parasols. That's western. That really is western, you know. So you really get these experiences of “I don't understand you, so I'm not going to understand you. So it's easier to not understand you, so you're not, you're not country.”
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MD: What the heck is country? I just went through it. It can be Buffalo Soldier, it can be an Anglo coming down the Spanish trail. It can be a Spanish person. If you if you went back just a couple years earlier, you'd see people in squaw skirts and concha belts and peasant blouses. And ironically those peasant blouses and squaw skirts are coming back into fashion but it's typically Spanish with silver buckles down the side of the dress. Okay. Well, give me what is right historical western fashion I'll stick to it. Because if you really want to get real serious, go to the Native Americans where they defined Southwestern fashion, because they were here way before anybody else and say you know a rug dress is what is Southwestern, is country. It's so interesting.
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RS: It's really fascinating.
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MD: So most of the time you let them have their perception of it, you love them anyway, and you accept them for what…’cause there's no reason to fight over it. If they have a defining idea of western, God bless all let them have it. I'm not going to take it away. I'm proud of them. But maybe I've twisted their mind a little and they said oh I can do that too and it's perfectly fine if I want to do it they don't have to do it.
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RS: So did you get any training in fashion?
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MD: Well, my grandmother was the main sort of lady who trained me in fashion, sort of taught me certain ways of putting outfits together. I went to the College of Santa Fe and got my bachelor of fine arts in Historical Costuming. So that's why I can really speak from a historical point of view of the knowledge of what things should look like and sort of put them in historical context and then juxtaposition them against today's sort of look.
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RS: That's super interesting. I’m sorry. You were going to say?
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MD: No, no, go ahead I totally forgot anyway.
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RS: So what do you do for a living now?
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MD: So this is really interesting, I work as a funeral ambassador. So it goes from drag queen in the evening to funeral ambassador in the day. I do it all, you know I formulate death certificates and help take loved ones into our care, which is taking them from the home or the place of passing, to the funeral home, to doing all the paperwork for my funeral director, to helping them lay them to rest. So it's very interesting.
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RS: Does that take a lot of emotional strength for you?
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MD: I think so. And I know it seems…I don't think it seems too healthy. Sometimes you have to turn it off. Not turn it off in a cruel way and not have compassion for the people who have lost loved ones but you have to be the strong sort of wall to lean on for them. Otherwise if you are all messed up and crying, messed up and crying, messed up and crying how are you helping any of these people? You can't do any of your job, so it's pointless. And it may not be easy, but it has to get done because you know the loved one isn't going to get up and do it for themselves. I know that first hand so I'm like eh. So.
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RS: And where are you living?
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MD: In Pojoaque, New Mexico, which is 15 to 30 minutes outside of Santa Fe. It's right out past Santa Fe Opera.
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RS: So would you say that's a small town or like a suburb of Santa Fe?
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MD: It's actually a pueblo it's like it's within in the Pojoaque Pueblo. It's not within the Pueblo itself but it's surrounding territory.
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RS: So how did you first find out about the gay rodeo?
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MD: My brother Trey, who is not really my blood brother because I'm an only child but he's my spiritual brother, let me know about the International Gay Rodeo and the New Mexico Gay Rodeo, and asked me if I wanted to join and then run for Miss New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association, the host association, because there hadn't been a court in about seven years. And he really wanted to do the run with me. We were the only contestants. We won. And so here I am.
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MD: Sort of a funny story, I tell it to a lot of people. He had been sort of bugging at me—not bugging at me in a bad way ‘cause New Mexicans use the word “bug” but not in a bad way—he was calling me and he I was sitting on the can and I see his phone number come up and I said, “Well, I better answer,” ‘cause I really enjoy my phone calls with Trey. So I answered it and he says, “So have you made up your mind about running for Miss New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association?” And I told him…you know, I was going to tell him no and all of the sudden I stopped and I heard this voice and it wasn't Trey's voice and it wasn't my voice. And it was sort of this divine voice. I don't know what to say better than that. It was like right out of like a story book and it says and I heard it just as clear as day and it said, “He's not asking you. I'm asking you. Say yes.” And I said, “Yes. Yeah, I will. Yeah, why not? Let's do it.” And he's like, “What?” ‘Cause he was expecting me to say no. And that's sort of the beginning of this experience. So it's been very amazing, very different. I don't think I've had more fun—because I was the first Miss Santa Fe Pride—I don't think I've had more fun holding a title than this title. It's been a blast.
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RS: Had you ever been to a gay rodeo before?
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MD: Yes, I had. The year before, it was sort of ironic, it was like I was being primed for it. I performed at the gay rodeo in Santa Fe which is the Zia rodeo, it's in Santa Fe, on the rodeo grounds, and I performed there and I was like geez this is really fun but I never thought in a million years that I would be Miss New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association.
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RS: And do you perform in the rodeo, do you compete I mean, in the rodeo?
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MD: Yes and no. In October, we will be tested and then we will have to perform and crowned for International Gay Rodeo which is the highest that you can go, that’s world, right now I'm just state. So I'll be competing with my other brothers and sisters, and I always call it competing with because I'm not competing against—it's not fair to say that I'm competing against because then that would make me an enemy of theirs and I'm not an enemy I just want to compete with and have a good time.
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RS: That's great. And what were you scheduled to do today but you're going to do tomorrow?
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MD: The Gay Rodeo Association, the International Gay Rodeo Association, as it is known, has different events which define itself as queer/gay/LGBT and the sort of there are several stock events, and two others, but what defines it as queer/gay/LGBT is camp events. So we do campy sort of things which are goat dressing, wild drag race which is where you put a drag queen on the back of a of a heifer and the heifer goes all over the place and you have to pull it across a line. Goat dressing is where you have to put underwear on a goat. Steer decorating is where you have to put a bow on a steer’s tail. So that's typically LGBT. It's taking that real heavy, intense, competitive nature and making it really fun and silly, sort of making fun of itself, which is perfectly okay.
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RS: So I often have a hard time defining the word camp for my students. How would you define camp?
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MD: Camp is I think not ordinary or regular or associated, it's not going not camping. People would automatically say camp is camping. Not it's not camping. It's not going outside and cooking with a Dutch oven. It's seeing things in an unordinary fashion and being able to laugh at it. I think also the rodeo, the straight rodeo had been so oppressive to the gay competitor to the LGBT competitor, that they needed to have something to breathe and break away from that oppression, that slavery. ‘Cause I often say that we’re sometimes in emotional chains. Or people say it's not okay for us to be who we are, which is completely insane because of course it's okay for us to be whoever we are. And whatever we believe in and if you don't like it, you can go you-know-what. When you are listening to this interview and you don't agree with it too bad. Everybody is allowed to have their own experience and I think you best beat back the misunderstanding and the ugliness with humor. So I think the gay rodeo beats back that oppression with funniness, with clever funniness which makes it light and airy and not so intense. Though it can be intense you're bull riding, you are racing, you could get hurt, you could get killed, you know, you could get paralyzed but the camp events make it so that it's like who cares at least I was having fun when I did it and that's the truth of the matter, you know.
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RS: Do you ever want to ride a bull?
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MD: You know, I see it and it looks really interesting and you know I'm full in drag. I would do it full in drag, wig and all and yes, I would. But there's like this one…but I'm sort of…I have a husband and, you know, I have cats and I always worry that I could get severely hurt and be a quadriplegic. You know they live full, rich lives they just have to work a little harder. And but it's a little scary ‘cause you can die doing whatever we're doing, you can have an accident and just die accidentally. You can hit your head wrong. You are dealing with wild animals, and those are drag queens included. [Laughter] I'm just teasing. But you are dealing with wild animals and wild animals are like children that have no…they are afraid and scared or comfortable and happy or…there's no in between and there's no having the conversation saying, “I'm going to put some underwear on you today, little goat. You don't need to gore me. You don't need to poke me in the butt or anything.” “I'm just going to ride on your back, bull, for eight seconds. If you just make this easy for all of us, you know, it'll be okay.” There's no conversating with them because they don't understand you. And so that's you know eh.
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RS: And you mentioned you're married. Are you legally married?
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MD: Mhhm. We were married in August of 2007 and, legally but we were married the year before in October 2016 with a spiritual marriage and then we went to California before Prop 8 was actually voted through and everything but we had sort of a grandfather time where we were sort of grandfathered in so we were married legally and then we brought the…but New Mexico didn't recognize it until the United States Congress Supreme…Congress pushed it through. So we were still not legally married in New Mexico but were legally married in California which is the most stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's stupid.
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RS: But you have had a spiritual marriage?
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MD: Mhm
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RS: Does he come to gay rodeos with you?
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MD: Yeah, he just walked by just earlier he went to go to the bathroom with his sister. He supports me in everything. He carries my sash, he helps me change, he helps me dress, he keeps me on time. So, yes, he's a great support in my life. Richard Lee Polly. So he doesn't get mad that I didn't mention him in the interview.
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RS: And you…
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MD: He'll say, “You said husband but you never said my full name.” I said your full name so stop complaining.
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RS: And yeah, I mean, do you think there's any resistance to having drag or royalty as part of the rodeo? Have you ever had anyone be like, “Well, rodeo's just rodeo why do we fuss with these other things?”
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MD: Not yet, and I say not yet because it's not yet. But I think I'll probably be confronted by it. But it's sort of interesting because our rodeo had not had royalty for seven years. And that was a very hard time for them because they hadn't had royalty, so other royalty had to stand in. So there was always royalty but it was by proxy royalty. And I think the face of drag and I think the face of royalty brings a lot of recognition to the rodeo because it draws people in and says, “Well, why are they wearing crowns? What are they doing? What's the New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association?” And when people start asking questions then they want to join or they want to say, “Oh, I want to be a cowboy. I want to do stuff.” So it's very different. It's very different without and with. I think sometimes they are symbiotic and they need to have each other. And sometimes it's good and sometimes it's, bad but it is what it is.
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RS: That's really great. So in the day-to-day operations of the association what is your, other than Goodwill Ambassador, what is your main…?
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MD: PR. Information. Being able to answer people's questions if they have like “what's goat dressing? what's…,” you have to have certain answers. Then there's everyday questions that are like “Who is your president? Do you have an association? What's your chapter number?” You know, things like that so it's really interesting. So it’s just light stuff, you know. But for our test we have two-hundred questions we have to answer for IGRA. And you only get one chance to answer those right. That either places you as one, two…so Queen one, two, and three, or nothing. So I got to get my shit together for that.
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RS: Do you think you're going to do other, whether the Imperial Court System or other organizations that have royalties, would you'd be interested in doing…?
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MD: I have worked closely with different courts and the Imperial System. And my title as a city title for Miss Santa Fe Pride was sort of. Yes, so yes, working with them but I don't think I'd ever, I found sort of my niche in rodeo and I think this is where I want to stay. Though things always change it's not like anything permanent.
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RS: Yeah. And, you know, I know there's a lot of concern about just not getting younger people in you know and the association shrinking. How do you think gay rodeo can expand, can go into the future?
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MD: Well, I think we're now experiencing a Renaissance again. So there's a renewed interest in the rodeo, it's starting to come back little by little. But I think the important part is that you have to accept everybody for what they are and what they define rodeo or Western as. Because when you say, “You don't fit in.” You take that prospective person who's interested and you alienate them. You say you can't be who you are. Because what defines rodeo? What defines Southwestern? What defines country? Is it the music? Is it the clothing? Or is it the person? And if you are denying the person his or her own individuality of how they express it then you're doomed. And have to be clever to allow other people's definition of it and say, “Hey, that's okay. Or I don't understand it, but what the hell, go for it. I'm like eh whatever.” And that's when you find a renaissance, a rebirth.
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MD: ‘Cause there is a rebirth of western stuff in pop culture which is steampunk. So you look at steampunk western, people are wearing western stuff. And so you just have to remember that nothing defines country. If it's a top or it's a pair of earrings, then you have to look a little bit deeper. ‘Cause it goes much further than that. ‘Cause it is history Manifest Destiny, Westward Ho. You know, Westward Ho, you read it in your history book, Westward Ho, the lady carrying electricity to the West with no wings but she's an angel and she's carrying a peace branch but everybody’s getting killed. That's what we’re experiencing. Cattle rustling, cowboys, Billy the Kid: those are only one part of very a large experience, people coming from Chicago going to New Mexico, people leaving New Mexico to go to Chicago, some people who never got there. They all have stories and they all have their own fashion in their own way that they experienced life. We're not living in that time, so we can't define what it is.
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RS: Well, this has been fantastic. Is there anything else you want to mention?
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MD: Hello. No I'm just kidding. Just that…not really. I think I've pretty much said everything that I thought I wanted to say. And then I'll say, “Damnit, I forgot something.” You can always call me on the phone and I'm like hello yes, and I'm all so yeah. So if you ever need me, just yeah give me a call.
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RS: Excellent. Thank you so much.
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MD: You are more than welcome.

Dan Iverson

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Revulai Detiv: Hello, this is Revulai Detiv. I'm here with Dan Iverson and we are at the AGRA Rodeo, and today is February 16th [2020]. So, to start off with, what year were you born?
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Dan Iverson: 1954.
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RD: Where did you grow up?
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DI: I grew up in Murdo, South Dakota.
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RD: What was your childhood like?
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DI: I grew up on a farm and a ranch, and I knew at the time I did not want to follow in my father's footsteps. The ranch was homesteaded by my grandfather in 1904. Fortunately, I had a brother that wanted to take over the family place, so I was happy about that.
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RD: Was it an apprehension with continuing farming?
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DI: I wanted to be in the city. I wanted to be around people, do something different. So, I just didn’t want to be stuck on the farm and have to do all the chores that farmers and ranchers have to do.
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RD: Makes sense. So, how do you identify in terms of gender and sexuality?
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DI: I am a gay man.
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RD: Did you ever end up coming out to your family?
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DI: I went to one of the International Gay Rodeo Association's conventions in 1987 and I won an award there. And the convention was in Albuquerque, and after I left Albuquerque, I went to South Dakota to spend time with my folks, and I had my award. So, I showed my mother the award and it said “International Gay Rodeo” on it. And that's how I—she said she already suspected it anyway, but that's how I actually showed her. And that was in 1987.
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RD: Were they pretty supportive?
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DI: She was very supportive. I do not know when she told my dad. I never, ever had the conversation with my dad about it. But my mom and dad had been married for almost 60 years so—not at that time, but before my dad died, they'd been married for about 60 years. So, I'm sure that they—he had to have known about it. But I just didn't have that conversation with him.
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RD: Did you ever attend college?
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DI: I attended Black Hill State University in Spearfish, South Dakota. And I was on the five-year plan. Just ‘cause it got me off the farm, and there was college kids, and it was a small, friendly, beautiful campus. And so, I was on the five-year program, but I did graduate.
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RD: What did you study?
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DI: I was in travel industry management—hotel, motel, restaurant management. That kind of stuff.
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RD: Did you have any favorite experiences from college?
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DI: I was a member of a fraternity, and we had a fun bunch of guys, and we did the usual fraternity things and football games. We threw keggers and fundraisers and I was president of the fraternity my junior and senior year. So, yes, I enjoyed it very much. And that was another reason to do the five-year plan, because I didn't want to go have to go back to the farm.
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RD: Makes sense.
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DI: My folks were probably not very happy about that.
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RD: It’s a once in a lifetime thing.
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DI: That's right. Yeah. No, I enjoyed my college days very much.
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RD: So how did you first become involved in rodeo?
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DI: I was going to a bar called Styx in Phoenix and they had a Country and Western Night. Now, I always made sure I went to that. And they had a group going to the National Gay Reno Rodeo in Reno one year and I decided to go with them. So, we all got on a school bus, went to the airport, flew to Reno, and I attended the National Reno Gay Rodeo. And I'm not sure if that was ‘82 or ‘83, but it was either ‘82 or ‘83—I kinda want to say ‘83—and I had so much fun, and then I heard that Colorado had a gay rodeo association, so I made arrangements to go to their first rodeo or their second rodeo, whatever it was. And I just met a bunch of people, and became interested, and kept track of where I had been and who I'd met. And that's how it all started. And one of my friends from Phoenix won the gay pageant. She ran for the pageant, and she was Miss Reno Gay Rodeo the year I went and that was—she was one of my friends. So, between her and I, we were able to keep track of what was going on.
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RD: Nice. When did you get involved with…in the ring?
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DI: Oh, in the arena? Through my contacts with the Colorado Gay Rodeo Association and Charlie's Denver, I found out that Charlie's was opening a new bar in Phoenix called Charlie's Phoenix. And I stayed in touch, and I went there, and I heard that they were going to—John King and his staff—was going to form a rodeo association. So, I went to the first meetings, and I am one of two founding members of AGRA that's still involved, myself and John King. And I've just been hanging out ever since.
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RD: So, how would you compare the gay rodeo versus the straight rodeos?
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DI: The gay rodeos, I enjoy the events that they have. The camp events, the wild drag, steer decorating, goat dressing. I really enjoy those. And when straight friends of mine know that I'm part of the gay rodeo, they ask me the same thing: “What do you do?” And I tell them about how much fun we have with camp events versus the straight rodeos that I grew up being around. And I have several straight friends that always say they're going to go to a gay rodeo because they want to see how the camp events are done. And they like the idea that we do chute dogging from the ground, running out of the chute and grabbing the animal. Taking the animal out of the chute versus getting down—catching it off a horse. So, they're curious. So today, I've had probably ten friends that have showed up, straight friends who have been to a gay rodeo.
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RD: Did they really like it?
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DI: They enjoy it. And there was always some questions about whether they wanted to show up, ‘cause they thought maybe…you know, being straight people with all the gay people. They've all said it was absolutely no problem. They were very comfortable with the gay crowd. Yes.
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RD: That’s good to hear. How has being involved in the gay radio affected other aspects of your life?
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DI: I worked in Tempe, Arizona, for many years. I left South Dakota in 1980 and moved to Arizona, and I was working in Tempe, Arizona. And…I was able to schedule, for many years, all my vacation time and all my weekends that were available were to go to gay rodeos, gay rodeo events, related events, and/or anything gay. Not just rodeos, I'd do gay prides around the country, gay square dance exhibitions, all kinds of stuff. And I worked all my vacation—scheduled all that around all those events.
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RD: Was your work community supportive of that?
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DI: The manager, the general manager, of the hotel I worked for for many years came to me and asked me if I would help write a sexual…whatever you call it, to the bylaws of the hotel. And so one of my other friends that worked for Intel, we sat down, and we wrote up a thing and the general manager accepted it. And that was in the employee handbook for the hotel I worked at.
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RD: And that was in the 80s?
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DI: Um, 90s—early 90s.
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RD: That sounds pretty ahead of its time.
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DI: Right. And I had never had the conversation with him, but since I was heavily involved with AGRA, one of our local gay publications had rodeo pictures on the front cover, and I actually seen one of them at work one day, and I didn't take it there. And one of the house—I worked for a hotel—and one of the housekeepers was carrying around this gay publication and there was a picture me on the front page. And she was carrying it around, and I'm not sure what was said, I never questioned it or anything, but I'm assuming that everyone had figured it out by then.
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RD: Did you ever experience any harassment at the gay rodeo?
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DI: I've been harassed out in the general public, many years ago. Nobody at work. None of my family members. No one here has hassled me. But back in the 80s, early 90s, on occasion, I've been hassled. Currently, I'm a winter visitor in Arizona. I go back to South Dakota to my business during the summers, and the little town I grew up in (it was 1200 people when I grew up there, now it's 400 people) and everybody in town knows that I'm a gay man and I'm not hassled by anybody. So, yes.
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RD: What kind of business do you do?
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DI: I have a little motel. A little motel called Iverson Inn, and it’s listed in the rodeo program. [Laughs] And I advertise in all the gay websites and everything, gay community pages, and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, if somebody’s traveling across South Dakota and needs a motel room, I'm there.
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RD: That’s good.
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DI: Yeah.
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RD: Do you think the larger LGBT community supports the rodeo?
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DI: Yes, they do. Yes. Since I've been around, since 1984, there's—I can't tell you how many people that I've met over the years. And this is the big event for me, ‘cause I like to see—I don't see ‘em—with me spending winters in Phoenix and summers in South Dakota, the only time I get to see people is at the rodeo, and I just look forward to rodeo weekend so I can see all my friends. And not just from Arizona, but from other states. Because as a contestant, I used to travel all the rodeos, and I've met people, and some of my best friends are people that I've met at the rodeos that I don't see but once or twice a year. And I just look forward to rodeos so I can go and see all these friends of mine.
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RD: That’s good.
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DI: Yeah.
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RD: Could you speak a little bit more to that, that strong friendship bond?
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DI: Yes. I just love some of these people to death. And we get together and we hug and kiss and do—not in a sexual way, you know. And it's just so nice to see them. I'm just so happy to see them. And I consider them among my best friends ever, some of my rodeo friends. I just really look forward to seeing ‘em. And I'm not one of these ones—I don't text, and I don't call, and I don't write. But I know in my heart that they're my friends. They know in their heart that we're friends and that we love each other and everything. So.
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RD: That’s pretty strong.
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DI: Yeah.
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RD: Have you ever experienced any protests at the rodeo?
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DI: Yes, yes. In the early years, we had PETA people and protesters outside our gates. It hasn't happened recently that I know of. I went to the Sunshine Stampede Rodeo in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I believe that's where it was—I don't know, five or six years ago, could have been longer. And there was a large crowd of PETA people and protesters across the street from us.
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RD: Oh, wow… [unintelligible]
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DI: I haven't seen anything recently. Oh! Every year for gay pride in Phoenix, a huge group of protesters with megaphones screaming at us as we're marching down the streets and going into the Gay Pride Festival. That's really sad. Really is sad. Yes. [Applause and cheering in the background.] Something good must be happening.
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RD: Yeah. Have you ever done any rough stock events?
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DI: Yes. And I don't remember what year I started, but I used to do chute dogging and steer riding. Never won any buckles, but I was a really close runner up several times in chute dogging. But I gave it up a long time ago.
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RD: Did you ever get injured?
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DI: Yes. In 1988, in steer riding, I don't remember exactly what happened, but the steer threw me off somehow and I landed on his horn, and it was in my groin area. And so, I got stabbed by a steer in my groin area. And it took several months to recover because it would never heal. And I finally had to go into the doctor, and they had to open it up, and they found that a tip of his horn was still in there, and that's why it wasn't healing properly. So. And trust me, all my friends got a big joke out of that for years.
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RD: How has the gay rodeo changed over the years?
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DI: I think we’re…when I started, everybody seemed to be the same age. Now we're getting to be—a bunch of us are getting to be a lot older, by 35 and 40 years. And I don't think the younger crowd has quite the interest that us older people have. And I would sure like to come up with a system where we could encourage some of the younger generation to be involved. Yes, there's a bunch of them. I don't think there's as much interest as I would like to see. So, I encourage younger people that I know. Fortunately, I get a bunch of free comp tickets for the rodeo, and I try to pass them out to my younger friends just to get ‘em here, to let ‘em know that, you know, there's another whole lifestyle. So. And I just think we need to do something to get younger participation. So, I encourage them when they're here.
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RD: Why do you think that is, that lack of interest?
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DI: I don't know that. I don't know. But I would sure like to figure it out and come up with a way of getting ‘em here, getting' ‘em involved! And every now and then we get a few new members, and I really enjoy it. And I make a point of talking to them, ‘cause I want to keep them involved. I've even offered to pay people's memberships if they would just join and come to the meetings and do some of our functions. Sometimes people take me up on it, sometimes they don't. So.
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RD: What does it mean to be a cowboy for you?
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DI: I don't know if I consider myself a cowboy. I only wear my cowboy hat when I'm going to a rodeo function or at the Gay bar. Country bar. When I go home to South Dakota, I do not wear a cowboy hat and I work on the fa—even after I got older and my folks are still on the farm, and I'd go home and spend a couple of weeks with them. I would work, I would never wear a cowboy hat. When I was growing up, seven or eight or nine years old, I had to work in the hay field and my dad would always want me to wear a cowboy hat to protect myself from the sun. And he would say, “You need to wear a cowboy hat,” and I refused, and now I'm paying the price with dermatology problems. I just, I don't consider myself a cowboy. I mean, I just—I consider a cowboy someone that wears a hat and boots all the time. And I have them on now, and I'll have them on tomorrow for the rodeo stuff. But I don't really consider myself a cowboy. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just, yeah. I'm more comfortable in tennis shoes and a baseball cap.
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RD: Are you active in any religious communities?
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DI: I am a Lutheran. Missouri Synod Lutheran, and I go to church in South Dakota every week when possible. And when I'm down here, there's a church three quarters of a mile away from where I winter, and I go there as often as possible. Here today’s Sunday, and I didn't make it, but. No, I'm a Lutheran.
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RD: How has that kind of influenced your time at the rodeo and your life in general?
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DI: My folks were dedicated Lutherans and we had to go to church, we had to go to Sunday school, we had to go to Walther League, which is a thing within the Lutheran church. And I just, I think it's important. And I—my folks are both gone now, but I want to, you know, I just think church is important. And I feel better when I go. See, I'm not real…If somebody asked me to recite a scripture or something, I could not do that. But, you know, I listen to the sermon, and I go as often as I can.
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RD: That makes sense, that kind of maintaining dedication.
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DI: I think that's right. And my folks, I was baptized in a country church clear out in the middle of South Dakota. And it's been—they haven't had a membership there for 40 or 50 years, and we've been trying to restore the church. And I've been behind the project because I knew how important it was to my folks. And so, I'm helping get this church restored and up and running again. Just because, you know, it's a Lutheran church that my grandparents helped build back in the ‘20s, and I just think it's important to keep that kind of stuff going.
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RD: How is restoring the church going?
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DI: It’s going very well. Very well. It's expensive for a little church that doesn't have any congregation anymore. But there's a group of 10 or 15 people that are interested in restoring the church. So, we're working on it. I don't know how I got off on that. [Laughs.]
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RD: Could you tell me about your experience building up the AGRA?
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DI: We had our very first rodeo here in 1986, and I did not compete, but I was part of the administrative board of directors, and I remember that we were trying to increase liquor sales. So, I volunteered, as did several other people, and we carried a tray of beer around and sold it through the stands. Well, nowadays, we don't have to do that anymore because everybody understands where the beer tent is and where the bars are. And the crowds are much better now than they were back in those early years. And, I'm just hoping and praying that we continue to get the crowds that we get. I am not into new technology stuff. I'm the old school. And I'm just thankful that we do have some people that understand all that stuff to keep it going. But the crowds are much better now than they were in first few years.
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RD: How has the showing been this year?
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DI: Yesterday it was wonderful. I was kind of concerned because I was in the dance hall. But people tell me that the stands were full and there was a lot of people out on the patio and people in the dance hall. So, I'm very happy. I do not know numbers about yesterday, but the people that I talked to would tell me if there is an issue and they were very happy. So, that makes me very happy too. Even though, again, I don't have any numbers.
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RD: That’s still good to hear.
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DI: I'm always happy to hear that we're having a good rodeo.
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RD: Is there is anything in particular you would like to go over?
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DI: I just would like—one of my experiences was, many years ago, I think it was 1992, my rodeo partner Greg Olsen and I went to the San Diego Rodeo. And on Monday morning after the rodeo, as everybody was there, all the other contestants were loading up their horses, and cleaning out their stalls, and doing everything. We all sat around, and it was a beautiful day in San Diego, and we decided to go to the Washington, D.C. rodeo, which was the next weekend. So being from Phoenix, we left San Diego with the intention of going to Washington, D.C. We got back to Phoenix Monday night. We did the laundry Tuesday morning, at noon on Tuesday I called work and asked if I could have another week off. They said yes. We loaded up and took off for Washington, D.C. with horses in a trailer and three of us in the pickup. And we drove all the way to Washington, D.C. and we went to the rodeo, had a wonderful time. It was just quite different. I had been to New York City before, but I had never been to Washington, D.C. and we were there for the gay rodeo.
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DI: And that's where I met one of my very good friends. We needed a woman for our wild drag team, and my friend Jen [last name redacted], didn't know her at the time, she was standing there, somebody knew her and says, “Hey, they need a lady for their team.” She joined in and we won the wild drag buckle that day. She's been a very good contestant ever since. She's winning all arounds, and she's [won], I don't know, probably 100, 150 buckles. And, you know, we just got her started because she was standing there at the right time. And we just—that's what’s so enjoyable about gay rodeo. It’s the friends you meet, and the travels, and the fun you've had. And people keep telling me I should've wrote a book. Well, too late in my life for something like that. But, you know, we came home from a Texas rodeo one year, back to Phoenix, and we ran out of fuel in the middle of the night at 3:00 in the morning and, you know, it was just one of those things.
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DI: That's life. I went to the national finals, the IGRA finals rodeo in Reno, Nevada, the year that they canceled the rodeo. And we were in a motel room in fall in Nevada, and when they found out we were part of the gay rodeo, they kicked us out in the middle of the night, and we had to sleep in our truck. And so, I've got wonderful experiences, good and bad, about gay rodeo. And I just, I have every intention of being a member of AGRA until there is— ‘till I'm gone, or there's no AGRA. And there had better be an AGRA for many years to come! So, that's just some of my experiences. They've all been good, you know—bad things, but you just got to look past the bad part and turn it into a good experience.
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RD: Are there any good experiences you’d like to share?
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DI: No. I'll probably think of 20 of them after we're done here. But no, those are some of the good ones.
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RD: Is there anything else you’d like to touch on?
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DI: I really appreciate you taking the time to interview me and I'm sorry I was dragging my feet. I just was concerned about not being able express myself.
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RD: I think you’ve done a really good job.
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DI: OK. Well, thank you very much.

Candy Pratt

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Rebecca Scofield: So, this is Rebecca Scofield here with Candy Pratt. It's September 10th, 2016 and we are at the Rodeo on the River in Duncans Mills, California. Could you go ahead and tell me when you were born?
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Candy Pratt: I was born [...] in 1961.
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RS: Where were you born at?
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CP: Dallas, Texas.
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RS: What was life like growing up?
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CP: Growing up...I did grow up in the city but my grandparents had horses and were farmers and things like that, so that's how I was always able to be around the horse world, so to speak. And when I was in third grade, my parents bought me a pony and I boarded it with a lot of other people and they had these little things called play days which are kind of like rodeos but they were all horse events. A lot of young kids do that for a sport and it just developed from that. You get better and better and better and we got more horses and then, when you're in high-school, you do a little high school rodeo and after that, there's always barrel races everywhere. And then, I guess it was probably like 1988, maybe a bar ad or something like that for a rodeo in Dallas, was my first IGRA rodeo.
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RS: And by the time you found out about the gay rodeo had you already come out?
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CP: I had not come out. I did not come out until probably 1993, I think.
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RS: And did you go to many IGRA events?
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CP: Yeah, well I started out in ‘88 [with] probably one or two. Then ‘89 a few more. And then, by ’90, I was going to a lot of them.
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...
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RS: Initially, when you saw that flyer, what was your reaction and what drew you to the association?
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CP: Well, I didn't know there was such a thing. You know, growing up you hear of black rodeo or Indian rodeo or something like that. You don't hear white rodeo, it's just rodeo. So I just thought, “Oh my gosh!” I thought, “Gay rodeo, are you kidding?” So I went and I found out they had what we call speed events and at first I just did speed events cause I didn't know how to rope and I did not know how to do any of the camp events and stuff like that. So that was later self-taught with some friends and stuff. But it seemed like a whole lot of fun and in early years there was quite a bit of prize money and stuff like that from Miller Lite so it was fun.
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RS: That's great. Did you get more into the camp events later on?
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CP: Oh yeah. I met some friends--George Williamson and Dave Stinson and Dave is still one of my partners today. He's not at this rodeo, but we do a lot. We did the steer deco and won lots of championships and that was just something where you're tying a ribbon on a tail or whatever, but the wild drag George and Dave and I did that for a while. And then David's been my partner for goat dressing and all that stuff you didn’t know how to do, I learned how to do it and got good at that too.
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RS: Have you ever experienced any serious injuries?
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CP: Not at gay rodeo. I've had horse injuries or things that have happened to me through the years but it wasn't at gay rodeo.
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RS: That's good.
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CP: Yeah.
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RS: So, as a woman participating, do you find that it's pretty split 50/50 between men and women who join? Or is it more dominated by men? How’s your experience?
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CP: Probably more dominated by men because you'll, here in a little while you'll see there might probably be thirty barrel racers in the men and ten or fifteen in the women. So, yes, it's not as far as their talent or anything like that…there’re just more guys in gay rodeo than there is women.
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RS: Has there ever been…I mean is that seen as a problem?
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CP: I don't think it’s a problem. It depends on where you go. Like, if you go to Texas or Oklahoma you'll have larger numbers of women. So on the west coast, or let’s say at this rodeo. Like at the San Diego rodeo, when they had it, it was a huge number--it was probably more even. And Texas and Oklahoma is a huge horse-type state or whatever, so when you go to the Oklahoma rodeo or the Texas rodeo you’ll have like twenty women in the classes.
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RS: Have you ever rough-stock?
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CP: I did in the beginning. I rode steers but, you know, the older you get...I also did chute dogging and did pretty good in that but the older I got the steers got a little larger and stuff like that and I decided it wasn't for me anymore.
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RS: Do a lot of women do that?
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CP: There's probably a good number of women that do the chute dogging, but there's not a whole lot of steer riders.
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RS: That’s interesting.
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CP: And there’s no bronc riders. We had one young lady that did and she got hurt, so.
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RS: So, you said you were the president of Texas's association.
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CP: Yes, I was president of Texas for a few years and did a lot of things for them and developed the Red River Rodeo Association.
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RS: What were some of the challenges you've faced being the president of a large organization like that?
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CP: There was and still today--even the Texas people they would tell you--there are lots of politics. Too much politics for me--I think everybody should just know the challenges were to raise money for charities and to have fun and stuff like that. And when you have a group of people, everybody has an opinion and that’s fine as long as you’re doing the work for the opinion. I gave a lot of my life to that association and one year someone chose to give a vehicle away. I don't know if you’ve ever been a part of that before but I had a lot of sleepless nights,‘cause we had to get the vehicle paid for to make money. So my partner and I, Dorinne, we were every weekend at all the bars selling tickets. And there was not a lot of help. So, that was a huge challenge, and I know another association that tried that same thing and went under because of it. In the end we paid for the vehicle and made $5,000 but I was at--I don't choose to be at the bars that much--and I had to be at the bars many, many nights of the week to get it done.
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RS: Sounds stressful.
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CP: Yeah.
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RS: When you come to gay rodeos do you go out? Like tonight they're having a party?
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CP: Yeah, my friend Rick {Rhett?} Ranger travels with us. He likes to dance and I like to dance, so last year I went to a couple of the parties they had. And tonight there’s a dance, so we'll go out for a little while. Generally, we would fly here and we don't bring horses or anything. This year we drove out and brought our horses because there’s two rodeos back-to-back so we are doing a little vacation in the middle, so we brought the horses. But yeah, in the evenings we'll go join the festivities.
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RS: That’s pretty great. Can I ask where the next rodeo is?
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CP: Sacramento.
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RS: Excellent. That'll be fun.
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CP: Yeah, exactly.
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RS: Have you seen over the last ten/twenty years is it harder to recruit younger people to join?
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CP: Yes, it is. I have my own philosophy, and everybody will have their’s. We don't make money, but used to we did. Years ago there was a lot more money in gay rodeo--Miller Lite gave a lot of money--and there was more money, more prize money. So now, you if you can imagine the fuel out here and the expenses and stuff like that, if there's no added money then your check’s not even gonna be close. So we do it for fun and stuff like that. I'm fifty-five years old and have a good job and stuff like that, but there's not a lot of twenty year olds that can do stuff like that. So that’s, I believe, the difference between straight and gay rodeo is that the straight rodeos, they make sure there's plenty of added prize money and stuff like that so that's the reason you'll see lots of young people in that. My philosophy.
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RS: In your home community, too, is there a sort of difference in sort of gay community at large after legalization of gay marriage or you know the sort of political successes of the LGBTQ community?
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CP: Yeah, if you would have told me…Dorinne and I, we've been together twenty-three years, and we got married in Maui because I didn't think Texas would ever be legal. I thought that would be the last state that would ever be and it shocked me the very next year that it was legalized. I've seen a huge difference and I am more open about my lifestyle, myself. You get to a certain age where things don't matter. Before I kind of lived in the closet at my jobs and everything. Now I’m out at a really good company that's very diverse. And I see communities being that way. My sister is a school teacher and it completely changed her life and she's very supportive and gets into arguments with teachers if they if they don't support the gay children because that's a big deal. These kids have a lot of stress and when they are not supported in schools it’s a bad deal so, you know. I think it’s better.
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RS: And does your partner travel with you?
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CP: Mhm. She's here, absolutely.
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RS: Did you guys know each other before?
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CP: No, I met her at a rodeo in Minnesota.
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RS: That’s fantastic.
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CP: Yep.
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RS: Can I ask, how did the relationship develop? Did you keep running into her at rodeos?
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CP: Well, actually, the year before it happened I had gone to the IGRA convention in Minnesota and saw her and thought she was very beautiful. And then later that year I was at Washington and she was there at the awards banquet and I had won a bunch of stuff and I kept walking by the table and the very next year, that's when I came out, and my mother went to her first gay rodeo with us which was Minnesota. And told my mother that there was a beautiful girl here, you know, I didn't know where she really lived and we had gone down to the, you know they used to have clogging and big dance competition, and my mother was downstairs and I had forgotten our badges. So when I got to the bottom of the stairs, my mother and my friend David Reiner were standing there with the girl, with Dorinne. So it was kind of it was kind of meant to be.
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RS: That's fantastic. Does she compete as well?
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CP: Yeah.
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RS: What does she do?
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CP: She does the speed events also.
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RS: You said you didn't travel with a horse a lot…
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CP: No, I do. We just, the last couple years…years ago we came, in like the early ‘90s, 2000s, or whatever we came to all the California rodeos, but when the money went away it just didn't pencil out so we stayed around Texas/Oklahoma areas, places that we could drive within fifteen hours or something like that so.
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RS: And so does that present a whole other hurdle to get to these things to bring your own horses?
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CP: Oh yeah, you know, it’s expensive and you've gotta really plan things out. But we have a lot of friends that we all travel together and stuff like that. We had two trailers that traveled all the way out here, so we kinda made it fun.
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RS: And do you stay at the grounds?
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CP: Yes, our trailers are all self-contained. They have a generator, a shower, beds, everything.
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RS: That's nice.
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CP: Yeah.
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RS: Helps out a lot.
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CP: Yeah.
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...
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RS: Do you feel that because of this big shift in this culture, IGRA, as an association, is going to grow and keep going or is it facing too much with the sort of competition you were talking about with mainstream rodeos being able to offer more money?
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CP: I don't think...my personal…you know, like when we had the movie Brokeback Mountain and all the sudden it was cool to be gay. That helped but there's not enough of that. The people like Ellen and all these others, it’s really helped a lot but in my…because I don't just compete in IGRA and I compete in other things, the draw is money. And also I try to tell them it takes money to make money. So you know if you have $5,000 added money and you get all these extra contestants. They're gonna spend money while they're there. So, until the belief changes, I don't think they will grow that much, my personal opinion.
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RS: So as you've journeyed across…do you feel like you are pulling back at all as you get older from…
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CP: Absolutely.
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RS: From the community?
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CP: Well, not pulling back. But I, we don't…We have our own little…like on the weekends we'll have, you know, all our friends come out and we'll rope and barbecue and stuff and not necessarily go to the bar. That's not the main focus like when I was younger, we went all the time. I think that is straight or gay, the older you get you get to be a homebody, but there are so many of us we just come out and rope or ride or do something and it’s just not so much going to the bars but we still, it’s a huge group of us.
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RS: Would you identify yourself as a cowgirl?
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CP: Oh absolutely.
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RS: And what does that really mean for you as a woman? As a gay woman? As a human? What does it really mean for you to identify that way?
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CP: Well, I can tell you anything about farm animals and stuff like that. You know, how to take care of them, what to do to them, I can rope, I can ride, I can build anything. I can change a flat tire really fast. You know, it goes with [being] tomboy, but then when you change it to cowgirl, I can rope well and do all the stuff it takes to work on a farm or ranch.
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RS: Can I ask [coughing, clearing throat] sorry…your home--do you have a lot of land with it and a lot of stock?
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CP: Actually, I don't have a lot of land. I used to have a lot of land when we leased. But we own two places side-by-side and it's 7 acres but I have everything. I have an arena, barns, it’s all self-contained. We had a big practice deal, I had 60 people show up a couple weeks ago, it was really successful. It was a practice deal for one of these, all the events and everything. It was a huge success but I had 20 trailers, I had enough pastures and things like that. It’s big enough. The area around me has grown like 500% or whatever, so our places will probably sell by the square foot. So, we'll move to a bigger one--I want something like 25 acres. I used to have all the places around me leased I didn't have to have it. But then as people died and the kids sell all the big bucks and everything so our ranch is sitting here and there's nothing but fancy houses all around us. So, we're kind of getting pushed out but we will find a bigger place soon when things hit right.
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RS: Is there anything else you would want to share with your experience with IGRA?
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CP: I think we come to these because there's so much comradery and stuff like, that I would encourage people, especially people that want to come out and have a good time and be out, you can at one of these.
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RS: What did it mean to be able to bring your love of horses together with being out and open?
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CP: Oh, you know, it’s huge. It's funny I see it spill over when I go to a straight function or whatever if somebody says something about Dorinne or something like that. I don't hide our relationship to where before I would have said my roommate you know. [Laughs] So it’s much different. I don't even blink an eye now. I used to, I remember all the years of changing the words up and hiding the relationships and stuff like that. Now I don't worry about it.
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RS: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story.

Lacey Edwards

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Court Fund: Hi, this is Court Fund, sitting here with Lacey Edwards at the Pheonix Rodeo. Hi, Lacey how are you today?
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Lacey Edwards: Good. How are you?
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CF: Pretty good. I'm just going to go ahead and start. What year were you born?
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LE: 76.
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CF: 76. And where did you grow up?
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LE: All over. My dad was a regional manager for a company. So we moved every two and a half to three years.
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CF: OK. Where all did you live?
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LE: Oregon. California, Utah, Arizona and Washington.
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CF: So, yeah. All over the place. Did you have any experience in those places with rodeos or did you grow up with stock around that time?
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LE: In Oregon, we lived across the street from a cow farm. So, I mean, that's where I mean I kinda got my feeling for country living.
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CF: Yeah. Think it just kind of struck something that you wanted to do?
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LE: Yes.
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CF: Awesome. What was your childhood like growing up - kind of on the road - sounds like you moved every two years.
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LE: It was really great. My younger sister didn't do well with moving to new environments and meeting new people. And I loved it. My dad always says I'm a gypsy at heart.
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CF: So what did your dad do for a living then?
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LE: He worked for Oregon Pest Control.
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CF: So kind of in ag. still.
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LE: Yeah.
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CF: If you don't mind me asking, how do you identify in terms of gender?
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LE: Totally female and totally gay, even though I look straight, I'm probably the only straight looking gay woman you'll ever meet.
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CF: Do you have a partner here with you today?
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LE: No, she's not here. But yes, I do have a partner.
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CF: And you said you have kids and they're at a volleyball tournament currently?
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LE: I do. My ex partner and I, which we actually met through Arizona Gay Rodeo Association. We have a beautiful 18 year old son together and he is now in college in Kentucky.
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CF: Wow. So pretty far away.
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LE: Yeah.
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CF: What is he doing there?
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LE: He got a volleyball scholarship and an academic scholarship.
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CF: Wow. So, it's pretty unusual for him to be here with you guys.
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LE: No. He would love to be here now. He used to come to every rodeo. He was born in August of 2001. And the International Gay Finals Rodeo was in Palm Springs that year. And AGRA made him a onesie. And Bobby Minto, who has passed away, and Ron Trusley actually carried him through the parade because back in the day, the rodeo used to have Grand Entry and it was a full parade and my son was part of it.
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LE: It's huge. And I still have that onesie and it's in his Shadowbox. And my son is very proud to have gay parents when he was a freshman in high school, he, actually, the yearbook committee asked him to do an article and he called it the Fuller House. And he wrote a whole two page thing for his yearbook about having two gay moms.
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CF: That's amazing.
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LE: It was awesome.
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CF: So this really was a community for you guys.
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LE: Oh, absolutely.
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CF: That's really great. How - what was it like raising my son in this community?
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LE: It was amazing. I always used to say, my son's name is [redacted], he had more aunts or uncles or uncles or aunts, depending on what they were wearing. He knew the drag queens as their drag queen name; as aunt Erika, as aunt Victoria. And then he also knew them as who they were in their males' figure. So it was it was beautiful.
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CF: That's amazing. That's really fantastic. Switching gears a little bit, did you go to college and what are you doing now?
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LE: I currently I know this sounds ridiculous. I fix hearts for a living. I work in the cath lab. I work with great nurses and physicians. And we put stints in, so if you're having a heart attack in the middle of the night, that's me that's fixing you.
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CF: Wow. You're a lifesaver.
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LE: Yes. I've always worked in the medical field and they absolutely love it.
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CF: Lifesaver by day, rodeo contestant by night -
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LE: Yes.
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CF: And you're coming back to compete next year?
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LE: I'm hoping so. I mean, I had to take a break for a while. And my ex-partner, she used to ride broncs and bulls and steers, which they don't have a lot of those events now. But we had to raise a kid, so we couldn't do these crazy things. But now he's 18 and living in Kentucky, so I'm willing and ready to come back.
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CF: What events did you do?
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LE: Well, of course, I'm a little princess, so I did goat dressing wild drag, steer deco, calf roping on foot. In fact, we actually had a rodeo in Utah, which I was very nervous to go to as a gay rodeo association having it there. And it was the first year there and I was pregnant as a house. And was wearing overalls and did calf roping on foot and back in the day, Wayne Taquito, who was the founder with John King and Ron Trusley, they were like the last rodeo you can do because I was pregnant and they didn't want me to get hurt.
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CF: So, your son really was raised in this community, from the time you were pregnant. You were still competing.
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LE: Absolutely. AGRA threw a baby shower for me.
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CF: Oh, that's amazing.
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LE: It was amazing.
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CF: You also mentioned that you did some royalty stuff.
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LE: I did. I was Miss AGRA 1999 and first runner up in IGRA in 2000.
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CF: And so you stopped competing in 2001, is that right?
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LE: Well, I stopped competing, yes. Because we had a baby. My ex, she stopped competing in 2002 because we did have a child and she rode rough stock. So, yeah.
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CF: So it's been a while. I'm sure they're glad you're back.
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LE: And we would still come to rodeos and do everything. And my son has a great community here and his godparents were actually part of New Mexico's association. So we used to go there and watch rodeo for weekends on end.
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CF: So you traveled with the rodeo circuit?
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LE: Absolutely.
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CF: Yeah. Sounds like you went to Utah, Palm Springs...
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LE: Oklahoma, California. Yes. It was a great experience.
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CF: Were there any differences between the rodeos?
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LE: Not really. I mean, I will say that when you're in the confined space, it's beautiful. When I competed for International in 2000, the rodeo was in Arkansas. And I was kind of afraid to go there. Being gay in Arkansas, my mother traveled with me the whole time. I mean, my mom is a huge support. Arkansas was a little scary for me because in 2000, being gay was not okay. It was - and like how you have the functions here - we were stuck in this little tiny industrial warehouse. But the community itself, we felt so safe and so loved.
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CF: Did you ever feel any adversity on the road? It sounds like you were a little nervous in Arkansas and Utah. Did you ever feel any pushback from the communities there?
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LE: Yes and no. And fortunately for me, my mother was always traveling with us and my partner, who was extremely butch. People always thought it was kind of strange. I was also very thankful that I had this great group of royalty with me. We would fly together, go together. Never like left each other's sides. So it was okay.
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CF: That's good to hear.
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LE: And like I say, you like when you're in this community and you have the advantage. You go together, you come together and you're safe in your own zone.
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CF: You have each other's backs. It sounds like your mom traveled with you quite a bit, were any of your other family members, besides your ex, also involved with the rodeo?
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LE: No, but my sister, my nieces and nephews, they came to every event.
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CF: Just very supportive?
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LE: It's a whole family affair. Like I was saying, it was telling one of my friends. So my dad, I'm the oldest daughter, who was not okay with me being gay in 1999. And, everybody was here.
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LE: My dad actually, and it makes me want to have tears, came to this rodeo grounds, which used to be totally different and walked through the doors, where the stage is now and brought me this bouquet of roses because he was like, this is you and this is where you're going to do so. Like, this, please has a really special place in my heart.
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CF: That's amazing. So, this was like a big moment for you.
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LE: A huge moment. 'Cause I was daddy's little girl and I was supposed to have the big white wedding...I'm gay. And he was like, okay. But he showed up here. My mom said, you know what? She's your one and only oldest daughter and you need to be there. And he walked through with two dozen roses and gave them to me on stage and sat and talked with some of the most amazing people. He was like, okay, it's okay because there was this stigmatism about being gay. And he was like, it's okay.
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CF: When did you come out to your parents?
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LE: 1997
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CF: It was just a couple of years before then. How did they take that? It sounds like your dad and your mom had different reactions.
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LE: They struggled with it because again, I was the oldest daughter and I don't fit your stereotypical lesbian and, um, they struggled with it, but they were very supportive. It's just like - when my - of course, they went through the huge gamut of, oh, my God, we'll never have a wedding, you'll never have children. Blah, blah, blah. And so when I came to them and I was like, "I'm gonna have a baby and I've picked a donor and I actually sat in the living room with my ex-partner and we went through all the donors and picked it" and my parents actually said, we are going to buy your first round of sperm so that you can have a baby. And was like, "that's your Christmas present." I was like, OK. [laughs]
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CF: That's so nice of them, it's very supportive.
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LE: Very supportive. And they think it was. It's the unknown. When you don't know what the opportunities are, it makes be people close minded. But once you show them all the opportunities, then they're like, oh, okay.
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CF: So, how did you learn of the gay rodeo?
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LE: I was - actually, the first time I came here, I had a fake I.D. [Laughs] No, true story. I heard about it, and I will tell you, when I was in California going to school for my profession, I had gone to a couple of gay bars and they were very scary because I had long hair and boobs and all these things and women with mullets and chains and they were like, "what are you doing?" So, I randomly said I saw this when I moved back and I was like, oh, I'm going to go. And, so, I met some friends. So I kind of just came out here on a wing and a prayer, and I've never left it.
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CF: So you just fell in love with it.
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LE: Mhm.
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CF: I was going to ask how has being involved in gay rodeo affected other aspects of your life? But it sounds like you just really meshed with this community.
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LE: It is huge. I will tell you this much, through this community, especially when I was running for royalty. We did all kinds of fundraisers for THON, which is I don't even know if it's still around, but, there was a very special person who was gay. He was a drag queen and his mom was 100 percent supportive, and when he passed away, we took his ashes, each one of us, and spread them around. It has given me a sense of community. And life, like everybody that walks through the doors - whether you're a cocktail whore, or a regular whore, or you drink too much or whatever, you mean something.
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CF: I've really noticed being here that there's people from all different backgrounds and walks of life, It seem very accepting...
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LE: It's very accepting. And well, like for me. I'm not out at work because if I was out at work, I would not have a job. So everybody thinks I'm this cute little thing with long hair and bat my eyelashes and I'm not out at work because they won't accept it. And I don't care if they don't accept it because where I get my grounding and my sanity is a community like this.
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CF: Do you feel like not being out at work puts up some boundaries between you and your co-workers?
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LE: Oh, absolutely.
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CF: Do you feel like you have to be kind of secretive about it?
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LE: Oh, I'm really good at the pronoun game.
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CF: How does that affect your work environment?
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LE: You know, I'm there to do a job. I think that... I really don't want to have contact with them outside of work, so I will play the pronoun game all day long and that's fine with me. Because I watch people say bad things about other people. So to me, I don't need your negativity in my life and I won't take it. It's my story to tell. And I don't want to share it with them. It's my little bubble. It's my safe space.
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CF: Do you mind if I ask, what you mean by the pronoun game?
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LE: I don't call my person a 'she.' I call them a 'he'. It's the 'they' they, 'we,' 'we do this.' There's never a 'she.' Nobody knows. So I play the pronoun game.
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CF: Do you think the larger LGBTQ+ community supports the rodeo? Or how do you feel the gay rodeo fits into the larger LGBTQ community?
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LE: So I'm an old school lesbian.[Laughs] I wish more of the LGBTQ would come to events like this versus gay pride. I love gay pride, but I don't think you should have to pay to be gay. And I think that sometimes people are more eccentric and lose who they are and what the community is really about. When you come here, it's super small. It's super whatever, whether you go to a rodeo here - back in the day, they have a rodeo and Tuson so you could do Phoenix and Tucson. You meet an amazing community.
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CF: Have you ever found any frustration with the İGRA in terms of, like, it [not] being racially diverse or being a woman in the community?
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LE: No.
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CF: Have you ever experienced blatant or subtle forms of homophobia at the rodeo or on your way to the rodeo? I know we touched on this little bit earlier.
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LE: Um, not really like I say, it was crazy back in the day. I was actually just telling the story - so the day I got crowned Miss AGRA and back in the day Charlie's didn't let women in. And the only reason why I got in was because I was royalty and I actually got a drink at the bar. But I will tell you, the scariest stripe was from here to Charlie's got a flat tire and it's me and a drag queen on the side of the road out here in podunk country. But I knew it was safe because we had each other. So to me it was totally different. My favorite story is, is when Tucson used to have a chapter. Me, my drag queen, and some friends, we went down to Tucson and we were staying at , who knows, we were cheap bitches, back then we were staying at a Motel 6 and we walked in as two girls and two guys. And everybody's in the pool and our room just happened to be by the pool. And as we walked out, we were two girls and two really, really tall girls because the drag queens got all dressed up and you watched everybody in the pool doing this - but it was a blast.
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LE: No, you're fine [Brief interuption from community member]
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CF: Have you ever been injured in the rodeo?
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LE: No, my partner was. We have done to multiple hospitals multiple times.
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CF: [Brief interruption from rodeo participant] No, go ahead - if you're okay with speaking with [the participate smoking behind us]?
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LE: Oh, yeah.
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CF: And that was because you said your partner did a lot of rough stock events. Yeah. Do you have any stories about that, that you want to share?
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LE: Well, since I work in the medical field, my partner actually broke her arm in Oklahoma. We taped it together along with Chuck Browning and Brian, and I don't know if I can use their names, but they've been in radio forever. We taped it together with a Pepsi box. I called the orthopedic surgeon. I was like, this is what's happening. And he's like, all right, when do you fly in? And we took care of it. Yeah.
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CF: Wow. So she went on the plane with the broken arm.
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LE: Oh, yeah. She still rodeoed and in tied in other people with a broken arm. It's just what you do. [Laughs]
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CF: Do you consider yourself a cowgirl?
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LE: Yes.
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CF: What's your definition of a cowgirl? How do you fit into that?
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LE: I would want to see I'm classy with a 'K.' I love the finer things, I love to have champagne. I do all this, but I actually own acreage and muck shit all day long and have animals and I love going out at night and just having my own space. So, yes, am I a country girl at heart? Absolutely.
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CF: And you own property here in Phoenix?
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LE: I'm actually in Surprise.
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CF: OK. And that's in the outside [Phoenix] area?
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LE: Mhm.
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CF: Nice. What kind of animals do you have?
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LE: Currently, I have just four miniature donkies because of all my horses have passed and my cows have passed. So I have four miniature donkeys in their yard ornaments and they're like dogs and they're final.
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CF: Has gay rodeo changed in the time that you've been a member.
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LE: Yes.
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CF: How do you think it's changed?
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LE: You want my honest opinion?
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CF: Yes.
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LE: I'm really happy to see the crowd and all of those things, but..once it was okay to be gay. I think, people come out for the party and they don't come out to support what it's all about.
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CF: What do you think it's all about?
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LE: I think it's about camaraderie, family, being close with somebody. It's okay that everybody wants to come and party and have a good time. But I think the personal connections have kind of been lost.
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CF: How was it when you first started? How would you describe the rodeo besides community?
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LE: It was a family.
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CF: It was a family.
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LE: It was a huge family.
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CF: What do you see for the future of rodeo, of gay rodeo?
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LE: I want it to be bigger, like I was actually talking to a gentleman in the stands, who's straight. He was like, this is weird. And I was like, you know, this is so small to only have 44 contestants here. When I joined rodeo in 1998, it went from like 7:00 a.m. till 8 o'clock at night and, you know, you were changing in each other's horse trailers and you were doing all of these things and I think it's great for the party scene. But it is missing that, um...people traveled from all over the world to come to rodeos.
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CF: Why do you think that changed?
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LE: It's really expensive to rodeo. It's really expensive to rodeo. Mind you, we're all old and a lot of the younger people don't want to buy horses. They don't want to do those things, which is fine. So if you still have all the people and they want to come out here and support it. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful experience.
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CF: How do think that the gay rodeo fits in to the rodeo scene in gerneral and the local ranch rodeos or professional rodeo?
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LE: So I'm a rodeo girl at heart and I go to other rodeos and do things. I don't think gay rodeo will necessarily become mainstream. Because the difference is, is that not everybody's here just to make money. They're here for the experience and in mainstream rodeo, they're there to make money. Nine times out of ten, I can tell you, you actually lose money being a contestant.
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CF: Do you participate in any of the dances?
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LE: I admit I've been absent for quite a few years because I was raising a child and now I will be more so. Yes.
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CF: Would you ever consider giving rough stock a chance, do you think? Or are you going to go back to the-
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LE: No, I'm too pretty.[Laughs] No, actually, I would love to do rough stock. I always did. My ex used to tell me, 'uh, no.' My job wouldn't let me do it. If I got hurt, I couldn't do my job, so I can't support my family. But I would love to do rough stock.
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CF: There's something kind of romantic about, isn't there?
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LE: Oh, my gosh, yes.
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CF: Is there anything else you'd like to add? Anything that I am missing about your experience?
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LE: I think it's really great that you guys are doing this because, you know, I'm thankful to have this group of people and some of us are 40, some of us are 90. I would like through your support and what you're doing to bring back how important the family is. I think it's beautiful.
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CF: I hope so, too. Well, thank you for sitting and talking with me. I'm going to end [it here].

Tim Smith

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Saraya Flaig: This is Saraya Flaig and I’m here with Tim Smith in Denver, Colorado, at the International Gay Rodeo convention on November 22nd, 2019. So, Tim, what year were you born?
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Tim Smith: ‘67
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SF: What was your childhood like?
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TS: I actually grew up in a small town in Texas, in Garland. A pretty rural area. There my whole life, so basically, you know, three schools, elementary, junior high, high school, kind of knew everybody in town. That type of thing. Pretty small town. Outside of Dallas, Texas area.
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SF: Did your family doing ranching or farming of any kind?
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TS: Uh, no. Well, actually, yes, they did. My father had come from a large family in Mississippi that that's—that’s what they did. Ranched, ran cattle. Stuff like that. My mother was from Texas. But I didn't grow up with it. Around me, yes. But my parents did not.
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SF: Did you have any siblings growing up?
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TS: No, I was an only child [laughs].
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SF: What were some of your experiences in high school and growing up?
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TS: You know, I was actually…I’m very involved in high school. I was actually, like, mascot—Olly Owl. I was very involved. Class president, officer, involved in several clubs, you know, choir. I was very involved in high school, so I had a pretty good friend base from being involved.
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SF: What were some of your experiences like coming out?
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TS: You know, it's interesting, but…not sure what you were kind of doing, you know, in high school. Obviously, once you hit sexuality, trying to figure out what was really going on and, you know, obviously coming from a small town in Texas. And okay, am I supposed to be with a girl, you know, do I do that? So, I had some girlfriends. But then it just never really did…lead up to anything. And basically, eventually I guess I became secure enough about sophomore year in college that I actually said, you know, this is who I am. And just told my parents, look I’m gay.
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SF: Were your parents accepting at all?
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TS: You know, initially, no, my mother was not. Which, I actually thought it would be the other way around. My mother was probably what I thought more liberal minded versus my father, who came from Mississippi. He actually seemed to be more okay with it than my mother did. However, she did finally come around and was…accepting and learned to deal with it in her own way.
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SF: Did you grow up very religious?
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TS: No. Ironically, my mother was Cherokee Indian. Now, my grandmother—her mother—that I was very close to, was very religious. But my mother was not. Because she was brought up very religious, and she's like, you know, when you get to that age, you can choose your religion.
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SF: Are you religious personally?
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TS: No, uh uh. You know, I wouldn't say I’m religious, I would say it’s more spiritual. I don’t know how else to explain that, but it's more of a spiritual connection. I do feel that that's between you and the creator, you know, not you and everybody else necessarily. So, I have my faith, I guess you could say.
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SF: And you said your grandmother was pretty religious, did you come out to her?
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TS: Oh, yes. Uh huh. As a matter of fact, she actually had lived with us. Well, I had gone and gotten her, and she actually lived with me briefly till, she actually—and then I put her in with my parents, but then she passed away not long after that. But I actually had her—so she actually lived with me for a while.
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SF: Was she accepting of you coming out?
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TS: Yeah. She didn't seem to actually address it. Discuss it, I guess you could say. She never really said, yea, nay. I don’t know that it bothered her. To be honest with you, I don't think she just…maybe wanted to address it? So, we didn't really discuss it. Other than, you know, she said, “As long as you're happy.”
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SF: You said you attended college, where did you go to college
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TS: SMU. Southern Methodist University.
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SF: What did you study in college?
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TS: Well, originally, I was gonna to go in as a law student. And I'm like, “Oh my gosh, this is gonna take me forever.” So, I actually studied—became a math major, and I got out of there with a math major [laughs]. With a business…
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SF: What did you do with your degree?
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TS: Nothing [laughs]. I actually, right out of college, I had actually an interview and I started flying with Delta Airlines in June right after college, and I was with them for 10 years. So, I never had to use my degree.
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SF: So, I’m assuming you traveled a lot as a…flight attendant?
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TS: I did
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SF: So, what was your experience traveling around the world and being gay?
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TS: You know, I think that sometimes we ourselves put more on the fact of how other people perceive us, or whatever. I had kind of come to terms—I was very comfortable with who I was. I mean, it wasn't a question of whether I was gay or not. To me, people had to know. I mean, to me there was no assumption about it. But I never put anything into what they thought, whether they liked it or didn't like. I was always just cordial to people. And I think that most people, just because I was nice to them and didn't push my sexuality on them, they in turn were very responsive back, to at least to be polite and cordial to me. So, I don’t…I didn’t—sometimes you could kind of tell somebody was not really comfortable with you. But for the most part, I didn't see that—or I didn't let it, actually.
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SF: Did you experience any homophobia or anything?
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TS: You know…I did a little bit. You know, here and there. I guess you could say periodically. Actually, most of mine I think came out later and more like just being in general public and being around or something like that and someone, you know, using the word queer or faggot or something like that to you. And again, if you allow that to take over—and I didn’t, so it's never fazed me. Like, “Hey, it is what it is,” you know?
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SF: How did you discover rodeo? Or the gay rodeo specifically, I guess?
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TS: Well, actually, ironically, my first partner—lover—was rodeo, and so I got involved with him. He was one of our team roping people on the circuit for many years. And so, I literally…had gotten involved that way, is how I got involved.
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SF: And did you just follow him to rodeos, or did you compete yourself?
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TS: Ironically, you know, initially I kind of helped him—he was also an announcer, so I would help him play the music—back then it was cassette tapes. And so, you know, you have to push play and stop and all of this. And so, I kind of would help him. Now, him and I had separated, and after that I actually got involved in the royalty program. And it was a fluke in Dallas, and you raised money for charity. And so, I actually ran for Miss Texas Gay Rodeo Association, TGRA, for ‘89. And part of your criteria was doing drag and performing. So, I actually got into rodeo initially with drag. However, I then went from that, being in drag, and I started competing in the rodeo as a contestant. So, it kind of brought me into being the contestant side of the rodeo.
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SF: So, you said you did drag. Did you do drag at all before rodeo, or was that your first experience?
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TS: No. Actually, it was literally what introduced me to drag, was that program. Back in that program—initially is, you would raise money directly for charities, as royalty, as an ambassador of an association. So, I literally was intrigued with the raising of charity, that money going to charity, and TGRA was set up very different: all your money had to go to charity. So, that year I raised over 20,000 dollars running by myself as a candidate.
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SF: Wow.
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TS: That all went directly to charities that year. I then, later on, actually in 1994—back up a minute, in ‘93, I became Miss Southeast Gay Rodeo Association—outside of Atlanta, Georgia, because I was with Delta—and then I literally then became Miss International Gay Rodeo Association in ‘94. And so, I was traveling the whole circuit, rodeoing as well as performing in drag.
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SF: What is your drag name or persona?
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TS: Tessy. T-E-S-S-Y. Tessy [laughs]. People call me Miss Tessy, basically. I didn’t have a last name, it was just kind of a persona, not of a particular character.
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SF: What is your drag self like?
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TS: Pretty wild. Or, used to be. Not quite as much anymore. I used to be one that would jump up on tables and dance and perform and wear really, really six-inch-high heels. So, I mean, I was just…yeah, high energy.
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SF: Did you have any performance experience before doing drag?
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TS: No. Well, I sang and stuff. Grew up singing in choir, stuff like that. A little theatre.
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SF: Did you sing at all in drag?
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TS: I did, initially. I did sing some. And then, of course, you know, lip syncing became big. So, I used to do some live singing in it, which is kind of interesting and fun.
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SF: What is one of your favorite drag performances that you’ve ever done?
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TS: It would probably be…—I actually did do an illusion of Shania Twain, as well as Celine Dion, as I progressed in drag. And so, I actually did a whole set that was her Come on Over CD, and it split, and I was doing Shania. And that was probably one of my favorite—looking like her, and same outfit, had guys behind with the guitars. “Man, I Feel Like a Woman,” I mean, top hat and the whole nine yards. So that was probably one of my favorite performances.
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SF: Wow. That’s amazing. Was that during one of your reigns as royalty that you did that?
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TS: It was. Yeah. Well, it was right after I think, right after. Right around ‘95, I think. But yes
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SF: Have you ever performed outside of the gay rodeo in drag?
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TS: Yes. I actually, in the Dallas area—well, Atlanta area and Dallas area, and I traveled quite a bit, performing. So, I did a lot of charity shows in the Dallas area, and I hosted a lot and emceed shows. Well, that led into paid functions and me having usually three or four shows a week in the Dallas area and different places, like at The Round Up on Monday nights, and there was another club called The Zone, and I had a show, a talent night there on Tuesday nights. So, I actually did a lot of performing in town in drag.
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SF: Did you notice a difference in the way the gay rodeo perceived your drag versus non-gay rodeo?
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TS: No. You know what, I was very fortunate in, with the gay rodeo, being one that I was a contestant. So, I had a huge fan base within the gay rodeo, um, family, that was very supportive, and just actually had me up on a pedestal—my whole reign. It's ironic that we're at a convention in Denver, Colorado, because I actually stepped down in 1995, and my step down was in Denver, Colorado. Yeah. As Miss IGRA. But no, now they were different—and a lot of those people actually carried over, and when they came to town would come and see one of my shows.
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SF: That’s very cool. So, you’ve had three different titles in your involvement in gay rodeo, or have you held more than that?
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TS: Yes. Well, no, that's my three titles—with royalty. In the last few years, I've actually become, instead of competing, because I really don't compete anymore, I'm actually a certified arena director and a chute coordinator. So, I actually work in the arena as well now. Just as an official, not competing. Because I just—got old, so I don’t compete as much anymore, and I don't do as much drag.
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SF: Since you first got involved in gay rodeo originally, have you continued being involved this entire time?
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TS: Yes. I've literally been involved since, like, ‘87, ‘86, something like that. ‘87 I think is when I first got involved. So, yeah, I've been involved the whole time. On different levels.
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SF: And then, you said you've competed as well, outside of royalty. What events have you done?
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TS: Oh, yeah. Well, I used to do some of the roping events, and I used to do…well, we have some camp events in our rodeo, and I did all the camp events as well. I have a few international buckles—I mean, I’ve won, actually at our Finals Rodeo. So, yeah, it's been interesting to say the least, but yes. And I did some of the rough stock. I used to ride steers, and I used to chute dog [laughs].
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SF: Wow. Have you ever been injured doing any of the events?
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TS: Many times.
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SF: What’s one of, like, the worst injuries?
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TS: Probably a pretty good one, a bull stepped on me. On my leg, and laid me open pretty good, and I mean, I literally had to keep going, Saran Wrapped and kept going, and I probably should have went and had stitches, but I didn’t.
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SF: How long did you compete in events for?
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TS: I did that for quite a few years. Gosh, I don’t know how long. It was quite a few years. I competed probably up until probably 2014, because I think when we had Gay Games was 2014 or 2015, and I think that was about the last time I've competed. Yeah, I think it was like 2014 when I had competed, but I was not as heavy of a competitor as I was when I was younger.
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SF: Did you compete in your drag persona, or did you just compete as yourself?
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TS: No. No. Tim. Tim competed, Tessy was stage. On Saturday night or Sunday night at the awards banquet, or at their show on Saturday night, y’all could come watch me perform. So, yes [laughs].
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SF: And then, you said you’ve won buckles. How many buckles have you won? Or, how many buckles do you have—do you know?
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TS: Oh, I don’t know. It's quite a few, because throughout the years you win buckles for all kinds of things. So, I’ve got quite a few. I’ve got some boxes, boxes of buckles that I’ve won throughout the years.
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SF: Do you have a favorite one that you’ve won?
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TS: You know, probably, my—I don't know why, but I think because it was my Miss International buckle, and also we had won the goat dressing (which was a good friend of mine, Chili Pepper), and we actually won a goat buckle that year, and that’s probably my favorite buckle.
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SF: Do you feel like you’ve found a community that you’re a part of with the gay rodeo?
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TS: Yes. You know, to be honest with you, it's a little more than a community. It's more like a family—and it really is. I mean, outside of it, we…you build lifelong friendships that you talk to people, and sometimes, you know, you don’t—you're not around sometimes, you don't see somebody, just the way the schedules work, for several years, and then you see them again and it's just like you've never left each other. And, I mean, you can call these people for anything you really need and they're there for you. So, it's definitely a little more than just a community for ya. It’s a huge support group for people.
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SF: You said you’ve competed in the camp events. Do you like the camp events? Do you think they’re kind of essential to gay rodeo?
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TS: Well, they are. And the reason they are is they were created for us, by us—some of our members. And so, I think that that’s kind of what…it's fun for us. What I do like about most of them—well, I could be a little rough on one of them—but it's good introductory for people, like goat dressing. So, if anybody wants to get out and get in the dirt, it's a perfect one to try. Because, you know, you can run down there, try to put some underwear on a goat, run back. You and a team member, so you're not out there by yourself, so you're a little more comfortable to run and give it a shot.
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SF: Have you ever participated in any rodeos outside of the gay rodeo?
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TS: I have.
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SF: Do you notice any major differences between the gay rodeo and mainstream rodeo?
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TS: You know, not initially—well, years ago, yes. And you had to pretty much…you didn’t let anybody know, if you were at one of those type of rodeos. And usually, their rodeo is not like our rodeo, because we had all different events, and they’re a bunch of men and women, the events are. But I think the difference…but as it's gone by, like now, even some friends will go to a barrel race, or something like that, and nobody cares. They know you're gay, they don’t care. Like, you ride your horse like I ride my horse. So, they don’t care.
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SF: Is there anything that you think makes gay rodeo special or different?
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TS: Yeah, you know, I think there's several things. One is, we're very inclusive. It doesn't matter whether you're gay, straight. You know, transgender—whatever it may be. We have a spot for you. The unique thing with us is that we combine all the events and that all the events, men and women, can compete in. So, bull riding is open to men and women, steer riding is men and women. Where your standard rodeo usually is more separate on what women can do events, and what men can do. So, I do think that that makes us unique.
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SF: How have you seen gay rodeo be a part of your everyday life?
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TS: You know, one thing you have to learn—as a competitor, you have to be a good loser to be a good winner. So, I think it builds you, your character, in a different way in your everyday life. On how to handle people, deal with people—again, you're dealing with a lot of different personalities as well, and sometimes you don't intend to, but you may hurt somebody’s feelings, and you can look at—and you know. So again, in real life, you're a little more cautious on how you may approach somebody with something that you've learned from this.
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SF: This is kind of going backwards a bit, but what do you think is the value of royalty in the gay rodeo?
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TS: [Someone briefly interrupts the interview; narrator asks interviewer to repeat the question.] You know what, I think it's important in a lot of different ways. Royalty, one allows, and this is a different type of character, that is kind of what makes us unique, because that is something within our own community. It's kind of like the comical part of yourself, to be able to laugh at yourself. Because of the people outside pointing fingers at you sometimes, so it's kind of like a stress relief for you.
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TS: But the important part of it is, is they are the ambassadors of the associations as well as IGRA, and they're out there putting our name out there in a positive way throughout the United States. They also are raising money for the association to help you produce this rodeo, ‘cause rodeos are not cheap to produce. I actually am the current president for the Texas Gay Rodeo Association. And so, we produce a rodeo every year. And so, you know, our budget is usually around 70, 80 thousand dollars to produce our rodeo.
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SF: Wow.
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TS: So, we have to raise that money, and our royalty is an intricate part of helping us raise that money to produce that rodeo. We have corporate sponsors and stuff like that, too, but we still have to have a lot of incidentals to come in and cover that amount of money. And then all of our money goes back to charity after that.
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SF: Do you have a favorite charity or favorite thing that you’ve sponsored?
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TS: You know, I have a lot of different charities that we’ve worked with. We do some animal rescue charities in Texas and Dallas—I’m Dallas-based. And then we have ANAC, which is AIDS Nurses and AIDS Care, an organization. And they try to keep up with the most common needs with AIDS-care patients as they're coming in. What their needs are, like, are they getting immune to certain meds and stuff? And so, these nurses are very important to that AIDS care.
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TS: And I think that's helping the longevity of HIV people. So those are usually some of—but we also do, gosh, animal rescue…I mean, it’s just…we’ve got another one that we chose, too, that is dealing with some boy trafficking, with young boys. And it's the first safe house that's come up in Dallas for them, and actually, supposedly, I guess one of very few, actually in the nation or something. And so, that's an intricate part of helping them, knowing that we're going to help youth that, you know, need help.
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SF: And you said you were around for the Gay Games. Did you attend the Gay Games?
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TS: I did. I competed in the Gay Games.
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SF: What was that experience like?
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TS: Oh, it was…it was emotionally overwhelming. The…just the whole stadium, the arena, it was packed. I actually also played softball…at the Gay Games as well, on the softball team. So, yes, it was it was just overwhelming. I mean, it was just the neatest experience that somebody could have. And just, with people from all over the world, so it was a lot of different cultures put together with the same common goal.
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SF: Do you hope that one day IGRA can make it back to Gay Games?
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TS: Yes, I do. It’s ironic that you asked that because I actually helped on a committee with the Dallas…City of Dallas Sports Commission, and they had bid on it. I think it went to Hong Kong though, or Thailand, wherever it's at. The next one. And we bid on, and we actually had rodeo going to be included in that, for the Gay Games. But unfortunately, Dallas didn't get selected [laughs].
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SF: What other positions have you held within either your own association or within IGRA as a whole?
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TS: Well, gosh. In my own association, I've been secretary for a couple different chapters, I've been the vice president, and the president. I've been a trustee before, for IGRA. I'm the President’s Committee Chair right now. Gosh, I’ve held several different positions throughout the time.
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SF: Do you have a favorite position that you’ve held, overall?
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TS: Honestly, my favorite position has probably been Miss IGRA.
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SF: You’ve been involved in IGRA for a long time. What’s one of the biggest changes you’ve really seen in your time?
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TS: Well, one is the need—it's a good change, but then yet it effects—there's not as much of a need for us to have a safe zone place to go to as gay people. Which, that's what kind of rodeo was for, is for us to be able to be safe. Yes, it was to raise money for charity, you know, HIV patients and all—but it was also a safe zone for us to come to and be this, because you really couldn't go in the real world, so to speak, and be yourself. So, since that need is not…since it’s more accepting, as the world changes, and gets more and more accepting, to be gay, so does that…people are out wherever, they don't have to go to a certain spot anymore. So, the need is not as called for anymore. Which is kind of a—but yet, the change is good on the other side of this because we're getting accepted in the real world. So, it’s the pros and cons of it, I guess. Of change.
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SF: So, what do you think the future of IGRA holds?
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TS: You know, I don't—you don't know. It can change from time to time. I think that we're having to regroup some, and maybe see about how and what, which way we need to try to grow—which way to grow? I do think that there's a lot of us diligently working on that, to help see where we need to go—a vision. It should be interesting. Because again, it’s not just gay rodeo, but every rodeo. PRCA—the numbers are down, their membership’s down.
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TS: They can't get youth involved. It's the same issues that PRCA and—I’ll just use them as an example of a rodeo—any rodeo association is having, it’s the same issues that we’re having. Younger people are not into rodeo, so…it should be interesting to see where we go. I think our goal is just to function right now and get all our existing rodeos back on track to where they need to build up first, and then worry about building a larger organization again. Because we used to have 20-something rodeos a year.
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SF: Wow.
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TS: We’re down to like 10 now.
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SF: What was it like being Miss IGRA when gay rodeo was really big, at that time?
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TS: It was huge. And it was…I traveled a lot, performed a lot. But I actually—what I loved about it is I got to expose the rodeo through the sash, because I was more approachable than just the average person just standing there. You're a character, so you've become very approachable for people to walk up to you. So, I got to expose who we were to a lot of different people and a lot of different communities throughout the United States. So, I mean, from coast to coast, to Canada. It was amazing. So, that to me was probably the biggest part of it. Being that ambassador, just going out and saying who we are, and what does that sash mean. Lettin’ ‘em know who we were.
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SF: I know being a drag queen can take a lot of time and money. Did you put a lot of time and money into being Miss IGRA?
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TS: I did. I had a whole trunk [laughs] that traveled in a horse trailer all year long. So, what I would do, is when I would fly in here and there to different rodeos, I would change out outfits and stuff in this trunk, take some back, replace some here for the next rodeos coming up that I was gonna be performing at. Just because it was crazy. But yes, trunk traveled in a horse trailer, all full of drag. And yeah, it was. It was very interesting. But yeah, I spent a lot of money on drag.
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SF: Did you ever make your own outfits, or did you just buy things and piece them together?
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TS: No, I was a buy off the rack person. I now, actually, have more custom stuff made, just because it's kind of where the drag genre has gone. And I was—right off the rack anyway it would fit me, so I would just buy off the rack.
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SF: Where would you draw your inspiration from for your drag outfits?
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TS: You know, it's whatever I seen that I liked. It was kind of interesting. I was very Western-y, like, as a candidate all year long, and they didn't really ever see me in anything sparkly or flashy or nothing all year, until I competed at Finals, and I came out in nothing but sparkles. And so, they were all like, “Where’d this come from?” So, that to me was the fun of the shock value, of kind of changing your character and changing your clothes up, and, you know, outfits, depending on what it was. I like to do some comedy stuff. So, you know, that kind thing—slinging tortillas out of a dress. Or something, but yeah [laughs].
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SF: What is it like competing at a Finals Rodeo instead of just a normal rodeo?
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TS: Well, one, you’re usually against the best of the best. Because it's by invitation only. And so, you have to qualify by points to get—because there's like 20 spots in each category—so you have to actually get an invite. So, I think that's where it is. So, when you excel, you challenge yourself to do really well, because not only is it going to be you doing well, but it's also—you know you're beating a bunch of other really good people. But then, yet, they're all your friends. So, even if you don't beat ‘em and they get you, you're okay, and you’re supportive, and you’re happy for them as well.
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SF: Have you ever placed at Finals before?
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TS: Yeah, I'm a Finals buckle winner. Uh huh.
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SF: Wow.
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TS: So, what you do is you compete for two days, and the best of two days combined score wins a buckle, the overall scores. And so, I've been a Finals buckle winner.
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SF: What categories have you won in finals?
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TS: Goats. Goat dressing.
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SF: Do you think that gay rodeo is more accepting of people regardless of gender, race, anything, than normal rodeo?
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TS: You know, I would say probably, yes. Although I do think that regular…the standard rodeos are a little more accepting about stuff now—I mean, obviously you’re not going to have a drag queen running around. But yes, we are more accepting, I do believe. However, I do think that the straight rodeo circuit has come a long way.
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SF: Did you ever have people in the gay rodeo not be accepting of you as royalty or as your drag persona?
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TS: No, you know, I didn't. Although, most of the time, if someone's not cared for in that fashion, or they didn't care for you, it's just that they didn't like you as a person. I mean, that happens in any organization, there’s just some people you may not care for. However, really in this circuit there’s not a lot of people you don’t care for. You may not like how somebody conducts business or handles something or does something, but it's like, okay, but it's them. I don't like that, but hey, it’s you, whatever.
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SF: Have you ever experienced any protests at the rodeo?
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TS: [Laughs] Yes. Many. So, back in younger years, we would have picketers, PETA and people, picket the rodeos. So, yes, I've had to cross several picket lines. Usually, you just ignored it and just kept going.
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SF: Did you ever have any personal confrontations with them?
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TS: No. Nope, just keep going.
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SF: What does it mean to be a cowboy to you?
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TS: You know, I think it's several things. A well-rounded person, for one, as well as a well-rounded athlete. Or, if you're in administration—when I say well-rounded—so, I like being an official? I have to be well-rounded, I have to be accepting of a lot of different people, a lot of different ways, and a lot of different personalities, and I have to learn how to deal with it. So, yes, you can go what's called the traditional cowboy way, of, okay, the way of life is ranching or rodeoing or doing those kind of things. But I think a true cowboy is at heart, and it's what you have at heart and what you can put out to people, and the type of person you are.
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SF: Do you think you’re a cowboy?
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TS: Oh, yes. Yes.
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SF: In your everyday life would you say you’re a cowboy?
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TS: Yes.
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SF: Do you own a ranch or anything?
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TS: No, I do not. Not anymore. I’m more in the city now. Just because it's more, it's just more convenient, and I don't compete anymore. So, I’m in the city.
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SF: What is your current profession or job?
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TS: I own a florist. So. [Both laugh]
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SF: Nice. So, where do you currently live then?
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TS: In Garland.
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SF: Texas?
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TS: Yes, I've come back to Garland, Texas.
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SF: Have you seen Garland change a lot then as well over time?
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TS: Oh, huge. Huge. Huge change. It's interesting just to go in any restaurant, most of the time, in town and you're going to see other gay people, and say, “Hey, what's going on?” And so, it's not like we have to go down to a certain bar that’s considered a gay bar or anything like that. It's grown a lot. I mean, it's not as rural as it used to be, it's very city now. The demographics have changed, with the people who now have moved in. It was an old city, and a lot of those people who now have passed on. And so, it's got new blood coming in. So, yeah, it's changed quite a bit. Very accepting. Literally, even like high school. I mean, they have kids in high school that are out, and the same high school I graduated from. And it’s like, there’s no way I could have been in that position.
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SF: Is there anything you as current President of the Texas Gay Rodeo Association that you would like to change within your personal association?
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TS: There is, you know…our association is a very different association than most associations, because we have a state board and then we have chapters. We have five chapters: Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio, and there's boards in each one of those cities, and they conduct business. What I would like is for, honestly, is to get some younger people that would step into some of these other lead positions for us. We need some more younger people to take some of these lead positions. That's what I would like to see change.
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SF: How do you think you can recruit those younger generations?
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TS: That's the question. So, the key is, is we have not learned how to reach that younger generation. That's the key. We know how to teach them once we get them interested here. But again, for some of the older people, as well as—we are not sure how to reach those younger people to be able to get them involved.
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TS: So sometimes it is through a situation like this—somebody that’s met, or in an interview, or someone’s family and knows this one or knows that, or happened to be a friend that goes, “Oh, you know what? My son or daughter wants to be involved,” or something like that. So, but we need to figure out and we have not figured out, and that's on the association as a whole: how to reach the younger generation. I don’t know if it’s through electronic, it’s somewhere—Snapchat! Something [laughs].
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SF: Is there anything you think that needs to change in IGRA as a whole to be able to reach those younger generations?
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TS: Again, I think, it’s the same struggle. I think that we’re still…we are IGRA, all of the associations. So, again, we're an older group. It's an older group, and we're still trying to figure out how to reach those people.
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SF: Is there anything that you would like to add to your experience of being a part of the gay rodeo?
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TS: No, you know, not necessarily. I mean, it just kind of goes and comes and—being an official was kind of what I wanted to do at this point. And again, down the road, it could be something else. But right now, I'm kind of where I want to be at with being a certified arena director and chute coordinator.
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SF: Do you see yourself continuing to be involved in IGRA as it continues on?
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TS: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
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SF: All right, thank you very much.

Bruce "Grumpy" Roby

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Bruce Roby on September 11, 2016 and we're at the Rodeo on the River in Duncans Mills, California. Could you tell me what year you were born?
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Bruce Roby: 1959
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RS: And where did you grow up?
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BR: I grew up in Southern Idaho, Gooding and Fairfield. So, very rural.
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RS: Did your family have a farm or a ranch of any kind?
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BR: We were always the town kids. You know, in the summer you work on the farm but my rodeo experience really was very limited, because when the rodeo came to town, of course we went as a family to watch. But I didn't ride horses, didn't participate in any of that.
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RS: Did you have a large family?
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BR: There are 3 of us kids. I was the oldest. I have a younger brother and sister.
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RS: Did you grow up in a very religious family?
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BR: No. [Laughs] You know we went to church from time to time but we were not a religious family.
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RS: And did you live in southern Idaho until college?
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BR: Yeah, I was actually born in Missouri but we moved to Idaho when I was 6 months old. So, Idaho is really home. When I went to college I went to northern Idaho, the University of Idaho, and then after a couple of years I came back down to Boise but I never really left Idaho until 1989.
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RS: And where did you go in 1989?
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BR: Los Angeles. [Laughs]
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RS: How was the adjustment?
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BR: You know it was I had spent a lot of years struggling with me, being who I am and what I am. And there was a traveling salesmen came through for a travel school and I thought that's where the gay people are. I need a job in travel so I can meet other people like me. So I spent a summer in travel school and got a job with United Airlines in Los Angeles. So, I went from a town with 2,000 people to millions of people everywhere.
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RS: Was…
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BR: So it was quite an adventure.
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RS: Was it…did you have a positive experience of that?
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BR: The first, yeah, I mean it was it was a struggle to learn how to survive in a city, it wasn't like if you were looking for a place to live, you wouldn't just go talk to Bob down the street and say, “I see you have a place for rent can I go check it out.” No, there's these things called applications and background checks and where do you work, and I'm like well Bob knows where I work. So it was a bit adjusting to…but then there was the cool things like you ride your bike down the beach. Well, Idaho doesn't really have a beach, or even a decent bike trail back then. So you'd ride down the strand and here's a group of people putting on Shakespeare at the pier. And you would just walk up and watch Shakespeare. It was just such a whole new world. It was very amazing.
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RS: Were you out at the time?
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BR: No. No and even I spent 5 years with United Airlines and I never came out to anyone there. I was so afraid. To me as I look back at it now, that should've been the safest place on Earth to come out. But when I started with the airlines that was kind of at the peak of the AIDS epidemic and in our office, every week there was a memorial. Every week there was somebody out sick, there was so much going on that you were scared to death, so, you know, a lot of things didn't happen.
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RS: So when did you first get involved with rodeo and was it the gay rodeo that you first got involved with?
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BR: When I was still in Idaho I was part of the Lions Club. So we had the beer booth at the rodeo. So that was kind of my first real in to the rodeo and I had a few friends that rode. I'm the guy that drinks the beer and sells the beer and takes care of that. I'm not the contestant.
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BR: And then once I left Idaho then in Los Angeles you don't really see rodeo. But I lived on the edge of West Hollywood and I had seen signs for this gay rodeo thing, and I'd seen them for 2 or 3 years. But I thought, you know, pink pansies, purple horses. I don't know about this gay rodeo thing, I grew up with real rodeo, I'm not interested. And some friends were coming to town for the rodeo and needed a place to say. I said well you can stay at my house, I'm working all weekend so you know make yourself at home. “Well you gotta come with us.” “Ehhh, I don't think it's my thing.” Well they got me to go with them to the dance at the Burbank Hilton on Friday night, 3,000 people at this dance, men, women, and it's men, it's like regular guys, it's not…it's a different subset of the gay community. It's not necessarily the very flamboyant. They are just…they happen to be…they are just regular people that happen to be gay and that's kind of where I really wanted to find life. And I called in sick the next day and went to the rodeo. I called in sick the next day, and went back. It was like, I found a life.
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BR: And 3 months later I happened to be interviewing for a job up here in the Bay Area the same weekend as the Bay Area Rodeo. And walking in the gate I heard people talking, “gosh we’re gonna have to get a few more volunteers cause we are gonna need help with this.” I was like, “I'll help. Tell me what you need to have done and, if I don't know, I'll tell ya.” And I've been volunteering now eighteen years.
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RS: Did you ever ride in the rodeo at all?
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BR: I have competed. [Laughs] I did goat dressing for one season, and when him and I broke up, I no longer wanted to. It was too…I'm a bit emotional so, you know, it brought back a lot of memories. So, you know, I enjoy the volunteer thing. There's less drama. I enjoy that I still get to talk to everybody and hang out. I'm just not the greatest guy competing.
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RS: That's great.
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BR: Last year I actually competed again for the first time in fifteen years in Santa Fe. I did goat dressing and I also did steer deco which I've always wanted to do. But, as an official, you can no longer compete when you are working, so you don't have the opportunity much anymore. But that weekend, it just kind of worked out that I was at a board meeting but I wasn't officiating, so it's like a couple of girls needed somebody to compete with ‘cause they are working for points for finals. I'm like, “well, if you keep expectations proper I'll play with ya.” I'll never forget that feeling on Saturday morning in steer deco, standing in the arena holding onto that rope, waiting for that chute to open, going, “What in the hell was I thinking? This has got to be the stupidest decision I've ever made in my whole life. They're gonna open that gate, the steer's gonna come out and I'm supposed to do this.” And we placed 7th, on Saturday, I was like: “Oh my God, we did it. It really happened.” I still had the same feeling Sunday, of standing there with the rope going, “Oh, shit, here we go.” But it was a great experience. I've been watching it for years and years and years. I'm really glad I got to do, but I don't really have to do it again, either. [Laughs] You know there's a certain time in life when you realize that those few extra pounds, the arthritis in the knees, maybe you are a little smarter than you used to be, you don't have to do those things to prove anything. [Laughs]
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RS: Now what do you think the role of the camp events are in gay rodeo?
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BR: It's…part of it's the entertainment. I think it's the most entertaining part of the rodeo. It's something you don't see anywhere else. Though I am seeing some of it start to filter into regular rodeo. But it's also the open door for anybody that wants to play. For me, that was my open door, putting panties on the goat. The animals are smaller than me…I've been around goats before…I think I can do this. And there is a little trick about grabbing the little hooks that are on their back legs, if you put your hands over that, the underwear slides up really well. And I was like, “Okay. I can…this sounds like…this is something,” and it's a blast. And if you trip and you fall the crowd loves it, all your friends laugh with you, they're not laughing at you. It's awesome and I think it's the entry event for [everyone]…we've had a blind woman that has done it, we've had people with various handicaps have done it. You know, a lot of people will bring their kids to the rodeo when we do the community goat dressing. And it's such a great adventure for the kids and you don't see anybody leave the arena that's not smiling.
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RS: Now once you started attending and volunteering, did you get involved with a local association in the Bay Area or back in LA?
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BR: Right, actually, I didn't…the first association I joined was the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association. I was dating somebody in Sacramento, so I joined the Sacramento chapter. By the time my first year was up and time for renewal, there were giant political problems in California. And now Sacramento's set was going in their own way and there was all this drama so I joined Oklahoma, ‘cause I didn't want to be a part of drama. There is enough drama in work, in life, in general. I didn't want it in my place that I enjoyed. So, I was a member at Oklahoma, I've been a member of the Canadian Gay Rockies Association, which is one of the finest groups on Earth, and I've maintained my membership through the end of their organization. But I did after a couple of years, and things calmed down in here California, I thought well I've started to become more active, I've started to work as an official--I got certified as a scorekeeper--it's important to be a part of my home association. And now I've been on the board of directors for nine years here in California.
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RS: And for the board of directors here in California, does that take you to convention and connect you with the sort of umbrella IGRA in any way?
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BR: Yeah, I'm really fortunate as a certified official. Like I said, I certified as a scorekeeper, I think it was thirteen years ago, and then I certified as a secretary about five years ago, and now I'm a certified auditor on the rodeo circuit. So in that alone, I've traveled to rodeos all across the country and Canada. And then I started on the board of directors with GSGRA back in whatever year that was. [Laughs] One of those crazy years where I thought: “Okay it's time to give back.” Ahh, crazy idea. But again, it does put you into the political realm and I've never been good at office politics or anything else. Shit will come out of my mouth before I have a time to realize how it's going to affect. Yes it's honest, yes it's true, maybe it could have stayed inside for a little bit longer. But, you know, that's…welcome to my nickname on the circuit: it's Grumpy. I own it, I live it. But, it does take you to the conventions, you know, I've been fortunate enough I've been part of production at convention for the two years we had it in California on my tenure on the board. And then between university and convention I have my master’s degree in rodeo arts with IGRA University and I've been a trustee now for three years with the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association. So, I represent California on the international board.
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RS: Now in the span of time that you've been involved, what are some of the changes you've seen over time with the rodeos or the leadership?
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BR: Wow. [Laughs] You know, the changes in my own life have been…it's…I'm a night and day different person than I ever was. The fact that I can just sit here and talk to you, candidly, is something I could have never done twenty years ago. Even maybe ten years ago would have been a bit rough. But I've learned to…I can be…if I go to the bar, I'll stand in the corner and watch all night, never say a word to anybody. I come to the rodeo, I have my vest, my badge, I now have a job, I have a responsibility to talk to you and I embrace that. Especially with new folks ‘cause I want them to get the same experience, I want them to love and enjoy. Everything here...um hmm sorry, um, oh wow, um… [emotional]
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BR: The changes in the rodeo, like I said, the first rodeo I went to in ‘98 was already kind of things were starting to change. There were 3,000 people at that dance. The dances were the launch, the dances were the busiest part of the whole rodeo weekend even at the grounds. There's this giant tent with this giant dance floor, and there's these men dancing with men, women dancing with women, and it's the country dancing but it's ballroom style. It's the most amazing thing you ever see. And in the last ten years the dancing has stepped away. The contestants were getting older. The younger people don't have the same need in the gay community that we had twenty, thirty, forty years ago. So, we are our own worst enemy. We got the acceptance we've been dying for. When you go out to the arena, there are straight people competing with us and having a blast and bragging to their friend that they're competing in the gay rodeo and having a ball. You know it's so many people when they hear gay rodeo they are thinking: “sex in the bushes and, you know, they are always going to be grabbing at you and they are gonna try and convert you.” “Convert you, honey, if we could convert I'd have converted to straight forty years ago and saved myself some grief and aggravation.” But it wasn't me and it wasn't honest, and I couldn't do it. I dated women until I was thirty and never slept with one of them. What's wrong with this picture?
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BR: But in the world today, I'm always, you know, when I see high school kids that are out, I'm like are you old enough to even know what out is? You know I've become my dad, it's kind of crazy that now I'm this old fart that, you know, “these young kids they just don't get it.” And as a board member I've struggled with that in the last few years. When we are trying to grow membership, they go, “well what's in it for me?” “Well, honey, I don't even know how to start.” Because I don't think this is for you, because if you are not looking at the bigger picture of what this was founded for, it's a non-profit organization, supporting the local community. And it's not just the gay community, they are supporting their community, you know, it's been a long time since money has been focused on a gay charity or an AIDS charity. You know, a lot of time it's horse rescue, it's animal rescue, it's hospice care that's not specifically a gay one, it's just something in your community you want to support. And I feel that the younger generation doesn't understand what supporting a community is about. Now you're gonna spend $17,000 to $20,000 a year working in a rodeo, it's crazy. I don't make--I'm in the travel industry, we don't make that kind of money--but the amazing amount of what I get for myself, I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't do it.
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RS: Can I ask where are some of the favorite places you've been able to travel because of IGRA?
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BR: Oh, you know, I get the question a lot especially from newer people, “I want to go to another rodeo, what's one of the best ones to go to?” You know everyone has something special to offer. I mean look at where we're at this weekend in Duncans Mills. It's out in the middle of nowhere but it's this beautiful little rustic campground, rustic arena. You feel like you're at the rodeo. When I've gone to Calgary, when I first started going up there, fourteen or fifteen years ago, it was a place called Simon's Valley, and they have acres of camping and it was tents, little campers you know, more European. In America we've got to have the forty-footer. Up there it's like I got a pup tent and a sleeping bag, we are going to the rodeo. And again, their dance would be 3,000 people on Friday night. Saturday night it could be 5,000 people just coming for the dance and entertainment. They've got Warner Brothers artists playing. Farmers Daughter, Emerson Drive, they get this amazing talent to perform at this little gay rodeo outside of Calgary. The Canadians are the warmest, most welcoming people you'll ever meet and I was proud to be a member.
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BR: You go to Texas--you're in a rodeo, ‘cause you're in Texas. You know, you go to Arizona, we're in this Mexican arena that contestants complain because they don't like this or they don't like that. But it's rodeo in the round, the people are right on it, they love it, the beer sales are the best they are going to be at a rodeo all year. Florida has put on some amazing rodeos. Chicago, I remember one year Chicago they've got, the rodeo is like 60 miles out of the city, they charter buses. And the rodeo never starts before 12 o' clock because we are going to party and drink until the cows come home. We're not going to start before noon so, you know, as an official you are out there 9:30, 10 o' clock starting to get ready. That first bus shows up at 11:30 and it's full. And right after that there's another bus and another bus and another bus. There are like five full buses of people coming in. The first stop is the ATM, the next stop is the bar. They are right there at the arena and we are starting the rodeo. It's always just so…communities are so excited to have the rodeo. There was one time in Wichita. They had finals in Wichita. Gay rodeo in Wichita, gay rodeo in Little Rock. I was standing there on Bill Clinton Drive in Little Rock, I'm like, "Oh there are so many things wrong with this picture."
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BR: But again, it's our rodeo family, and they’re the warmest, most loving people you'll ever meet. I've got friends in every city I swear in the country, all from rodeo. I go to Christmas parties in Dallas, and people are going, “Why you going to Dallas? You live in San Francisco, there's a whole giant gay community.” “I don't know anybody there. But I know a whole bunch of people if I go to the one in Dallas.”
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RS: Have you ever experienced any homophobia from communities that you are going into to have a rodeo?
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BR: You know, that's what has really surprises me is, I haven't. But I like to think that I'm kind of reserved and I'm pretty cautious, especially in a place I've never been. And then I find out, oh you have ten gay bars in this town! In Minneapolis? Oh my God! And, you know, I haven't dated in a long time so I'm not walking down the street hand in hand with my chosen or anything like that. I've seen protests at rodeos, we get a lot of PETA protest. I remember that one year in Florida they had security all over the place because we were told, “PETA is there. There's gonna be all this protest.” Yeah, there were four signs for cruelty to animals and one saying that rodeo is not gay. [Laughs] Have you ever been to a rodeo? Let’s talk about the PRCA, when I was a young guy going to rodeos there was never a bunch of tighter butts in jeans in my life, and the women had hair to heaven. I'm sorry. We got the same thing at the gay rodeo. You've got drag queens with hair to heaven and you got men in tight pants. There's nothing different. Except we are actually a little more open and accepting and we have a lot more fun.”
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RS: Now is your family still in Idaho?
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BR: Yep.
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RS: Have you come out to them?
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BR: I did come out to my parents, twelve years ago. I'd made the trip to Idaho many times to have “the talk,” and every time I get there, there'd be one little thing that happens and I can't do it. I'll never forget one time I'd gone home, and that's when we still lived up in Fairfield and dad and I were going on the prairie fishing. I thought, “Okay, today's the day.” And I kind of had a feeling dad knew I was wanting to talk about something. My dad's in recovery, he has been sober now almost forty years. My first twenty years, we did not get along very well, but now dad's been through and is still very active in AA and he's met a lot of people like his son, so I thought, you know, “I think we're there.” And we are on our way out to the reservoir, and he starts talking about theses two guys that live in this house on the edge of town and he made some straight guy smart ass comment. I thought, “Okay, it's not today.”
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BR: But then I was doing my own recovery in a different program and it was kind of like, you know: “how can I be honest with myself and my friends if I can't be honest with my parents and my family?” So we're sitting at the table, I wait till it's way past their bedtime, so that they are really kind of tired and you know so we can get this over and move on. And I said, “You know mom and dad, there is something we need to talk about, I'm gay. Dad said, “It doesn't matter, you are our son and we love you.” I'm like, “You've got to be shitting me. I've been holding on to this for twenty-five freaking years and that's the best you got. Oh my God.” [Laughs] And you know mom still struggles...
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BR: I had a big problem in Santa Fe last year and it was very traumatic. It was some homophobic slurs thrown my way at my safe place, at my rodeo. And I did not handle it well, I was very upset with my retort and horribly embarrassed. But I wanted to get on a plane and go home. I didn't even want to face my friends. I wanted out. I still struggle with it and of course my friends still tease the shit out of me over it. But I didn't realize how much that would affect me. How comfortable I had become. Santa Fe is a very open community and for this woman to basically be calling me a pedophile because I'm “one of those people.” ‘Cause I'm like, “Your son doesn't have a security badge he's not supposed to be here, and when I tried to talk to him he's turning and giving me a dirty look and walking off. Not at my rodeo, honey.” And she just kept coming, she was right in my face, and then I finally uttered the word that no woman ever likes to hear. And unfortunately, there were several of my friends standing right there and it was not a pretty picture.
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RS: Were they spectators or involved with the rodeo?
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BR: Oh, it turns out they were the stock contractors with the bulls. ‘Cause now she is gonna pack up her bulls and they're gonna leave. And I'm like, “You shouldn't have been here to begin with.” But I'm also thinking, “I screwed the whole rodeo.” These contestants, a lot of contestants only come to do the rough stock and now I've ruined everything. You know, it all gets sorted out. But I'm not going back. That was my safe place and it's no longer safe there.
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RS: Is it usual for the leadership to try vet stock contractors or anything to see if incident like that's going to occur?
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BR: You know, I think it surprised everybody. Because we're very upfront. The stock contracts are from the International Gay Rodeo Association. You are dealing with the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association. The gay is in there, it's in there, it’s in there, it’s in there. It's in everything you read, it's how we are gearing towards things, how we do things. I mean, even getting the rodeo here was not an easy thing to do. It's a very old world family, very well established, and they weren't so sure about [it]. They've seen what goes on up the road on those special weekends when they're all in town and there's all this stuff going on around them. They really weren't so sure and comfortable about it. After the first year, they're ready for a five year contract. And I've experienced that in so many cities across the country that nobody's really sure about this gay rodeo thing and everything else and it's like, “Well, here's a few things to read. Here's how we feel about the animals and how we want to show respect and how we arrange some of our events to be less harmful to the animals. Here's what we feel about the people. Here's how we treat our people. Here's what we are trying to do for the community.” If you can get past that three letter word, you're gonna have an amazing thing happen.
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RS: So you talked about a little bit earlier the dancing wing of the festivities. Did that sort of dissipate completely or have they split with the rodeo and do their own events?
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BR: It's…it really just dissipated. I know when I, in my tenure, there's a group called Sundance Saloon outside of San Francisco and they are also a non-profit group. And it's all about the country western dancing, and when I first started it was their group that was a lot of times in charge of the dances at the rodeo ‘cause they knew the music, they had the DJ's, they could get the dance floors, and everything else. So they were a big part of the rodeo. And I think over time, personalities, politics, you know, things kind of clash, and you'll get a person that's gonna be the rodeo director: “I don't really care about that crap…that's just that…doesn't do anything for me.” And you'll have one year where nobody shows up to dance so the next year you just don't bother. Well, the reason they didn't show up is they didn't feel welcome. Or, you know, did you reach out to the people in charge of this group or that group? And go "Can we do something, can we help you at one of your events and then in turn you can come and help us at one of ours? And then we can both grow with that." I think, that's the hardest thing we still have in our community, is how well we can all work together to keep us all alive. When gay rodeo first started, there wasn't a gay league for everything under the sun. You know, we were the game in town, and we were a big game. ‘Cause everybody wants to see the cowboys, everybody, straight, gay, doesn't matter. They all want to see those cowboys.
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BR: Well, as I said, now as an athlete, or as a volunteer, you have fifty options every weekend, especially in the Bay Area for a group that is giving back that you can volunteer your time and money and be part of. So part of the gay rodeo we really have to differentiate and I think dance has…the loss of the dance has got us to where we are at. 'Cause dance was a big part of it when it started. That is the social part of the rodeo. We have our social with the contestants and volunteers and you have some social around the bar during the rodeo. But the dance... after a couple cocktails that cute guy that's over there, you've finally earned up enough courage to ask him if he will dance. And sometimes it's going to be a line dance, ‘cause I'm not sure if my two-steppin’ is up to somebody else’s snuff. But you find...you made…you reached out. And here it's harder. I don't think you get the same effect sitting in the stands. You might make a comment to somebody about something that happened in the dirt but that's not the same thing as, for me, asking somebody to dance. That's the hardest thing on the Earth for me to do is ask for a dance.
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RS: What do you think when you when you went to that first rodeo, what was it about the gay rodeo that pulled you in, that spoke to you in a way that other spaces maybe hadn't before?
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BR: I think it was my idea of the real guy, just you know these guys could ride horses, ride broncs and steers, and you know and dance, and sit and chat and just be open and genuine. You know I was living in West Hollywood when there was nothing genuine about any of that. I would go to the bar and it would take me 2 beers to mark up the courage to say hello to somebody and they would just sneer and kind of look at me. I would be almost in tears and I put the beer on the counter and go home. It's not even like I'm going to move to the next person I think is cute, no. It took me this long to get enough courage to talk to that one, and I'm not good enough, I go home. And I won't go out for two or three more weeks. Just can't do it. But at the rodeo, early on again, I still had the issue if you kind of dissed me, I'm gone, now it's like, “Oh get over yourself.” I'm like, “You're not all what you think you are, so come on let's…”. I’ve got friends. I don't, you know…if I meet new people that's great, and I meet a lot of people being part of secretarial, doing registration at every rodeo. I meet every new contestant, and nothing gives me greater joy on that new contestant when they come up and thank me after the rodeo. Or just come up and say: “Did you see what I did?” I had, you know, it's like: “Good job, son.” I feel like the dad now with the young kids that are coming in: “You did so good, son. You did good.” And the sexual part is not there. It's just you know, we all happen to be gay, that doesn't mean we all have to sleep with each other or anything else. It's just we can be appreciative just like anyone else.
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RS: Now being from rural Idaho, would you characterize yourself as a cowboy?
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BR: No. No, I've been on a horse maybe six, seven times my whole life. I enjoy watching somebody ride well, but horse power to me is under the front of my car. Under the hood, more horse power is good. One horse power out of one horse here, that you have no control over whatsoever, is not a good thing. I respect them, but it's still just a little unnerving.
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BR: And as much as I think that's gotta be the most awesome feeling in the arena, racing on the horse, with the, you know, it's kind of like being on in the convertible with the top down. You know, you are racing through the arena, you are doing the poles, and the barrels, and you get a, I see how fast they do that, and how comfortable they look, that's never going to be me. I think it's awesome, I'm thrilled that they can. But I can't do that. [Laughs] So no, I guess in one respect, I guess I could be a cowboy because I do appreciate and I kind of live the country lifestyle: you're honest, you're true, I enjoy my boots and jeans I listen to country music everywhere. So, you know, maybe I am a cowboy, you don't necessarily have to ride a horse to be a cowboy.
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RS: What do you think it means for some people who like you felt they needed to move away from rural America because they couldn't find a space to be able to identify as a cowboy and to find a place like this?
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BR: It's fear. That little town up in the mountains of Idaho was, to me, homophobe central. The worst thing you could ever call somebody--of course gay wasn't in the vocabulary when I was in school--it was a fag. The horrible fear every time I heard that word...I was scared to death it may come my way. Even in college I thought, "Okay, when I go to college, things are going to open up a little bit." Oh no. I was in a fraternity at the University of Idaho, and I was constantly scared to death that somebody was going to find out. To me it was like, if I move to the city I'm anonymous. Nobody knows me, nobody cares. And I think, sadly, it's still that way for a lot of rural America. It starts at home, and unless your family is open and supportive as you're growing up you'll never believe your community is either. So you have to run.
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RS: Well, is there anything else about your experience with the gay rodeo and your personal history you'd like to share?
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BR: You know I list two things that saved my life as an adult. One was finding the rodeo. I was a very lost person for a very long time. Then I found the rodeo and it gave me purpose, it gave me direction. It gave me amazing family. And then through all of this, in two days I celebrate fifteen years of sobriety, being sober, and without the two of those things, I'm not sure where I'd be.
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RS: Well, thank you for speaking with me.
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BR: My pleasure, good questions.

Rickey Phoummany

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Rebecca Scofield: I am here at the Texas Tradition Rodeo outside Dallas, it's April 1st, 2017. This is Rebecca Scofield with Ricky Phoummany. Can you tell me what year you were born?
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Ricky Phoummany: 1988
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RS: Where did you grow up?
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RP: I grew up in a little suburb called Watauga outside of Fort Worth.
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RS: And what was that like?
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RP: I guess coming from a traditional Asian family...I'm first generation and it was just traditional, like go to school, do good, make good grades, this and that, but I kind of veered off and explored the art side. I was in choir, theater, band, dance, everything.
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RS: How big was your town?
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RP: It was pretty big. Pretty big.
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RS: Pretty suburban?
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RP: Yeah, very suburban.
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RS: And what did your parents do?
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RP: My parents are machinists, so they work on assembly lines and such.
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RS: How did they find those jobs?
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RP: I guess through relatives. When they came over seas from Laos--we're Laotian--we had family here, they networked and I guess that's how they found their jobs.
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RS: Did they enjoy their jobs?
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RP: Yeah, I mean, they know the American dream: they come to America and they make a better life.
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RS: Did you live in town or out on some property?
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RP: We lived in the town, you know, just got your neighbors next to you, across the street, and behind you.
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RS: Did you have any interest in animals growing up?
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RP: Not much, just the typical "Oh, I want a dog" and such, but I mean we have a dog so that's about it.
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RS: So no work around stock or anything?
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RP: No, no.
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RS: What about...did you like country music growing up?
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RP: Yeah, I had a god family so my parents would let me go hang out with them, my best friend and such, and I was very exposed to the country lifestyle 'cause they always took me to rodeos and listened to country music in the car so it was really different. [Laughs]
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RS: Did you have siblings?
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RP: Yes, I have a little brother and a little sister.
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RS: So you're the oldest?
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RP: I am the oldest.
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RS: As you were getting into performance as a young person what was your favorite thing?
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RP: I always wanted to grow up to be a singer. And I guess in high school I was like you know, maybe this is not my thing. I can sing, I mean not the best, but I can sing. But I started getting interested in dance and just how your body can do such crazy things so.
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RS: What did you do after high school?
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RP: I went to college at Texas Tech up in Lubbock, so west Texas country lifestyle. I decided to go there because I wanted to be close to home but far away from home and it's like a 6 hour drive. In college I had decided to major in computer science to make my parents happy, but then getting to college I was like, "This is not what I want to do, I'm not going to be happy waking up every day" and I decided to switch to education, and that's what I do now. And I majored in dance so I teach dance in high school.
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RS: Wow, that's really cool. Where?
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RP: Adamson High School in Oakland, which is a little suburb in Dallas.
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RS: What type of dance do you teach?
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RP: I teach everything: ballet, jazz, modern, hip-hop, tap, folkloric, just everything 'cause that's what we learned in college--to be diverse.
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RS: How do your students respond?
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RP: The high school I teach at didn't have a dance program. They had--I guess you would call it drill team, traditional Texas, military style drill team, so when I took over when I was hired, I started the dance program and it's grown immaculately and the kids are just hungry to learn all these different dance styles. It's really neat to see their eyes brighten up.
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RS: Can you tell me a little about the school district you work in? Is it pretty affluent or kids with struggling families?
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RP: I work for, I guess, a low-income district, but it's a big district. There're about 20 high schools. It's Dallas, so it's big, but a lot of the kids come from low income lifestyles. That shouldn't stop them from learning. And it doesn't and that's what really impresses me as an educator.
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RS: Well it's so great that your school supports the arts. So often they get cut. So, how did you find out about gay rodeo?
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RP: I came out in 2013, so a year after I graduated from college, and then I had friends that I grew up with in high school and I moved back to the DFW area, and just being out and about and just seeing who was around. I joined the Turtle Creek Chorale, which is a men's chorus in Dallas. And I networked with people and got exposed and I started charity work and I won my first title as Mr. Charity America 2015. As Mr. Charity America you go around and meet all these other organizations and people and that's how I found TGRA cause a lot of former Mr. Charity Americas were part of TGRA and that's how I got exposed to the rodeo lifestyle.
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RS: So could you tell me a little bit more about Charity America and what they do?
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RP: Yeah. Charity America, we represent...it was called Home for the Holidays but now I believe it's Texas Red Ribbon. Basically we raise money to help those with AIDS and HIV with medical bills and funeral expenses if it comes down to that. And that's pretty much it.
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RS: Wow. So, do you compete in the rodeo at all?
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RP: I do. I do. I guess the camp events--goat dressing--and then I do calf roping on foot. I started back in 2014. My first rodeo to compete in was in Oklahoma.
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RS: What was that like?
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RP: It was it was scary at first but the funny thing is that everyone’s there to help you and teach you different techniques and methods so it's really a safe zone where people are willing to help you and not shun you away. Its competition, but we are all family and here to have fun.
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RS: That's great. Did you get pretty good at that?
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RP: Mm, I believe I'm improving. I won my first ribbon in goat dressing last year in Oklahoma.
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RS: That's exciting.
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RP: That was exciting.
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RS: And do you compete at multiple events in the year or do you stick close to Oklahoma and Texas?
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RP: It's just been Oklahoma and Texas but I guess being royalty I'm now trying to explore more of what's out there with the other organizations and associations.
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RS: So how did you decide to compete for a royalty title with IGRA?
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RP: Starting with my first title, Mr. Charity America, I saw that it's just not competing in the arena but there's also behind the scenes of the royalty with people using their talents to help raise money for the charity or cause. So everyone’s like, "You have talent. You're a great entertainer, you should give it a try and see what happens." So I became a candidate for Mr. TGRA and then I won the title of Mr. TGRA 2016 and then went to Vegas in October and tried to compete for Mr. IGRA 2017 and got 2nd runner up.
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RS: That's exciting.
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RP: Yeah.
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RS: Do you think you'll compete again next year?
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RP: Maybe not next year, I'm going to probably take a couple years off and focus on work, on the kids, grow my program and then probably come back, because that's the type of person I am.
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RS: If you're not involved with the royalty side are you still going to be involved with TGRA on the organizational side or the rodeos?
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RP: Oh yeah, I think I would obviously come back and help out just because TGRA has helped me become the person I am today and it's always good to give back to what's giving to you.
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RS: So are you out to your parents?
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RP: Yes, I am. At first it was a little rocky because, like I said, it's a traditional Asian family--they want you to be a doctor, lawyer, all this crazy stuff--then they saw what I was doing. I was loving it and I could say I was successful in doing what I'm doing so they support me, but we don't talk about it as much. They're just like, "Okay, cool." [Laughs]
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RS: Do you ever take boyfriends home?
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RP: No. I don't live with my parents. When I came back from college I lived with them for a couple months and got on my feet and then moved. Just to start my own life I guess.
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RS: So no one special yet?
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RP: No, not yet, there've been a few but, you know, rocky road.
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RS: And what do you think it is about the rodeo vs. these other really great organizations like Charity America or Imperial Court System? What is it about the rodeo that brings people in who may not have experience with stock growing up or things like that?
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RP: Well, I guess I come from that 'cause I mean I grew up exposed to it but I never touched the dirt, or touched the animals before, 'cause I was always scared. It's just amazing seeing a city boy coming in and you can start somewhere competing, like the camp events are what draws people in. Like, I can put underwear on a goat. Or let me try throwing on a wig and jump on a steer or something like that. So I believe it's the comradery and the loving spirit that everyone has because we are all from different states and different associations and we can come together and help each other out. When I first started competing I didn't have any ropes or gear and people lent stuff to me to use and compete with, and you learn tips and tricks along the way. Again, I don't think it's...the rodeo life isn't "better" than something else because I've also been a part of the Court system. It's all working together raising money for our communities. You know, there's the Court system and they do their own thing and there’s the rodeo.
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RS: Do you see much overlap between organizations?
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RP: Yeah, there're people who are part of the court system that do rodeo and then vice versa. We're all a big community just living life trying to have fun.
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RS: As an Asian man in a rodeo association, is the association fairly diverse or fairly white?
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RP: By looking at it, from a spectator side it's predominately white, but you know we have our Mexicans, our blacks, don't see very many Asians except for myself [laughs] but again it's the loving spirit that everybody has. Which makes it great.
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RS: Do you ever get any surprised comments when you say you participate in rodeo?
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RP: I do, they look at me--'cause I'm known as a pretty boy--they're like, "You play in the dirt? You ride horses and all this stuff?" And I'm like yeah, you know it's just exploring life, trying new things, taking risks.
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RS: Would you call yourself a cowboy?
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RP: Mmmm. No. I don't think so. Well, I don't know. That's kind of hard. 'Cause, you think of cowboys and you think of people that have property and work in the fields and have the horses and their livestock. So I don't know, that's really tough.
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RS: What about other people who live in cities but rodeo? Would you call them cowboys?
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RP: Again, it's just a no because...what's interesting is you learn about these people and where they grew up and where they are now so, if they did grow up on a farm and such I would say yeah, you are a cowboy, because you've had experience. And for those that just live in the city and stuff you can call them...urban cowboys? So, I don't know, for me it just shouldn’t have a title, shouldn't have a label, we're all here to compete and have fun and do what we love to do.
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RS: That's interesting. Well, there seems to be a lot of frustration in trying to get younger members. As a young person, what do you think the future of IGRA is moving forward?
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RP: I think it's just getting out there and making sure we are exposed. With me being part of the younger generation, you know, showing the people of my generation, like you can be a part of this stuff, you know. The people who started this came from somewhere. They had to work hard to give us what we have now and we shouldn't take that for granted. It's about the history of where we come from and how we can keep that alive. For me it's now talking to people who are like, "Oh you rodeo," it's inviting them out, let them watch, show them pictures, show them Facebook and our social media stuff that we have nowadays and they realize they can be a part of it as well and I believe getting more younger generations involved is gonna be what keeps the organization alive.
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RS: That's interesting. Well is there anything else you want to talk about?
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RP: Not that I know of.
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RS: So what was the very first rodeo you went to?
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RP: The first rodeo would be, in Fort Worth on an elementary school field trip. Fort Worth is known for their stock yards.
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RS: Yeah.
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RP: So that was my first one in Fort Worth. I think it was 3rd grade, yeah.
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RS: Were you ever like, "I want to do that?"
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RP: No, I was like, "Ew, what's this smell, it stinks. Can we leave?" [laughs] So you know, you grow up and then you're like, "Oh wow, oh okay. Why did I say that when I was younger?" It's this funny thing when you're younger and you say things and then you're like oh never mind. So.
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RS: That's fantastic. Well thank you so much for talking with me. I really appreciate it.

Jack Morgan

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I am here today with Jack Morgan. It's September 11, 2016 and were at Duncan Mills at the Rodeo on the River. Can you tell me what year you were born?
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Jack Morgan: 1968
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RS: And where did you grow up?
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JM: I grew up in Denver, Colorado. So, just right outside in Aravalli, so, but pretty much in Denver.
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RS: Is that a very urban environment?
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JM: No, not at all. I mean, it’s literally right outside the border of Denver, so I say Denver, but technically Aravalli. Easier to say Denver.
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RS: I understand. Did you have a very large family?
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JM: So, I'm the youngest of four siblings. I have my brothers ten years older than me and then two sisters older than that. So, kind of the baby of that, so pretty much grew up as an only child, you know.
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RS: What did your family do for a living?
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JM: So, my dad owned a- my mom was a stay-at-home mother and my dad owned a general contracting construction business. So, grew up in a construction industry.
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RS: Did you do much ranch work or farming as a kid?
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JM: You know, no, actually. Until I became, we didn't at all. We did a lot of hunting and fishing growing up. So, pretty much every weekend I grew up either hunting and fishing up in Grand Lake and Grand Vere and my grandparents owned a cabin up there. So, spent a lot of time in that kind of environment. Then, as I got more into my teens, I became kind of familiar and acquainted with the ranch community, and a lot of farmers out in the area. So, that's kind of what my first attraction was. A lot of it was some other things, but that was kind of what first got me exposed western kind of heritage and lifestyle.
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RS: Did you do any rodeo or 4H or anything like that in high school?
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JM: I didn't, no. I didn't do anything until, except, it was probably my teen years, mid to late teen years, when I really got acquainted with it. And then, you know, when I was growing up it wasn't acceptable to be gay, especially in the western lifestyle. And so, I have the advantage of having a lot of history where Charlie’s, with Wayne Jakino, Jerry Cunningham, some of my great friends, Anthony Aragon. And so we were kind of the early stages of it. So, got involved because, number one proximity, the openness, the community, the family, the comradery between everybody. So, that's kind of what attracted to me, initially, and then I just kind of migrated through it.
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RS: Now, you mentioned Charlie's. Can you say what Charlie's was and how you were involved?
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JM: Sure, so Charlie's is a gay country western bar. And with the old Charlie's, I think they just celebrated 25 years of their new location, but their original location was out on East Colfax. And so as I became familiar with, kind of, the lifestyle and some of the the younger gay folks, like myself, it was a place for us to kind of be ourselves, be around other country western folks and fans, and that lifestyle. And so I spent a lot of time just dancing, that was kind of my first introduction, right. Was on the Charlie's Cloggers, not sure if you know what clogging is, but so I was on the the Charlie's Cowboy Cloggers and we had performed across the country. And kind of initially, rodeos is where we started, but we always locally, Aspen's gay ski week, and stuff like that. So, it's kind of the bonds initially started of lifelong friendships.
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RS: And when did you really get involved at Charlie's?
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JM: So, probably 1988 is, 1989, somewhere in their, kind of familiar with it. And then really started heavily with it, ‘89, ‘90, is when I started heavily, frequenting the place. And it was my weekend hangout and dancing all night and every night.
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RS: And then when did you make the jump from Charlie's to IGRA?
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JM: So, in the early 90s was one of my first volunteers, and it’s when we brought in dirt actually, to make an arena. And because at that point it was difficult to find places that would rent to you, and the cost, and really the initial onset was to help our brother in the community, right. Because AIDS was a big crisis, that and there wasn't a lot of people and a lot of help doing things, and so that was kind of. [Emotional] Sorry, so yeah, it was us trying to help each other cause there was no federal funding, there wasn't a lot of help. So, that's kind of why we started, right, so that we could compete with something we do, safe environment, and help one another. I don't know where that came from.
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RS: That charitable aspect of IGRA, is that still present today even after the end of the AIDS epidemic?
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JM: Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's benefited that we've been able to expand because of federal funding for HIV and AIDS and all the rest of us, is that we've been able to expand our community to way past our community. So, we do a lot of pediatric things, animal care, animal welfare, breast cancer, women health. So, we've been really able to be a lot more broad in what are outreach have been. Which is, you know, that's really what an organization should do. I mean, we needed to be focused at a point, but we've been able to do so much more and accomplish so much more for our communities, and that's really what it is. Communities supporting communities right. And so, each association has, can kind of dictate and determine what's important to their community and their associations. So, you know, most associations give bids or allow people to come in and say, "Hey, you know, we would like to be a partner with you," or whatever. And so the associations themselves decided. Which is really cool, cause then it stays within the communities.
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RS: Now, when you first got involved, did you do some of the early dance competitions at the rodeos?
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JM: I didn't do dance competitions. I always danced, but I wasn't that great of a dancer that I could do the competitions. Like I said, we were the Cowboy Country Cloggers, we performed kind of all over. Both at at rodeos and non-rodeos, but at highly sponsored events. We kind of represent, the cool thing about it is we were able to represent that country lifestyle, outside of just the rodeo. So it was always good cause it brought a widened exposure to us.
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RS: Now, I know the dance competitions have sort of fallen away, do you think that's a big loss for the community or?
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JM: I do. I think there is a lot of things that are a loss. I think that's one of them, right. I think that sometimes we've wrote our own challenges, because for so long, we wanted to be accepted, we wanted to be mainstream, and we've done that. But, by doing that, we've also lost some of our sub communities, which not just the cowboys out to see the western lifestyle is one of those sub communities, and so you know I count my blessings. It's funny a lot of us talk about this, us older folks, is that we had a really tight knit community, and we still do for the most part. But the younger generations is so accepted they, I think that subculture when we were growing up, because you had to identify with something. Were you cowboy, were you leather, were you circuit boy, whatever it was, right. And so, I think that the morals, the emotions, the friendships that developed, the family that developed, sometimes the older community is more dedicated because of that. So, there is good and bad to it, and that's the bad. The good is that we are much more widely accepted and can be a part of anything.
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RS: Yeah, do you notice it's harder to recruit younger people to the rodeo?
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JM: Absolutely, absolutely. I think IGRA has done a great job of expanding its philosophy, and I don't even know if its expanding it's philosophy, so much us, as other people being more willing to come in. So, we see a lot more straight folks coming in, bi folks, transgender, whatever that looks like to be apart of us. And we didn't always have that before, so that's nice to see. That it's not a big deal. It's about who you are, not what you are. And that's been a big change and transition welcomed.
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RS: What other changes have you seen from the early days when you were participating to now?
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JM: You know, we used to be a lot bigger, back in the '90s, in the heyday, you know. One of my favorite rodeos was the San Diego, it was at Del Mar, a huge horse track. We had two arenas because we had so many people, or the early Phoenix rodeos that would start at seven in the morning and run til eleven or twelve at night. So, we've seen a trail off in that kind of community, in a sense. And I think a couple reasons, I think number one, because of the acceptance. You know, people can compete in other areas, as well. I think the other thing is that we, people have, again, I go back to what I said, I think people, our subcultures aren't as specific. And let’s face it, equestrian and rodeos are not a cheap sport, I mean it's very expensive. By the time you drive, you fly, you haul, you do all this stuff, you have people who don't have horses. I mean even to just come to some of our entry level events is expensive. So, I think that's a couple big changes.
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RS: Have you yourself ever competed?
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JM: I have.
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RS: What did you compete in?
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JM: I used to compete in most of the camp events, so, the goat dressing, and steer deco, and wild drag. Wild drag was always my favorite, still my favorite. It's just, it's fun. It's one of our signature events, right. It's something that's kind of exclusive to us. It's a team of three people. I mean, it's just fun, it partnership, it's team, it's a little bit, you know, obviously the fashion aspect of it is incredible.
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RS: Yeah, what do you think those events sort of add to to gay rodeo, because they are so distinctive from other rodeos?
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JM: Which events?
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RS: The camp events.
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JM: I think definitely wild drag. I think our dressing, as well, because you need no skills to do it, you go out there and put a pair of panties on. So, I think that's the one that opens up the most doors to people to allow them to expose it, to get exposure to it, and see that we are just here to have a good time. Generally, when people do that, they kind of get hooked, they start seeing bonds and the friendship. Ty, a friend of ours, passed away from cancer many years ago. She was amazing, cause she always said, “I will go out there and teach you everything I know. Then, I'm going to kick your ass.” I think that's kind of the arching overview philosophy, is that we are going to help each other as much as we can, gonna go out there and compete, and be friends after. Teach you everything I can and help you, as well, and then I'm going to compete against you, as well, don't forget that. And I think that's what makes it fun right, because it's not a hostile environment, it's loving.
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RS: When did you become a judge?
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JM: So, 2001 was my first rodeo that I judged. So, I've been judging for almost 15 years now, so, quite awhile.
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RS: Is there any aspects that you enjoy more than competing?
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JM: Wow, that's a great question, they are really different, right? Judging is, you get to see all the events, you get to see all the people. And it's funny because people come up and say, “Did you see me in this event?” or “Did you see me in that event?” And, “No, I was watching the process.” So, you, one of the things that is hard is that you don't get to watch your friend competes because you are kind of blind to that, right? You don't get to see that, but one of the really cool things is you get to create an even playing field and you get to make sure it's a fair environment for everybody. And I like that, I like that everybody has the same opportunity. You know, where as a contestant goes out and does an event one time, that's the one time. We may have 50 or 100, whatever, contestants when we have 30 people in one event or more. And every contestant has to be a brand new fresh set of eyes in the new event for you, so that you are fair. So, I think that's kind of one of those things that I like, is every time you have to kind of start, reset, and refocus your energy. Because to you, to them, that's their 20th time to you, then you've got to be focused as if it' your first time.
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RS: Yeah, that's a present a whole new set of challenges.
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JM: It does.
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RS: How many rodeos do you judge on average in a year?
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JM: So this year I'm judging twelve of our fifteen, so I generally do between eight and twelve a year.
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RS: And can I ask what you do for a living?
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JM: Yeah, I manage a (?) supply chain.
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RS: Okay, so how do you balance your rodeo workload with your work workload?
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JM: I've been very, very fortunate. So, my job for years, being in supply chain, I have the ability to work from the road. So, as long as I have a laptop, and a WiFi connection, and a telephone I can pretty much do my job anywhere. And that really has freed me up a lot, cause planes even have WiFi now, so, I can pretty much work anywhere. So, that's the other one challenge, another one of the challenges with our contestants. It's not only expensive, but it's a lot of time off work. And the same for our officials, everything we do is volunteer. But it's a lot of time off work, to get here, and to do all this stuff. So, yeah, I've been fortunate that I've been able to work from the road a lot.
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RS: Now, are you out, in terms of your work life and your family?
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JM: 100%. I've been out since I was fifteen years old. I guess I'm one of the goal. I've never even been with a women in my life. Yeah, my family is completely cool with it, amazing supportive family, an amazing set of friends, It's always been very important to me to be out at work, and I'm completely 100% out. As a matter of fact, several of my coworkers have gay events, gay rodeos, gay other events. So, yeah, I'm 100% out.
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RS: Was that at all difficult for you to come out at such a young age?
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JM: Probably one of the most difficult things of my life. So, when you grow up, especially when you grow up in a blue collar family, you're supposed to be able do all these things. And I always dreamed of having kids, and growing up, a gay couple couldn't have kids. That just wasn't in the cards. Now, today, thank god through marriage and equality, all the rest of the things, marriage and kids is just normal. So, I always said growing up, I wanted the white picket fence, the kids, and one of the husbands sitting with his wife. So, one of the most difficult thing for me was that, the realization that in order to be true of who I was, that I would never be able to obtain that. At least not that, right. Today's times are different, and I thank God for the kids being able, the younger generation, I guess I should say, to be able to have that ability to really establishing that for a life. Not that we didn't before, but to be able to be publicly accepted for, you know. So, yeah, it was a very difficult thing.
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RS: Now, Denver can be seen as a pretty conservative area. Did living there present any challenges for you, as an out gay man? And has that changed over time?
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JM: Yeah, you know, and for myself, no. I was always true to myself. Did I always hear the faggot in the back, queer? Absolutely, I don't think it matters where you live, you're always going to hear that. Are you always going to have the prejudices and homophobia? Yeah. Was it much more prevalent then, than it is today? Yeah. Does it still exist? Yeah. Do I still hear faggot or queer behind my back today? You do, right. So, Denver can be conservative, but I think that society, in general, and especially Denver, has... I mean we have weed, that's legal, for god sake. So, yes, it's made a huge transition and it's a pretty hip cool area, anymore. But, I think it relates also, thank God, I never had deal with the gay bashing, or the fights, or getting hit, or anything like that. I stood my own ground. But number two, is that I never, I wasn't, I didn't put myself in those situations. I mean coming out so early, I mean my gay friends, that was my environment. And again it goes back, I think you had to choose your subcultures, where you stood, and so I was just never apart of that. And I had amazing gay friends that I'd met when I was a teenager, that are still just incredible friends that I've had for 30 plus years.
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RS: Did you ever run into any homophobia at some of the early gay rodeos that you went to?
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JM: Yeah, we've been protested at gates, we've had signs, we've had all those kind of things happen. As a matter of fact, we had a rodeo in Florida, I don't know, it was probably 2008, 2010, and it was when I first went in, and major letters of picketing, and “God hate fags,” “Out with the gay stuff.” And, for example, that rodeo was in Davy County, which is a pretty homophobic, traditional in a scene. And the association there did such an amazing job of outreach to the local communities. For example, they had some of the local communities come in and do their parking and they got to keep the money. In a couple instances, it was able to send some of the high school people to cheer camps and band camps and do things that they wouldn't have been able to do before. And by the third, fourth, fifth year, everybody wanted to do their parking. So, those kind of things, of being true to yourself, can really open up a lot of doors for people to see, you are just like everybody else. All you want to do is life, laugh, and love and eat dinner, and go play with your dog, right? I mean that's really what it is. And so, I think that one of the things about IGRA and gay rodeo, is that it allows people to see a different avenue that, “Hey, we are just normal folks.” We can go out there in drag, and dress in a wig, and laugh at ourselves, and have a good time, and get on a steer or a bull, and we allow the same equality for women to be able to get on a bull and a steer. And I think that's one of the educational pieces that's really important to us that we've been able to achieve and acquire.
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RS: Yeah, have you watched a lot of women do the rough stock riding?
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JM: Absolutely. And I cheer every time.
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RS: What are some other big difference you've noticed between the atmosphere of a gay rodeo and the more mainstream rodeo?
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JM: Sure. So, I think that mainstream traditional rodeo is a lot more tense, is a lot more uptight, a lot more competitive because there is much higher prize dollars involved. People here are amateurs, they have jobs, they do this during the weekend. It's a sense of community, it's a sense of family. And so I think that's important, as well, and that's one of the, that's probably the most significant difference that I see. You know, there's a show performance, too. I mean obviously when you go to rodeo it's a lot more show and a lot more fast. Our rodeos aren't fast, but they're fun and they create, not only inside the arena, the people that compete, but the spectators have come, that have never been to our rodeo before, gain new friendships. I think, so, the eagerness, the ability to gain new relationships and friendships is a big difference to me, that I've seen.
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RS: Do you go to many, like PRCA ?
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JM: I do. You know, Denver's home of the National Stock Show, so I go to Finals in Vegas. So, yeah, I do a lot of traditional rodeos as well.
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RS: Have you ran into any homophobia there?
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JM: Oh yes, absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, I think it’s again more prevalent. I mean, it's changing and less prevalent than it was, but it's much more prevalent twenty years ago. But I think that as it becomes more mainstream in America, it become more mainstream in some of the cultures. Western lifestyle is still a pretty conservative culture, and I think that we're nowhere where we should be, but we've made more strides in my lifetime then I every thought would be, in that aspect. I never thought in my lifetime I would be able to go to a traditional rodeo, have my arms around a guy, and I totally feel comfortable with that. You know, you might hear some comments, but I don't feel fear like I used to.
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RS: How about any sort of displays of other sorts of prejudice, like blatant forms of racism, at either mainstream or gay rodeo?
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JM: You know, I wouldn't say that gay rodeo I sense that. Straight rodeo I still think there's...it’s traditionally more from the males than the females at traditional rodeos, that's just what I sense. Yeah, you definitely see it, and the racism, the homophobia, whatever you want to call it, that it's just not… People have a hard time wrapping their head around that you can be gay and cowboy. That you can be gay and get your boots dirty, and your jeans, and hats dirty and that's okay. There's still that perception out there that gay people have to be stereotyped, so, I think that we have made strides, but have a long ways to go on that, yeah. I think those stereotypes still exist.
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RS: Now, going back to your youth at Charlie’s, what was it about Charlie’s that sort of drew you into that community?
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JM: Well, the guys. I mean, so obviously being a gay guy, right, I liked very masculine men and that was probably on it, honestly. That was one of the initial attractions. I was younger and I went to different types of environments and different types of bars, I just saw a lot of superficialness, maybe by their fault, or maybe by the environment. But what I found with Charlie's and the country western lifestyle, IGRA, rodeo is that people seem to be a lot more genuine, a lot more caring, and just plain real. And I established friendships from this avenue that have lasted forever, where the other avenues, you couldn't. It was always the very trendy and very fad, and I think that Charlie's, the Western lifestyle and rodeo, goes below the surface to really the core of who you are, in my opinion.
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RS: And do you identify as a cowboy?
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JM: Yeah, I do identify as a cowboy.
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RS: What does that mean to you?
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JM: I think, first and foremost, a high degree of morals and ethics, honorbality, and a man of his word. So, I think that a cowboy can be defined as someone that's on a horse in an arena, roping and stuff, but to me, that's a part of it. But what it really means is who you are at your core, and I identify with that.
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RS: Have you ever, do you associate rodeo in any sort of way with any religious aspects of your life at all?
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JM: No, I don't. I'm not a super religious person, I said earlier when I came out at fifteen, I thank God I came out. I believe there's something greater than us, I think that I know there's something greater than us. I don't know what that is, so I'm not a super religious person. I do thank God that he led me down this path and down this journey in my life, but I don't, you know. I didn’t grow up as a hugely religious person, my family was, but that was always kind of a conflict, right. Because I never, I struggled with the religious aspect of of denying somebody love or equality because of the person they were.
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RS: Has rodeo affected any sort of part of your life outside of your sort of weekend family, in terms of work or relationships or anything like that?
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JM: Sure, it's been very difficult. When you’re judging this many rodeos a year. And you know, it's funny, I was adding up my badges the other day and I've done, this year at Finals will be my 200th rodeo. So, I figured I've spent about 8,500 hours volunteering and over $16,000 of my own money to give back to my own community. So, that's a lot of, that's four years of a full time job. So yeah, things, you know, things suffer. I have an amazing supporting network, my sister's a photographer, every time we are in Denver she comes out, does all the photos and posts us and sends them to all the cowboys and girls, and so that's awesome. But yeah, I think there's things that are a struggle. It's tough to get on a plane and fly and drive and do all these things, and you know, after working a full day and then work remote for the full day. As a matter of fact, here we have no cell phone service here. So, I had to be at the parking lot in Safeway at 6:30 on Friday morning taking a conference call. So yeah, you make sacrifices personally and your family. My mom is a little bit older and more mature, and not in such great health, but to give you an example of the kind of support there is, this year in Vegas I got a call that things weren't so great on Sunday, and the rest of our judging team judged the rest of the event the rest of the day, and I was on a plane in an hour. So that's the kind of support you get.
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RS: Is there any part of your experience that I haven't asked you about that you would like to talk about?
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JM: No, I think we've been I think we've been pretty comprehensive. Like I said, I think that it's an amazing culture, that I wish still was as predominate as it was. And sometimes I think we forget where we came from, and that's why I think this is so important, and the reason we started because we were helping one another. We were helping out communities and watching out for one another.
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RS: Do you still go to Charlie's?
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JM: What's that?
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RS: Do you still go to Charlie's?
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JM: Of course I do. Yep. You know, one of my mentors was one of Jon Kino, we would play bridge at his house on Friday nights. He was, you know, he, I am honored to say he was not only a mentor, but he was a great friend of mine. And so, you know, that was an important relationship that helped me develop into the person and man that I am.
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RS: If he were alive today do you think he would be proud of the association he helped build?
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JM: Absolutely, absolutely. He would put his arm around you and in that deep voice tell you something that you could always do better, but yeah. I think that him and one of the other people, John, I don't know if you've talked to him, but John Beck, very old cowboy. Jon's a great friend of mine and has been for many, many years. You know, him and Wayne sitting in the bar of Charlie’s writing the rules of wild drag, you know. I mean it was somebody from Durango and somebody from Nebraska that did a lot, people sometimes forget.
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RS: Well, thank you for talking to me.
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JM: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I don't know why I cried.

Chuck Browning

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RS: OK, so this is Rebecca Scofield, and I'm here today with Chuck Browning. It is July 9, [2001.] And we are in Denver for the Rocky Mountain Regional. So can you tell me what year you were born?
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CB: Born in 1963.
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RS: And where were you born?
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CB: I was born in Casper, Wyoming.
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RS: Is that where you grew up?
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CB: I grew up in Casper, Wyoming, through 4th grade, moved to upstate New York 5th through 10th grade, back to Wyoming for my final year of high school, then up to Montana for college, then ended in Phoenix, where I've been for 34 years.
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RS: What did your parents do while growing up?
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CB: My stepfather was an electrical engineer, so he did a lot of the high-powered power line constructions. So we would move where the work would go to. So, we traveled for most of my adolescence.
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RS: And what about your mom?
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CB: Uh, my mom did some accounting work, she did work as she could, and she also helped my dad with his company.
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RS: And did you have siblings?
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CB: I have four older siblings, two older sisters, two older brothers. I had two older stepbrothers and older stepsister and two younger stepbrothers.
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RS: Wow.
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CB: Yah.
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RS: I'm really impressed right now [laughs].
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CB: I'm impressed I can remember all that. [laughs with RS]
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RS: And can you tell me a little bit about growing up, what your family dynamics were like?
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CB: Yeah, growing up in Wyoming, things that I remember is going to the fair and the rodeo and seeing the troopers, which is a drum corps, being very influenced by that. It was kind of like that whole cowboy culture. In the springtime, we would go out to Hat Six Ranch, which was a friend of my uncles who had a cattle ranch, and they did roundups. We watched the castrations. We watched the Rocky Mountain oysters. We watched all that going on. I was probably anywhere from four to six years old. So participating in that, I didn't do. But seeing it definitely kind of affected me, my whole culture at that point in time.
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CB: Moving out to New York, uh, upstate New York, uh, completely different culture, they thought that we still fought with the Indians, you know, I mean, it was just that whole transition of that. We called, you know, a Coke, we called it pop.
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RS: Mmhm.
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CB: They called it soda. So, you know, that whole evolution thing. So then we kind of transferred all the way to their culture and then melded with that, you know, more hockey. It was more about soccer, is more about lacrosse, you know, rodeo? Nobody even knew what rodeo was. So it wasn't really until we got back to Casper, which was my final year of high school, that, you know, and not really then did I get interested in rodeo, it was a little bit even later after college, but yeah, it was kind of a kind of a big change.
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RS: And growing up in such a big family. Did you get along with all your siblings and step-siblings?
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CB: Well, it was most of just the five, the initial five, three Scorpios, a Taurus, and a Leo. And so if anybody knows, you know, that part of you know, it's power signs. So uh, three scorpios alone, the oldest and the last two. But, we did get along. I mean, we because we moved a lot, we had to rely on each other for that transitioning and building friendships. When we moved to New York, we found out that families had eight to 10 kids, you know, so it was like, you know, this guy and well, you know her sister and you go to school with the brother and everything. So it was kind of, kind of nice in that way. When we did move, we did travel a lot. But then my older brothers went to college and it was my sisters and me and, you know, then my sister, we kind of moved back to Montana and Wyoming. So it was we always had that and we're still very close. So.
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RS: So in, you know, middle school, high school, as you're moving, did you form any really close friendships that you still think of today?
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CB: Actually, I have two very close friends in upstate New York, Michelle Rose and Maxine [Jibo]. Michelle is from Chadwicks and Maxine was from Malone. Malone was where I went 7th through 10th grade, so that was probably the most impactful part of you growing up. Maxine, actually I reconnected with her on Facebook because I had lost touch with her and she actually came out to Phoenix and I met with her and I met her partner and talked about, you know, the fact that we both had alternative lifestyles, which was probably why we connected so well. So that was just kind of liberating, I guess you can say. But other than that, I haven't really kept close friendships, even from people in college. I think that maybe just because I'm used to moving and relocating, but I do have a lot of good friends in Phoenix, because I've been there for 34 years.
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RS: And can I ask how you identify in terms of gender and sexuality?
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CB: Gender, I'm a man, a he or a him. Sexuality, I had sex with women in college. I prefer to have sex with men. So I guess I'm gay, I guess I'm bi, I guess I'm whatever anybody needs to label me as, that's, I'm good with that.
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RS: That's great. [laughs with CB] That's perfect. And so growing up did you struggle with that at all? Were you aware of that? Um, concerned about it?
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CB: I think when I go back to it, I had a teacher when I first moved to Chadwicks, New York. And he was Italian, dark hair, you know, muscular. I look back at that and I was like, there was some reason that I was, you know, there was a connection. I didn't understand it then. But now I look back and I'm like, you know what, that probably was what was going on, but I was just too young to know that. I think I really resisted any of that. Of like seeing guys and saying, God, they're attractive or, you know, or things like that just because of where I grew up in Wyoming and what the talk was and how people that were in the community at the time that identified as being gay and how they were treated. And, you know, it was fear, it was fear-based. And I was like, and I really, those that I did know that were gay, I really wasn't like them. And so I was like, OK, is this black and white? I gotta either be this way or that way because I'm not that way.
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CB: So there was that struggle, but there was also that uniformity with the culture and the expectations that you're going to have a girlfriend and you're going to get married, you're going to have kids. So I kind of bought into that, I think, probably until I got into college. So, I was in college when I started, uh. I was a lifeguard and was coaching a swim team and hung out with other lifeguards and met a couple other that were gay and lesbians. Started realizing that there's a whole gambit of different levels of this alternative lifestyle. It's not just this way or that way.
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RS: And where did you go to college?
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CB: At the time it was called Eastern Montana College. It's now called MSUB, so outside of Billings. Right in Billings, actually. Yeah.
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RS: And what was your experience like in college and in such a red state?
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CB: Well, again, because my friends at college were from all different areas and it was kind of like I still hadn't grasped my sexuality. I think I was starting to understand that there was a lifeguard, his name was Jack, and he was open and free about it. And, but he wasn't like the flamboyant type either. So that when I was like, okay, wait a minute, this is a little bit more uh, broader than I kind of thought it was. You know, there were guys that I found attractive, but I really never reacted on it because I was still dating women. I dated two girls in college, you know, and thought, you know, everything was fine until I probably moved to Phoenix and then and realized that I was a trainer at the time.
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CB: And one of my clients who I didn't know at the time was gay. And, you know, he knew that I was new to town. He says, hey, there's a bar in Phoenix that you should come out and just kind of hang out with us. And it was Charlie's. And, you know, I was like, how did he know? How did I know? You know, I sat in the parking lot for an hour before I went in because I was like, oh, I [inaudible] guys going in there, but. You know, I think that was the turning point for me, and I was like, just just go in there, had a great time.
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RS: That's really great. Do you think um, if you hadn't had, you know, such a good friend to kind of prompt you, do you think you would have started grappling with it eventually?
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CB: Well, it's funny how things work out and how life just kind of works. And I think that's what happened. I mean, he, not that I don't perceive myself to be flamboyantly gay or, you know, just broadcast it. Maybe I do, I don't know, maybe I'm confusing myself. But he obviously knew. He obviously knew. And I think he kind of guided me at least that way to find people more like me. And coming from Montana, Wyoming, into Phoenix, which at the time was a big city for me, to actually go into a gay bar and see guys dancing and start to talk to guys and, you know, then start to go to other gay bars and see that there's, you know, country bars, there's the disco bars, there's whatever, you know. Yeah. The leather bars, all that stuff. It was just, it just opened my eyes even more.
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RS: So when did you graduate college?
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CB: Graduated college in 1987.
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RS: And what took you to Phoenix?
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CB: Warm weather [laughs]. I, I had a girlfriend, I guess you could quote that and uh, I used to teach aerobics in Billings at the [inaudible] Fitness Center and one of the girls there was coming to Phoenix to see her sister. So she invited me to come with her and it was in November. So in Montana in November, you know, it's cold. And we came down to Phoenix and it's 80 degrees and I'm like. Oh, my. Oh, my. This is paradise. So I was about ready to finish college and I just thought, where am I going to go? My brother actually lived down here at the time and I just needed a new adventure and wanted to get to a big city, probably because I was trying to. Just, you know, open up, so, that's why I decided to go to Phoenix.
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RS: So 1987, would have been right in the middle of, you know, the Reagan years and the AIDS epidemic?
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CB: Correct.
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RS: How did that affect your life?
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CB: Well, I got into Phoenix in November of '87. My grandmother had just passed away. So on my trip down, I stopped in Casper got there. You know, this is when I was kind of like, trying to find jobs. I was, you know, I had my degree was kind of a personal trainer at the time. So I found a couple of jobs doing that and then started to go to the gay bars and then starting to hear about this gay cancer, and all about everything. So for me, it was, it was scary because I didn't understand it. I didn't really know what it was about. I mean, I'm just like getting into being gay and hearing this, and it's like, what the hell? So I befriended an older gentleman. His name is Gary. And I met him at Charlie's and on Friday night and we went to a place where everybody goes for breakfast and we were just chatting and.
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CB: He was getting ready to go to Flagstaff to work on some people's houses, kind of like a handyman, so he asked me, he said, listen, I need someone to look at my house for the summer. Would you be interested in just staying at my house for the summer? Like what? So I literally did and I mean, and he knew I was from Montana and he told me, he said, listen, I know that you're good people and I'm still good friends with him. And I think he was another person that kind of helped guide me into that and everything. So it was, it was still scary, it was still unknown. I wasn't sure what was going on. But again, because I'm new to all this it was also there is some political stuff going on in Arizona at the time with our governor and Ed Buck and. All that stuff, so it was, you know, it was just crazy. Yeah, but just literally crazy.
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RS: And, you know, when you started going to Charlie's and opening up more, did you talk at all with your family about it?
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CB: I did not. In fact, let's say that was in '87. I started going to the rodeos in Phoenix in that January, I think it was '88. I volunteered in '89. I thought these guys were crazy. Greg Olsen was the big rodeo cowboy at the time and I went to L.A. to go to the rodeos so he got stepped on by a bull and a lacerated liver these guys are frickin crazy. What the hell are they doing? But I kind of got into that whole rodeo thing and ended up going to Denver. And in Denver, I apparently had a little too much to drink and got into a situation that was not good. And I don't remember a lot of it except for about six months later, I went and had tested and was HIV positive. So being 26 at the time, being new to all this, and everything else - uh, it was just, it just happened. And, you know, it was unfortunate. My family still didn't know about me being gay. And then in 1990, I met a doctor that I was dating and I'm like, you're crazy, you're dating a doctor, you're HIV positive. You know, he's going to find out.
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CB: He's going to freak out. And it was that whole stigma with it, because literally every time I would date somebody and they would find out, they were like, you know, they just ghost you. They just didn't - and I can't blame them, because they don't understand it. But, so I was dating, this doctor's name is Ken Cross, and, you know, we were -we met at Charlie's, actually. Our friends brought us together. My friends physically picked me up and carried me and stood in front of him and said, you guys need to talk to each other. We talked for three hours. We didn't move. We never talked about a relationship, it just developed. And we started just doing things together. And he had a place in Deer Valley and I had my condo. We would spend certain places and nights with him and he'd spend nights with me and we had it all worked out, he had a sister. But one night we were just sitting there talking. He said, listen, I need to talk to you. I said, Well, I need to talk to you, too. And he said, well, let me go first.
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CB: And he told me he's HIV positive. And how ironic that anybody would find, what I want to say, good in that? Because I did and he did because when I told him, it was like, how did, why, how, who, what? You know, just how could this even happen? And so to me, that was liberating, it was like, oh, thank God to this stigma thing of, you know, trying to date people and figure that out. But um, he was an emergency doctor in L.A., so he was working at the emergency hospital. And a lot of this was going on and. I was told when he was draining an AIDS patients lungs, they had to switch the bag out, the needle got stuck and ran back into his finger and so, I don't know the specifics of it, but to me, it was like listen, it doesn't matter. It is what it is. And so we were together for two years and in June of '92, he passed away from AIDS. Which is really tough. It was a time when I was lucky to be allowed to be in the hospital with him.
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CB: So that was tough and my parents had just arrived in Phoenix the weekend after he had passed away. And again, my family know nothing about me being gay. They know nothing about the fact that this is my partner. They, I know. It was just - [inhales] so I'm trying to show my parents a good time and, you know, and everything and so I was with my mother that I finally kind of told her everything was going on about that was just about being gay. I did not tell her about being HIV positive. That came out years later. But, that was the first step. And she was fine with it, said there was no issue and. Eventually kind of rolled it out to the rest of the family who have never had any problem with it. So, yah.
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RS: So, when did you actually start competing in events at the rodeo?
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CB: Started in 1995 at the Phoenix rodeo, which was in February at that time.
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RS: So, you know you were aware of it, you've been going to it, you've been on, you know, the edges of it, dating, losing loved ones. What pushed you over the edge to start competing?
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CB: After I lost Ken, it took me a couple of years before I really started dating again. And then I started dating guys that were positive. And then I lost about three other friends that were guys that I was dating at the time and, you know, which was really difficult to deal with. I mean, it's like, what - you know, and I, when I was diagnosed in '90, January of '90, basically my doctor said, you probably have five years, so you probably need to get your affairs in order. And I was like, OK. Family still doesn't know about that, but um. I think what happened is I started thinking about what do you really want to do if you've got five years, you know? And I thought, you know what, I always wanted a horse.
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CB: I always wanted to compete in rodeos. Maybe this is something I can do. So, one of the girls I was working with at the Scottsdale Princess, um, lesbian, open about it, awesome, had a brother who was gay and she was telling me that he competes in rodeos. So she kind of connected me with Chris, and then Chris was talking to me and he found me this horse, and, you know, so I got a horse, like probably about six months before the rodeo and started learning how to ride and do all that stuff. And basically in January of '95, I entered my first rodeo and I think that's when the bug hit. I was just going to do horse events - I was not interested in anything else. But, yah, it's just again, the right people at the right time and how that worked out, I don't know.
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RS: And can I ask, how did you cope with um, being told you had five years to live and losing so many people you were close with? How do you even begin to cope with that?
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CB: I journaled. I have a journal and I go back to it. And today when I go back and read, it brings me to tears because it was pretty dark. It was really dark. And to have that documented and I'm already getting a little bit, whatever right now, [inhales] um. It, again, because my family wasn't aware of my medical stuff as they were of being gay, my roommate at time, Gary Harry, was very supportive of that and probably the one that I leaned on the most. And I guess you just move on. You have to be able to say, listen, this is what happened. Are you going to get sucked into the black hole of all the what, why, when, how, poor me, or are you going to move forward, find things that you want to do, enjoy life and, you know, take control of that? And I think that's what I did. So I kind of got myself into rodeo.
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CB: Work was really good work was where is was at the time and that gave me the ability to kind of start working with rodeo, meeting really good people and being able to travel and have fun and yeah. So, I think that's just how I coped with it, but my journal was my big thing for me to just write down every day, kind of what the hell happened, and how you were feeling. And, yeah, and it wasn't always good. I was like, you know, I'm ready, I'm ready. I'm done with this. I'm ready - [laughs] which is crazy. But yeah, I know it's kinda - I lost a lot of friends, you know, and it's just uh, [exhales] yeah. I guess I'm fortunate, very fortunate, blessed, whatever you want to call it. But I do work very hard to take care of myself and took control of that, and my, you know, my medical care. I don't just do what the doctor says. You know, I research. I challenge.
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RS: And were you open at work, did you feel supported at work at all?
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CB: Not initially, in fact, in Arizona, you could be fired for being gay. So I literally had a doctor who would create an alternate being for, and you would pay cash for everything, because you didn't want anything going to your insurance companies, which just is crazy that people had to do that in order to get the care that they needed. And thankfully, you know, although it probably was illegal with the doctors at the time, they had to do something for these people. And, you know, some of them didn't have that, and then when their employers found out not only were they sick and needing help, they were unemployed.
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RS: That's really devastatingly scary.
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CB: It is, it really is.
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RS: So as you started to get more involved with rodeo, you said you started with some of the horse events. What did that look like?
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CB: That's barrel racing, pole bending, flag racing. Barrel racing is a traditional women's rodeo event, but in gay rodeo, women and men can compete in all 13 of our events. We don't - we open that up for them. So I was competing in those three events. I had a friend that was coming in that I was going to compete in Steer Deco, I can't forget. I don't think I was doing Wild Drag at the time I wasn't doing any roping. So it was just those three or four events. Goat Dressing is just a fun camp event where you run down and put a pair of BVDs on a goat. And, you know, it's crazy as hell, but it's fun and yeah, it's probably one of the most entered events.
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RS: Um, did you work with one horse in particular?
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CB: Yeah, it was a four year-old mare that I bought, her name was Sugar, from Chris. Chris [Eisenhet]. And she was a little smaller than most horses, but she was uh, she was out of [Justalina and Dockbar], which is great horse lines, you know, just she just had a heart of gold and just loved what she can do, so yah.
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RS: So if you were living in a condo at the time or were you still? Or essentially I'm asking where did the horse go?
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CB: Initially I was boarding him at Chris [Eisenhet's] place. So he's the one that found her for me, so he was going to take care of her and everything. So I basically would go down there and ride and then when we went to the rodeos, he'd haul her for me. In fact, one that year, he hauled her out to Atlanta, Georgia, because they had a rodeo out there, so yah. It was awesome because he kinda took care of all the hard work, basically, and I just kind of, you know, showed up and jumped on.
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RS: Well I've heard before that there might be some divides at times in IGRA culture between the horse people and the non-horse people. Is that a real thing and did you ever feel that at all?
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CB: [breathes in] Well, there was a term called FHP, which is some people will say his "favorite horse people," but other people use the other acronym for the F word. Um, you know, it exists. It exists because we as horse people, who make large investments in our animals and their care, we don't want them injured, you know, so arena dirt conditions to us are very important. We do not want hard packed dirt. We don't want it where they can slip and fall. We want a safe environment for them, as with anybody who has a pet. If you're doing anything with them in any type of competition. So, you know, I crossed the line because I was in, I started doing rough stock events, I did the camp events, and then I started adding roping events - so I basically competed in all 13 events.
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CB: I can kind of see where certain contestants that, you know, are the rough stock riders. They just kind of come in with their gear bag. They put their gear up and get ready to go and they jump on the animal. They do their event, they're done, they're gone. But they also want the arena to be a little bit soft because when you fall on that, it hurts. And, you know, when it's rock hard, you, your hip doesn't - yeah, well, if you're twenty-five, it's probably OK. But as you get older it's, you know, and people falling off of horses are et cetera, et cetera. So horse people are a little bit, you know, persnickety because they care for their animals and those are expensive animals. And when you have an injury, it's expensive to take care of. Yah.
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RS: Have you ever experienced any protest of gay rodeo from either, you know, people saying that rodeo shouldn't be gay? Or from PETA and people concerned about animal welfare at all?
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CB: Both. San Francisco, Sacramento, Vegas - all from PETA, understandably. And I respect them and I understand where they're coming from, it is out of concern. But it's more of an educational thing. They just don't understand things to the point where somebody was like, oh, my God, they blind the horses with these things over their head. And it's like, you do know that's a fly mask? And that literally is to protect them from the flies biting their eyes. Oh! So, you know, it is about education. It's like you can't just look at something, you know, when they flank a bull or a bronc to buck. You know, it has a fleece-lined flank strap. It's like cotton, guys.
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CB: I mean, it's yes, they want it off, but it's not harming them in any way. You know, when you're trying to move a fifteen-hundred-pound bull through the chutes to get them in there, sometimes they're stubborn and they don't want to move. Well, sometimes you got to slap them on the ass or something to do that. And we went from Hot Shots, which are just little electrical things. But you know what? It's just you can hot shot anybody, it's not that bad. But it does get them to move or it gets them out of a dangerous situation. So we try to adapt and move to beaded paddles, which is a paddle full of beads. You know, they get smart.
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CB: They're like, I ain't movin, you know, and it's kind of - so definitely I understand that. I respect it, I respect their right to do that. As long as they respect our right to do our sport and realize that we take very good care of our animals. They are very well taken care of. From the gay aspect? Yeah, there's been a couple of pride parades that we've been in as rodeo associations that we've seen the protesters line up and all that. Which, you know, again, it's America, everybody should have the right to express themselves and we don't deny that, they're free to do that. But, you know, we're also free to live our lives the way we want to as well.
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RS: So when did you meet Brian Helander?
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CB: Brian started rodeo in the same rodeo I did. I knew Brian because I met him at Charlie's one night and, you know, he was a little older than me, maybe 10 years, but [laughs]. He'll, he'll be pissed off with that, but that's OK. And, you know, I mean, back then, he was very attractive and I was attracted to him, but he had a boyfriend. So to me, it's like there's no chance of that. But the gentleman that I was supposed to rodeo with in camp events that first time ended up not being able to get down to the rodeo. So I didn't have anybody to partner with. I didn't partner with Brian at the time, but I partnered with another guy from Chicago and I rodeoed, did camp events with him for that first year. But, Brian and I had met each other knowing that we were doing the rodeo and we're talking and it was in '96 that we decided to do all the camp and team roping and everything together and just be kind of rodeo partners. And travel together and everything, so.
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RS: That's amazing, and I'm sure Brian will love that you noted his age. [laughs with CB]
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CB: That's OK. It's bittersweet [laughs with RS].
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RS: I mean, he will appreciate that you called him attractive.
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CB: Well of course! I, I, - you would be surprised. I've seen the pictures, I'm like oh my God.
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RS: So I want to drill down into some of the events. What do you think is the role of camp events in IGRA?
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CB: They're really designed for fun to bring people into the rodeo arena that don't have a horse or don't want to do rough stock. Just want to come out and play and kind of just get used to that. We think that that'll bring them in and get them maybe interested in a little bit more.
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RS: Yah. What was or has been your favorite camp event to participate in?
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CB: Probably goat dressing. You know, Brian and I, for twenty-six years, we've got the whole non-verbal, verbal everything down and you know, to the point that people have tried to videotape us and see how we're - what we do to that underwear, you know, and it's it's just funny. And, you know, we've been successful in that event. We've been successful and Steer Deco too, Wild Drag is fun, but lately the animals have been a little bit rougher than usual, so. Being, you know, rather old myself, [laughs] you know, it's kind of like I'm not sure, but it really was intended to have fun. And we - I think we need to refocus on that. But definitely goat dressing is our favorite.
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RS: So can you, so in Rough Stock which Rough Stock did you participate in?
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CB: I actually competed in all: Bull Riding, the Steer Riding, the Bareback Bronc Riding and the Chute Dogging.
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RS: And can you walk me through what, sort of, preparations before you get on a bull and then what that experience is like? Obviously ride would be different, but just sort of, how does that feel bodily to do that? How do you get yourself ready? And then live through it?
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CB: Yeah, well, definitely being in good physical condition is good. I, you know, it was a personal trainer. I worked out as much as I can in my entire life, and I will continue to do that, you know, so strength to a certain extent is good. But it's more about center of gravity. It's more about stretching and flexibility and making sure prior to my ride that I was stretched out. Uh, as far as preparation, you know, from strapping my boots and jeans up to put my spurs on, to my chaps, to my vest, to my, you know, I didn't wear a helmet at the time. It was not the thing to do and knock on wood. I somehow escaped any, you know seriou- well, maybe not. Maybe I've had a few head, head-bumps. But, you know, once you get focused on all your preparation and that for me, that was what it was about to where I wasn't thinking about my ride or how big the animal was or look at those horns or, oh, my God, he's only got a left horn. Nothing.
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CB: I really didn't want to see my bull. I didn't want to stock contractor to come tell me, he traditionally comes out so circles to the left or the right, and sometimes they'll tell you that because they're unpredictable. And if you are set to think they're going left, and they go right, you're already gone. So for me, it was about I focused more on my preparation, stretching, flexibility, equipment, getting everything ready, burning up the rosin on my rope, getting the handle rosined up as well, making sure my glove is good, getting my wrist taped, having my mouthpiece, everything ready to go, having my poller and my safety set up, you know, so when my team and my bull came in, in the preload shoot, I would go rig them up myself because I want to make sure my riggin' was right the way that I want it. Although Brian was very good at that. And Brian, majority of my rides was always there - I learned that he would do that for me and he wanted to and I was good with that.
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CB: You can rig it backwards, and I think maybe that happened once or twice, but I always told him, I said, just drop the bell over left [laughs]. I told him don't drop the tail, because for me, that's bad luck. But, you know, you get all these, you know, he can't wear yellow. You can't put your hat on the bed. You know, you can't wear a buckle after you rent it until two rodeos later. But anyway, I digress. But it was really about focusing more on everything that I needed in my equipment and [inaudible]. So when I got up there, it was it was still the focus. Get on, get centered, get your riggin' where you want it, move it up under his armpits, you know, get the bell centered. It was all a process. For me, the more I stuck to the process of what I was doing, to the point in time that I was ready to go and I would nod my head, then it was stick on your spot and just stay with it and just not tense up.
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CB: But use my arm as my strength and keep my feet wrapped around him. I was pretty successful at it. I don't know why. Everybody told me as big as I was or like, you can't ride bulls, you're too big. And I'm like, "Oh well, we'll see." So for me, I think keeping focused on the preparation and the steps of everything I needed to do, kept my head out of the fact that you're sitting on a fifteen-hundred pound bull and this could happen, this could happen, this - you never think about that. And even to the point when you hear the buzzer go off, you pull the rope, you look over, for me because I'm left-handed, you look over your left shoulder. You flip your right leg over, he'll throw you up and you'll land on your feet. I mean, you just had that all figured out to where. It didn't always happen that way, ya know, but yah.
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RS: What does it feel like, is it, you know, is it like being on a roller coaster or in a jet plane? What is that? The spinning and the going up and down. Have you ever experienced anything else like that?
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CB: Uh, I did the Fremont experience zip line. And initially, when they dropped that gate down in your coming out there and I did the one where you kind of do the Superman position thing, and it was kind of like that. Now I want to do some of these like Brazilian ones where it's like forty miles up and that, you know, it's that feeling of that adrenaline when it hits you and you're just like, oh, my God. And then it just hits. And you're like, this is amazing! And it was for me, it was just the feeling of, you know, just keeping my spot and keeping where I need to be. And, you know, and then it was done. And that adrenaline and that feeling to me, you can't match it. Yeah, that was my drug of choice.
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RS: And did you ever have any serious injuries at the rodeo?
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CB: Well, luckily from bull riding, I only had a fractured ankle, which, you know, and it was because six weeks earlier I had fractured my ankle in Bronc Riding in Vegas. And so, I probably didn't let it heal up. And as and it wasn't because he stepped on me. It's because I got off on my left foot wasn't right. And I rolled it and I refractured it, which just a small hairline fracture. So knock on wood, Bull Riding, no serious. Steer Riding I broke my right arm, both bones, and it was Oklahoma City. Brian was riding steers at the time and I'm trying to walk out of the arena with my arm hanging because it's broken and he's yelling, "I need the vest! I need the vest!" Because he was still riding [laughs], but it was like oh don't worry about me. So they got him the vest. But it was, [chuckles] just the things we deal with. So I'm in the back behind the chutes waiting for him to finish up the rodeo with my wrapped up arm.
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CB: You know. I had two titanium plates put in, probably the worst one for me. And it wasn't really bad. It was in Albuquerque finals. In Wild Drag, my friend Mickey Montoy and I, there were there were a couple of lesbians that were doing a documentary on us and it was awesome. So they were, you know, we were like, hey, we're going to dress up in drag for you. So we put lipstick on. We did the whole thing. And mind you, we don't do drag per say like drag-drag like professionals, but leave that to them. But, you know, so we went out in Wild Drag, my steer, just as I was going over the line, did a quick turn, and I rolled over in the back hook, caught my lip and ripped my lip down to my jawline.
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CB: So I had you can't see it, but there was a scar there. So I got up, you know, and everyone was like, "Oh, my God, you're bleeding." And I'm like, "What?!" Well, you know, again, your adrenaline's high, you don't know what's going on. So I just kind of grabbed it, not thinking that I have shitty dirty gloves, but, you know, anyway. So we go over to the medics and the medics are like trying to get it cleaned up and they're like, "You're going to have to go to the hospital. You're going to need stitches." I'm like, "But wait a minute, I got flag race left. I gotta finish flags because this is finals! I qualified!" So I said, "Dude, tape it up, whatever. I got another event to do!" So they taped it up and crazy as it was, and uh, finished flags.
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CB: And Brian got me to the hospital and on the way, he's like, "You've got to get that lipstick off. You've got to get that lipstick off." Because you don't go to the hospital and say, "Hey, I was just in a rodeo," because your insurance will freak out. But so, I'm trying to hold the flap and pull the lipstick off, you know, and do everything I possibly can, but. You know, we eventually got to the hospital, they didn't ask too many questions, but it was just like, you know, that they were just they probably knew, but they're probably. "Well, what happened?" "Well, we were just practicing for Halloween dress up and we had an accident and I slipped and caught my lip." And, you know it was, uh. Yeah. I've hit my head several times, you know, not too seriously, but other than that, I think, you know a couple gores, you know, from the bullhorn or whatever. Oh, I forgot New Mexico two years ago, in Wild Drag, I had the rope and the steer was crazy. And so they, I was dragging on the ground, literally it was Wild Drag.
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CB: So I grabbed the rope and pulled em, and the steer turned around. Well he saw me and he was aggressive and I was just getting up and he came after me and I took his right horn right above my right eye. And everybody said it sounded like a watermelon exploded. It didn't. It just cut it open. But the blood was coming into eye, I thought I had lost my eye. So I stood up with the flak jacket that had fallen around my legs because the straps had come undone. And I proceeded to probably say every fowl word there was in the book for about 20 minutes. And Brian, who's a nurse, knows that sometimes that happens when that [inaudible] [laughs]. But the poor medics were trying to hold it on there and, you know, get it cleaned up and I ended up going in for stitches. But I'm sure the crowd was like, "Oh, my God, this man is crazy!" because I just everything. So I'm not proud of that moment, but [laughs] what else could I do?!
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RS: What are you competing in this weekend?
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CB: All the roping events, all the speed events, and Chute Dogging and Goat Dressing and Steer Deco.
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RS: Can I ask? What is - what's really the difference between Bull Riding and Steer Riding? In terms of experience?
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CB: It's, Steer Riding is more for entry-level people to come in, but it's actually a little bit more difficult to do, because they're smaller, they're quicker and they're really not trained in the event. But it does give our contestants a less dangerous event, I guess you could say, to see if they really want to move into Bull Riding or not. But, yeah, I mean, it's for me, it's harder to write a steer because they're smaller and they're squirmy and they belly roll and, you know, so it's a little bit more challenging.
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RS: Have you ever competed on any of the royalty competitions as a Mr. or a Miss?
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CB: I have not. I think I did a fun Charlie's Miss Rodeo fun thing, whatever, one time, so. But that was it, yah.
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RS: Um, are you close with anyone who does royalty at all?
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CB: Actually, Brian and I were, in the earlier years, the royalty have to do a horsemanship video. So we were always there to help them with that and get their horsemanship videos on our horses. So, yeah, we were you know, that's where we felt we could contribute to that.
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RS: That's really great.
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CB: Yah.
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RS: So, as you've been a member for, twenty-five years, thirty-five years?
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CB: Twenty-six.
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RS: Twenty-six years - I'm good at math.
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CB: It's OK [laughs].
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RS: History PHD over here [laughs with CB] How have you seen the association change over time?
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CB: When I first started going to rodeos before I was competing, especially like L.A., it was amazing how many people in the community came out. I mean, we're talking 10,000 people. Not all of them came for the rodeo. They came because there were dance tents. There were cloggers in this tent. We had country line dancing here. We had two-step over here. We had disco over here. So it was like every, you know, gambit of the whole LGBTQ+ community [laughs]. Uh, you know, so it was it was exciting to be a part of that. And going out after the rodeo and the bars were crazy and, you know, people were having fun. You know, it kind of went through a lull, I'm going to say probably in the early 2000s. And then I kind of pick back up and then we started losing contestants, mainly because we're not bringing in younger contestants and we're all getting old, because time does that to you.
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CB: So I think we're suffering from that point. I think we're really wanting to bring in some younger people, to not only do the rodeo, but get involved in the associations, how are all non-profit. We all do it for charity. And initially it was all that money was going to help a lot of AIDS patients. Now we do it for cancer. We do it for, you know, the community. The rodeo community gets to choose who their beneficiaries are of that. So it is about charity. But, but you know, yeah, I think we're struggling right now and then especially with Covid, you know, and having that lull. This is our first rodeo coming back. So we're excited to see who's coming back and see what I can do.
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RS: Yeah. So my first question would be, why do you think young aren't joining?
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CB: Well, I think that, and this isn't a bad thing, I think. Just overall, people are becoming more accepting of it. I think a lot of the younger kids don't see the need to go to a gay bar. They go hang out with their friends, whoever their friends are, whatever their friends are, they don't care. They don't do labels. It's just interesting for me to see what's happened. And it's kind of like, we've been fighting for this for years and it's happened and we're all like, oh, crap. [laughs] We didn't expect this is a side effect. So you can't be upset with them, you know? And maybe we need to look at it, and I think, you know, there's been discussion. Maybe we need to take the gay out of our rodeo associations and just make it more about inclusive and, you know, non-discriminative or, you know, just whatever we can do - because we allow everybody to compete.
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CB: We don't care if you're gay or not. But we had the gay games in Akron, Ohio, and the facility where we had them, I was the contestant, kind of support person, the lady that ran that said, you know, all my writers here are so happy you guys are coming and we're going to do everything we can. We know we can't compete, you know, but we're okay with that. But we want to help in any way that we can. I said that you can compete. She's like, but we're not gay. And I said, that's okay. There's nobody that checks for that. [Laughs] There's no way to really check for that unless that, no. But anyway, so it is that stereotype that we can't get over.
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CB: But, you know, just for me, if I went to, hey, there's a straight hockey league, I'm going to be a little bit hesitant about it because I'm gay and it is about how you label it. So we've had the discussion at our conventions for several years trying to figure out a solution to that. We've not come to a point where we can get the majority of the assembly to really change that. But my suggestion years ago was drop the gay and put in a deeper, diverse. The International Diverse Rodeo Association - something. But uh, until we do that, I think we have to understand that, we're going to have to explain to people - we're not, you know, exclusive to just gays. Yeah.
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RS: And how is the association historically been split between, you know, men, women, non-binary people? What is it historically looked like?
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CB: We always had a strong male leadership. I think we've had a couple of female presidents, including Candy, our current president and Linda, oh I forget, Linda Frazier. But other than that, it's mostly been men, even the board of directors has been traditionally more men, although we have more female trustees coming on board, which is good. Um, [clears throat] you know, as far as, what their sexuality is and that? I know that we've had straight people in those roles. Lori comes to mind, she's from Vegas, and she's kind of a straight ally. But it wasn't about, again, being gay or whatever. It was just like, be a part of us. So I don't think we necessarily look at leadership from sexuality in any way. And who knows for sure? Because I don't ask them. I'm like, what are you? "Well I'm -" ya know [laughs]. We just assume you're here and, you know, you're going to bring something to the table and you're going to help us promote things and build the association.
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RS: In the late 80's and early 90's, what was the sort of a country-western scene like? Was Charlie's filled with, um you know, gay men and lesbians? Were the bars separated? What did that look like?
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CB: Charlie's was more male. I don't think that they really discriminated, but I th- they might have at the door. I've heard that, which I think is sad. But there was a bar called Cash-In, in Phoenix that was mostly the lesbian cowgirls. And again, it was like, why? You know, why can't, you know? And I'd been to the Cash-In before and they never gave me any problem, you know. But it was kind of their space and their place and we didn't want to be disrespectful or whatever. And they probably thought the same thing. But it was really ridiculous, when I look back at it, it's like, why? Why would you do that? Both good supporters of gay rodeo. I know Charlie's traditionally has been very strong in supporting gay rodeo, which is wonderful. But we also need to make sure that we're allowing other not just bars, other organizations to come in and be a part of that and support it, but. Yah.
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RS: So, you know, moving forward, what do you see both for your own continued future in the association and then what do you hope for the association?
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CB: Well, for me, you know, I take it pretty much one rodeo at a time. I've got my seven-year-old mare that I've trained, and this is her first rodeo. So for me, this is all about her. This is all about creating great experiences for her. The trailer ride up went great, getting into the stall went great, you know, getting the arena today went great, getting in the roping box went great. Tomorrow's a whole different possibility because there's going to be music and noise and announcers and things that she's not been exposed to. So, uh, she's my priority right now. I know what to do for the events that I'll use her in, but I'll be using her in the speed events and then the roping, too, which is a lot to ask from a seven-year-old, but she's very smart, she's just like her mom. So, you know, for me, if she's willing to do this and she's good and, you know, I'm good with that.
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CB: Again, I'm just taking it one rodeo at a time. Maybe another year, maybe two? That Brian and I talked about this 20 years ago, like, you know, there's going to come at a time when we decide that we're going to probably have to transition. And we're like, OK, transition to what? And we always talked about, probably being judges, rodeo officials. So, you know, for the association, um, it's a lot of struggles and it's a lot of struggles because the bars, the gay bars are struggling. And that was our support. So we've got to find other support systems to help us, but it's really about supporting us because then our associations can get back to the charities and their community. And I think we need to do a better job of that. If it's looking for grants, if it's writing more grants or finding somebody who can help us write grants, then that's probably something we need to do.
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RS: Um, so. I forgot my question. [laughs with CB and Unknown] That happens a lot because I'm listening.
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CB: I forgot the answer, by the way. [Everyone laughs]
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RS: I wanted to ask if, um because, you know, I know that Brian's your rodeo partner, but I wanted to hear if you had ever had a part - a partner or partners in your personal life?
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CB: I have. I'm not one of the lucky ones that finds the golden egg and that you know, you're there for 25 years, but I still try. I've had a few rough ones, you know, which it's unfortunate, you know, that there's people out there aren't truthful, but, you know, I weather it and I move on. And for whatever reason, if I just like I said earlier, when life kind of just guides you and directs you, you sometimes can't blame yourself for, like picking the wrong person, you kind of just have to realize that listen, is this going to go or not? But if it's an unhealthy situation, then by all means, you need to get out of it and I want to make sure anybody that's in that situation knows that. And, you know, I have hope. I mean, I've extended my life beyond '95, which was my expiration date, and my health is exceptional. And I'm going to continue to drive it out and you know, and I know that eventually I'll find my, my twin flame or my soul partner.
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RS: I think I might be your twin flame [laughs].
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CB: Hey! [Laughs with RS].
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RS: I shouldn't say that, that's inappropriate [laughs]. So, uh, my follow-up question to that is, as a competitor, I know that rodeo weekends can be really intense, but were they also places that you were looking to find love or did find love even if it didn't last all the time?
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CB: Well, it is. It's a possibility. You know, there's been opportunities for some, you know, one-night stands or flings or whatever, and that's fine. I mean, you know, I don't judge people. I know there's people out there. However, whatever they want to do, it's none of my business, you know, and just as you know, what I do is not necessarily everybody else's business. But, you know, I do believe that I really want that that soul mate, you know, to settle down with. And I have a lot to give and a lot of love and. I look forward to that and I keep that forward thinking and keep it in my vision. But you know, it any rodeo, gay or straight, it tends to be about, you know, people hookin up! And that's just kind of a [inaudible] But that's a music festival, that's a NASCAR race. You know, that's that's anything that just kind of is what it is. [laughs with RS] And we're just natures, er, you know.
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RS: Yeah. Did you know anybody who met a rodeo and stayed together for a long time?
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CB: Uhhhh, yes. [pauses] I want to say, can Sean Eddings and Kirk Carter. Live in Texas now, Kirk was from California, Sean was from New Mexico. And they had known each other in rodeo for a long time and they're still together. Great guys, love them to death and that's a, that's a good match there. So, yeah, they're find people that meet and um. I'm trying to think - there was another couple that I know that met in '95 and they're just I'm drawing a blank right now but.
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RS: Yeah, in terms of the social life of rodeos, how do you or did you during like the last twenty-six years, do you compete, go to the bars, compete, or is it competition all weekend?
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CB: Well, earlier we used I used to go out, you know, I don't - I like drinking. I'm not a, you know, a heavy drinker, you know, especially now I've kind of learned to keep in moderation. But, you know, there - some people function well under the influence. So if they drink a lot the night before, they seem to do better the next day, maybe because they're a little more relaxed. That may have worked for me earlier on. I don't know, it doesn't anymore. So I, I'm not a big drinker, I you know, I'm like I'm I have like one good quality margarita a week and I'm good. I look forward to that. But, you know, I had one yesterday [laughs with RS] and I'm like, yay! You know, but one is good for me. But yeah, I tend to on rodeo weekends between Saturday and Sunday, I tend to not drink. I tend to focus on my hydration and getting all my electrolytes back up and get my vitamins in me and everything else because I'm not twenty-six anymore [laughs].
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RS: Um, can you talk about how last year with Covid-19 has affected either you personally, or the association, and what this rodeo could potentially mean?
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CB: Well, it drew us all from the association into a tailspin because we didn't know what to do. You know, we have an annual convention to do. We have our royalty competition that is in conjunction with finals. We knew that, you know when Arizona had theirs in February, which I was at that rodeo, and then everything hit. And then we finally made the decision of what do we do? We have to reach out to a parliamentarian to kind of help us look through our bylaws and figure out that the probably the best thing to do is to merge the two years together. Well, that means we didn't have a convention. That means our royalty team is going to roll over for two years instead of one year, you know, and then we're in the predicament now of like, well are you going to do 2020, 2021 and 2022? But now we're kind of doing a little bit different. So it's it's I think some decisions have been made, which aren't correct. But, that's just my way of thinkin'. Maybe a few other people, but not everybody thinks that, but.
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CB: The main thing is to get our rodeos back on. And so having this one, having Santa Fe, having Vegas is good, you know, and that's four rodeos in the last, what, two years. And then we can add that to 2022 and kind of get things rolling. So I think a lot of associations lost their support from their community and their bars, not because people didn't want to give, but because everything shut down. So a lot of the associations are struggling and that's why they had to cancel the rodeos. Not only that, because our rodeo in Canada can't get people across the border. If they brought the officials, they'd have to quarantine them for 10 days. So, yeah, it's for me personally, I just miss my rodeos. I mean, that was my expression. But I just kind of had to hope that things were, you know, would come around. For me, working from home was great and it still is. Saved me a lot of money on gas and travel, and time. But, you know, I still have my horse. I still have to work with her and get her trained and everything. So if it, if anything, it's giving me more time to train her to get her ready for this experience.
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RS: OK, so I kept you for about an hour.
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CB: Oh, wow.
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RS: Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you would like to talk about?
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CB: Um, I don't think so. Um. No, not unless- Do you have anything you like to follow up on?
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RS : Yeah, just like a couple of questions. But you um, you talked about how you got into rodeo, right, when you were dealing with the fact that you were trying to save your own life, basically by yourself without your family. You've been given this diagnosis of five years. You lost a partner. Do you think that there was something specific about rodeo and maybe the danger of rodeo or the physicality of rodeo, that something specifically about rodeo that helped you through that point?
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CB: Well, you know, I think it was more about when, you know, the people in the rodeo were looking at me based on not being HIV positive. And again, because I I chose to take control, I chose to do a lot of specific things for my health care that were not traditional. You know, I had a naturopath and was working with that right away. So if I'm understanding your question, which I hope I am. It, it was a way for me to to push further into life rather than pull back. And I think that maybe that's what it was, and again, having the right people in the right place at the right time, you know, I mean, I really was going through enough dealing with losing my partner. And I think one of the hardest part was the family wasn't really kind of, the father was OK with me the mother was a little struggling with it, my partner's mother. And the fact that they - I was allowed to be a pallbearer was really devastating to me.
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CB: So with all of that, I think I needed. To get into something that would get me out of that and not dwell on it, so again, I'm grateful for the power above or whoever guided me to the right people at the right time to make those decisions because it was life-changing to me, you know, and again, I I don't know what my expiration date is. Nobody ever does. But I was given one which sometimes feels like, hey, at least you have one. But it's like yah, but it's way the hell back there. Can you give me a revised one? Because, you know, it's hard. It's hard to see people get up and go through the crap of, like, you know, and it's like where is? Just, just give me the button, you know, I'm out [chuckles]. But yeah, I think the right people at the right time and the right influences helped push me into, "Go live." And that's what I wanted to do.
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RS : And I guess just too, like hearing you talk about preparing to write a bull. Like it seems so all consuming, like you're not about anything else. Is that an aspect of it that maybe keeps you grounded or centered, like it almost - do you meditate? I'm just was wondering if there's a similar mental space you go into to take care of all those ropes and harnesses and physical things, it seems overwhelming to someone like me who is just hearing about it.
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CB: Well, again, because, you know, my first steer ride was in Oklahoma City and I borrowed Cheryl Wains [inaudible]. Cheryl was an awesome bull rider. She was probably 5"2, and she probably weighed 100 pounds. And I mean, she was just amazing, you know, but she would get thrown off that bull and she'd hang on her, get tied up and she'd swing around that thing. And I'm just like, this is crazy. But I had influences like Scoot, Dennis Terrell's brother, who's straight, and he competed in the rodeos and he kind of gave me some hints. So I picked up little bits from people. And for me, I'm a processor. I'm analytic. I have to have a flow-chart, if you want to say that. To me, that's what I do at work.
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CB: So I think I was able to take this process over here and when I mentor certain students, I do the same thing. I'm like, this is what you need to do this and you need to repeat it every time. And it becomes muscle memory and it becomes automatic and you know what you're doing, but it keeps you out of thinking what could happen and it keeps you away from the fears, because that's in everywhere in life, you know, and you're going to, you're going to have failures and you can go back and analyze it. And I usually do with my kids that I mentor. Alexander's one of them. And I'm like, when he gets off ride again, tell me what tell me what's in your head. Relive it, rethink it. Go through it. See where you lost your focus. But, yeah. Did that answer your question?
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RS: Yeah. Thank you.
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RS: So I did think of a follow-up, I'm sorry. When it comes out when it comes to living through this pandemic. You know, I have kids, I am just the absolute horror of this past year of being afraid, and I'm wondering, as someone who has lived HIV positive, you know, what was it like watching the rest of the world kind of grapple with their mortality or the mortality of their friends and family in a way that, you know, the gay community had to do in the 1980s while other people looked on in judgment and, or ignorance or completely ignored the situation? What did that feel like for you?
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CB: Well, you don't wish any ill will on anybody for sure. I think there's a lot of people out there that really don't understand what happens with the AIDS epidemic. They'd have to dig into to go research it. But kind of being on the front lines of that with my partner and seeing everything that happened, it was, it was just horrible. You know, there were, there were angels who came in to help people where not even these men's families would come to their aid and help them. Not even a place to bury them. I mean, you know, to me, it should be taught in history, but it probably won't. But, you know, hopefully, hopefully some kids will take an opportunity to look at that. So when this all started, of course, you know, I'm HIV positive. I'm also diabetic. So I was like, oh, shit. But I was also told from work to go work from home and I did not go out. I mean, I wore two masks when I went shopping if I had to. But I went shopping, I went to the pharmacy and that was it. And I went home and I worked. And you didn't do anything. I did work with my horse because I had the capability to do that, you know, without anybody else around. So that was good.
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CB: But, you know, I, I. We need to look at what it can teach us. We need to look at the lesson. We need to look at what we can do in the future, what we can do better. And I still see some people that are resisting it. And I don't understand it. But that's, again, that's part of America. People are free to believe how they want to believe. And it's like, could you please just validate your resources before you make up your mind? Could you please just go to some of these organizations that will validate what's being said and if it's accurate or not? And but you know what? You're, you're educated from your family. And I see these younger kids that were brought up in these rural communities, and it's kind of what they were taught and it's scary. And you're like, when are you going to learn to go outside and do some of your own investigations and make your own mind up? I think that would benefit everybody, but it's going to be that way.
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CB: It's something that we have to live with and we're going to have to expect, because if there's a right side and a left side, you're never going to bring the right to the left or the left to the right. And if there's a way to find a middle line somewhere in there, then that's what we can do. But, you know, I, I - it still scares me that some people are not getting vaccinated. You know, I wish them well. I'm concerned, especially with the Delta variant, you know, so. Has, has history taught us anything? I don't think so. Now, the nice thing about it, if there is one, the nice thing about wearing masks, not Covid, the nice thing about wearing masks is the number of flu cases that went down. So can we look at that? Can we start to see that this isn't just about Covid. This is about what can we do to protect everybody all the time?
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RS: That's great. OK, well, I'm sure you're exhausted, but thank you!
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CB: Oh no! I could talk forever. [laughs with RS].
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RS: And we can always do follow-ups.
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CB: OK.
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RS: And thank you so much for your time!
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CB: Oh, thank you guys. I appreciate it.

Patrick Cowboy Ram

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Dusty Fleener: It is Saturday, November the twenty-third and it is 8:07 p.m. and we are sitting and visiting with Patrick. So, would you mind telling us about how you came to be involved with rodeo?
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Patrick a.k.a. Cowboy Ram: So I came to be involved with rodeo when I first moved to Washington D.C. Prior to moving to Washington D.C. I was listening to a lot of country music and when I moved down I looked to see what kind of bars there were in Washington D.C. and I found that there was a gay country western bar called “Remington’s,” located on Capital Hill just about six blocks from the capital and after moving to Washington D.C. I went to Remington’s because being a listener of country western music I figured that would be a good bar for me to go to. And I walked in and saw the bar, saw the dancing and I thought “This is where I want to be,” so pretty soon I was spending five nights a week there. About two or three weeks after I moved to Washington D.C. the rodeo association had a table and I had seen rodeos before and I thought that might be something that I want to check out a little bit more. So they were promoting and selling tickets to the rodeo.
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PCR: I was very poor in those days so I kind of waited until the end of the night just to get a little bit of information, ‘cause I didn’t have money to buy tickets. When I went up, Mike Lentz, who was very involved with Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association - as a competitor, as president, as trustee - was one of the first people who I met and he looked at me toward the end of the night as they were packing their stuff up, ‘cause I figured you know I could swipe a newsletter and not really have to talk to anybody. But, he caught me, and he looked at me, and he said “Have you ever been to a rodeo before?” And I said, “Yes.” And he said “Well you should come to ours.” And I took the information and read the newsletter. I didn’t go to the rodeo that year but they were beginning to, after the rodeo, they were beginning to look for planning the committees and the board for the following year. There were a listing of committees and the contact information for them and I thought well this would be a good way for me to start making a social circle and getting some friends in a structured way and maybe I might date a cowboy or two.
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PCR: So that’s kind of how I got started with the association itself. I joined the Social and Entertainment Committee and I joined the Public Relations Committee. The Social and Entertainment Committee was in charge of planning the volunteer appreciation event at the end of that year and I got involved in that and started talking to the then president, Jason Hayes, and working with him a little bit on the event and he was a bull rider and I thought to myself, “Well that will impress guys.” You know, “What do you do at the rodeo?” “I ride bulls.” So, as we became better friends I asked him how he got into rodeo and that I wanted to learn to be a competitor. He gave me some instructions on where to look for frodeo schools, etcetera, etcetera. And I went and learned from some rodeo schools and a year later I was doing steer riding. So that’s kind of the start.
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DF: That’s amazing. And were you hesitant to start doing the steer riding? I mean, you had no experience with it beforehand, is that right?
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PCR: I had no experience with steer riding or competing in rodeo beforehand. But I had done snowboarding prior to that and that was back in the days, you know, that was back before...that was back when snowboarding was looked at as the lazy man’s version of skiing, where it wasn’t taken seriously, it wasn’t considered a real event. It was basically, like, you were taking a skateboard and strapping it to your...a skateboard without wheels...strapping it to your feet with Wonder Bread ties and going down a mountain. So, I had done a little bit of an extreme sport beforehand. So doing rodeo itself and doing the steer riding my only hesitation was that I wanted to be good.
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DF: What’s your definition of “being good?”
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PCR: The definition of “being good” would be somebody who was consistently placing, consistently earning ribbons, consistently earning buckles. That was kind of my definition of “good.”
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DF: Do you remember your first ribbon or buckle that you managed to earn?
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PCR: The...I don’t remember my first ribbon or buckle. I actually do remember the first and only buckle that I have ever earned. So the first and only buckle that I had ever earned was with the Idaho Gay Rodeo Association. So they used to do an event every May and I would go out and participate in their event. They gave away one buckle, one buckle only for everything, one all-around buckle. Unlike some other rodeo associations or other rodeo events where they might have buckles for individual events or more than one buckle they had one and only one. And that was the first buckle that I had won by competing there. So, the first and only buckle I ever won.
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DF: That was really something if they only had the one and you won it!
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PCR: Yes.
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DF: My goodness. What year was that again?
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PCR: That was 2003.
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DF: And how much time, then, had passed into that point from when you had started the steer riding to earning the buckle?
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PCR: Five years.
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DF: Five years. Impressive amount of skill you managed to build up in such a short amount of time. And then was that still...you’re based out of Washington D.C. and you go clear out to Idaho to complete?
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PCR: Yes.
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DF: Is that common?
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PCR: Yes. Actually it is fairly common for people to basically travel the country to compete in rodeo
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DF: Would your home association send other folks or would you all travel independently and just happen to go to different...is it a coordinated event, I guess?
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PCR: It was more travelling independently but a lot of us would wind up at some of the same rodeos for the early, you know, late 90s early 2000s. You know, people would travel the circuit, like, a career, so you see a lot of the same people at the same rodeos and it’d be the same groups of people so, you know, kind of unorganized contingents that would be coming to the various rodeos across the country.
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DF: But so good to have those familiar faces and the touchstones of “Oh yeah, I haven’t seen you since…”
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PCR: Yes. Yep.
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DF: And so that’s how you got your start in rodeo and now you’re president of your association.
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PCR: Yes. And now I’m president of the association! [Laughter.] Thanks to Michael Lentz as well!
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DF: So really he is bookending the story here for beginning and to your rise to where you are now?
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PCR: Yes. Yeah.
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DF: Does he give more encouragement? More, “You look like you could use something else to get your hands into?”
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PCR: I’m sorry, say that again?
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DF: So he invited you to get into rodeo to start with, and then did he also invite you to get into the leadership roles?
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PCR: Now, well, probably after about the first year after I joined the Social and Entertainment Committee the person who was head of the Social and Entertainment Committee, at that time, Tracy Hipps, actually he was the one who kind of encouraged me to be head of the Social and Entertainment Committee the following year. I did that, I did Public Relations for a little while, and those were the two positions that I held until holding the position of president.
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DF: May I ask how that transition occurred?
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PCR: Sure! [Laughter.] So the way that transition occurred is we had somebody, Beth Brockleman, who had been in the position of president for probably, like, I would say four years. Maybe five years. And she was ready to step down and there wasn’t anybody else and we were having a membership meeting and what happened was I was on my way to the membership meeting, so I was on the phone, and you know they were talking about who was going to be the next president and how they were going to do nominations and blah, blah, blah, and at that point my phone lost signal and cut out.
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PCR: And so, about, you know, a few minutes later I called back when the signal was back and I said, “Hey,” you know, “Calling back in! What did I miss?” And Mike Lentz said, “Well, we just nominated and elected you president!” [Laughter.] And I thought, “Ha ha ha, he’s joking!” But when I got to the meeting it wasn’t a joke. They had nominated and elected me to be president. So that’s how that happened!
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DF: Did they give you any kind of...did the former person give you guidance? Give you assistance into stepping into that role?
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PCR: Well Mike Lentz and a few other folks like Les Boggs, and Louis Vernado, and Andy Pitman, and other people who had been involved in rodeo have been really good over the years in terms of being a resource for questions, sounding board, being a pair of hands, being at the rodeo, you know...Sonny Kurner, Mark Larsen, Oscar Moschello, or other members of our association who’ve done a lot of hands on work and a lot of, you know, vocal listening and sounding board and that kind of thing.
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DF: So you weren’t unsupported.
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PCR: Correct.
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DF: It sounds like a good family watching out for you.
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PCR: Yes. Yep.
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DF: What were some of the most challenging things that you’ve had to deal with in your tenure as president?
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PCR: Well membership growth is one of the things that is most challenging. For the area that we are in venues for doing events, whether they be rodeo school events or whether they be membership events. Another challenge is, you know, the membership who was part of the association in its adolescence is now matured into its middle age and maturing into the middle age they’re not as interested as they are in doing bar event when you’re like twenty-six and thirty-two when...you know, you’re forty-two and like fifty-six, you’re kind of interested in doing something else other than going to bars. So we’re trying to meet that desire and that need for the membership...is some of the challenges that I’ve had as president of the association.
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DF: And you have some new ideas on how to grow membership?
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PCR: That’s something that we’re always looking at, yeah.
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DF: And so that was the challenging. What are some of the most rewarding things for you in your time as tenure of president?
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PCR: Some of the most rewarding things...is, um, some of the most rewarding things...actually, the most rewarding thing is when people come up to me and they say...they either have really fond memories of the rodeo that we used to produce, or really fond memories of the dances, or really fond memories of our rodeo weekend, or they come and they say that they didn’t know that such a thing as gay rodeo existed. What makes that really rewarding is our last rodeo that we produced was in 2008 and our membership and IGRA’s membership has had a decline from, you know, the middle 2000s to now.
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PCR: But I kind of think to myself even though we may have a decline in membership, you know, how lucky am I to have been a part of something where, you know, people still remember it, like, ten years later. So that’s the thing that’s most rewarding and then finding people who are interested in country western and are interested in rodeo competition and they live in our area and they don’t know where to start or where to look, or that such a thing exists. So that’s the thing that is rewarding, is providing that for the people who...that has been their life, they want to continue that being in Washington D.C. and we can provide a way for them to do that.
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DF: Do people in Washington D.C., especially when they just discover the rodeo community, do they have that disconnect of “Well, it’s not out West.” You know, these ideas about cowboys are out West and the “American West.” Do they have some incongruity with...over on the east side of the states?
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PCR: A little bit. The questions that they tend to ask is, you know, “Where do you do that?” and “How do you practice it?” So that’s the part that’s the disconnect for them.
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DF: And you mentioned venues were an issue of just trying to secure the space. Is it that you have to go so far afield to find an appropriate one or one that will fit the size of the event that you’re running?
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PCR: A little bit of both. Finding a venue space that is in close enough an area of Washington D.C. that you’re not asking people to travel way far out and then finding something that would meet the requirements for what International Gay Rodeo Association is looking for in terms of your venue space.
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DF: You mentioned that you had moved to Washington D.C., where was home for you originally? Were you a military brat and moved around? Or did you come from out west and moved east? Or...
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PCR: No, I came from New England.
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DF: New England?
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PCR: Yes. Yeah. If you’ve ever seen the movie “The Witches of Eastwick” that’s my town.
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DF: But Washington D.C. is now where the heart is?
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PCR: Yes. Yeah. It, well, no the heart is still in New England but the body is in Washington D.C. Most of my family is still in the New England area, so, yeah.
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DF: And you have siblings?
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PCR: I do. I have two sisters.
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DF: Are they older? Younger?
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PCR: They’re younger.
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DF: Okay so you didn’t get picked on. At least they didn’t gang up on you?
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PCR: No, no.
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DF: What was growing up in New England like for you?
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PCR: I spent most of my time at the beach. Like every summer. And where I lived was...so you know, it was south of Boston and for the time that I grew up it was actually considered a fairly big town because we had twenty-five thousand people which was fair sized but we were kind of not suburban. We’re probably “sub-urban suburban.” I like to tell people that we were so close to being off the map that there was literally a park called “World’s End.” Growing up there wasn’t too much that is unique or unusual about the way that I grew up.
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PCR: Most summers were spent at the beach, the whole entire day spent at the beach. Most winters were spent in school, or as I got older, working. Other than that the most striking thing is when I grew up, if we had any kind of storm that was slightly remotely bad, the power would go out and sometimes the power might go out for three days and that was just a very normal part of growing up. And it wasn’t unusual to be prepared for that kind of problem, so, you would get out your candles and light them and...
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DF: So like a taste of frontier life, really?
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PCR: Yes. Yeah.
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DF: You mentioned snowboarding and then time at the beach, so you were very much into the high...extreme sports activities as well? Maybe surfing or, um, things like that that drew the adrenaline out?
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PCR: I did rowing, rowing on my own when I was in eighth grade, so my parents bought me a small dinghy for going into high school. It was something that I’d wanted for a very long time so I spent like three or four summers rowing all around Boston harbor with me and my two cousins. So I did that, and then when I got into the latter part of high school and the beginning part of college that was when I started to get into snowboarding. And I went to college in Maine, so there was a lot of opportunity to do the snowboarding there.
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DF: Did you have a fascination with being a cowboy or the ideas about western life even then? Or was this more of a recent interest?
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PCR: So it was a little more recent. When I was really young we would listen to country music, so, Linda Ronstadt, Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, I had a huge crush on Irlene Mandrell ‘cause my father had told me that she could play twenty-six different instruments and I just thought that was so incredible that I was just over the moon any time that her and her sisters would perform. Oakridge Boys, you know, Chrisofferson, Johnny Cash, all those. Dolly Parton, of course. And then probably as I started to grow up and get into junior high and high school I started listening to a little bit more rock and pop. And then after graduating college started to listen to more country music.
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PCR: Shortly after I graduated from college Wynonna and Naomi Judd stopped performing as The Judds, and it was just Wyonna on her own, and one of the first songs she ever performed was “No One Else on Earth” and I really liked that song so I bought her whole entire album. And then shortly after that Reba McEntire came out with “Why Haven’t I Heard From You” which I thought was the most hysterical thing I had heard up to that point, and I bought the album for that song and by that time Garth Brooks really started becoming very popular and so I just kind of fell back into it after being away from it for a while.
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DF: Do you have continuing interest in the contemporary music that comes out? New releases as well? Are you still following along with the...
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PCR: Yes, I am. I’m still following along with contemporary country music, so, Sam Hunt, Kane Brown...I also really like Trace Adkins, you know, I was a very big Chris Cagle fan and he was very nice to look at as well...Tim McGraw, Alan Jackson, all those folks, but also I really like some of the more contemporary country as well. Country as a music has evolved consistently, so the country music of the ‘40s sounds different of the country music of the ‘50s sounds, different of the country music of the ‘70s, sounds different of the country music of the ‘90s and the country music of today. So, my all time favorite country music song is “Crackers” by Barbara Mandrell, and you go back and you listen to her version of that song and it doesn’t sound very country at all, so, some of the music that is being performed today by Sam Hunt and by Lady Antebellum and by some of the other more contemporary performers that people might not say sounds like country...some of the music that was country music back in the ‘70s...that didn’t really sound like country either.
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DF: Do you...um, when you were doing the social event planning did you plan mostly around music or did you plan it around other events? Like maybe a barbecue or bowling or...how would you prefer to schedule social events when you were in charge?
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PCR: It was mainly around music, so we would do different...we had a, um, dance competition. So we had the “Atlantic Coast Open,” and so that was a dance competition...couples dance competition. We also did, um, social events in regards to, um, gosh what were some of the things that we did? [Laughter.] That was so long ago! We did a dance at Baltimore Harbor for a few years, um, also planning a lot of the social events for the rodeo weekend itself...the dances that took place for that...performances, and then also we did some drag shows and other types of events that we would do in bars as social and entertainment events. So two of the ones that I remember most fondly are...we had a event that we did that was a quiz show event. It was called “Gone in Sixty Seconds.”
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PCR: We would have people come up as contestants and they would have sixty seconds to ask...sixty seconds to answer questions. And those questions were usually centered around events and things that were happening within the gay community so they could be leather events, the could be drag events, they could be history events, um, but we used it really as a way to try and reinforce the marketing of what’s coming up. You know, when is the International Leather Convention? When does the rodeo take place? When is New York City’s Pride? Those were the kind of questions that we asked and then people moved up, kind of Price Is Right style, you know, whoever won moved into the final round and if we had a tie then we would have a lightning round with whoever was in the tie to answer questions. And if you got one wrong then you know that was it.
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PCR: It was like sudden death match! So that was the first event that I really liked that we did, and then the second event that we did was, um, the rodeo association had done a event called “The Shirt Off Your Back” auction. So they would auction off western t-shirts and they’d have good looking cowboys and cowgirls who would come out, people would bid on them and then whoever the winner was had the opportunity to take the shirt off the cowboy or cowgirl. We took that event and we put a little...we made it accessible for poor people, ‘cause not everybody could bid like sixty dollars on a shirt. So what we would do is we would have the good looking cowboys and cowgirls in the shirts and then we would have various prizes. So it could be a gift certificate to dinner, it could be a rodeo buckle, it could be a bar tab.
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PCR: And we took and put whatever the prize was in an envelope and put it around the neck of the cowboy or cowgirl and sold raffle tickets. So you could buy one raffle ticket for a dollar or we would do a whole string of them for ten dollars. So, you know, we would measure your arm, we would measure your leg, we would measure around your chest to try and maximize what you were getting. If your raffle number was called, and you were a winner, you could come up and you could choose...you know...like door number one, door number two, door number three, or door number four style...which cowboy or cowgirl whom you wanted to take their shirt off and you would open up the envelope underneath and receive whatever that prize was.
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DF: That’s a wonderful setup for that! You mentioned, um, the Pride, um...you said Pride Parade, was it?
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PCR: Yes. Yeah. Pride Parade.
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DF: Do you partner with other organizations outside of rodeo often in Washington D.C. area? Collaborate, share members, volunteers?
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PCR: We do. We are a member of Team DC. Team DC is the umbrella organization for all the sports organizations in Washington D.C., so, rugby, and kickball, and softball, and flag football, and dodgeball, and volleyball, and water polo, etcetera, etcetera, are all members of Team DC as well. So we’ll do things for them, like at Pride or if they’re doing some kind of volunteering...actually last week they had what they call The Challenge Cup. So people could get teams of five to participate in a quiz show, to participate in beer pong, to participate in darts, and to participate in Mario Kart. And we were judges for two of the events, so, we had somebody who judged the darts and then we had somebody who judged the beer pong, so, that’s our way of...you know...that’s kind of how we work with other organizations in the city to kind of collaborate with them.
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DF: And do you have a float or march in Pride Parade? Have representation there to help get out the word that Gay Rodeo exists?
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PCR: We do. We usually do marching in the Pride Parade or some other kind of involvement. Last year what we did was we were servers at one of the beer tents.
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DF: Ah, excellent. And then do you, um, still find people that are “Oh this is wonderful! I had no idea this had existed” and...
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PCR: Yes.
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DF: ...even in the digital age, and mass media, and...
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PCR: Yes. We do have people who are very excited. We do a horseback ride every month, so people...and it’s...that’s only twenty minutes out of D.C. so people are excited to come and participate in that, you know, to know something like that exists, you know, some kind of outdoor thing...is in the area and is accessible to them. So they’re excited to hear about that. They’re excited to hear about rodeo. You know, a lot of people are traveling more for work, or working remotely.
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PCR: And in Washington D.C. there’s a lot of that kind of...type of transient work where, you know, you might be going out to different parts of the country to do whatever it is you do. So having an organization like ours that is spread across the country, you know, you can tell people that yes there’s a rodeo that happens in New Mexico. There’s one that happens in California. In Colorado, and Missouri. So that as people are traveling they can look for that and look for their events and go to them and be part of it.
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DF: Aside from your own event do you have a favorite event that you like to go to in the contemporary time?
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PCR: Um. [Pause.] Hmm, I would say...you’re talking about on the rodeo circuit?
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DF: Or anything.
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PCR: Or anything? Um, I would probably say one of my favorite events to go to is flag football. I like going to flag football because I can just sit on the sidelines and watch and eat doughnuts and coffee and they’re running around and you know I can clap and so...yeah. That would be my...that would be the one outside of rodeo. And then inside rodeo I would probably say that the events that I really like going to are probably the events where they might have smaller turnout or smaller association rodeos. I really like going to the Missouri rodeo. North Star is going to be having a rodeo upcoming this year that’s something I would look forward to going to.
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DF: Have they had a hiatus from having rodeos for a while or is this going to be their first?
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PCR: So they usually do it about once every other year and I think that they had one...they had one in 2018 but not 2019 so they’re doing it again for 2020. But I think before 2018 it may have been three or four years before they had had a rodeo.
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DF: May I ask what does being a cowboy mean to you?
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PCR: So what being a cowboy means to me is being there to help people. Volunteer. To be a fair competitor...it’s one of the things about the rodeo association is people are willing to help you be a better competitor. They’re still going to try and beat you but they’re willing to provide you with guidance, and information, and hands-on help to make you better. One of the guys that I mentioned before, Oscar Moschello, back in the early days when I had started steer riding, one of the things that takes place with steer riding is your steer gets loaded into the chute, you have to have your own rope that you’re going to use to slip your hand into and ride the steer, tie it around him, and then there’s usually somebody there who helps set you down and that person is kind of your safety person so that way if you need to be pulled off the steer or the bull or the bronc in short order they’re there to do it.
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PCR: And Oscar Moschello, he had gone and done his steer ride, he had finished with it, he was coming back from the area after coming off his steer and I was going up next and the crew shouted out “Who’s tying this guy in?” And Oscar Moschello said “Me! Me! I’ve got him!” So he had just come off competing himself and he was willing to take the time to show somebody who was newer, and be there for somebody who was newer, to help tie him in, be his safety and make sure that the person who was competing against him also had a good ride.
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DF: And do you remember if you had a good ride?
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PCR: I probably did not! [Laughter.] Most people who are...most people who are doing competing and competing in the same events that I were...you know...so for us you have to stay on your rough stock for six seconds. You know I think I...in the times that I was not covering the full six seconds I might have done two seconds, three seconds. For the roping events, you know, the people who were doing it that are really in the top part, they’re doing it in six seconds or under. You know I’m more in like the twelve, thirteen, maybe eighteen seconds for the speed events. But for the people who are doing those in really good time they’re doing them in about two minutes and some change. You know mine is probably more like four minutes.
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DF: So you’re still actively competing then while you’re president?
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PCR: Actually I stopped competing in 2007.
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DF: Oh, my apologies. Did your family come and watch you compete?
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PCR: My family never came to watch me compete. [Laughter.] If only Facebook Live existed back then! [Laughter.] They could have watched! [Laughter.]
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DF: I bet sharing your win of the belt buckle was pretty good though.
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PCR: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really...yes. Yeah that’s one of my...that’s one of the things that I would save from my house if it were burning down.
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DF: Did any of your family members ever complete in rodeo?
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PCR: No.
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DF: You’re breaking ground as the first to do it?
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PCR: Yeah. I’m the first person. My sister did...one sister did ballet. One sister did wind surfing. And then I had two cousins who I grew up with and, um, they both did baseball.
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DF: Commendable for them. I find baseball quite challenging myself. Did you pick up music then with the strong interest? Did you do singing or musical instruments for yourself?
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PCR: I did not. I did pick up dancing though and so that’s...you know...that is one of the things that I am fairly good at.
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DF: Do you do competitive dancing then?
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PCR: No, I don’t do competitive, just pleasure dancing. But I really enjoy it. I really enjoy...I enjoy dancing with people who may not be as confident in their dancing, um, as I feel. When I was first learning to dance it probably took, like, two years to be really good and I always tell people who are just starting out to learn to dance, you know, that it’s process, you’ll get it. You know? For me, when I was first learning, it probably took, like, three or four months before you could speak to me while we were dancing. And then you could speak to me but I couldn’t speak back to you. Probably it was like six to eight months where I could speak back to you but it would be one syllable answers, so, “What’s your name?” “Patrick.” “Are you from D.C.?” “Yes.” “What do you do for work?” “Reception.”
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PCR: And then probably, you know, none to twelve months, you know, I could say a full sentence. “My name is Patrick.” “I’m from Washington D.C..” “I work as a receptionist.” And probably it took a year to eighteen months before I could really have a conversation with somebody while I was dancing because otherwise I would just get thrown off and trip over my feet, trip over their feet, so I always tell people who are new dancers who might be shy or intimidated or not that confident in their ability that, you know, you’ll get it. Just keep doing it and you’ll get it.
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DF: I bet they take a lot of heart from that.
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PCR: I hope that they do.
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DF: Do you do dancing at rodeos or is rodeo strictly for competition? Or is there a social aspect to it? Because I know that this [the IGRA convention] is a little different because it’s a convention so I’ve been warned that some things happen here that don’t happen out at rodeos, and some things happen at rodeos that don’t come back here.
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PCR: Correct. Um, so, most rodeos will have some kind of social aspect to it depending on where you are. Like here in Denver there’s Charlie’s, that’s a dance venue. There are some rodeos where they’ll actually have a dance as part of the rodeo itself. And then there are other rodeos where its, you know, just going out to a bar or a restaurant and hanging out afterwards.
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DF: Do you have a plan ahead of time with some friends? I mean now we have the digital age, back...perhaps further back they had telephone calls and maybe they were just lucky and it was like: “Well, we’ll hopefully see you at Phoenix or wherever.” But do you...do you try to plan ahead with your friends to say, well, “I won’t make this one but I will make this one and let’s try to get together there”?
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PCR: Yes. You do do some of that, um, prior to being a little bit more connected as we are now, you know, pretty much everybody wound up at the same place. So, you know, everybody would want...here in Denver you knew to go to Charlie’s. If you were in Dallas you knew to go to The-Roundup. If you were in our rodeo you knew we had dances that took place with the rodeo itself, so, people would just naturally wind up in the same place.
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DF: We talked a little bit about how some of the rodeo has changed since when you first stepped into it, to becoming president. What are some of the changes its had from maybe membership decline or venue struggles that you have seen change for better or for worse within rodeo in general?
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PCR: I think the biggest change that I have seen is that we have a lot of our competitors, now, who compete in places like National Barrel Horse Association, or compete in straight organizations, traditionally straight organizations, and they compete and they’re open and nobody really thinks anything about it. So, that’s probably one of the biggest changes that I see and, um, along with that...getting back to country music, with Ty Herndon who had...Ty Herndon came out, I forget how many years ago, and his career has actually had a resurgence because of that, whereas for many years he was in the closet for fear that it would ruin his career. So that kind of shows how far the world has come from when gay rodeo first began.
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DF: Did you ever have to worry about concealing that you were participating in gay rodeo? Did you have to worry about your own career or your own connections with families and friends that maybe wouldn’t have been as open or accepting about it?
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PCR: I didn’t really have to worry about that ‘cause I was stupid. So, one of the first places that I worked in Washington D.C. I was talking with a co-worker and she said, you know, “Oh, how was your weekend?” And she told me whatever she did for her weekend and I said to her, “Well, you know, I went out dancing this weekend and it was a good time and I’m kind of learning that I’m really a much better lead as a dancer than I am as a follower.” And she said, “Don’t guys always follow?” And I...it was one of those moments in time that expanded out like you would see in the movies where I thought to myself, like, okay, I have a choice here. I can either play it off as something or I can tell her the truth. And, um, what I said to her was “Well, where I go dancing men dance with men and the women dance with women.” And she just went, “Oh.” Like, you know, oh! “I’ve never met a gay, lesbian, or bisexual person before.”
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PCR: And then after that I was like, you know, that’s it. I’m going to make the choice not to hide because if I do have to hide, I don’t want to be there. So that’s my one story, and then the other story that I will tell is, um, in terms of connecting with people as a person and not just seeing you as a...somebody who is gay...but seeing you in the same way that we always used to say, you know, we don’t want to be “the gay doctor” or “the gay teacher” or “the gay veterinarian.” We want to be seen as the doctor who just happens to be gay. Or the teacher who just happens to be gay. So, one of the rodeos that I went to compete in, which was a straight rodeo, the friend with whom I went to complete...he and I were out and we weren’t in our rodeo gear we were just in street clothes, like regular street clothes, and we were at some restaurant, like Outback or something like that.
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PCR: We were kind of sitting around waiting to get ot our table and across the way from me I could see this kid hitting his dad on the leg and kind of pointing over at us. And his dad leaned in and the kid said something to him and his dad said loud enough for me to hear, “Yes, that is a Dale Jr. hat he has on.” ‘Cause I had a Dale Ernhart Jr. hat on. And I looked over at them and I said, “And he is my favorite driver.” And the two of us, you know, we just talked briefly NASCAR, and then they went on to sit at their table and my friend and I went to sit at our table. But that kind of connection with somebody else as a human being and talking about the rodeo and rodeo association, as a rodeo association, as you would talk about any other amateur rodeo association.
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PCR: So I would be in conversation with people and they’d say, “Oh, where have you completed before?” And I would say, “I’m a member of International Professional Rodeo Association and I’m a member of Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association.” And once in a while people would say, “Day rodeo association?” and I’d say, “No, gay rodeo association.” And they sometimes might be taken aback by that but then after talking with me and after talking rodeo life, country music, you know, etcetera, etcetera, they would come to look at me and accept me as a person and not be uncomfortable or standoff-ish or weird because I was a bisexual guy competing in gay rodeo. [Pause.] And I wanted to move our ball forward! So I was like, anywhere where I am confident I ain’t getting the crap beat out of me! [Laughter.] I’m going to make sure they know it’s gay rodeo! ‘Cause I am gonna break that glass closet! [Laughter.] So, yeah.
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DF: So what does the community then mean to you from when you first started to now? I mean, you’ve made more connections, you’ve taken on more responsibility. You certainly have a lot of people, just even here, from all walks of life who intersect, now, with your life. What has transformed for you in regards to being part of the community?
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PCR: I think it still means the same thing as it does then. For me the attraction of the community itself wasn’t because it was a gay venue, it was really the attraction of, like I said, Oscar Moschello. You know your competitors being willing to help you. Our events tend to be whole entire weekend events. The way that they are different in terms of what you would find for straight rodeo...for straight rodeo, on a Saturday you might have people come in, compete, and that you know...it might be a two or three day event but your competitors aren’t necessarily competing for the whole entire weekend. So, you may have barrel racers and flag racers on Friday. You might do your rough stock on Saturday. You know, and then you might do whatever other events on Sunday. You know, or you might do the events again and again each night. Saturday night you’re going to have one set of bull riders.
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PCR: Sunday night it’s going to be a totally different set of bull riders, ‘cause the ones on Saturday night they’ve done their ride, they’ve gone out Sunday morning, they’re moving onto whatever the next one is. Whereas for us it’s more of a whole entire weekend of competition. So you do Saturday and Sunday and that leads to a little bit more of a connection because you’re with the people the whole entire weekend. You don’t just see them on one day and then they’re gone and you might not see them again for, you know, three to six months. For our rodeo, you know, you kind of seen a lot of the same faces again and again at different rodeos more consistently than you would with a straight or a professional rodeo.
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DF: Have you started any traditions or do you have favorite traditions within rodeo that it just has special meaning for you?
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PCR: Um. [Pause.] None that I can think of right now.
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DF: My apologies, a little bit out of left field. It just occurred to me there when you were talking about some of the events and then with music and the venues and the community coming together I didn’t know maybe if you’d started something with yours that had then been transferred out to the other rodeos as well.
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PCR: Oh, yes! Actually, I can! Yes! Yes! My proudest accomplishment that I see transferred to other rodeos...so, back in the day we had three royalty titles. We had a Ms. We had a Miss. And we had a Mister. So your Ms. was your drag queen, your Miss was your real girl...no, your Miss was your drag queen! Your Ms., “M” “S” “period,” was your real girl. And then your Mister was your guy. In Washington D.C. there was a good drag king community, so, male impersonators as opposed to female impersonators, and somewhere, you know, in the early 2000s I had brought up the idea of having a “MsTer.” So, a drag king to go with the drag queen. And that’s still going on today. There is a MsTer International Gay Rodeo Association. I’m very proud of that. And I’m very proud that has continued ‘cause I think it is a good representation of our community and as rodeo’s acceptance as a whole for, you know, no matter who you are, come as you are.
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DF: So you had to form a committee to make that happen? Or did you just put a motion forward to the board?
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PCR: It was something that we ran through our board and we ran through our current royalty for Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association. And actually they were fairly open to it, so, yeah we had one for a few years and then other rodeo associations started having them.
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DF: So they saw that you had it and that’s a great idea!
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PCR: Yes. Yep.
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DF: That’s a good accomplishment to be proud of. I don’t want to be taking up your time so I just wanted to let you know that it is now 9:04 if you...
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PCR: That’s fine. Yeah.
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DF: I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t cutting into your time. Pardon me, I’ll make sure I’m referencing my question sheet so I don’t go too far afield by accident. [Pause.] Have you ever done rough stock events? I’m not quite sure about the categories so pardon me if we’ve already discussed it.
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PCR: Yes, I have, yes. Steer wrestling, steer riding. Yep. Those were the two rough stock events.
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DF: And have you ever been injured in rodeo?
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PCR: So, the injuries that I have had...is...I’ve broken my nose. I’ve dislocated my knee. I’ve had a fracture in my forearm. I’ve had a fracture in one of my foot...I can’t remember if it’s the left or right foot. And I’ve broken three of my fingers. Oh! And I’ve split my chin open. And that was all before I started competing in rodeo! [Laughter.] So, I have actually been every lucky in that I haven’t been injured at all to any kind of extent in rodeo. Um, International Gay Rodeo Association does a really good job of making sure that there’s safety for the animals and then also safety for the contestants as well. I’ve managed to actually escape being seriously injured while I’ve completed in rodeo.
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DF: Hopefully the good fortune continues!
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PCR: Yes! Yeah.
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DF: Why do you think fewer people are joining the association today?
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PCR: I think fewer people are joining the associations because they have the ability to go ahead and compete in other organizations. So for us, we were a safe space and a safe haven for you to come and not have to worry is somebody going to steal your equipment. Are you going to come out to your horse trailer and find the word “faggot” keyed up in it. Are you gonna find that people aren’t willing to help you. That your name mysteriously disappears off of the registration roster. When you would come to our event you could come and you could be yourself and you didn’t have to hide. Years ago our registrations asked for your alias. And when I first started competing I thought, you know, oh that’s kind of cute they’re asking whether or not you have a nickname like on the circuit. Like, I know some do. So I wrote down my nickname. And then the first time that I went to compete I went to the order board and I couldn’t find my name.
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PCR: And I turned to go and find one of the officials and say “My name isn’t listed but I saw my nickname on there.” And somebody explained to me sometime later that the reason that they use nicknames was so that if for any reason some of the registration sheets wound up blowing away or in public hands that people who really wanted to or needed to be closeted didn’t have to fear being out, or outed, that they could compete with cover. And that was something that just didn’t even cross my mind that they would do. Today, I...you know...we don’t do that anymore. You know they don’t ask for aliases or nicknames. You just compete under your name. And your alias or your nickname might be used as a real nickname. But they’ll announce your real name as well.
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PCR: And for things like professional rodeo associations or things like barrel horse associations, there isn’t the same kind of fear and stigma and intolerance that people used to face. And so people feel like they don’t necessarily have to come to us anymore ‘cause they can do competition through these other venues and not have to fear being who they are. So that’s our little microcosm and I think a larger microcosm is that we want to enjoy the reward for which we worked so hard. Tom Hanks starred in the movie Philadelphia with Antonio Banderas. And I was reading recently that there was a scene in the movie where Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas were in bed together and they cut that scene out because they felt like the world couldn’t handle it. The TV show Dynasty used to have the character of Steven Carrington. And in the beginning it was very clear, like, his storyline was he was a gay man. That was his struggle. That was the friction between him and his father. And as the show went along they kind of straight-washed him a little bit more in portrays him.
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PCR: And one of the very first things that they show in the very first episode is Steven and Sam meet at a bar, they get into an elevator and start making out, and then one of the very next scenes is the two of them in bed together...and it’s very clear that they’ve had sex, and that is kind of an evolution of where we were to now where we are. And I think the community as a whole really wants to enjoy that place for which we worked so hard. So, people are beginning to reconnect with families. They are beginning to reconnect with their kids and their grandkids and they kind of want to enjoy that life that being a person who just happens to be gay...that we all marched and chanted and met with politicians to work so hard for. the middle of the show. So he was in these relationships with women and marrying women and they made him appear less gay. And then as the 80s started to come to an end they kind of re-resurrected some of his gay storyline. But it was always very, um, chaste and clandestine and he wasn’t kissing another guy. He wasn’t touching another guy. They weren’t even holding hands. It was all suggested.
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PCR: You look at the reboot of Dynasty and they have Steven Carrington and in the very first episode he meets Sammy Jo. Rafael de la Fuente I think is the actor who portrays him. And one of the very first things that they show in the very first episode is Steven and Sam meet at a bar, they get into an elevator and start making out, and then one of the very next scenes is the two of them in bed together...and it’s very clear that they’ve had sex, and that is kind of an evolution of where we were to now where we are. And I think the community as a whole really wants to enjoy that place for which we worked so hard. So, people are beginning to reconnect with families. They are beginning to reconnect with their kids and their grandkids and they kind of want to enjoy that life that being a person who just happens to be gay...that we all marched and chanted and met with politicians to work so hard for.
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DF: What were some of those marches and meetings that you had participated in? I mean, was it, um, solely your organization or partner groups that you had scheduled time to go and meet with politicians to put initiatives forward? Or to share your personal stories and push person-first language?
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PCR: In Washington D.C. there were a couple of different organizations that would do that. So we would participate in a few of the marches on Washington that happened. I, myself, personally was a member of the Service Members Defense League...the military group that worked to help repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. So I would participate in their lobby day every year going and speaking to the politicians about repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. So, it was both. From an organizational stand point it was more of taking place within the marches and more of just being who we were in the community. For myself as and individual it was more being involved with Service Members Defense League.
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DF: And so you were in the service then as well?
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PCR: I was not. No.
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DF: Oh, oh. Just part of the...
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PCR: Yes. But my father and my uncle...my father and two uncles were both in the military service.
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DF: So you were quite familiar with everything they had to go through. We talked about the nickname piece, do most people know you as “Patrick” or do they know you by a nickname then?
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PCR: Most people know me as Patrick.
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DF: When you used that first nickname, um, was that something that you had brought with you from childhood through young adulthood, into the rodeo? Or was that something that was rodeo specific?
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PCR: No that was something rodeo specific. So, back in the day the first email provider that I used was Juno. So. [Laughter.] You remember Juno!
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DF: I loved my Juno account. I miss it.
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PCR: [Laughter.] So I first used Juno and then Juno went away or something. Juno went away or something happened so I had to have a new one and I wanted to come up with a name that was unique, because my name is Patrick Hunter so it was going to be...you know if I typed that in it was going to be like, patrickhunter534792.
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DF: A randomizer.
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PCR: Yes, exactly. So I didn’t want something that randomized. I wanted something that spoke about who I was, was easy to remember, and then something that was a little bit risque. So I thought, you know, well “cowboy” that’s obvious. You know, “cowboy” will be a part of it, but, you know what can be like the second part of it? At that time I owned a Dodge Ram truck, which I loved! Loved my Dodge Ram truck. And then I’m also an Aries, and the Aries symbol is the ram. So I thought, oh, “cowboyram.” That’s easy to remember, you know, and if you say it like Mae West it can be kind of suggestive. And I put that into hotmail, nobody else had it, so done! So that’s what I took as my own self christened nickname.
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DF: And you still use that nickname?
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PCR: Yes. Yep. Yeah that’s on my...it’s on my email addresses, it’s on...yes. If you type “cowboyram” into Google then you’ll probably find some things that come up that are mine
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DF: That’s a very creative one to come up with! [Pause.] You’d mentioned that sometimes people would have to be concerned about their gear being stolen or having their trailer keyed. Was that a pretty common occurrence? Or was it just more there was a few bad apples out there that just had it in for folks?
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PCR: So that would happen to a lot of folks that were competing in straight events. Yeah, so it was mainly in straight events.
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DF: It wasn’t when they would go back to their home communities?
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PCR: Yeah. Nothing like that would happen within gay rodeo or within any of the gay rodeo venues because we would have our own security and our own security usually came from the community itself. In addition to some police officers but a lot of it was our community on its own. So yeah, they would definitely be looking out for folks. But for people who would compete in straight rodeo and straight rodeo events there were some places where things like that would happen. Where gear would be stolen, your name would go missing...they wouldn’t have you as a competitor...and you know somebody might damage your horse trailer or your vehicle. You know, where the message was clear, like, you’re not wanted here.
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DF: I hope you never had to experience anything like that yourself.
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PCR: I did not have to experience anything like that myself. I was very lucky in that aspect. I think part of that was being smart about where I chose to go. I think part of that was having somebody with me who...you know, I was never there by myself. I was always with somebody else. And then part of it was just being a...part of it was just being a regular person. So...
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DF: You mean regular person...you mean just how you introduce yourself to people? Carried yourself? Or...
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PCR: No, so...to put it to you this way, going and competing at straight event I always made it clear that the only dick that I’m interested in here is my own. And having a nice big shiney belt buckle placed on top of it. So none of you boys have to worry about me being here ‘cause I’m here to compete and I’m here to win.
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DF: And you did, I hope!
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PCR: Ah yes, I did win a lot of ribbons. Yes. I did get a lot of ribbons.
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DF: Congratulations!
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PCR: Thank you.
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DF: When we talked about protesting for rights and your activities with pride marches and other communities did you ever have the opposite where you had to interact with say PETA demonstrations or, um, other groups that would be protesting against what you were doing?
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PCR: We did used to have some issues with PETA or animal rights groups. And then we did also have sometimes some problems with religious groups as well. So, there was some of that that went on. With PETA it was just making the understanding that our rodeo...it’s the health and safety of everybody. It’s the health and safety of the animals, it’s the health and safety of the competitors, and that is what we’re focused on. So, some of the things that we do in our association and in other rodeo associations as well, not just gay rodeo associations but other amateur and professional rodeo associations is, you know, you inspect your stock when it’s on site. And if there is any of the stock that’s sick or lame or doesn’t look well then you pull that stock out of competition. Having rules set for how many times you can run your rough stock through competition.
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PCR: Having a large animal veterinarian on site so that if anything comes up, you know, any injury happens that they are there and that they can tend to the animals. The relationship between horse and rider...you spend an awful lot of time with your horses, caring for them, feeding them, and you spend an awful lot of time with your stock, too. Your calves, your bulls, your steers. You know, it doesn’t matter that it’s thirty-three degrees out and it’s raining, you can’t stay inside and just sip your Celestial Seasonings Tea and not worry about it, you know, you’ll get to them when you get to them. It doesn’t matter. Rain, snow, wind, bad weather, extremely hot weather, you’ve got to be out there and you’ve got to be caring for the animals and making sure that they have water. Making sure that they have food. You know, if ponds freeze over you get to get out there and you’ve got to be chopping holes in the ice so that they can have enough water for themselves.
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PCR: If it’s snow covered you get to make sure that you’re out there and you’re giving them good feed and grain so that they’re not struggling trying to graze on grass that isn’t there, that’s frozen over, that they can’t get to so...you know..if they’re sick or injured, you know, it’s not like you take them to the vet and you drop them off and you go home and you know...you’re up with them. You’re caring for them. You’re...you know, they’re injured and you’ve got to walk them like every two hours to help them get better, that means you’ve got your alarm set for every hour and a half so you can get up and you can go out to the stables or you can go out to the barn and you can get them up and moving around. That’s kind of the type of care that I think a lot of people don’t think about that they don’t realize that happens with things like your horses, and your bulls, and your calves, and your cows.
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DF: And that’s an education component then for people like PETA? Where they just don’t understand all that goes into it?
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PCR: Yes. Yeah.
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DF: And do you keep livestock yourself then?
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PCR: I don’t have livestock myself.
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DF: But you must have had the experience doing all of these things though through competition and helping other people care for theirs?
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PCR: Yes.
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DF: And I was quite impressed with some of the things that we saw in today’s session where they had a motion moved forward to talk about the cattle prods, and not using them to goad, um, the different animals into performance.
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PCR: Correct.
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DF: So I mean there is a lot of protective measures taken. Not just with people but also with the animals.
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PCR: Correct. Yes.
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DF: Very impressive. [Pause.] What did your parents do for a living?
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PCR: My mom… [Laughter.] My mother was a nurse and my father worked for the U.S. Postal Service.
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DF: And did you, um, get a lot of stories from either of them, then, when you’d share time with music or dinner and tie in that way? Because your sisters were younger, so, I imagine they would probably focus on you first when it would come time to have the “How was your day?” talks.
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PCR: Well our family tended to be, you know, both my sisters are...well one is four years younger, one is eight years younger. So, we were...my mother used to say she was glad she had the kids four years apart because by the time the next one came along the first one she had was old enough to help out with the younger one. Um, so, our family time was really spent all together and talking all together. You know, one of the things that kind of exemplifies the way that I was brought up, and kind of how my family thought, was back when Madonna first appeared I asked my mother: “What do you think God thinks about Madonna?” And she said, “Well, I think God is very glad that she’s using a talent that she has and he’s probably very excited about that. He might not like the way she uses the talent all the time but I think he’s given her a talent and she’s using it so that probably makes him happy.” So there was always that kind of thoughtful, worldly response that they would have.
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DF: That’s been instilled in you?
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PCR: Yes.
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DF: Have you shared that again with other people in your life? Passed it forward?
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PCR: Yes. Yeah, I like to welcome everybody and treat everybody like a human being and like an individual and like a person.
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DF: It shows.
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PCR: That’s the way the world should be.
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DF: I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. Especially in days like today. [Pause.] Have any of your sisters expressed an interest in becoming involved in rodeo since you sort of set the...
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PCR: No they have not! [Laughter.] One’s a teacher. One’s a veterinarian. And they’re very happy in their lives and very...and my sister she loves being a teacher. And my other sister, she loves being a veterinarian. You know, they’re...again, like two very lucky people. You know, they both love what they do. They both have a passion for what they do. It fulfills their life, so yeah, they...you know, they won the career lottery.
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DF: Couldn’t be happier then?
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PCR: Hmm-mm.
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DF: Sorry I have to go through some of these because some of them we’ve already covered.
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PCR: Yeah. Take your time.
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DF: Apologies. [Pause.] Have you ever participated in Camp events?
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PCR: I have. I competed in Wild Drag. So, I did that. I was one of the persons who did the wrangling of the steer. Um, I was also a competitor in Goat Dressing. So I competed with friends in Goat Dressing. For steer, or, for the Wild Drag, um, one of the first times that I completed in that was in 2006. It was in the...actually it was probably earlier than that. Early 2000s, and I competed in the Omaha Rodeo with two of my friends. And I was not the drag, I was one of the steer wranglers. On Saturday the gate opened, the steer came out and he ran past me, the rope got taut and he drug me down. [Laughter.] And I let go of the rope and he ran to the other side of the arena. And by the time myself and my two partners had caught up with him time had expired and I felt so bad. So the next day I decided I would be a little smarter. So I took and I wrapped the rope around my hand once, only once, ‘cause I knew from experience if I got into trouble I could just open my hand up and the rope would uncoil and I would be fine.
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PCR: So, I hear the whistle, the gate opens, the steer runs in a wide arc, I really dig my feet in, he yanks me down again but this time I don’t let go. [Laughter.] And then he begins dragging me up this 150-foot arena in the dirt Indiana Jones-style. And the thing I remember about the whole experience is as soon as I hit the ground and he started to drag me this monsterous roar came up from the crowd and how that made me feel inside was so good and so heroic it’s one of my fondest memories of the rodeo itself. As I was being drug my partner came to help me out and she leaned down to grab the rope but she just stumbled and fell and I was like, oh, he’s going to drag me right over her if I don’t let go! So I let go and time expired on us again, um, but I felt good about how I had competed. And then afterwards coming out of the arena I had like dirt down my shirt, dirt in my boots, dirt in my ears, down my pants and it was just a...you know...something that I’ll remember forever.
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DF: It sounds like quite an event for you. Was there anything about the Camp events that you would like to do again?
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PCR: I would probably do Goat Dressing again. Yeah. I might even do Wild Drag again. Um, Goat Dressing is a good, easy event. Um, you know, I...like in terms of doing rough stock I, um, would probably not do rough stock again. One of my friends he still does rough stock, you know, I gotta hand it to him ‘cause about a year ago I was horseback riding and fell off my horse. And when I landed I was like, damn, the ground was a lot softer twenty years ago! [Laughter.] So, yeah, kind of like I tell people, you know, like if I feel like I’m going to a venue that might be somewhat more intolerant, you know, I’m always like, you know, if I gotta be...you know, can I call you if I go to the hospital because I’m pretty sure that at this point my knuckles don’t go pop anymore they’ll probably go crack if I punch somebody in the face.
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DF: Hopefully you haven’t had to get in too many fist fights in your years.
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PCR: No, nothing...not over, um, not over gay rodeo. But...
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DF: Other disagreements.
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PCR: Yeah, other disagreements. Yes.
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DF: The sisters? [Laughter.]
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PCR: [Laughter.] Well, they were mainly...like, somebody’s fighting with their girlfriend. Um, or somebody’s so drunk that they’re ruining the experience for everybody around them. Um, or somebody says something just, like, flat out ignorant and bigoted. [Pause.]
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DF: On the note of Camp events, did you see them first then you wanted to participate? Or did somebody grab your hand and say “C’mon, I want you to try something!”
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PCR: I had watched some of them and my friends, with whom I competed in the Omaha Rodeo, they needed a third. So, that’s kind of how I got involved with that. And then I had other friends who didn’t want to compete in any of the events like the roping or the...definitely not the rough stock. But they could handle putting underwear on a goat. So, that was a way that I could get them involved and competing.
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DF: And when you were either doing Camp events or riding rough stock, were there some big names in the community that, ah, sort of were, ah, well you mentioned some were already mentors, but some that you were like “Gosh, I would like to get to know them better?” Or, “Oh! I didn’t realize I was talking to that person!” moments?
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PCR: No, not so much of that because everybody who was a really high-level competitor, everybody who was a person who won a lot, the people who would be your rodeo stars, were really part of the community themselves. And so they didn’t have a star attitude.
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DF: The community that you have together is really wonderful. It’s supportive, um, I believe it was Patrick who had told us someone had said “I’m going to teach you how to do this and then I’m going to beat you.”
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PCR: Yes. Exactly, yeah. Yes.
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DF: Have you said that to someone yet?
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PCR: No, I haven’t said that one, no. [Laughter.] Mainly because it probably wouldn’t be true. It would probably be the reverse! I’m going to teach you this and then you’re probably gonna beat me. [Laughter.]
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DF: They have schooling and university as part of the rodeo experience. Do you also have something for you as president to help train the next generation of leaders? The next generation of volunteers that want to step up and say I want to help make a difference?
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PCR: Part of that is university, so university does a lot of instruction in terms of how to do fundraising, how to do rodeo, how to do social media, that kind of thing. And then also, you know, it’s just kind of the training of who you have within your organization that you work with them in partnership in hopes that they will take over for you when you’re gone. So when I was the social and entertainment committee chairman, about two months into my term, I knew who the person was that was on the committee that I wanted to be my successor. So that was the person with whom I worked with probably the most because I knew that when I left, or when I stopped being the social and entertainment chairperson, this was the person who I wanted to do it next. And at first they refused, but then somebody...as I knew would happen...somebody else talked them into it! [Laughter.]
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DF: It almost seems to be a tradition in the association?
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PCR: I asked them, they say, “No, no I don’t want to do that.” I said, “Oh, okay. All right.” You know and I went away and then, you know, and then yeah it was probably like three of four weeks later, you know, Gaither Pennington came up to me and said “Ah, you know I’ve been talking to Morgan and I kind of let him know he should probably be the next social and entertainment chairperson and blah, blah, blah. So I just want to let you know that he’s probably going to be the person who’s nominated.” And I thought, aha! [Laughter.]
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DF: And you didn’t do anything to make that happen?
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PCR: No I didn’t, it just happened organically. Like I knew it would! [Laughter.] When he told me though, I thought in my head, I’m like you’re too good for somebody else. And I know other people see how good you are, so I may not be able to sway you into doing it but I know one of the other people who has seen your work over this last year is gonna talk to you and they’re going to be the person to talk you into doing it.
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DF: And not that you’ve ever experienced that particular situation. [Laughter.] It wasn’t fortune telling, it was just how it was going to be?
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PCR: Yes. Yep.
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DF: Wonderful, well I do want to thank you for time in sitting down with me this evening. Would it be all right if we did follow up interviews with you once we get a chance to go back and then I’ll digitize the transcript. I will get a copy of the audio and the transcript to you and then if we discover there are some other items or if Becca Scofield has some questions I’ll write to follow up?
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PCR: Okay, all right. That’d be fine.
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DF: Well thank you so much for sharing your evening with me, I really appreciate it.
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PCR: Okay. It was a pleasure.

John King

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Rebecca Scofield: So, I'm here with John King and it's July 8th, 2017, and we're in Denver, at the Rocky Mountain Regional Rodeo, so can you tell me when you were born?
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John King: Sure, March the 6th, 1941.
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RS: And where did you grow up?
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JK: On a farm in Iowa, southeast Iowa.
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RS: What did your parents do for a living?
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JK: Well, my father was a farmer, but he also ran an insurance agency, and my mother worked as a nurse receptionist in a doctor's office.
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RS: And did you have siblings?
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JK: Yes, three.
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RS: And what did an average day look like when you were growing up?
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JK: An average day? Starting at age 10, or age 9, I had to learn how to milk cows. And, so that would mean that I would have to get up at 5 o'clock, and so in between about 8 or 9 and age 18 when I left for college, almost every day of my life my father woke me up and I got dressed and went out and milked cows, and fed hogs, and chickens, whatever else it takes to make a farm run.
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RS: And did you like school?
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JK: Did I what?
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RS: Did you like school?
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JK: Yes, most of the time.
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RS: Did you like college?
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JK: I ended up, I hated school when they used their, they used their, aptitude tests and put me in the engineering school, and once I found out what an engineer did, and what that would entail, I wasn't interested and so I didn't like school at all. And I was of draft age and so I quit school and worked on the farm until I was about ready to be drafted and then I signed up, to work in the finance department, because I enjoy that. I've been treasurer of just about every organization cause I know the money. And so then when I got out of the service, I knew by that time I wanted to go into business and I got straight A's all the way through and I loved school I loved my professors; I loved bantering with them; I loved preparing challenging reports for them; I loved developing cash flow concepts; I loved all that part, so the answer is: No at first and yes second.
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RS: That's what we want to hear. Was being in the service hard at all?
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JK: No, for me, well, the first four months, being away from home, since our family farm was forty-four miles away from the university of Iowa, I literally, would save up my dirty clothes and then every three weeks go home and my mother would wash my clothes and I would go back and so, I really didn't learn how to live on my own until I went into the service, and the first 3 months they were a shock. But then after that I had money saved [Phone beeps]… Excuse me, I don't know what he was trying to say. Anyway, excuse me just a second...So, can you imagine. I have rebelled, I do not know how to turn on a computer, I own approximately, to my knowledge I own somewhere around fifty computers stretching from Puerto Vallarta to Chicago, but I do not know how to turn on a computer I had people do that, but when it came to an iPhone I had to learn. [Silence while he types a text message]. Excuse me just a minute you might turn it off. [Pause in recording]
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RS: So you said you were getting interested in owning a business?
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JK: I, even in the service, I was one of those go to people, and so whenever my company commander needed something, I was able to find it. All the way from army green paints to liquor and cigarettes, and I did everything but pen. So I really had an easy service because they trusted me and after a few months they just let me come and go and long as I delivered what I was expected, they didn't bother me and so I knew that that wouldn't last forever and Vietnam was coming up, and last couple months I was in the service, we had gone over three years, sending like six people on the military aid and advisor group called the MAG assignment, and we were sending six out of the division, last few months we were sending like three hundred a month. And that was still in 1964 and so Johnson, I mean Kennedy had been killed and Johnson was starting the real buildup, and, of course, at that particular point, there were people we sent over that we were closing out their records because they were dead, and so it encouraged me to get out of the army as soon as possible.
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RS: Seems smart. So once you got out and you started looking at businesses, did you know what type of businesses you wanted to do?
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JK: No, I just that I wanted...my father, my grandfather, they were all farmers. It was essentially the businessman. There were four of us children we all, none of us were able to work for somebody else, they always had to be in charge. My sister just died, she had a [inaudible] business that made her a millionaire. My younger brother is a millionaire several times over in a small town, just by buying, holding, fixing it for the state. My older brother had a small chain of convenience stores with gas stations and he sold them and retired and lives in Suprise, Arizona. And I have 5 nightclubs.
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RS: Did you ever think you would do nightclubs when you were young?
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JK: No.
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RS: Did you like nightclubs when you were young?
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JK: Actually, I would say, yeah, when I was in the service I was out at a nightclub probably four nights out of the week.
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RS: Did you like dancing?
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JK: Yeah.
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RS: What kind of dancing did you do?
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JK: Mostly western dancing, at the time there was a couple line type dancing but they were rare, but it was mostly that, and of course western dancing crosses over into the jitterbug rock-and-roll a little bit, whatever it took to get the girl I was dancing with to say yes the next time I asked her.
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RS: And did you know you were gay at the time?
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JK: Since you're younger, you have to understand how the world was at that time. The world, society told you that you would have sinful thoughts, but that if you were married to the right person and you were really in love then those thoughts would go away, and so, of course, I knew I had those thoughts. I was...I had an intimate relationship with somebody between age thirteen and age fifteen. And then I decided that if I didn't stop I would end up being a homo, so I literally abstained from any intimacy from two weeks before I got my driver's license, til I met my wife, my ex-wife. So all the way through the service, I went to bed with people but nothing happened, other than cuddling.
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RS: And how did you meet your ex-wife?
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JK: I went back home and she was two years younger than me in the same class that my highschool sweetheart was in, and she was the valedictorian and I knew of her. We were not in the same circles, probably because she was standoffish and kinda snooty, but when I came back she had dyed her hair red and put it into a bob and changed her appearance and become the officer in a sorority and come out quite a little bit, and she caught...and plus I learned a lot more about what...this is the advice that I gave my son and just gave the same advice to my thirteen year old grandson. If you marry somebody who's intelligent, don't be surprised if you have intelligent kids that challenge you a little bit, and if you marry a bimbo, don't be surprised if you end up raising a bimbo. But my three years in the service have me time to think about that, and I decided I didn't want to be raising bimbos.
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RS: And how long were you guys together?
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JK: Fourteen years. We were really together for ten years, and that's because before we got married we agreed upon the parameters. And after ten years we had accomplished all those, and we sat down to redo the next ten years and there was nothing in common. She had like seven things in which I was not interested in the slightest, and I had like seven things in which she didn't want to do at all. We never had an argument because we always went back, this is the agreement: "You know what the agrement is." "Yup, this is what we agreed to." But we could never redefine our relationship, and so she's the one, I refused to file for a divorce so she's the one who filed for divorce, but in hindsight I was maybe subtly encouraging her to.
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RS: What did you do for work during those years?
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JK: I used my education and was a loan officer for the small business administration and then, of course, because I believe in my product I bought a restaurant, and within two years I had four restaurants. I sold them out when my franchisor I felt was going backwards and not keeping up with the competition. And became a real estate broker, and then, during the real estate crash of 1979, 1980, that's when I got my divorce. So we split our estate in half, and I took the risky ones and they sort of went to pot. So with what resources I had left I scraped together and opened up a bar, and opened up a gay bar, and I had been out less than a year.
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RS: Wow, and when did you come out to your family?
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JK: It was in, it was about two months after I opened up Charlie's. Charlie and I were together for a total of nine months, he was much younger than me and a good dancer, good dancer. And after...but he, I found out that he was starting to do drugs, and he was not...our value systems were completely, even though he was from Missouri and I was from Iowa, our value systems were completely different. And so I was starting to squeeze him out and he gave me an ultimatum, and listed eight things that he would do if I broke up with him. And I lived under that for two weeks and decided, I'm not, I lived a false life for thirty-nine years I tried, I denied myself any kind of intimacy all the way til age twenty-four when I got married, and I was not going to, I was not gonna start over. So I called his bluff. Well he proceeded to do many of them. And one of them was calling my father and waking him up at 3 o'clock in the morning and not only telling him about my sexual, in those days we called it preference, not your orientation, and described some explicit sexual acts and how much he enjoyed it. And my father never got over it. He cut me out of the will, and put a provision that I could not stay in the family farm house, I couldn't sleep over night there. So I thought it was the end of the world, cause not only was all my stuff going, but Charlie was going and so on. I thought that was the end of the world but within a couple of days I realized I was walking around with a bounce in my step, it was like having a mill stone removed. And he did naughty things, I worked for the SBA, he ran through the SBA shouting I was a faggot, and describing, "I used to be his lover and that he knew how big my dick is," screaming at all those people down the hall I had worked with for six years. The director called me up, we were good friends the district director, he said I know you well, and I don't care who you sleep with, I don't care anything about that, but I really question your judgment on whether or not if this is the class of person you wanna be around, I thought that was funny, and I said, "I can agree with you totally."
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RS: And so Charlie's initially a country western bar from the beginning?
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JK: All country, the first dance song I ever played was late in 1982 and it was "Gloria," and we played it at midnight. We played it at midnight, and it filled the dancefloor and, of course, I had several country people come to me and beat my bees. But I had some other come to me and say it's a fun change, but we were country. I actually, I would, Charlie's would have been a lot busier a lot sooner if I wouldn't have held onto country as long as I did, but I opened up from country, I felt like that community supported me and I wanted to do everything I could, but when it came to the choice of closing or changing, I changed.
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RS: Was the first one here in Denver?
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JK: Yes.
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RS: And what had brought you to Denver?
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JK: My ex-wife had wanted to live in New York and Washington D.C. or Boston, the furthest west she wanted to live was Chicago. I wanted to live in Albuquerque or Phoenix, and we struggled over that, this is one of the things we agreed to. So I went to Boston I went to New York, went to Chicago, went to Phoenix, went to Albuquerque, went to Denver, we went to Kansas City. And we agreed that we would live in Denver that would be, I would give up my feelings but she wouldn't give up.
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RS: Were you happy in Denver?
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JK: Denver has always been good to me, but I belong in Phoenix, because my blood gets thick and I get so lackadaisical in the wintertime that I don't really care, but in Phoenix my blood is thinner, I remember arriving in Phoenix on July the th 1984. And Wayne Jakino was in charge, left him in charge of Charlie's Denver, and arriving in Phoenix, and it was hot and Kenny and I were having a hard time finding a place and on the third day, I said to him, "I gave him the keys to the car," and I said, "I don't care where we live, I want you to be happy, here's the checkbook, here's the thing." And I said, "I'm gonna go climbing," and I went to south mountain and I got up on top of that mountain and I felt wonderful, absolutley wonderful and I got back and he was a little concerned because it turned out it was 114 degrees that day. So I'm the one-in-three people who can go to Phoenix, and it thins your blood and makes you feel more alive.
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RS: Before going to Phoenix did you think of the Southwest as a place?
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JK: Always, always. When I was in, because when I was stationed in Colorado Springs, although I went to TDY, I went on temporary duty to Washington D.C. to Carmel outside San Fransico, I went to Dayton, Ohio, I went to Indianapolis, I went to Washington D.C., and a three day stint in South Carolina, so I had a lot of things to break up those three years, but essentially I lived in Colorado. I didn't like to spend money, I liked to save money, and I discovered the mountains and they were beautiful, and it cost nothing to go hiking. Nothing. At first I used to sleep outside, later on I would carry a flimsy tent with me, but I would just go hiking, I usually made friends and I would usually hiked with somebody, but if nobody wanted to climb with me I would just go. I climbed Pike's Peak twice, I climbed Longs Peak one time, and I'll never do that again. I'll never climb Pikes Peak again either, I was twenty-two one time and I was twenty-three the next year at Pikes Peak, I don't think I could climb it now. But I climbed Devils Head, I never did climb up Mount Evans, Squaw Peak, I don't know I've been over several of the mountains there.
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RS: So you're living in Denver and you had a gay western bar, country bar, when did you hear about gay rodeo?
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JK: About three to four weeks after I opened up Charlie's, and that's part of the history I can send you, in fact I can read it if you want.
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RS: Or you can send it to me.
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JK: Alright, well it's on the Charlie's Denver facebook page, friend Charlie's Denver facbook we'll find a way. And that's because Brendon said, "I can crack this for you," and I said, "How?" and he said, "We can put it on facebook," and I said, "That will correct it?" And he says, "I'll call you back in half an hour and I'll tell you how many hits we have, probably as many hits as ever read Out Front." So he called me back in half an hour and said 586 people have already clicked on to it, and I said, "Oh."
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RS: That's amazing, so yeah, you heard about it and thought they were doing something cool?
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JK: My best friend was Wayne Jakino and we turned out to be, and we kept it as quiet as we possibly could, and we turned into bitter enemies. But now that he's been dead for seven years, or eight years, or nine years, whatever I can reflect back on what happened. When we started it's almost the same thing as happened with the marriage. When we started we had various things in common, and we had a relationship over twenty-five years, and for the first fifteen years, everything we touched turned to gold cause we were on the same page all the time. Then we made natural changes, he was unmarried and his number one love had attempted suicide and he had decided what he wanted to leave a legacy in the gay community, the problem was he only owned 10% of Charles and he was using 100% of my money to build this legacy. And I wanted to build an estate for my kids and grandkids, so we started pulling in different directions. And so when he would make, we would have a really good week in Denver, he would say, did you realize we made this much money that's obscene and he would do something to give the money away in terms of charitable work, or foundations, or raising the wages, or various...or hiring, putting people on the payroll that had AIDs when they really couldn't do anything, all that stuff to build up his name in the gay community. Whereas to me, I was a natural businessman and I wanted to change Charlie's in a way to make more money so I had more options to make the estate. So as it turns out, when we reflect, I kept it pretty hidden, but our close friends knew that those last few years we could hardly stand each other.
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RS: In those, 1980s when gay rodeo was sort of happening in Reno and starting to happen in other places.
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JK: Yes, I've got that in this, go ahead.
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RS: Did you feel like this is something that you should be involved in like personally, like out rodeing or was it more from a business perspective of this might draw customers to to Charlie's?
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JK: Well, when I was in the service I refused to make friends with fellow servicemen. I went out in Colorado Springs and made friends with the native people, and they were all cowboys, so that's when I started picking up my cowboy vernacular and I loved it. But there was a couple nights, one night in Woodland Park, Colorado, we had square danced, and we called ourselves "the gang," there was about 12 of us, men and girls, women, actually they were girls because they were young but, young women, and remember in Woodland Park we would dance and then we would all go out to the tailgate and we would mix orange juice and put vodka in it. And I was so thirsty, I remember being so thirsty and they were taking so much time, and finally I got my hands on a bottle of vodka and I thought well I'll just take a sip just to wet my whistle well it tasted like water and I was thirsty so I drank about half the bottle. And we went back in and my dance partner, I remember her name was Jannet I woke up the next morning I woke up in her bed and she said nothing happened you were passed out it was all we could do to get you here, and I said, "What happened?" and she said, "We were dancing and we started doing the dosey doe and you just sort of screwed yourself right into the ground. And so I had real good memories of rodeos. Well, obviously when you're pioneering with cowboys dancing together and so on, the oxymoron of a gay rodeo to me seemed to me like a natural extension and so I, was just breaking, this was August so I was just breaking up with Charlie, so all I could do was hold onto the reins of Charlie's.
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JK: So my best friend Wayne Jakino who didn't own any of Charlie's at the time loaned me money to open and I gave him the option to convert that to 10% when I got ready to pay him off if he wanted to, and two years later when I got ready to pay him off he took that. And they were just literally overwhelmed by the thousands of people mainly from San Francisco that were there, this was in 1981 and the feeling that everybody had something in common because it didn't make any difference...all the Guchi people all the people who sat around gay bars who sat around singing showtunes, it was all the people who grew up in rural Kansas, and Phillipsburg Kansas, and Sheridan, Wyoming, little towns in Iowa and Nebraska and so on, we almost all had the same value system, same vernacular, and so on, and so it was a very euphemistic aura and of course they brought that back. So I'm gonna answer that, I can't tell you exactly for certain which was the most important motivator, the fact that I already loved rodeo and the fact that I could bring, the possibility of gay rodeo was there, but I was always a businessman, so having a 501c3 arm that promoted rodeo which indirectly promoted Charlie's was part of it also. And the fact that of the people who were involved in gay rodeo, and maybe cause I lived longer than anyone else, and probably in hindsight probably made the most money off gay rodeo.
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RS: And what was the reaction of the gay community to gay rodeo?
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JK: Well, that's in my, that's the way I finished, I finished saying: Well, first of all, we went back to Reno because we were challenged by Texas, and there was about 300 people in Colorado in matching t-shirts, it was a wonderful success. Except our royalty didn't win. I acted like I was drunk and stood back there by, it was a semi trailer, and on the platform there was two judges from Las Vegas and Joan Rivers. And Joan Rivers had seen Tish Tanner perform at the Forum in Phoenix, Arizona, and she was funny and she was good, but Scotty Lockword or Miss Kitty from Colorado in terms if you were gonna judge a contest: applause, money, and money, personality, she had back up dancers that did "little bitty pissant country place," and she just simply won hands down. And Joan Rivers insisted and they argued and said "I don't know what you want to do. I've never hear of this so and so." She just went out and mouthed this Tish Tanners a real talent and finally the MCC guy said, "Well, if you feel that strongly then I'll change my vote." And so they made Tish Tanner Reno Miss Gay Rodeo. And of course I heard it, I acted I was some stupid idiot. There I was within ten feet of them with my hat down like I was asleep. And we were disappointed in that, and then we had thirty rodeo contests we had a guy named Tony Jordonelle who came in first in two events and he came in second in two events and he came in three in like three events, and then we had a guy from Dallas, Texas, who had entered in the rodeo two or three years before who came in first event and second in two events and third in no other events and he was awarded the All Around Cowboy and it was like, this.
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JK: And we confronted Phil Ragsdale and he said I don't know what you're complaining about and he said, "It's basically your rodeo. You've basiclly taken it over, but you had fun everyone had fun and that's what you're trying to do." And so Colorado retired from there and they went to the basement of Charlie's and the rodeo committee, they argued, and compromised and essentially set up what the rule book is now, most of the rules have been refined and so on but the basis of the entire rodeo rulebook was worked out by CGRA on a committee of about twelve people, men and women, Johnny Van Ormen and Casey Jackson were right in the middle of it writing the rules and so, we went back in 1980..., we presented the rules to them. Well, first of all we decided to do our own rodeo, and we went by those rules, everybody understand and we had like forty contestants I think, and we made a thousand dollars, we didn't have as many people as we wanted out there but we made a thousand dollars and we promtly gave it to charity. With that we sort of got the attention and the start of acceptance by the rest of the gay community, which had just sort of marked us off of that but when we gave a thousand dollars to the community centers and that sort of opened up doors for us and after that, as I put in my thing, the rest is history because the doors were opening and we went on to form IGRA out of Colorado but you know almost the rest of the story.
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RS: What was the biggest differences in the feeling of the rodeo between Reno and once you started having more and more rodeos all around?
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JK: Well, when Reno rodeo was going on, we had one gay rodeo in the country so if you wanted to meet with all your friends, you could schedule that weekend and you went to Reno. So from '76 to '82 Reno had no competition. Starting in '83 you could go to Denver, or you could go to Denver but Denver had no other big metropolitan area around it, it's sort of an island into itself, where Reno had San Francisco and California to draw from. So Colorado's rodeo started off smaller, but Reno's rodeo, but between IRS and the Clark County supervisors they got the Reno closed, and 1984 was their last rodeo. And so Colorado, we tried to convince Texas cause we thought they'd have a bigger rodeo but Texas wanted Colorado to try it first. Well the Texans came up and supported the first rodeo majorly, in fact if they woundn't have, I'm not sure the balloon would have actually lifted. And so, so in that first, once they did that first rodeo in 19.... In june of '83 we held the second rodeo outside of Reno in June of 1984 and then the third gay rodeo held outside of rodeo was held in Simonton, Texas, which was about an hour outside of Houston. Simonton, Texas, there was 5,000 people showed up to it and the town was only 1,200 people so it just inundated the town, I mean it was fun but it was out of control. But the Texans then realized that they had something and so, California announced that they would do their first rodeo in March of 1985 and Arizona, by that time I had moved to Arizona and we had our first Rodeo in January of '86.
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RS: And did you move to Arizona to open another Charlie's?
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JK: Yes.
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RS: And did that go well?
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JK: There was a lot of drama, the neighborhood hated me, they hated...well, it was right in the middle of the AIDs crisis. 1984 right, right when everybody was scared to death, we had a hearing in order to get my liquor license and there was a blind man that lived in a neighborhood and he had to cross a street in which there were 57,000 cars that went up and down that street per day, alright its called 7th avenue. And he could navigate across that to get to the Safeway but he testified that he will no longer go to the Safeway and shop he has to have his daughter come because he's afraid he will accidently wander into Charlie's and get AIDS. And he was like 80 years old or so, it was hysteria, it was hysteria. So, I bought, I bought a corporate, I did the same thing that I did down in Denver, and that is, I bought a corporation that had a lease and had a liquor license already that was bankrupt, and then opened up under that and they couldn't do anything.
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RS: What other acts of homophobia has Charlie's suffered through?
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JK: First of all homophobia is as insidious now as sexism would be. And so the fact is you'll never know, you'll never know. But, there are very, there are various things, sometimes I'm not certain whether it's not homophobia or just simply fear of AIDs cause what happened in the 80s and the early 90s was...I think that somebody was straight and they had AIDS they would probably have been treated the same way if they were gay and they had AIDS so it's hard to really know. We raised 5,000 dollors, Miss Kitty our representative to go to Reno gay rodeo, we raised 5,000 dollors so we had a check made out from us to the Muscular Distrophy Association, and so we went, we went down to their anual fundraiser to present it to them. And they refused to accept it. MDA refused to accept in 1984 a check from the Colorado Gay Rodeo Association. So, and the same thing happened...we thought, I said it wouldn't work but, you know, we lived by voting system you know, and if fourteen vote yes and twelve vote no, the answer is yes. So somebody voted to, made the motion to donate a thousand dollars to the Arizona Humane Society and they sent the check back. And so that, so that's, and of course there was the first Jerry Springer show in which they, he was supposed to have been...we were encouraged to go ahead and use Springer because he was supposedly friendly, gay friendly and I think he was and is, however he's a bit, he wanted rating so he got the straight people in there and they argued back and forth and it was a disaster. [Phone beeps] Somebody else that wants to talk to me again, I'll talk to them in a second. So that was another classic case in rodeo. As far as Charlie's is concerned, somebody went through the neighborhood and collected 680 some signatures, urging the council, the councilmen to vote against. But I'm a politician, at least I used to be. And I went to Pheonix and I new nobody on that council, and when the vote came it was still five to four. I lost, but the fact that I got four votes was an eye-opener to the council, so I closed down and I reopened up about a month later at another location and I didn't get any...there wasn't a single council person that voted aginst me the second time. So.
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RS: When did you open your other locations?
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JK: Well, I tried to open up a California; I love California; I wanted to be in business in California. But through a fluke of five different attempts, some of them were very embarrassing. I mean I had a contract for 50% down for a bar in Silver Lake and, it was, and they were gonna carry the other 50% and they sent me to a credit reporter. Well, they ordered a credit report and on the credit report it showed I owed...there was a judgment against me for $75,000, and I said to them, "It's a mistake," and the real estate agent, even my own real estate agent was extremely arrogant and said, "You told me this. You told me that you had clean credit. You told me this you told me that. I can't waste my time." I said, "It's a mistake, it's a mistake." I could have screamed and yelled at them but I didn't. I said, "It's a mistake." So I went back and I got it erased off and I said, "How did you do this?" And of course it belonged to some other King and not to me and they issued me a letter which was nice it took me three weeks to do. And back out to California and the real estate man wouldn't even talk to me and the owners of the bar sold it to someone else. I was at the closing table with a bar in San Diego and the silent partner I didn't know anything about walked into the closing and said I just sold my townhouse for $60,000, so I have enough money and were gonna remodel and keep it open.
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JK: And so there was a nice San Diego, I said in the council, in the aldermens, in San Diego, right where Kickers opened up cause I liked the location and I wanted it, and I made my presentation about Denever and Pheonix and he says, "That sounds good but your gonna have to find another location because I garuntee you that not even God could get a dance permit in that location." So I took him for his word and, of course, west coast production company partner opened up the...now they did have to set there for eighteen months without dancing, they had a bar without dancing. So I still love Califonia, meanwhile an aldermen came in from Chicago and said, "I love this. We need this, if you just come to Chicago belive me I know how to grease the wheels." So I went to Chicago and I tested it and talked to so and so and he greased the wheels I had a late-night-hour permit, I had everything there wasn't a thing that he promised that he didn't deliver so I have a bar in Chicago.
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RS: It's your
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JK: I don't know maybe it was meant to be I don't know.
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RS: And you were the... only founding member that's still around, is that correct, of IGRA?
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JK: Well in...during the grand opening on November 9th, 1984, there were four people that met in the kitchen of Charlie's, Al Bell from California who would be the trustee, Terry Clark from Texas would be a trustee, myself from Arizona who would be a trustee, and Wayne Jakino who would serve initially as a trustee even though he would become president. We're the ones that set up the Janurary convention the pre-convention what do you call, it's the, it wasn't a true convention because it was the convention that set up the rules for the convention, alright. So I consider those four the founders. Now there are people, I had a lover named Kenny Koonitz, who followed along with me, but he wasn't in the kitchen, but he was at the convention and Kenny Koonitz is still around so could be that he's a founding. Al Bell's lover, Al Bell's dead and Al Bell's lover dead. Wayne Jakino's dead. Terry Clark and Walter they both died, so the only possible one that could claim that they're a founder was my lover at the time but he didn'... so probably most people would agree I'm the only remaining founder.
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RS: And did you have leadership positions like president or treasurer through the years?
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JK: I've been a trustee for eleven of those years, the trustee from Arizonia for ten years and a trustee from Illinois for one years. And chairmen, the initial chairman for the initial board of trustees and served as chairman for two years. And in the period of those two years, we, I learned that good people with good intentions can make some really silly decisions [laughs]. And so it was sort of a relief when we reorganized that part of IGRA, because initially the trustees did't trust anybody with anything, so we got in the middle of any dispute between contests, any disputes between judges, between all that stuff. And in the third convention we switched over to a rodeo protest committee with one trustee being in charge and changed it around to a more logical position and that was about the time that I moved out from being chairmen of the trustees. And, so I was the auditor, and I was acting treasurer for two times when Eddie Klein ended, I took care of the books until we got Jeffrey Coon in and then when he screwed up I took care of the books for another six months until we got David Hill, but I was never official treasure but I was acting treasurer.
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RS: Have you ever compete in the rodeo?
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JK: I've never competed in any of the official rodeos.
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RS: Is there-
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JK: They started out when I was forty, and the last thing I needed to run Charlie's Denver and Phoenix was to have broken bones. So, no, I had to live vicariously that were riding. Now I had a horse, Ken and I had two horses, we had a pair of Colorado, we had two horses. I remember one of them, her name was Lady something and we renamed her to First Lady and down...it was interesting cause down in Arizona, I had a horse for about a year and his name was Butch [laughs] but he was half thoroughbred, and Lee Cattleson wanted him and I couldn't, and I had a horse but I was paying somebody to ride the horse because I was too busy going back and forth between Denver and trying to hold things down. Becauase when Wayne took over he made some really silly decisions so I had to come back and take over Charlie's, actually twice. But one main time I had to come up for five months to take over Charlie's but, and so, so I haven't owned a horse since 1988.
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RS: But you still come to them to watch?
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JK: Oh yes. Although I am still considered a rebel. And I'm also considered a... Almost everybody has an opinion about me cause I've been around for a long time. Some people suspect that I'm really in gay rodeo for profit motive, others think I'm in gay rodeo because, I'm more interested in gay rodeo because I've been trying to spearhead balancing out rodeo which has been a constant tug. There were two things, in gay rodeo, since we started in Colorado: we got Texas interested and we got California interested, so here was Wayne in Colorado and I was Arizona. Well Texas would thow a fundraiser and they could raise $40,000 just like that, California would have a fundraiser and raise $25,000, and we would do a fundraiser and it was wonderful if we could raise $2,400. So I convinced Texas and California to rule IGRA on what I would call the senatorial basis, in other words it didn't make any difference how many people were in your state or how big your organization was or how much money, each organization had the same. That was a fatal mistake in my opinion, now other people think that is great. People from smaller associations who get five votes and get their opinions and so on. But rodeo producing states have had to live with that rule. It was our intention, to set up the thirteen events, and set up a convention to adjust to the market every year.
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JK: But for some reason, we set up the thirteen events, and they're like, and to those people who come to convention they're like the ten commandments carved in stone and they can't be changed. And so in my opinion, gay rodeo, many of the people's thought proceses is stuck in the latter part of the twentieth century and our market has moved on and gay rodeo hasn't. And so, but because it would, because in order to adjust to the new market you have to discard some of the things you really love, we don't have the political will to do that. And so because of that, I'm really happy that Denver and Phoenix--Well, first of all, there is a core in Denver that's gonna keep Denver strong for the next ten years. And as long as I'm alive, Phoenix will be strong. There is a core in Texas that will keep Texas strong. California has been pretty iffy but it seems like they can all agree on Palm Springs. Palm Springs is a small rodeo but anyway it works. The other rodeos are hanging on by a thread. Albuquerque is never really profitable, Ohamaha is wayside, Wichita wayside, Oklahoma City is struggling, Detroit's out, Chicago hasn't had one in years, Minnesota tried one and lost their ass again, Calgary disbanded and I could go on, Florida used to have one, Washington D.C. used to have one, Atlanta had one, and so on. The problem with gay rodeo now is essentially we have not been providing enough incentive for what we consider classic rodeo events. And we're providing, instead we're providing incentives for what's the name for the people with the horses, people think that I hate horse people, I don't hate horse people it's just that I want to pay money to those events that are dying out that are considered classic, so because of that people think that I hate horse people. I love horse people, but we have hundreds of them, how many do we have riding steers? Six? Five? How many people riding bulls? Two? One? I mean if we were a horse show we oughta be the International Gay Horse Association. If we're a rodeo we should do something to encourage people to do rodeo events.
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JK: So I'm putting my money where my mouth is and as David Lawson, the All Around cowboy from California put it, he said, "I'm a part of these people. That despite the prize money, I'm an FHP, one of those fabulous horse people." And, of course, I knew that was a slap against me because I am doing added money for roughstock. But I can't...since there's not the political will to try to adjust, these young people, these millennial young people they come to a gay rodeo and they'll sit for five hours watching these horse events, and they said that's nice but next year are they gonna pay to come in? Right, but if we had bull riders and steer riders they would come back because it's a sporting event where somebody wins and somebody loses.
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RS: And why do you think that a lot of people mention the membership itself is getting older, what needs to happen to draw not just young people to come watch but to participate?
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JK: We have to change the ten commandments. To skew them toward the people who would enter, alright. And we really have to skew it for the following reason, in 1981 gay rodeo was first getting formed we had 3.6 million farms, family-owned farms and rancheses in the united states, in 2015 according to Successful Farming, the magazine, we have 595,000 alright. Of those, half of them are owned by people who are fifty years old or older, so they're not having kids. So we have maybe a quarter of a million family farms, from Vermont to San Diego alright. So if one out of ten, and I think it's more out of twelve, or one out of fifteen, but if one out of ten is gay, we don't really have a chance. So that means we have to provide enough incentive for those dreamers that have grown up in the city, for those dreamers to go ahead and take a chance and learn. And if we don't do that, we're not gonna have a rodeo. But as I was introduced, I'm also by those people I'm called a visionary, the way you survive is project out how are things gonna be ten years from now and then make your adjustments now. You don't have a curve in the road like this and come up on it eighty miles and hour, and say, "Oh, jeez," and come flying off, you come up to the curve and slow up and make adjustments, you make adjustments for the new direction.
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RS: And do you think, what do you, hope for the future of the association?
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JK: I hope that, I hope that we're able to reach out to the one community in which there are young cowboys still coming out, which is the Hispanic heritage and we're able to adjust our events enough that they feel like they're included. What CGRA is doing is absolutely wonderful, but the problem is that nobody on the gay rodeo circuit is thinking about adjusting any of their rules in order to really incorporate them. They're only thinking in terms of: "You're welcome, by the way here are the rules," and stamp the rules on you. And so, we've always, I mean even back in the very early days we've always had 20 to 25% of our contestants that were Hispanic but that were almost all second generation or third generation, we didn't have people that spoke English as their second language
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RS: And as a country western nightclub owner are you still pulling people, in young people, in to both country western and specifically gay bar, do you still have the same-
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JK: No
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RS: enthusiasm?
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JK: I have enthusiasm but it's because I changed the music over to dance music cause I have to be relevant to the twenty-one to thrity year olds cause if I'm not those are the ones that are out looking, well maybe twenty-one to thirty-five, they're the ones that are out looking. They are the ones that are going out five nights a week cause they're the ones that are producing hormones fast, alright and they can't help it, I mean that's the way mother nature made us. And so if you go to the graduating class in Colorado high school graduating class in Arizona, I don't care even if it's a real rich town if you go to that class it's gonna be 80% Hispanic, that means that if you want to be relavent you have to get 10% of the 80% and not 10% of the 20%, alright. People say that I'm a Mexican lover and I have a house in Mexico and so on. And, yes, I am but I don't love Mexicans more than I love Americans. I love them equally. After all, it's just that if you're in business and you don't undersatnd how your markets changing, a bunch of people drying on the vine just ask the VFW or the Elks Club, have you ever heard of the Odd Fellows, well do you ever hear of the anymore? Kiwanis is almost dissapeared. I mean how many people under age thirty-five will go to a Kiwanis Lunch in, I mean, I went to one of those and I was board even back, even fifty years ago you know? Put a tie on and go to Kiwanis and they were the best, they were better than Elks, and I don't know what all there is. They didn't adjust, they had their rules, they lived with their rules, they died with their rules, so.
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RS: Well, I know you're a busy guy so I'll let you go but is there anything else you want to say about your storied history with the International Gay Rodeo Association?
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JK: In retrospect, I have made, through gay rodeo, probably one-hundred excellent friends, half of which are dead now, maybe more than half of which are dead now. I've had friendship and love and acceptance through gay rodeo that I could never have imagined when I came out. And I consider myself extremely lucky to have been a part of it, and no matter what my motives were, which I'm not really clear at age 76, when you're 46 you know everything, by the time you're 76 you're not as sure as you used to be, but whatever my motives were, I think I'm extremely lucky to have been a part of it, I will not do a John Beck and get tears in my eyes.
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RS: Thank You

Kevin Hillman

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I'm here with Kevin Hillman it's November 20th 2016 and we're at the International Gay Rodeo Association Annual Convention. So can you tell me about where you grew up?
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Kevin Hillman: I grew up on a farm in a little town called Driggs, Idaho. My mother’s family were Hereford breeders, my father’s family were potato farmers so when they merged we ended up with a small registered breed of Herefords, and of course we had milk cows and horses and chickens and pigs and then our cash crop was potatoes. Me and my brothers as we got older had a small herd of sheep that we raised. That's where I grew up with seven siblings and my mom and my dad on this about 800 acre farm.
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RS: And what year were you born?
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KH: I was born in 1957, so a few years ago.
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RS: And what were sort of…what was your sort of average work life like on the ranch growing up?
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KH: Well, we had a dairy herd so milking cows. About the age of eight I started learning to milk cows. Even before that I was on the tractor driving through the hay fields while we harvest the hay crops and things like that. Doing other odd jobs when I was younger, and then as we got older we moved into moving sprinkler pipes which were hand lines, so we carried these aluminum pipe across the field and that's how we made our summer money to buy our clothes and do things like that for school year. And then we just did all the other little farm things you did, driving tractors, sorting potatoes, and any time we had an opportunity to go milk the cows and not work in the potato fields I volunteered to go do it. I hated working in the potato fields. I swore I would never be a potato farmer.
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RS: And with the registered herd did you do a lot of travel?
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KH: We traveled a little bit with them but mainly our focus was breeding stock so we raised bulls and we sold most of our bulls on the farm. And then we did have a couple of bull sales we went to each year and sold our bulls through that called the Six Point Hereford Association, which I'm surprised I remember. And my father was the secretary of that, so we had to make all the folders and mailers and everything twice a year to send out and that was a big family thing. And then I got involved in FFA and 4H and that's where a lot of my involvement with other livestock and animals was. I grew up riding horses and going to rodeos with my family. My grandfather was a horseman from way back, I know my grandma once said when my grandfather went to a horse sale was how many they going to bring home not are they going to bring any home. So, it was always exciting to see grandpa pull up with his herd of horses. His brother were known to be quite good with training horses, which was never really my father’s interest. So it's kind of interesting there.
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RS: And what was school like?
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KH: You know I was just your typical high school kid. I was friends with most of the kids in my school. We had a small class of fifty at the most. Most of us started our elementary school together and went all the way through high school together. And if someone weren't a friend they were my cousin, so, I was related to a lot of the people. My mother's family are some of the first white settlers in the valley and my father’s family had been there for...since the 1870s, so I was related to quite a few people. I participated in track. There was a rodeo team. I played the saxophone very poorly. But I loved doing it. I participated in dance classes. Gymnastics. And of course FFA which is Future Farmers of America, which I was heavily involved in and enjoyed that greatly. I always say I had some good friends and then I was friends with pretty much anybody in the school. I got along with a lot of the people. And high school for me wasn't a bad thing, I enjoyed it and I enjoy getting back together at my class reunions with those people. It's a lot of fun.
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RS: Were you ever openly gay in high school?
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KH: Well let's put it this way, I didn't even know what a gay person was when I was in high school. I think Milton Berle on TV dressing as a woman was the closest thing, or Flip Wilson, that I even knew what drag was. Identifying as a gay man, I had no idea. I wasn't...I just assumed that, you know, you grew up and got married.
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KH: I was raised in a Mormon family. I call it a very liberal Mormon family because my family was very inclusive of anyone. My mother was raised Methodist most of her life. So I had a very diverse family. My father's family moved away from Utah, to get away from the Mormons because he felt his family had been treated poorly. And since then some of my relatives have come into the Mormon faith, but...so I grew up with this thing that we accepted everyone for who they are and we looked for the best in people.
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KH: I had a mother that was…I didn't mean to get emotional there. I think a great example to me and my siblings, and my dad, of what it meant to be inclusive, to treat people fairly, and to...reach out to those who may need an extra little bit of a leg up. And she always ruled with an iron fist, so...she was the head of the household in a lot of ways! So I have a great family, I have four younger brothers and two younger sisters...and, so, it's pretty good. Pretty good group of people.
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RS: So what did you do after high school?
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KH: I thought about going to college, and I did for a while and found out that it wasn't really for me. I had opportunities to do other things and I chose not to do them. And I also ran for a major office with the FFA to be a state officer which I profoundly failed at because I was putting on the convention for the FFA that year and missed an interview and so they assumed I wasn't interested which was probably a heartbreak to me. I participated in high school in public speaking and was considered very good at and debate, parliamentary procedure.
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KH: So I like I said, I dropped out of college, my family really couldn't afford to help me. So I went to work full time and worked in banking and things like that. And when I was at college, I went to a Mormon owned college, my roommates kind of influenced me and I decided to go on a Mormon mission. So, I spent a two year mission at the Oakland, California mission first part of my mission was in downtown San Francisco as my first experience of being dumped into what made me start to think, “Oh, gay…maybe I identify with something here.” I was still at that point didn't really identify as a gay man, but I all of a sudden started to understand why things felt differently to me. And why my interests were different and probably why my high school friends were female...I looked at them as friends as much as anything as I did with my male friends no more than that. But there was never any “love interest” or anything, it was just...it just was an eye opening experience for me.
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KH: And I think to be honest with you, my mission opened me up to the possibilities of being able to be whoever I wanted to be. When I was on my mission I met doctors, I met street people, I met drag queens and I met a lot of different people who you don't meet in a little town in Idaho and so when I started dealing with being gay, and who I was, I wasn't feeling pigeon holed into being a drag queen or a hairdresser or something like that. I realized I could be whoever I wanted and I think that was a wonderful experience for me.
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RS: Do you think you would have had that if you hadn't actually done your mission?
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KH: If I hadn't gone on a mission I probably would have done what a lot of Mormon men do in small Mormon communities and I probably would have made the mistake of getting married. Even after my mission, I got engaged. We were close to having a wedding when I experienced some things that made me realize I needed to deal with my sexuality. The young lady who I was engaged to was a wonderful, wonderful person. Most understanding person you could ever meet, and I haven't really met her since, or I should say haven't seen her only maybe once since we broke off the engagement. But I wish all the happiness and everything in the world to her. And like I said she was a great lady. She had to put up with me through a very rough time of my life. And so...I think my life would have went in a much different direction if I hadn't went on a mission, so.
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RS: How old were you when you broke off your engagement?
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KH: Oh let’s see...I was probably 23. So, somewhere in that neighborhood. I'm trying to think how old I was when I got home from my mission but it was probably about 23 when that broke off so…it was probably the best thing I ever did for both of us.
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RS: And after your engagement ended where were you living at the time?
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KH: At that time I was actually living with my family. We had...my folks had moved into my...grandparents house...and I was kind of living in their house. I was working in a bank and helping out on the farm. But, because of that, and what had happened earlier before the engagement was broke off I told myself that it was time for me to find out who I was. I had been working in banking, I was offered a job to work for a bank in California that job fell through as I was headed to California. I was in northern Utah. A good high school mate was working in a bank and she told me that they were looking for a head teller and asked me if I wanted to come and interview for the position. So I took a job in Logan, Utah as a teller at a bank. And so that's where I ended up for a while.
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KH: While I was working for them, I chose to basically force the Mormon church to excommunicate me. Because of the belief system in the church they believe if you are a Malkestick Priesthood holder, one of the highest levels you can be as a lay person, had more responsibilities and that you had to act differently and if you weren't a member of the church you didn't have those responsibilities and you didn't have to live up to those things. So I felt for me at that point in my life was time to move away from all of that. Move that responsibility away from me so I didn't have that guilt part and basically went to the church and told them that I kind of liked boys...I don't know if you want me to tell you what I actually said!
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RS: What?
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KH: What’s that?
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RS: Of course I want to know.
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KH: [Laughter.] Well the Mormon bishop in the ward that I was working in asked me why I couldn't take a leadership role and I says, “Well, it's ‘cause I like to suck pee pees.” And at that point he said, “Maybe we should talk about this in private.” And so that’s...that was my way of saying to them that I think I need to leave the church at this time and explore who I am and this part of my life and find out if that's really who I am. And it was a good thing for me, and it made me.
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KH: I stayed in Logan for a while. I worked for that bank for a little while longer. When I was ex-communicated I was discriminated against. I was told that of course this would always be a court of love and there would be nothing said outside of that meeting. The first day I was back at work, everybody there knew I had been ex-communicated because somebody had gone home from that court of love and told their wife who told their wife of my co-workers. And I was actually put on probation for no reason at work and I said to them, “Why is this happening? You need to give me an idea of why I'm being put on probation, what I can do to improve my work schedule or my work load.” I says, “If this is just because of the fact that you've now found out that I'm gay, it's wrong.”
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KH: Of course we had no rights at that time, they could fire me for just being gay. The board of directors had met that night at the bank and basically said we’re not going to go down that road. One of my good friends who worked at the bank’s father was on that board and said we need you to only judge him on the merits of his job. But because of that I actually told them I would be looking for a new job and I ended up working in the medical field then after that for a hospital chain.
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RS: In Logan?
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KH: In Logan Utah, whose corporate offices were based out of Salt Lake City. So…
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RS: Did you have a better experience with them?
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KH: I had a wonderful experience with them but it was still...I was pretty much closeted. I hadn't really come out. Some people knew. I still talked about going partying and always used pronouns instead of his/her, she/him. If I went to party I drove to Salt Lake City, Utah weekly to go down to the gay bars. Right after I was excommunicated I went to my first gay bar.
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KH: And the second gay bar I went to the bartender and I were chatting and we got talking about family and being from Idaho. “You look so much like my uncle that my mom had raised her two youngest brothers with us.” I asked him if he knew my uncle ‘cause they would be about the same age. He said, “No, but I have family by that name in Driggs, Idaho.” Well if he has family by that name they’re related to me! And so I said to him, asking what his was, and he told me so I asked him if he knew who would be his grandmother and he said “Yeah that's my grandma.’ And I told him who my grandfather was without saying that and he says “Yeah that's my great uncle.” And I said we're second cousins. So the first alcoholic beverage I ever drank in a gay bar was served to me by my second cousin. And he and I are very close in some ways and he still lives there in Salt Lake City and so we keep in contact. So, it was kind of a...it was really good to meet somebody who was family, and not only in the sense of my gay family but actually blood, and his friendship has meant a lot to me over the years.
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RS: Was there a very big gay community in Salt Lake?
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KH: Salt Lake has a very vibrant gay community. It's quite a large community and probably one of the most politically powerful groups in the city of Salt Lake. I always believe that no mayor will be elected without the support of the gay community. Right now they have a lesbian mayor and I helped serve on the Pride committee from ‘91 through ‘94 as a co-chair or something, and then I was involved with other things. I was asked to serve on what is now called Equality Utah's Board, when they first formed which was a political organization there in the valley. But with my involvement with gay rodeo and other commitments I had with the Ryan White Fund and county things I realized I didn't have the time to put into that...that it required and it needed...so I chose not to be involved with that.
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KH: I got involved when I got in Salt Lake with the Royal Court of the Golden Spike Empire which is a drag-based social organization and does a lot of fundraising and in Utah a lot of the organizations can trace their roots back to the Royal Court system. Rodeo, as well as many of the other organizations that are in Salt Lake, had maybe some seed there. Even our community center has some seeds that came out of that. Our Pride Day does and things of that nature.
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RS: So how did your family respond when you when you came out and were excommunicated? Did your family take that hard?
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KH: The excommunication thing was difficult for some. I actually kept that pretty close to the vest. I probably have relatives who really don't know that I've been excommunicated yet. But it's never something I really hide. I didn't even try to come out to my family until…oh, I was excommunicated in ‘82, so ’91, is when I actually started coming out to my family and friends and...and kind of said, “I'm over it. I'm not going to be in the closet anymore.” My sister and I had an experience in Logan where some guy was sexually harassing her on the phone. He first called her thinking it was my wife and was going to tell my wife that I was gay. And it was actually my sister, and she was quite flustered with it, but she handled the guy really well. She told him that she didn't have time to talk to him and if he called back in a couple of hours she could talk to him then. He never called back after that. I did confront him about it but he was someone that I really didn't want to have anything to do with anyway, and so, that was kind of the first family member who actually knew and who I’d actually confirmed it to that I was gay, so...other than my other gay family members. And...pretty much lived my life kind of in the shadows you might say.
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KH: I got involved with some gay organizations on the...in the shadows, I guess is another way to say it. I moved to Salt Lake City and while I was there I had an opportunity to go work for a medical software company who had bought the software away from the corporation that I was working with and it gave me an opportunity to travel around the country and then in that process I got to see a lot of people, see a lot of country, learned a lot of places I don't want to ever live, and places I liked. And I was able to deal with my sexuality by going out and seeing how different communities handled things and how things were different. The one thing I will say about Salt Lake City is that our female and male community have always worked very closely together and I didn't see that in some other cities. There was a definite divide. I went to a bar once and was told that I was on the women's side of the bar and that I needed to move to the men’s side, which kind of shocked me, because the gay bars in Utah...everybody was on the dance floor with each other and everybody was welcome to be there.
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KH: I quit that job after about a couple of years. I got tired of traveling, which I didn't think I ever would, I went to work for the US Postal Service. I tell people I'm a local street walker but I have to deliver mail to get a paycheck. So...and I've done that now for almost twenty-eight years, so I enjoy my job. It keeps me in good shape and when I moved back to Salt Lake and started with the post office is when I found gay rodeo again and started getting involved with that.
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RS: Now because that was a state, or a federal job, did you have to remain closeted at work?
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KH: That was the one thing about the post office. They already had a non-discrimination policy in place explicitly stating sexual orientation. Now gender identity is, I think, also in place now but it wasn't when I first started. So it gave me the freedom to be who I was and to be out. And so because of that involvement with the Pride celebration, my HIV status, and my co-chairs at Pride, Brenda who wasn't able to be my co-chair and I started what we call the DIG Awards, which stands for the Diversity is Great Awards, to do a fundraiser for the community center and recognize people in our community had done things to improve the lives of gays and lesbians. Whether the person was an ally or whether they were a gay or lesbian person. I also got involved with the National Labor Union movement and was a member of their board for a short time. They were called Pride at Work and they were part of the FLCIL. So I had a very broad, very fast indoctrination in the early 90s of being a gay man.
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KH: And because of that I got involved with the Community Council of Utah which is an organization of gay and lesbian groups and clubs and businesses in Salt Lake, because they put on our Pride Day. And I was so enthusiastic about it that I went in and, I'm a go getter and want get involved, volunteered really not knowing what I was getting into to be chair of Gay Pride for 1991. And, my co-chair was Brenda Voisard but Brenda had to resign and so I ended up with Deb Rosenberg for my co-chair. And so I had two wonderful gals that I got to work with for a while. We took Pride and moved it to a different location than they had been having it. We brought in the first outside entertainer, which we caught hell for doing, but our Pride celebration started to grow from there. We probably had about 3,000 to 4,000 people show up. And I did my first television interview and before I did that interview I called my mom and talked to her on the phone and told her I was going to be doing it. And I called a couple of siblings and they're like, “Okay, well, basically do what you have to do.” My mother never said I love you, my siblings did...that I spoke with...the ones that I felt I needed to talk to. And so I did this television and in the interview I invited everyone down and because of that the local skinhead organization took that as an invitation and showed up at our Pride day.
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KH: Pride day was very eventful for me in more than one way. I had been asked by my co-chair and her partner if I would father a child with them. So I went and was tested for HIV and other things and I got so busy that I forgot to get my test results. So Pride day was coming up that Sunday. I got a call asking if I'd like to come get my results, I had done this before, I went in on a Wednesday and they took me, I call it “on the trail from Nauvoo to Salt Lake back through the building to a back room,” and before we got back there I knew the results were going to be that I was HIV positive. I had worked in medical enough I knew enough about HIV to know it wasn't a death sentence at that moment but that I probably, at that time, only had ten years to live. I knew that I had zero converted back in November of 1990 and so HIV was something I was going to have to live with and try to figure out how to survive. And I literally at that point in my life looked at my life as being a ten year experience because people were not living much longer than that.
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KH: And so that was kind of funny because the gal that told me, I told her, “Well okay, well I'll deal with that later I've got to put on a party for 5,000 people on Sunday. I'm doing Pride day!” And she thought I was in denial. I went to my personal doctor, he said he would take me on as client, as a patient still, and so Pride day came around and I literally had no time to think about the HIV. I had to get one of my close friends and say listen if I fall apart today I need you to step in. And about the time I was ready to fall apart, because of the song the entertainer was singing, the Skinheads showed up! So I no longer had time to feel sorry for myself. So, I was able to move into that and move forward with that and had a hoot.
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KH: I had a wonderful Pride celebration and I've really never ever mourned my HIV. I have been able to wear it with a pride on my shoulder and that I decided when I came out as gay from...I was also coming out as HIV ‘cause I wasn't going to come out of the closet twice. So I got involved with the speakers bureau at the Utah's AIDS foundation to go talk to people about living with HIV, and also became an advocate in other ways for it, and had the wonderful opportunity for ten years of speaking to high school students and middle school students, different groups, community organizations, and church groups about living with HIV, the dangers of HIV and other STDS and sharing my experience and talking about what people were living with then. Half...about five years after that is when they came out with new protease inhibitors which has caused us to be able to live a full and successful life. And I have never ever had any real problems because of my HIV. Now my other health issues, like diabetes, is a different issue! But HIV never has.
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KH: And so because of that involvement with the Pride celebration, my HIV status, and my co-chairs at Pride, Brenda who wasn't able to be my co-chair and I started what we call the DIG Awards, which stands for the Diversity is Great Awards, to do a fundraiser for the community center and recognize people in our community had done things to improve the lives of gays and lesbians. Whether the person was an ally or whether they were a gay or lesbian person. I also got involved with the National Labor Union movement and was a member of their board for a short time. They were called Pride at Work and they were part of the FLCIL. So I had a very broad, very fast indoctrination in the early 90s of being a gay man.
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KH: And I enjoyed everything, made friends all over the country. And because of that my involvement in gay rodeo gave me an opportunity to have family in rodeo and be able to do the farm stuff you might say and some of the stuff I liked to do….being around livestock and animals and things like that. So it kind of came full circle from leaving the farm, to the 90s, to being involved with gay rodeo and the other things I was doing. My fingers were in a lot of places during the early 90s and then I started focusing more on gay rodeo in the early end of that time.
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RS: How did you hear about gay rodeo?
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KH: I actually attended the gay rodeos in Reno, Nevada when they had them there which were the first rodeos they had. I remember our grand marshal was, um, oh shoot. Bette Middler was it one year but when I was there it was Joan Rivers. So, I had a great time. So I knew there was something out there.
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KH: When I moved to Utah, one night at the bar with the royal court system, somebody was saying that the Golden Spike Gay Rodeo Association was doing something. I went and introduced myself to them. That was before I had quit working for the medical software company. When I quit working for them I looked that group up again and they’d changed their name to the Utah Gay Rodeo Association. And they were seated that year at the IGRA convention and I became involved with them and in ‘91 I ran to be their “Mister UGRA.”
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KH: And so I was Mr. UGRA 1992 as a representative and fundraising director for the Utah Gay Rodeo Association. And I actually ran for Mr. IGRA, and made enough mistakes in my presentations at the IGRA royalty level, but I still ended up fourth out of ten men who were running for that title and made some life time friends from that and so that was how I got started with gay rodeo. Grabbed my horses from my family, loaded them in a horse trailer, and hauled them to the Phoenix Rodeo with my royalty team and my friends and we went down and competed at the Phoenix Rodeo and had a great time.
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KH: And that’s how basically I got heavily involved with gay rodeo and became totally enthralled with being a part of it.
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RS: Which rodeo events did you participate in?
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KH: Only thing I haven’t done at the gay rodeo level is bareback bronc and bull riding. I rode enough broncs in my life growing up that I really didn’t want to get on a crazy horse, and bull riding doesn’t scare me, I just feel I didn’t had the skill set to do it so I didn’t do it. I tried steer riding. I found out I probably didn’t have the skill set to do that either. So I haven’t done that. But the other events I’ve competed in all of them. Oh, I haven’t completed at a gay rodeo in team roping. But I have done some team roping with my little brothers and they think I’m awful. My family is involved in rodeo heavily now. I have two siblings that raise livestock for rodeos. My one brother produces a small family rodeo on the weekends in the summertime and so I’m able to go to that so it’s a lot of fun to see them involved with that. And my other siblings have been involved in rodeo quite a bit.
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RS: Do they ever come to gay rodeos?
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KH: They never have, so it will be interesting if I can get them to come, when we have another one in Utah. My sister and her husband came and did dutch oven cooking for us for one of our fundraisers one time at one of the bars. Um, but my family has always been accepting of who I am. In 1994 my mother passed away. In ‘95 I met my life partner. We’ve been together almost 22 years. I got married in September of 2013. My family have always accepted him for who he is, whether they like our lifestyle or not, that’s not as important to them as whether or not they treat us with respect. My nieces and nephews are great. I had to laugh when my, once, little niece and nephews were younger they came to me and said, “Ryan’s your servant, isn’t he?” And I had to grin at that.
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KH: And then a few years later they come over and said, “Oh, Ryan is your boyfriend.” And they thought that was pretty cool they had figured that out. So my nieces and nephews are very supportive of me in the sense of my relationship and who I am, regardless of their religious affiliation. Some are Mormon, some aren’t, and so they’ve all been very supportive of me. I’m sure some of them don’t totally understand or agree with it but they have never really said it to my face. We disagree on politics and religion more than we do on my lifestyle.
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RS: How did you meet your partner?
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KH: We met in a bar. And if I tell the story he’ll call me a liar! [Laughter] But the story’s true! We, ah, I actually went there to meet someone else. And we sit down and start talking and he asked me for my phone number. Well, I didn’t have any pen and paper but because I was doing gay rodeo my phone number was the contact number for gay rodeo. Because I was doing the Diversity is Great Awards my phone number was the contact for that and we were putting them on in a month, and because of my involvement with Pride my phone number was the contact number for that as well. And, so, I said, “Well, here let’s grab one of the gay newspapers that we had and my phone number is here, here, here, and here.” Of course at that point his friends and he said, “Well, he’s really kind of arrogant. I don’t think you want to spend any time with him.” So my partner basically said I threw the water on it when my friend came over and said, “Am I interrupting anything?” and I said, “No.”
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KH: So anyways the story is, is I found out where he worked, I went to his work, he didn’t remember who I was from two or three nights before. He’ll tell you it’s because I didn’t look the same. My husband is not someone who pays that much attention to someone in the sense of how they look or what they are, he looks for certain things. So he asked me to write my name and phone number down after I had asked him out, and I think we were going to go to a bull riding only competition, and that was when I wrote my name and phone number down it still I don’t think clued him into that he had met me at the bar a couple of nights before! So that’s how we met and that’s when we started dating and that was on January 14 of 1995. And that was our first date and after that our friends were like, “You two? That’s not something we would put together.” And we did have a rough go to begin with, like a lot of gay couples. But we’ve been together now twenty-two years almost and I don’t see it going anywhere real soon. He puts up with my idiosyncrasies and that’s all that’s important. [Laughter.]
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RS: Where did he grow up?
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KH: What’s that?
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RS: Where did he grow up?
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KH: He grew up, actually, in Santa Maria, California mainly but his family is from Preston, Idaho and Smithfield, Utah. So when he went on his mission they had moved back to Utah and he’d actually gone to college in Utah, so his ties were quite heavily to Utah but his schooling and his youth was in Santa Maria, California. And that’s actually where we got married, we went back there to visit his schoolmates and so while we were there I woke up one morning asking what he wanted to do and he didn’t say anything so I said, “Well do you want to get married?” So we went and got married that day. [Laughter.] And I’m usually the cool and calm and collected one. He was the cool, calm and collected one. I was pitted out! The poor lady who sold us the marriage license twice came out and asked me if I was going to be okay. And, I made it through the marriage ceremony. I told the minister we wanted it short, sweet, and over with and that’s what it was. And that was in September of 2013 and so we’ve just celebrated three years of actual marriage.
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RS: And was he ever involved with the gay rodeo, too?
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KH: I made him. I’ve actually had him in the area. He’s done goat dressing. He’s not an athlete. [Laughter.] He’s an academic. He’s an eye doctor. And so, that part of my life he supports and is happy for me. He’s involved with the rodeo association now as a member and is supportive of me and of the organization but when it comes to the rodeo part and the competitive part he’ll sit in the stands and call himself a rodeo widow. He’s not going to get in the arena again, he said, so, but I got him to serve on the board of directors for a while and I got him involved with our convention. And so he’s very supportive of me, but, this is...this is my thing and so it just makes me grin.
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RS: And you were re-seated as Utahs...
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KH: The Utah Gay Rodeo Association closed its doors. They were seated in ‘89 and closed their doors in 2006 and a little over a year ago some kids in Utah decided they wanted to start it back up again, and I got an invitation to come and get involved and so as of the convention here in Austin, Texas in 2016 we have now been re-seated as the Utah Gay Rodeo Association and can move forward on putting on rodeos and convention and other things that IGRA sponsors.
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RS: So why did it close?
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KH: I wasn’t involved the last three years so I can’t really say what the reasoning was behind...for them dispersing. And they didn’t really invite me in to be part of that when they were dispersing. And, which is fine with me, I needed a break. I’d been so active in the community for so many years that me and my husband were on a hiatus you might say. It lasted a lot longer than I planned on it lasting, but, it was something I think I needed.
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KH: When I started that hiatus a good friend of mine who had gotten involved...who was involved in gay rodeo and also with other things, I tell you, put me in a very bad spot. In Salt Lake City we have the Dr. Kristen Ries Community Service Award which is probably...Dr. Ries was the first doctor in Utah to start serving HIV positive patients and she had gone on, her and her partner, Maggie, would be two of the top HIV care patient specialists in the world. Both of them have now retired. I had the opportunity for her to be my doctor for some time.
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KH: Every year at our Pride celebration the community hands out the Dr. Kristen Community Service Award. So, I’m going to toot my horn a little bit, and I was actually honored with getting that award. Again, I didn’t expect to get emotional. Having it named after her and having her ride with the gay pride parade was probably one of the highlights of my life and probably the second highlight was when we had our rodeo in Utah the sons of bitches didn’t tell me that along with Aunty Dee, who is...we call her “the mother of gay rodeo” in Utah, our grand marshal had snuck in me to be a co-grand marshal with her and I didn’t know until the night of the award ceremony so those are two of the biggest highlights of my life when it comes to actually my gay life you might say.
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KH: Those two honors and especially them being given to me by my peers who I feel I couldn’t have done anything that they’re honoring me for without their support and without them doing the work they did and I got credit for it. So those are two very humbling, humbling, moments of my life. Sorry about the tears.
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RS: In this new generation in Utah, are they young? Are they energized? Do you think it’s...
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KH: The people involved with gay rodeo are very young, most of them. There’s a couple oldies, but they’re very energized, they’re go-getters and I hate to say it but sometimes I feel I have to put the reins on a little bit. I like to be a voice of reason with them. And when it comes to the gay community as a whole I lost so many of my peers and compadres to HIV and so many of my compadres now I’m looking at a generation of people who didn’t have to do the fights like we did, didn’t have to face the discrimination, so a lot of them don’t understand the need or the reasoning behind gay organizations like gay rodeo, like the royal court, and those types of organizations because their friends are so accepting of them and will party with them. So it’s going to be a difficult outreach to get these young people to understand the need for these organizations and the camaraderie and the family that they could be a part of, so we have a lot of work ahead of us as a gay rodeo and as an organization in Utah, to bring those young people that word, that information and try and get them involved so that all these organizations can survive.
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RS: Do you think that young kids in Utah, who sort of grow up in this predominantly LDS culture, do you think that something like gay rodeo can give them a place?
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KH: Oh it definitely can give them a place. One thing is that most of us who come into gay rodeo, and who live in Utah, moved from small rural communities. We grew up on farms. We grew up on cattle ranches. They moved to Utah to get away from all of that and the discrimination, so, you gotta give them five or six years to, as I say, come out with a cigarette in one hand, a drink in the other, and flame at the bars. They’ve gotta go through that identity and hopefully it’s a positive experience and that they don’t fall into some of the pitfalls that can happen with that, and once they get through that they’re going to be a little older and they’re going to start looking for places to spend their energy and a lot of them come back to their roots.
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KH: They come back to that family farm thing and I think because of the devastation that happened in our community that generation now is just starting to mature to the point where they’re going to start looking for something besides the bars and besides partying and gay rodeo is a great place for them to land. It’s a healthy, athletic sporting type event and it’s a great family. It’s a great group of people to be involved with and I’m hoping that we can reach out to them and bring them back in. We do have a lot of support outside of our organization.
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KH: A lot of people don’t want to be part of the organization but they will support us and I’m looking forward to working with all of them over the next few years.
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RS: Do you plan to get back into the arena?
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KH: I want back into the arena so bad my teeth ache! The first rodeo I go to I will complete, if I have to drag someone screaming and kicking. I love chute dogging. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s where you climb into a bucking chute with a steer and you hang onto until its nose is ten feet out from the chute and then you dog it to the ground just like in a steer wrestling event. It’s an adrenaline rush, I love it. I enjoy the other events...the camp events and things like that...so, find some partners and get involved.
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KH: Some of the guys in Utah know that I know how to ride a horse. I won’t say I’m the best horseman. I’m a great critic but I wouldn’t say I was the best horseman. Or roper. I know how to throw a rope. But I’d love to get back involved in all of that and at my age, which is almost sixty, there aren’t very many rodeo associations or any athletic organizations that you can get involved in and still complete at the highest level.
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KH: And I’m in good health and good physical shape so hopefully I can get back in there and do what I used to do when I was completing in the ‘90s, so twenty years later, we’ll see!
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RS: So do you consider yourself a cowboy?
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KH: You know I think of myself more of a country boy. I call it “cowboy drag” when I dress up in my cowboy clothes. So I think of myself more of a country boy. I don’t think of myself so much as a cowboy because that’s a fantasy life to me and I kind of like to keep that fantasy life. I don’t have a problem putting on a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of cut-offs and a baseball cap and a t-shirt and being comfortable and going to a rodeo or an event but I also like getting dressed up and putting on my boots and my hat and going out, too, so. Does that answer that question?
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RS: Yes. Yes I think so. Do you think you’ll do anymore entertaining?
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KH: I have been, ah, entertaining at Salt Lake. When I was involved with Pride the royal court was putting on their first pride competition for a Mr., Miss, and Ms. gay pride. At the time I didn’t know it was their first. My co-chair Deb and I found out they didn’t have any contestants, so we went and ran for this title and we ended up with it. So, I have the honor of being the first Mr. Gay Pride of all of Utah, and so I do perform as Mr. Gay Pride and as Mr. UGRA 2002 and 1992. So I don’t mind getting up and performing. I’m kind of a ham anyway, so I enjoy lip synching and doing that stuff. So I’m sure I will. This is an awful thing to say but...we’re going to have a royalty competition in Utah in January and I’m not so sure...I might not run for Mr. UGRA again. [Laughter.]
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RS: What’s your favorite thing to lip sync to?
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KH: Oh I love country. Older country. 80s country music. And I like songs that are a little different or maybe a little story telling or things like that. I’m not into the new country sound of Florida Georgia Line or Keith Urban or some of those. The George Straits, the Neil McCoys, those people is who I probably lip sync to more than anything and probably my favorite person to lip sync to is a gentleman who was named Chris LeDoux. He...even sings the songs that other people have done such as George Strait, “Amarillo by Morning,” or...oh...I can’t think of his name now! But “Rhinestone Cowboy,” which both Chris LeDoux has recorded and I have recordings of...I actually prefer to perform that version of it than the versions that Glen Campbell or George Strait do, so. [Laughter.]
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RS: Do you, like, costume and everything?
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KH: Oh, I’m not much of a costume person. I will do a little thing. I did a number by Tim McGraw and, “Something Like That” is the song, and then there’s a line that says “I had a BBQ stain on my white t-shirt” so I wear a shirt and I take a BBQ stain and put it on my shirt. That’s about as much costuming as you’ll see I do. And then the only other thing I’ve ever done is we had a group of guys and we called ourselves “Ugly Girls Really Are,” U.G.R.A., and there was “Wildebeest” and “Utahna Montana,” and my name was “Blanched Trampoline” and we would do a camp drag where we would wear our cowboy boots and pull our pant legs up and put on a skirt and a wig and lipstick, and as you see I have facial hair and it was still there, and that was our way of just kind of having some comedy added to it and that’s the closest I’ve ever come to drag.
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RS: What do you think the relationship is between the rodeo and the entertainment wing is today?
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KH: I think both are important. Mainly because as rodeo people that’s an event, the entertainment side of it, as you hear them talk today about dance, I think that’s important too because gay rodeo wants to be inclusive and being inclusive means accepting everyone for who they are and having an opportunity for them to be involved. So those who do not want to be in the arena they have the opportunity to not only serve on committees that put on our conventions, fundraising, or they can be an official at a rodeo so that would put them involved...but there’s also those who don’t really want to do any of that and yet the royalty system, being able to do fundraising by lip synching and entertaining and using their talents in that area. So they can kind of go hand in hand, and they should, and again we talked about dance, which is a huge part of the country lifestyle, and getting that back involved and I agree totally that we need to get...blend...all three of those so that everybody out there has a place they feel they can find and fit in gay rodeo and give them an opportunity to participate and be a part of that family.
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RS: So moving forward what do you hope to see in the coming years?
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KH: I hope to see gay rodeo grow again. I remember when we used to have about twenty rodeos a year. And I hope to see Utah’s association grow and be able to do what we did in the past and put on some successful rodeos and events and become a major player on the gay rodeo circut. I have big dreams and so do the kids that I’m working with so I hope we can put them together and make them come true.
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RS: Is there anything you want to talk about that I didn’t ask you?
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KH: I can’t think of anything right off the top of my head, other than maybe the political climate we’re in now but that maybe is the worst thing we could ever talk about. [Laughter.]
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RS: No, I, this is important. Do you think that’s going to affect, especially in a place like Utah...
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KH: You know, LDS people are good people to be around and they don’t want to hurt our community but at the same time they’re not sure how to go about things without doing that and so yeah they do hurt it. I feel the leadership of the organization doesn’t understand who we are. I think they’re so out of touch, just like our government doesn’t understand what’s going on in the cities and streets of our country, and that makes it hard for organizations like us who are on the fringe to be able to do the things we’d like to do without having to come up against some resistance a times, however, as long as we respect one another then I think can always work together, and...that’s always my hope is that we can have mutual respect for one another and move forward.
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KH: At the same time I’m not afraid to yell once in a while to get the attention of those that I need to get the attention of to get that mutual respect. I have been at protests where I’ve been a little out there. [Laughter.] And I haven’t been ashamed of it but at the same time it never was meant to hurt it was meant to. I’ve been attacked when I’ve done booths at different organizations. An education fair, when I was doing an HIV booth, I was attacked verbally for a good four or five minutes by a gentleman before they finally came and removed him. So, I have had those opportunities to see what it’s like.
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KH: I have been fearful at times. I had a guy pull a gun on me once and it wasn’t the most awful thing but it wasn’t a pleasant thing either. It turned out to be something that I could get away from and not have to deal with. I was much, much, younger at the time and much, much, more stupid and naive. The situation probably wouldn’t have bothered me at all now if that same situation had happened. I would have handled it differently. But, ah, I see the world growing not only on gay rights but on women’s rights, on other rights that all people are to be treated equally and I’m hoping that someday our world can get there.
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RS: Me, too. Thank you for your time today.
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KH: No problem.
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[Recording ends.]
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Note: This transcript has been reviewed by the interviewee who made edits to portions of the interview. The transcript no longer matches the audio interview in the edited sections.

Adam Romanik

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I am here with Adam Romanik… Romanik, there we go, Adam Romanik. And it is October 21st and we’re in Albuquerque at the 2017 World Gay Rodeo Finals. So can you tell me when and where you were born?
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Adam Romanik: Sure, so I was born in North Eastern Pennsylvania. Near, above Scranton area and lived in that area most of my life growing up as a kid.
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RS: Wow, and when was that?
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AR: I was, born in '79 and I lived in that area until 1998, is when I graduated high school and went off to college.
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RS: Did you guys live on a farm, or out in a rural area?
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AR: I did. So, I lived in a rural area [...] there was farms and country.
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RS: Did you guys have horses?
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AR: I did. So, I’ve owned horses since I was 4 years old. Basically, I was always a horse fanatic, since I was a little kid. When I was 4 years old my dad got me my first pony. So, I had that pony for a short while, and then I got another pony when I was 6 and I’ve pretty much had horses since then consistently, at least one horse. And I’ve had as many as 18.
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RS: Wow, and what did your parents do for a living?
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AR: My dad has been a self-employed truck driver, all his life. And my mom was a homemaker until I went to college. And her and I went back to school and she became a nurse then, and now she works as a nurse.
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RS: Did you have siblings?
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AR: I do, I’m the oldest of 4. I have a brother and two sisters, and yup.
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RS: Are they horse people too?
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AR: My youngest sister is a horse person, she has horses and my dad owns horses as well.
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RS: Would you mainly just do trail rides or were you involved in, what do I want to say? Like shows?
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AR: Okay so, growing up, I did trail rides and horse shows. I did a lot of barrel racing, all throughout as kid and throughout high school and in college, I took my horse with me to college and did a lot of both trail riding and barrel racing. Yup.
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RS: What was school like for you growing up?
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AR: You’re talking about like high school and elementary school? Well, when I was in high, elementary was you know just elementary school. When I was in high school I was very involved in extracurricular activities, things like student council, and I was very involved in that type of thing. And then later on band and things like that, so I was always very busy in high school.
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RS: And then you went off to college in 1998, is that correct?
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AR: Yup that’s correct?
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RS: Where’d you go?
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AR: I went to Clarine University in Clarine, Pennsylvania and I majored in library science, got my bachelor’s degree in library science.
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RS: What was college like in the 90’s?
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AR: Well, it was very, for me it was actully very freeing because I... I’ve been disabled since I was 11. They figure I was born with a tumor inside my spinal cord and they found that when I was 11 years old. And so, I had that removed when I was 11, and since that surgery I’ve been a paraplegic. You know, nothing ever really stopped me, like I rode horses and had 4 wheelers and all that kinds of stuff before I became disabled. And then you know, growing up I sort of, after that happened I sort of just got back into things. I rode again, and I couldn’t wait to drive when I turned 16 and you know all those kids of things. So... college for me was really more about finding myself and becoming very independent. I was suddenly 4 hours away from home and I could kinda go and do my own thing. I had a vehicle there and I had my horse there. So, it was an independence thing but also it was a vehicle for me to get somewhere. I really didn’t want to go to college, to be honest, when I first started because I was very much you know, I didn’t want to go to school, I just wanted to find a job and work. And then when I went to college, my goal was always to get done as soon as possible. I took summer classes, I took 18 credits one summer and I took 17 credits the second summer. I finished my bachelor’s degree in 3 years, it was one of those things where I really just wanted to get done and I wanted to be independent... and start life kinda thing.
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RS: And were you in the dorms? Or, I guess my main question is, where was your horse?
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AR: Okay good question. I did stay in the dorm throughout the regular semesters fall and summer, fall and spring I lived in the dorm and then in the summer I had an off-campus apartment. My horse was kept in a boarding stable about 7 miles away.
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RS: So pretty accessible?
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AR: Right, pretty accessible. I could go out, and I had a trailer there on my own and I could go out and see her, and I did I usually would go out two or three times a week or more and ride and all that.
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RS: And how did you first discover the rodeo?
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AR: So, I came out back in the late 90’s early 2000’s, and horses were always the center of my life, okay. Being with my horses, trail riding, showing, etcetera. And... one of the biggest challenges that I found with dating and everything is really trying to find someone, that shares that same love. So I met many people, dated people, been in a relationship with people that really didn’t have that love, and it really was an issue, it really caused an issue. When you own horses, and a lot of horses, it takes hours, it takes money, it takes a lot of things, it’s true dedication. Especially competing in the rodeos, its days of traveling, it’s a lot of expense etcetera. With all of that, I started to explore, how can I find someone that has, shares that same love. When I was in college, as I mentioned earlier I had my horse with me and I shared it somewhere locally. And there happened to be a gay couple there that had met at a gay rodeo, many year before that. So that was kind my first introduction to the gay rodeo and everything that sort of thing. And at that time, I really didn’t get to know anything about the gay rodeo, just that it was out there. And then sort of as time went on I learned more about it and as I had that sort of personal yearning for finding what I was really looking for, that’s when I really started to do a lot of self-discovery and you know, what was really involved and everything.
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AR: So then, it became my goal to be involved, and at the time there was another Pennsylvania chapter, it was called Liberty Gay Rodeo Association based out of Philadelphia Pennsylvania. They held there first rodeo in 2008, and they held another in 2009. Unfortunately I didn’t make the 2008 rodeo, but I made it my goal to make sure that I was there in 2009, and that was the first rodeo I've ever competed in. I loved it so much and it happened to work out, that I had a business trip to Chicago right when the Chicago rodeo was happening that same year. My work actually paid for me to haul my horse out to Chicago, and I competed in the Chicago rodeo, and that experience for me was so freeing. It was, a huge event of pride, to go and be able to be who I was and do what I love with my horse and everything and it was really, I’d say kinda what brought me to where I am today. And then after that, I wanted to be more involved in gay rodeo but then I didn’t have the funds or whatever.
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AR: And then that’s when I sort of went back to school and got my master’s degree. And then in 2013 I competed in the rodeo in Detroit Michigan. And then, a few years ago, acutely at that Detroit rodeo, someone said to me, we really at that time, the Pennsylvania association had folded, someone said to me you know, we really need to get a Pennsylvania association going, we really need to get back into this. And I did feel that, and it was really just a matter of time before I could put all the pieces of my self together before I could really commit to doing that. And so that's kinda what lead up to where we are today. So in 2015 I started Keystone State Gay Rodeo Association, and... put that together, and we’re going strong. We are here now 2 years later and we have 100 members, and we've held our first rodeo, we held our first rodeo this past June, so.
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RS: And how did it go?
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AR: It went very well, for a first event. Anytime you hold a first event there’s going to be a lot of hiccups, and things that aren’t planned, and expenses that aren’t planned. And just tons and tons of pieces, and through all of it, I am very pleased with how it went, the rodeo went off, we did have some... things that came up, we were able to get through them, work through them. We have a lot of work ahead of us to do, but we are planning on having another rodeo in 2018. We had tons of positive feedback from competitors, we had 1,000 to fifteen hundred people in the stands watching the rodeo. We had tons of positive feedback from the community, that came to watch the rodeo, and being a different type of pride event, and those are all reasons to continue on.
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RS: What events do you usually compete in?
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AR: So I compete in the horse events, the speed events. Since 2009 I’ve done, I normally do barrel racing, pole bending, and flag race. And then this year, I started a new event, so I’m also doing calf roping on foot now. My goal in the next few years is to get maybe into the roping, do maybe breakaway roping.
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RS: ...As a paraplegic, what are the challenges of doing such a physically demanding sport?
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AR: Sure, so there are a lot of challenges obviously... strength and, getting on the horse and getting the horse loaded and all that kinds of stuff, those are all challenges. Just taking care of the horses you know, huge challenge. So pretty much, the way I see it, if its something you want to do bad enough, you’ll find a way. So I figured out many, many ways of getting the saddle on my horse, I’m very upper body wise strong so getting the saddle on my horse is not a problem. I do actually get on from the wheelchair, I have all my horses trained that they will, they pretty much just stand still and I grab ahold of the saddle horn and pull myself up on, so there are a lot of physical challenges. As well as staying on and riding, all those events are speed events, so you’re going fast, you’re turning you know all those sorts of things and I do it all without the use of my legs. Some of the challenges, so basically how I, how I ride, I have a regular barrel saddle, and it is modified. I have a gel cushion on the saddle, I have a seat belt that’s Velcro that goes around my hips, and I use rubber bands to keep my feet in the stirrup and that’s it, that’s all that holds me on, and my upper body strength.
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RS: And what are the sort of social assumptions, do people just take it for granted that you don’t compete?
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AR: [...] They don’t see me as a person, they see the wheelchair, its usually like turning off a light switch kind of thing. I think I’ve done a really good job at showing them that just because you’re disabled doesn’t mean you can’t... be educated, you can’t lead an organization. It doesn’t mean you can’t... do what you put your mind to you know? For me it’s also very freeing to be able to go compete, to be able to go and ride, to do what I love to do. There have been many, many times where I have been at a rodeo, or some type of horse event, team pining barrel racing whatever, and people honestly have no idea. I have been in an arena competing and... I come out, I jump off my horse and, I’m wheeling around and whatever and people are like, seriously was that just you out there in the area, and people just have no idea. They wouldn’t know it from how I ride and all that. So... for me it has been very, very freeing.
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RS: What have been the challenges of being an association dedicated to rodeo but on the eastern side of theUnited States.
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AR: Good question, it has been, actually extremely challenging. One of the biggest challenges is the fact that we’re so far away from everyone. We have one association that’s close to us, but they're not a real active association. Beyond that, we have sort of been on our own pretty much. We have really had to spend, I can’t even... begin to think about the thousands of hours that we have spent, out there blowing our own horn, telling people who we are, and who IGRA is, and what we are doing, and why we do it and all of that... all those PR type of events. Its been very, very challenging, to be an association that’s far away. It's been challenging on one hand and on the other hand its been really, really welcomed because people don't know about it. So when they hear about it, they’re all excited. Just the fact that we've held one rodeo and we had a thousand spectators in the stands, and that’s huge. The other thing is that, in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania is a very horse supported area, so there are a lot of horse events that are there that have helped as well. People are familiar with rodeo. Where we held our rodeo at, there's 3 or 4 other rodeo events there every year. It’s just that ours is a unique rodeo, that’s the only real difference.
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RS: And what about coming west, for other rodeos, how difficult is that?
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AR: It’s, I wouldn't say it's difficult, it’s just a long process. Anytime we go to a rodeo, you got to add in... 2 to 3 extra days at least. In the case of this weekend it’s 4 to 5 extra days. We could have flown to this, I didn’t bring my horse this weekend, but anytime that we do go to a rodeo, it's taking horses, it's pulling your horse all those thousands of miles. So, it’s definitely, extra days, a lot of gas expense, etcetera. So those are all challenges.
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RS: Do many of your association members make it out to things like this?
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AR: Actually, that’s one of the things, that’s one of the reasons I started our organization, was to really gather people, that have the same common interest. Because, it takes money to do it all, that’s just bottom line, okay. If I’m going by myself, I’m footing that bill myself. So one of the things I’ve done, and I think I’ve done pretty successfully, is really do the networking to get our members involved. For example, last Labor Day weekend, there was about 10 to 12 KSGRA members that went to the Kansas City Rodeo. 6 of us all went together, and 2 others went together. We took 2 horses together, so it could really help cut down on those expenses. This weekend here at rodeo finals, there are about 8 to 10 KSGRA members competing at 4 KSGRA. For me those are real highlights, because it just shows the progress that we’ve made, to say 2 years ago we started this thing and now to have 10 members here competing, that's awesome. And most of those members flew here, so it wasn’t really an expense. I did drive here with another one of my board members. Driving is a lot cheaper, but it does take a lot of time. But those are all huge success.
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AR: As I was talking to someone last night... it’s interesting how... the plan is sort of finally falling in place if you really think about it. Back in 2011 when I started my master’s degree and my motivation was to come to these things. And here we are, 6 years later, basically, and it’s starting to fall into place. This year I’ve done more rodeos than I’ve ever done. So I was at Littlerock in April, we held our rodeo in June, we went to... Kansas City Labor Day weekend, here we are at finals rodeo, and we’ll be at convention in Littlerock in a few weeks. Next year our goal is to do 6, 5 rodeos. So we’re planning on going to Texas in the spring, of course we’ll be at our own rodeo, that’s in June, we'll be at, our goal is to do Denver in July, also Minneapolis at the end of July, and then Kansas City Labor Day weekend. And then of course, next year I hear finals is gonna be in Arizona so we’ll be there.
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RS: Is it difficult to balance the sort of leadership responsibilities with also competing and training and all that?
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AR: It is, it really is. There’s, as I say, there’s never a dull moment in my life. My partner and I, we don’t have TV, there’s just really isn't time for it you know? It is a real work balance, there’s always something to do. One of the things that I’ve actually… I consider myself a pretty good multitasker so I can start one project and be working on something else. One of the things that I really actually utilize my rodeo time for, is these trips. So I always have a laptop with me, I have a hotspot on my phone, and as we’re spending hours and hours in the car driving to rodeos, its one of the things that I’ve learned is that, it takes people, it takes a community to do it. As I take people with me I let them drive and I work, or I do KSGRA stuff, or I work on class stuff or whatever I mean, it all takes time, you got to balance it somehow.
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...
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RS: Would you, being from... not the west, but obviously being involved in rodeo, would you consider yourself a cowboy?
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AR: Absolutely, absolutely it’s every part of my being is being involved with the horses and riding and... living that cowboy lifestyle, its all, my life just revolves around the whole thing, pretty much.
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RS: When you were growing up, what was your image of a cowboy?
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AR: I think, kind of my image has changed a little bit. Growing up my image of a cowboy was the guy out working the ranch, rounding up the cattle, and all that. And my image now has changed a lot, there’s so many different images that come to mind when you think of cowboy you know? The hardworking person that, enjoys to go out and ride and, I think too one of the things that a lot of people don’t see sometimes, is the... giving of yourself and trying to better life for the community and that kind of thing. That’s always, I think, been sort of the cowboy way of looking out for your fellow brothers and that’s something that we do here in the rodeo, it’s all about charity for the community.
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RS: Obviously you are been spearheading the growth of the association, what do you see for the future by chairing?
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AR: Well I’m hopeful that... some changes will come in IGRA, I’m hopeful that we’ll see, sometime in the next few years of getting more national sponsors involved, getting more national companies involved. Growing, bringing back, some more rodeos to the circuit. Bringing back, hopefully more people to the circuit. And also, getting more younger people involved, its one of those things, as long as I’ve been involved in this organization... the age ranges, there’s really, a real gap in the folks my age and younger.
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RS: How do you think you can... wrangel those folks in?
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AR: I think some of it is, just being realistic about what it takes. Some of it is... getting people interested in, and some of it is, it's not working, a lot of it's not working. I'll give you an example of that, one of the things that we do regulary, our assosiation, is we do a monthly trail ride. People don't have to own their own horse, they can come ride our horses ride, 10 of our horses ride, 10 of our 13. So, people can come, they can ride, and we have... gotten, I'd say, probably between 15 and 25 percent of new members that way. People coming, teaching them about the horses, about the rodeos, who doesn't doesn't like to look at a cowboy in tight wranglers? Those are the kinds of things, the community building, its the getting the mission out there, what this is all about, all those kinds of things I think are what make people drawn to it.
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Frank Harrell

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Rebecca Scofield: So, I'm gonna go ahead and introduce us, I'm Rebecca Scofield and today I am here talking with Frank Harrell about the International Gay Rodeo Association. And, really just doing an oral history, today is July 7th...
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Frank Harrell: July 7th, 2017.
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RS: And we're in Denver, Colorado.
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FH: To be very precise we're at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Golden Colorado which is just slightly north of Denver.
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RS: And tomorrow will be the Rocky Mountain...
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FH: ...Regional Rodeo.
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RS: Excellent. So, what year were you born?
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FH: I was born [in] 1952, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
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RS: What was it like growing up?
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FH: Small town boy, Rocky Mount at the time had about 25,000 population. Didn't really go very far, I had to walk to school... I don't remember a whole lot about that time in my life. I'm now 65 years old so it's, it's been a while...
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...
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RS: So what did your parents do for a living?
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FH: My father was a professional portrait photographer, as well as his father. He had a small business, my grandfather, I don't know too much of the story about how he got started in it, but about 1920 he had a studio in Wilson, North Carolina, and for some reason he was in Rocky Mount for business, and the streets were just jammed with people. The next week he moved to the studio in Rocky Mount. Grandfather died in 1945 and dad took over the studio. In the late 1950s, [started to rain a little bit], in the late 1950s we went through a recession and his studio pretty much dried up and he had no income. I learned many years later that the entire year, and I'm not sure which one it was, the entire year his gross income was $15. He was living off his life savings, or we were living off his life savings. He had to do something, so he put out applications to every place he could think of. First one came through was with the Smithsonian Institution, as a photographer, so we moved to northern Virginia where he started working for them. That's where he worked for the last 20 years of his life. Lot of interesting stories and came from that, that's what dad did. ...
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RS: And did you have siblings?
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FH: Yeah, I have 4: 2 brothers and 2 sisters, I'm the oldest. [rain.] I came along and then my next sister came along 9 years later, and then they all came about a year apart, so essentially when I was growing up I was the person who took care of the family, cause mother was never around to do it, and dad was working. I hate kids [laughs]. I think anybody that's listening to this understands what I mean by that, I don't really hate kids, in no way do I have any of my own.
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RS: You have a lot of experience with child care.
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FH: Exactly, Exactly.
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RS: How long were you in North Carolina?
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FH: We left North Carolina when I was 11, so [when] I had my first 12th birthday we were already in Virginia. I lived in northern Virginia from then until 2010, when I my partner and I moved to Colorado.
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RS: So was there a big change between culture at all between North Carolina and Virginia? Or landscape?
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FH: Landscape [was a ] major change. We moved from a small, single-family, brick house to a duplex in the middle of Arlington. ... We lived there for about 2 years, and I found out later that both my parents realized I was an unhappy kid. So we ended up, they ended up, once dad got better on his feet, he purchased a new house in a suburban neighborhood. It was built '62, '63 right in that period, have to try and figure out the exact date. Went from basically being the middle of a metropolis to an area that had lots of trees and open space and woods all around and so I fell in love with the outdoors, and I enjoyed growing up in that area.
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RS: What were some of the things you would do outside?
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FH: Oh, I loved to build trails, we had lots of woods in the area and I would go out with my rake, and build a trail for people to walk on. One of which actually ended up, even after all the woods were torn down and houses were put in, still is there as a paved walkway, because the position of it was so perfect, goes in to a lot of wooded areas that, park areas its right next to those houses. That was my favorite thing, build trails. Go camping. We went camping a lot up in the Shenandoah National Park.
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FH: And then in 1967 we took our first trip west. Dad piled the family into the car. Had the, let's see dad, mom, grandma, me, Sally, my sister and my latest brother Charlie--we were all in a used black Ford, middle of July, temperature 110 degrees crossing the prairies, no air conditioning. That was a hot car, black. And our first stop, I think we spent three days getting across the major part of the country and our first stop was in, just west of Denver at Echo Lake, elevation of 10,000 feet. I remember dad telling one story about that trip. Mother kept--she had never been west of North Carolina and dad was going as hard as he could travel, almost 2,000 miles across--and she kept saying, 'Slow down. Slow down. I wanna see the country." Until we got to the Mississippi river and it was on the interstate system was brand spankin new, it had only been opened a few months, and there was this sign across the top of the road that said Denver was 500 miles. Mother grew up in an area where the next town was 3 miles apart, and she never bothered to complain after that. The other thing was going on when we were leaving dad was shoving blankets in every nook and cranny in the back of the car he could find and mother couldn't understand why he was putting blankets in the car in the middle of July, well that night, up at Echo lake, we froze our bippies off. That was cold, it was. We spent 2 weeks out here, and that's when I fell in love with this area.
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RS: And were you very much into cowboys, when you were young?
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FH: ... I'm not quite sure exactly why the cowboy thing kinda came in. Course when I was growing up the big thing in the motion pictures and television was westerns. I remember Sky King and Cisco Kid, and I grew up with those TV shows, Roy Rogers, although for some reason I didn't like him as much as I liked the others, maybe because Sky King had an airplane, you ever heard of that show? So my generation was absorbed with cowboys and the West, from theater and television. I think that maybe one of the reasons that ... the rodeo is starting to fade is because... the group of people from my generation, they grew up on the cowboys. We're now getting old, and the kids and the younger people who are now at the point that they are the ones who are getting involved in the rodeo, they didn't grow up on the cowboy stuff, so they didn't have that kind of direct influence. Between seeing it in the TV and the movies and our trips out West, we did go to a couple dude ranches a couple years, I think that probably sealed my interest in cowboys. ...
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RS: What was high school like?
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FH: High school was kind of interesting. I've always been technically minded. And I've also been very shy, and it's very difficult for me to start, or make first contact, to somebody I don't know or some function. Always, dad was a, he was a professional photographer but his hobby was movies, 8 millimeter movies. He kept encouraging me to try to get involved in motion picture film stuff, and equipment that they had in high school. And finally one day I worked up the courage to go to the librarian and ask if I could get involved in working with the AV department. Well, probably about 3 weeks later I found myself of the president of the AV club for the high school. So I was very much involved in that equipment, and managing and taking care of it. ... As far as school itself, I was not a very good student. I did not like school. I've always had trouble with school and learning. I find it pretty easy to learn things if I'm working with it, but I don't learn well from reading books. ...
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RS: When, you were in high school and immediately out of school, was there any sort of technical education about computing or computers?
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FH: Computers in school was just beginning to start when I was a senior in high school, I think that when I was a junior, the school got its first terminal, which I now know was being connected to the ARPANET, which was brand new at the time. They had a, I don't remember what they called it, but it was a room that people would go into when they didn't have a class to attend. And they had this teletypewriter terminal set up in there, and there was a group of 4 or 5 that were big into that. It was way beyond my reach because they wouldn't even let you touch it unless you were a straight A student at that time, but we did have a connection to the ARPANET in my high school. I didn't start getting involved in computers as such until, about 1979 or '80, when radio shack came out with their second computer. I didn't get the first one, but the second one, which was called the radio shack color computer, was the first one available where you didn't have to buy the TV set along with it. So I got my first computer for, I think I paid about 300 dollars for it, and I could use my own television because at that time I couldn't afford the one that came with the TV. And I learned basic, fooling around with that computer, but I didn't really learn it too terribly well, because the only storage method that it had was a cassette player, or recorder that you would try to store your program on. Half the time it didn't work. So when I tried reloading the program it didn't load, so I had to type the whole program again. ... Jumping forward a few years, in '96, 1996, I was a volunteer in Manassas National Battlefield Park, which was the first major land battle of the American Civil War in northern Virginia. The park was only 11 miles from where I lived, so it was a convenient place to be volunteering at. ...I had been there for a few years, doing this, and one day I brought in our Notebook computer to show them this new thing we got hooked up to at home called the internet. And I was showing them how websites worked and stuff like that, and I typed in NPS.gov which is the National Park Service.gov, and to my surprise the page popped up. I found out later that the site had only been online for 2 days, so it was very coincidental that it happened at that time. ... So I emailed the webmaster and said, 'This is fantastic but you need more information up here.' I'm a volunteer at one of the parks, so he wrote back and asked, 'How would you like to get your park online?' That's when learned I had to learn something called HTML, which I hadn't heard of before. I went down to the local computer store and asked them, 'What do you have in that?' [They] said, 'Well, everything we got is over here in the book department.' Because at the time there were no programs to create web pages, you typed it in manually. ... I still write raw code, I do not use wysiwyg programs at all. So I started putting together a page for the park, and it took me about 3 months before I got something that the superintendent liked, and it got posted.
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FH: ... In '96 there was an article, not an article, an advertisement for a magazine called Roundup. I looked at that and here was an advertisement for gay rodeo. Well we had already scheduled some vacations and I wasn't able to make the gay rodeo that was occurring in Washington D.C. that year, but we did make the one in Denver. So 1996 Denver rodeo was our first gay rodeo. So we came to that one and continued going to every one we could get to, especially since there was one in our backyard in Washington D.C. ... I think it was in 2000 got me involved, I became one of the stable volunteers. But when I got there with my camera, also the first year I had a digital SLR, [a good friend Terry] didn't put me to work in the stable. He said, 'You go around shooting pictures.' So rather than simply being able to take pictures from behind the stands, I got to go behind the scenes and take pictures everywhere. Boy did I shoot a lot of pictures that year and those pictures went on my website. After, I guess it was another year; Terry made the proper connection, because I've always been shy about trying to make an initial contact, I wanted to do a website for a gay rodeo. He made the connection and I went to see the guy who had been doing the website and he basically turned it over to me. So that's when I created the Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association website as it is still there right now, as of this year. In 2006, I went to, well I had actually gone to several of the IGRA conventions at this point, in 2006 Brian Helander was elected as president. And, again, I was shaking like a leaf because I was scared making this first contact, after convention I went up to him and said to him I'd like to do the website. I told him my ASGRA website had won the award the previous year. He said come see me when I get into office. That's when I became webmaster for IGRA. In between then and now I have also been webmaster for several other associations, most of which are no longer in operation. I really like the rodeos, I like disseminating information, I love teaching, and by building a website like this, it's a good way to teach people not only what gay rodeo is about, but to get the information out there, I get so frustrated with websites that don't have the stuff you're trying to find on it. So I'm always trying to add anything that I think will be useful to people.
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...
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RS: Now, did you know when you were a kid that you were gay?
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FH: Not really. [...] When I was about, I think I was about 12 or 13, my dad gave me the talk, about the birds and the bees, and part of that talk he, without actually saying it, he visual gave me the clue of looking at my private parts and my face and back and forth, if i was ever out on the street and any man would come along and asked to you know, I needed to stay away from him because he was mentally ill and I could catch it. [...] I had no clue at the time that I was gay [...] but that kinda threw me into the bowels of the closet. One day [...] I grabbed a couple of copies of, that had been thrown in there, of the Advocate, which is a gay newspaper which is still in operation, by the time I finished reading that I had come to the conclusion that yes I am gay. But I was still 100% in the closet because I was scared to death, cause even at that time, if you were discovered to be gay you could be imprisoned, you could be sent to correctional facilities, so I didn't tell anybody. Wasn't until after my father died in 1983 that I actually began to come out. And oddly enough I ended up having to move apartments, [...] so I put an ad in the Advocate for a roommate, which took care of the financial problems, but I also got a telephone call from this guy from the name of Tom. He didn't want a roommate but we got together, and after about 2 or 3 weeks, we became very much attracted to each other, and after about a month or so, I realized that I was falling in love. So we have been together ever since, we actually moved in together about a year after that, and have been living together, been 34 years, it will be 34 years next week.
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RS: And was Tom out at the time?
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FH: Tom was not out, he was in the army. This was even before don't ask don't tell, so you did not come out in the army. After a few months of us being together, Tom had reached the point of possible retirement, and I convinced him, you got to get out, because if anybody, we were both pretty sure that a lot of the people realized he was gay, but if anybody had decided to push the issue, he would have been out and completely lost all his retirement, 20 years' worth of work. Cause that's the way things were then, it was easy to get kicked out of the military if you were gay. All someone had to do is point at you and say you're gay, and you're gone, and you lose everything, so he retired. Few weeks later he went to work for a private contractor pretty much doing the same thing we was doing in the army. He worked for that company about 23 years before he finally retired from that, so we're pretty well set.
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RS: And you were still in Virginia?
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FH: Yeah, we were still in Virginia at this time, it was a number of years after that, I lost track of a lot of the dates, I'm not good at that, I have to sit down and calculate when exactly it was, but he was retired for about 3 years before we moved out here, that would have been about 2008 or 9, somewhere right in there.
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RS: And during the 1980s when you're sort of coming out and finding a partner and moving in together, what was it like living in Virginia at that time?
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FH: In reference to being gay?
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RS: Mmhmm
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FH: Okay, I didn't talk too much about it, the people that I worked with at the time, before the park, I don't know if they had any clue I was gay or not, but it wasn't discussed, so it was basically I was in the closet. During that period, when I actually, I guess you could say, came out of the closest, in a permanent and major aspect, was...Let me start the story at this point: In 1991, I found out I had full blown AIDS. The doctors gave me 6 months to live, I'm still here. At that time that was the normal life expectancy for someone who was in my condition, I managed to make it through; thankfully the drugs, the protease inhibitor drugs came out just in time to save me. However when I started volunteering at Manassas battlefield after I had been there for maybe 6 or 8 months, some lady came in, she wasn't an employee of the park, she was somebody that came in with a special purpose, she came in with the flu, which I caught, I was in bed, close to dying, for about a month, it really hit me hard. I didn't feel it was right for my boss ladies not to understand what my situation was, and that I could be gone at any moment. So when I had recovered enough so that I could move around, I went in and said we got to talk, and that was probably the most difficult talk I think I've ever had. They were very accepting, they had no problems with it, which made everything easy, and from that point on, I didn't blurt out about being gay or all that stuff, but they knew that Tom was my partner and they knew I went to gay rodeos and the whole kit and caboodle, to use an old fashioned term. But they had no problems with it at all, so that made my life much easier. One short little clip that I think is probably the funniest thing that I had happen when I was at the park. My office was just off the reception area for the headquarters building, and the assistant superintendent lady was out in the reception area talking to the other people about putting together the Christmas party, and she made the comment fruit, we gotta get some fruit, that triggered my mind, I jumped out of the office and said, "I'm here." She turned beat red, and everyone else couldn't stop laughing, that's probably the most blatant thing that I ever did like that. But over the years I have become more and more open, and especially the last 4 or 5 years, things have become much more relaxed about gay people, so I've become more and more relaxed in my presentation and my being out in the world. I never had the "coming out experience" that is talked about so much today cause I just sort of, seeped out over a period of many years. It didn't happen that way to me, and it wasn't something that I had to sit down with the people and say, "I'm gay." It didn't happen that way, everybody pretty well understood it.
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RS: And when did you and Tom start traveling again?
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FH: We've actually been traveling ever since 1988. We bought our first travel trailer which was in 1988, and we did some camping. And, in '89, we Tom took a 2 year sabbatical from his job. We sold the houses that we had, and we lived in our travel trailer for 2 years. The only reason we quit, well 2 reasons to quit, 1 is because at that time, if you sold property you had to put the money back into property in 2 years or else you lose huge to taxes. I don't think that is a problem anymore. The other one was we saw all of the great scenes, all the great, one of our goals during that trip was to visit as many of the national parks as we could get to. All together we've been to about 300 national parks. When you go to the Grand Canyon and look over the edge and say, oh that's nice, you have reached the point of where you're saturated. And that's when we said, okay let's cut this out and go back to work for a while, but we have continued to go on short trips since then. The longest trip we've had since that is 6 months, and that was just before leaving Northern Virginia and coming to Colorado.
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RS: Was your volunteer position [at Manasses] full time, part time?
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FH: Well, it was supposed to be just come in occasionally, but before it ended, in the slightly more than 6 years I was there I put in more than 6,000 hours' worth of time, I don't generally make too big a deal of it, but Tom likes to. When I was probably at about 4,500 hours, the superintendent wanted to do something nice for me, I didn't know what was going on, I didn't find out about it until the presentation actually occurred, but he managed to get me, I'm an official honorary National Park ranger, that's the highest award the National Park Service can give. At the time, I got that because of the work I had done not only on the website but on all the computer support I had given them, at the time that I got the award there had only been 160 maybe 120 people who had received it, such people as John F. Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Queen Elizabeth, Arthur Fiedler, people like that. I honestly believe there has been a lot more of these given out since then, but I think I was the first non-famous person to ever receive the award, which I'm kinda glad of, that was the biggest thing what came out of that operation. I didn't know they were gonna give it to me, and they told me to come over to the other building, and Tom was there, and the head of the National Park Service was there to give me my award, so it was kinda a surprise. It kinda funny too, I have, they gave me as part of the operation one of the park hats, so it's a Stetson made out of, high quality beaver felt, beaver and rabbit felt, it doesn't fit me, it's too big for my head. They didn't know what my hat size was so while I was out of the office one of the ladies went into my office and I had left my hat in the office, and they picked it up and they got the measurement for that, trouble was that day I had grabbed the wrong hat the hat was too big for me, so the park service hat doesn't fit very well, but it hangs in my study today.
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RS: [In your] unique position as webmaster, you're sort of helping get a lot of this information out there, have you had any sort of digital connections with people who were upset about gay rodeo?
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FH: Not the rodeo. My website, cowboyfrank.net has been in operation since before I got involved with the gay rodeos. In all that time I have received 2 nasty emails, out of the tens of thousands of emails that I've gotten, I've only gotten 2 nasty ones. One of them, I actually wrote a little piece on--which is on the website. He was complaining about me being a, "how dare you call yourself a gay cowboy" and "cowboys don't carry pride flags, they carry guns," etc., etc. just ranting on. Basically my little blog, if you wanna call it that although when I wrote it the term didn't exist, pointed out that the places where he was wrong: There are a lot of gay cowboys; there always have been; at the time I actually owned a gun--I never used it, I just simply owned it, cause it was a colt 45, I used it a few times during Halloween, not firing but in the holster. There was an interesting response after I had posted this thing. A real cowboy wrote me. He said he wasn't gay but he had lots of gay cowboy friends, and he actually made me feel very good, 'cause he ended his little speech with something like, "You may not be a real cowboy, but you certainly act it." That's not what he actually said, what he said was much better than that [...] but it made me feel very warm inside. The other negative email I got I deleted immediately so I don't even, I didn't even finish reading it. So I don't remember what it's about. But that's all, I've not gotten anything negative, the emails that I've gotten that you might consider to be partially negative, weren't really, they said, they don't agree with the lifestyle, they used that term, but they didn't complain either. Several of them asked specific questions, not about gay but about cowboys. Several of the others just simply said good luck to you. So I've received almost no hate mail at all, which I don't know if that had anything to do with the timing or the way that my website is put together, hard to tell.
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RS: And what do you think it was about the gay rodeos that sort of kept you coming back.
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FH: The comradery, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. We're one big happy family. I had been to, not to a whole lot, but a few straight rodeos, they are nothing like ours as far as friendship is concerned. All of the straight rodeos that I have either been involved in or watched either on the TV or YouTube, that is a massive competition against the other guy. There is no way that a straight rodeo cowboy will actually advise, another contestant as to methods of improving because they might beat me. 100% different in the gay rodeo. One of our contestants who passed away from ovarian cancer a few years ago, I think put it very well. Ty Tygen said, I want you to do good, I will loan you my horses I will loan you my equipment, I will tell you how to do better, so that you can go out there and do the best you can and then I'm gonna go out and beat you. That's the feeling between most of us. We would rather see the other guy do a good job than for us to beat them, cause we're all trying, this is a serious competition. That is one of the things that I don't see in hardly any other sporting event, of any sort, is that kind of family. We love going to the rodeos because we see our friends that we haven't seen in a while.
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FH: I first, I first got interested in coming to the rodeos because it was a fun event to come to, and at least in the earlier days, you don't see it quite as much now, the eye candy is terrific especially in the stands, Florida, when they were going, they had some of the most hunky shirtless guys they could find, cause their rodeo was held just outside fort Lauderdale, and Fort Lauderdale is a big muscle beach area, so the muscle boys would come out and it was wonderful eye candy, some of the others were too. So that was a good draw. When we were running the Atlantic States [Gay Rodeo] out of Washington D.C. when our rodeos we're going, we were famous for our parties, we would have an average of around, between 2 to 4 thousand people, half of which would go to the rodeo, some would go to both the rodeo and the party, but then you had a lot of people that just went to the party and half the people that just wanted to rodeo. And our dances were, incredible, you'd get 300 people on the floor all doing the line dance, nothing quite as exciting as watching something like that or I'm not sure what you would call it cause I don't dance, but where 2 people holding onto each other spinning in circles around the floor, 250 people all out in a big pile, doing this trying not to run into each other and still having a great deal of fun. Used to be in some of the earlier, Atlantic States rodeos when I first began to go the parties when I got involved with the association, everybody wore their best outfits, they would go out and buy new outfits, it was like going to a black tie party, just gorgeous outfits, both ladies and the guys. And you'd find the ladies dancing with the guys and vice versa. That is really what it, other than just simply going to the rodeo and enjoy the cowboys riding their horses, cause I love these little cowboys on horses, seeing the people and seeing how they interact, in a big family environment, which you don't find, hardly any kind of other organization, I'm sure there are other types of events out there that have that kind of connection, but I've never seen any. That's the reason I keep coming. And now, I have reached the point, I would love to, I'm not gonna compete anymore, I'm past that capability, but I would love to like, be a rodeo judge but then I think so many people are relying on my photography now they would hate me if I didn't shoot pictures instead, and I enjoy shooting the pictures so I stick with that, I and I think I do a fairly good job of it.
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RS: And what did you used to compete in?
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FH: I started out, once I hit net, my friends in Virginia, I started out barrel racing, I spent about a year and a half learning to barrel race under the, tutelage of a very good barrel racing instructor. I admit I've never been very good at it. But after the year and a half I finally, tried competing at it, my partner Tom did not want me to compete because he was afraid I was gonna get hurt, the one time I tried competing in barrel racing I got hurt, so that put an end of that. I didn't make a score, this was in Washington DC, and I didn't have enough practice with the horse I was riding, and when he went around the first barrel he decided he wanted to leave, and I was so tight and worried I let him. Second day I said I'm not gonna let him do that, so we went around the first barrel and he started to go that way and I started pulling him back and got him pointed back, I got him pointed towards the second barrel and two things happened, I lost my left stirrup, and the arena crew was standing right smack in front of me. They were against the fence, but where I was headed I don't have proper control of my horse, and I was headed for them, so I lost it, and the horse turned and went out, and in the process of going out, I'm not sure exactly what I did wrong, but he ended up running into the fence, this was an 8 foot chain link fence, the whole fence fell down on its side, and because of the way it was constructed it pushed us back up, and I came off and landed on the dirt, and he wandered off and started grazing on grass. But it wasn't a serious injury just pulled a muscle in my arm, but that was enough of that, so that ended my barrel racing. After that I took a few lessons and I competed in what we call calf roping on foot. Which is a fairly simple little event where you throw the rope, I've got a couple ribbons, a couple of, 4th place ribbons. Actually the first place I caught was in Chicago, which was actually the first time I was actually doing competition, I caught on Sunday, and I was so surprised at the fact that I actually got it, I forgot to let go of the rope, which got pulled out of my hand, and because I forgot to let go of the rope I ended up in 4th place instead of 1st place, you're only talking about 2 tenths of a second that was enough to throw me out of winning 1st place for Sunday, but I got my 2 ribbons and that made me happy and now my arthritis is to the point that I can't hold, I can't control the rope anymore, so I just do the back behind the scenes stuff.
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RS: And when you were barrel racing, did you ever own a horse or did you?
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FH: I've never actually owned a horse, thought about it a couple times and decided horses require a lot of maintenance and they're very expensive to take care of, and I didn't have the proper property to take care of them, and I decided if I ever gonna own a horse I wouldn't be boarding somewhere where I would only see it once a week or something like that, so we just, we would have to live in a place where we could have the horse there, some of the other people who lived in the area did have horses, at least they had them when their children were growing up, but our property wasn't conducive to it, but I was content to ride other people's horses and as long as they were content to let me it was fine. Terry, the guy I was talking about that got me involved in the rodeo, he had, and still has a farm up in the mountains of Virginia. And when I went out there to ride the first few times, I guess probably about the 3rd ride when we finished it, I asked him if he would teach me how to tack up the horse, which apparently floored him because he had taken hundreds of people for rides, but nobody ever asked how to do it, so we became very good friends, and after I had been taking lessons for quite a while he got to where I knew what I was doing on a horse, he basically said you can come up any time you want even if we're not here and take the horses on a ride. So I did that probably about 7 or 8 times before we ended up moving out of the area. I just absolutely love horses, they are extremely intelligent, I believe that most animals, at least the higher animals, are just as intelligent as we are, what we have that they lack, is our incredibly complex language. I point to one of the horses that I used to ride, poor Sam, I'm sure that he's long gone now, but this horse was smart, he figured out, a lot of horses will figure out how to open their stall gates. I don't know what you call it but they have these little, things on the end of cords and stuff that you have to pull the little leaver down in order to slide the little thing so you can get it off, he figured how to open those, and he would let the other horses out of the stalls. Terry ended up putting padlocks on the stalls cause Sam kept letting them out and everything else. If you look at our civilization, this is totally off on a separate subject, but when you look at civilization, ask people what makes us better than the other animals, and the first thing most people point it is our opposable thumbs, and I look at them and say well why isn't the raccoon, there are lots of animals that have opposing thumbs, there are other animals that have bigger brains than we do, it's our language, I've got a little blog on my website that says, horses in nature have about 160 words in their language, its mostly visual clues. Most of those are involved in, day to day living, like I'm hungry, or I'm scared, or help me, something like that, or get away, leave me alone. Our civilization couldn't exist if we only had 160 words to work with. That's what makes the difference between us and the other animals, is our ability to communicate in extremely complicated fashion, and get the technologies and everything we have and everything we do is built on what previous people have discovered and we keep discovering, without our language that wouldn't be possible, that's the difference.
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RS: What do you say to the, I knows there's been groups like PETA, that have protested rodeo as cruel to animals?
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FH: Most of the time, I have seen a few PETA... what's it called when they're standing out there? Protesting. Usually they're not there the next day, the biggest problem seems to be that the people who actually go out representing these organizations, they don't really know what they're protesting, none of them have bothered to go look, they're just simply taking the word of somebody else, we have very little trouble with those organizations now cause I think they have finally realized we treat our animals very well. There is still a lot of anti-rodeo stuff out there, and anti-gay rodeo stuff out there, primarily from people who haven't bothered to research what they're protesting. Anytime they actually sit down and take the time to take a look at it, they realize they aren't protesting anything that's real. We used to get those protests quite a bit back in the 1990's, almost nowhere now, I think that's the reason is because we, all the IGRA rodeos have to follow the IGRA rules, and we have a large number of rules that are geared specifically for ethical treatment of the animals. I think, occasionally we do have accidents, that happens out in the field, occasionally a cow will break a leg because they step into a gopher hole. We have had a few animals get killed and any time that happens, the stuff hits the fan at the next convention trying to figure out what happened, and how to keep it from happening again. I don't think we've had a single incident that was caused because of a repeat of something that's happened before, it's always something new.
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RS: And can you describe some of the duties you now have, the photographs you take and things like that and your main form of involvement with IGRA?
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FH: Well besides being the webmaster for the international association, which means that I have to keep up with everything that's going on and keep the website updated, and design the website from scratch which I did a few years ago. The non-official, basically I'm the unofficial, unofficial or non-official, I'm not sure which one's proper, photographer for the gay rodeos. In whatever year it was that Brokeback Mountain won the academy award, that was kinda an interesting period for me, between the time that the awards were announced and the time they were actually presented, I received several hundred telephone calls from news media all around the world wanting to know about gay rodeo, because my phone number was the only one on the website. It was there because if an emergency problem came up I had it there so that people could call me and tell me that there was something that needed to be fixed, but mine was the only number there so I was the one getting all these phone calls. After about a month I managed to talk the president into letting me put his number on there and that quit, but when these people found out that I had this huge collection of photographs that I'd been shooting for 15 years, they all wanted me to pick pictures out that they could use in their, whatever their TV show or magazine or newspaper or whatever it was and sell them. I had about 30,000 pictures at that time, trying to go through those and pick good ones, was a nightmare. So what I did is I developed a little private website, call it a private website, where I took every single picture, that I've ever shot at a gay rodeo, run it through a little program that generates a gallery, and all I have to do is point people to the gallery, take whatever you want just give me credit. So you will see my pictures pop up all over the place, and that's where they're coming from. Newspaper can go to that website, not only see a gallery of the picture I've got, but they can get the original camera image from that location to, all the instructions are right there it's pretty straight forward. So that really, creating that really kinda changed people's outlook on what I can do, or what I have made available. And now in the last few years I've started doing videos and putting them on YouTube, I think the contestants really like that because I've had so many compliments and comments that they like that cause they can go and study what they did wrong and try to improve on it. You can't really see what you did wrong from a still picture, unless you fell or something like that, but the video. We had one fella I felt so bad for him, I'm not gonna say who it was, one of the rodeos when he went around the first barrel he did something wrong and I'm not gonna say what that was either, but I took the video and slow it way down so he could see what he did wrong. The horse ended up flipping head over heels, luckily neither one of them were injured except in the mind. But he was able to figure out what he did wrong, and keep from doing it again and that would have been impossible otherwise, cause when you're on the back of the horse, unless you're really really really good at what you're doing, most of the time you don't know what you did wrong.
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RS: And you've also acted, sort of in your capacity as webmaster, also as sort of archival role of creating the history website.
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FH: Yeah, that was kinda an interesting situation in itself. Back when I first started doing the website for Atlantic States, one of the first things I tried to do and it took my several years to accomplish it was to get copies of all there previous programs onto the website. I have dreamed of being able to do the something for all the gay rodeos, but at that time I lived in Virginia, and the archives, I had no idea what the archives consisted of at the time, was in Colorado, so I didn't have the opportunity of being connected with it, all a sudden I live in Colorado. And that same year, the position of the IGRA archivist changed to another particular person which incredibly is back with it right now as we speak, Brian Rodgers. He learned about our house, where it was located and we got this big cellar, and at that time the archives were being stored in the basement of Charlie's bar, or some of it was in the basement of Charlie's bar which flooded, and some of it was at the rodeo grounds in a storage container, which could be a 150 degrees in the summertime, and below 0, not to mention the dirt and dust from the rodeo equipment that was there, not a good place. So Brian convinced Tom and myself to, at least temporarily store the archives in our basement, whoa all the stuff I wanted to work with for all these years right here in the house. So that's how that came in to being the gayrodeohistory.org website. It continues to grow. I'm actually a little frustrated with it at the moment because I need help and I can't get any, the further development is kinda in limbo at the moment, because I already... catalogued and posted a lot of material that is currently sitting on a table waiting to be sorted and stored. And it has to be inventoried as its being stored and I can't do it myself. I have a problem with dyslexia, and looking at a computer trying to put information in, and then go over here and handle the physical product I get mixed up. It's too much, it's too hard for me to do both those jobs, and I can't get anybody at the moment to come out and help me, and I keep hoping and keep promising and so far nothings happened.
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RS: And that's a, not a small amount of things its tens of thousands of items.
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FH: No, its not. This year the San Francisco rodeo, I keep calling it the San Francisco because that's the nearest large town, will be our 500th gay rodeo, so we don't have all 500 programs but we've got about 480 of them. The archives have now grown with hundreds of pamphlets, newspaper articles, magazine articles, we even have clothing, T-shirts, jackets, hundreds and hundreds of contestant past badges, pass badges, pins. Since I've started creating the gay rodeo history website, the amount of material that was in the archives when I took them over has quadrupled, it is a huge project, not as big as a library but it's still huge and it's one person trying to do the whole thing, it's too much, so kinda takes away, you lose interest after a while and it's hard to... get going when you can't get anybody to help you out, I'm hoping that's gonna change.
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RS: Now for you, why is it, why has it been worse, hundreds of thousands of man hours to do this, what do you hope preserving this history will create?
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FH: I think it all comes back to education. I very much...I like collections, I like collecting things. My current major collection is computers, but I also like teaching, and building a website, an informative website is one way that I can teach a lot of people without going to a whole lot of effort, compared to what it would be if I had to have classes. In a classes you can teach 15, 20, or 30 at a time. A website can teach thousands of people, with one effort. So I really enjoy making this information available to the public. I also get pride in, I see so many newspaper articles, there was one in the Washington Post a couple days ago, and... stories and other things that are coming out of the information that I have on the history website, a lot of times I can read a newspaper article or magazine article and I can see what is almost a quote of some of the stuff that is on the website. So it's a way of educating the world about what we do, why we're here, what we're trying to do, it's a way without having to go out and contact individual people to do it, so it's a different way of teaching. And I love it. I love helping people and I love teaching people so this is one way I can do that.
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RS: Now you touched on this earlier when you were saying that this younger generation didn't grow up with cowboys, obviously there's been a sort of decline in membership, what do you think the future of IGRA is?
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FH: I think that in the future, I think that gay rodeo will be around for a long time, because there is enough core members who, who have this lifestyle as part of their life, they're dedicated. Looking at google earth this morning at one of our competitors homes, the whole thing is geared around rodeo, you just look at it from the sky and see there's nothing there except a house with rodeo, so there's enough of us around that gay rodeo will continue for quite a few years, there's no one reason why we're fading, there's a whole slew of reasons and they're all coming together at the same time. One of them is that the core people who created the gay rodeo grew up in the 1950s or 60s when cowboy TV shows and cowboy movies were all the rage, so we grew up cowboy. The current generation didn't grow up cowboy. So that's one thing, the people are losing the interest. 15 years ago, country western dancing was all the rage. Well a lot of those people have gone onto, either aged and gotten to where they can't dance, or facilities for the dancing has faded or they just got tired. And new dance styles come in to replace that. When gay rodeo first started especially the Reno rodeos of the 1970s at that time there was really no place that a large number of gays could get together to be in a public facility to be completely open, they just didn't exist. The best you could do would be to visit a bar or possibly be involved in something like a... gay pride parade. [*Man comes into room and interrupts*] So the dancing has moved away, the cowboy being, the movies have gone away. We have begun gay people have become more accepted in, I was saying that there was no place to go in a large group but the gay rodeos allowed that so it was a congregation. Now you can walk down just about any street holding hands with a same sex partner, the most you might do is raise a couple eyebrows, back in the 70's that wouldn't happen you couldn't do that, so we're more accepted, we don't have to congregate the way we used to. There's a whole slew of reasons we're fading. Another reason which, I believe is poor management. When gay rodeo started people and most of the individual associations got started even the one that just began, the people in the base of the association were go-doers. They were the kind of person who could go out, and find people and convince them this is what we need to do and get the other person excited about doing it. Over the years since I first started doing websites, I have worked with, a large number of nonprofits, and I've seen the same thing happen in a lot of those associations. When an association gets started you've got go-doers and go-getters, people who are excited about whatever the project is, they sometimes get burned out or they serve their term, and other people come in and eventually in a nonprofit, unless it's really well structured, you end up with people in charge, who aren't that interested in perpetuating the purpose of the organization, they're more interested in having the power and the prestige of being the president or, being on the board with the association, and as a result the association falls apart. This is different than a lot of businesses where you've got a profit margin you have to deal with and you've got, investors that you've got to please, although I've seen the same thing happen in some businesses. But I've seen more associations fall apart because of management that doesn't have the get-go or go-getters whatever the proper phrase is there, and the association just kind of flounders and eventually dissolves away. So, all of these things together, is why we're seeing, I think, why we're seeing gay rodeo fade. Something will probably take over in its place at some point, not as far as rodeo is concerned but some other type of event and after a period of time that event will suffer the same I think it's part of human nature part of the operation of the way things happen so it's not any given thing it's a lot of different things.
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RS: For yourself your involvement in rodeo for 20 years now all of your the fact you've worn a cowboy hat most of your life, do you really identify as a cowboy?
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FH: I think I do in a way. I appreciate what the real cowboys do, and there are still a lot of them out there, as one song that I like, cowboys still there, he just can't be seen from the road. I think being a cowboy is, more than just simply working cattle or horses. It's a, way of looking at life, and I try to uphold that as much as I can. I try to help the other person and I try to take care of what we have to take care of, our horses our facilities our organization. Anything you can do that is positive towards that, that's my feeling.
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RS: Well we've talked about a lot today, is there anything else you want to mention?
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FH: To be very honest with you I had been thinking about this for several weeks and I think I've covered all the little interesting tidbits that I thought were important to fit in.
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RS: Well thank you so much for your time.

'Paniolo' Joe Rodriguez

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Rebecca Scofield: So, this is Rebecca Scofield and I am here with Joe Rodriguez on September 10th, 2016. And we are at the Rodeo on the River in Duncans Mills, California. So, could you tell me what year you were born?
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Joe Rodriguez: I was born in 1964.
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RS: Can you tell me where you grew up?
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JR: Grew up in the Bay Area in Fremont, Alameda County. Lived there most of my life until I was eighteen and then went off to San Francisco for college.
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RS: Was that a very rural upbringing?
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JR: As a matter of fact, at that time, it was very rural. It was cow pastures, 4-H's, and Ammon orchards. There was no such thing as Silicon Valley then. So, that all changed in 1980, 1982. So, I grew up around 4-H and people who had horses and some of the people who own the ranches and the orchards.
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RS: Did you do any sort of like 4-H or rodeo growing up?
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JR: You know, no I didn't. I hung out with the people who did the 4-H; for whatever reason, I wasn't expected to. And my parents probably didn't think it was something I should do, being--I don't know if I could say this--you know, being Filipino American. But I grew up many of my friends had horses so that's where I learned to ride and learned about 4-H. I went with them to 4H and followed them through their journeys. Yeah, I guess I was more of their I was more of their mascot.
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RS: And what did your parents do?
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JR: My parents they emigrated from the Philippines via Hawaii. They grew up in Hawaii and then after World War II, they married and move to California in Fremont. They worked on the plantations in Hawaii, they grew up on the plantations. And then they came to California worked in the Central Valley. In the Central Valley, they worked as farm laborers. After the Korean War, my father moved from the fields to aerospace and retired from Waukee Missile and Space Corporation. My mother went and retired from Coca-Cola. Yeah long history of an immigrant family, that made it.
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RS: Now can I ask how you identify [in terms of] gender and sexual orientation?
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JR: I am a gay man, yes. I came out when I was eighteen. My family was a mixed reaction. My father he didn't care, yeah...my mother...she felt a little guilty. But both have a live-and-let-live attitude. So talking about other gay people was “well, that's them, you know, you're not them.” But there was never any preaching the gospel or…and we are a Catholic family, but it was respect, it was one of respect for each other, and for them to understand that was that was part of my life. And this was 1982, so yeah.
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RS: And how was your experience in college in San Francisco was that a big change?
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JR: It was because I think that's like any college freshman it was my first experience to freedom and being able to get out and socialize with people who are different than me who weren't cowboys or ranchers or farmers, who weren't just Asian, they weren't just white Americans. It was especially, in San Francisco many people who might go to Idaho or the Midwest. They may not have that luxury and opportunity to meet diverse people with the diverse backgrounds so. And I never identified as Asian I never identified as a white American either. It was just me. I was just Joe. I was an American. I think that's what’s allowed me to continue with rodeo and to fit in with rodeo it's somebody can look at me and think a different way about me based on my color or the heritage of my last name but rodeo is rodeo. If you love rodeo then you know it's like Mom and apple pie so.
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RS: Can I ask how you first got involved with rodeo of any kind was it with IGRA or with other forms?
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JR: I started with Sacramento's Capital Crossroads Gay Rodeo Association. They had just started, this was in ’99, and they were just having their second rodeo or third rodeo. They used to be part of Golden State Gay Rodeo Association in the beginning and then split off and became their own chapter of the IGRA family. I loved horses and always wanted to ride. I never thought about riding bulls. It wasn't a big thing then not like it is today, not even in the straight world. Bull riding is where the action and money is the big bucks. But for me I love broncs. I love horses; I've ridden horses; and I've been bucked, so I know I can take it. But once you're doing it there's a certain technique a certain finesse and agility that you must have--balance and strength, core strength. So, bronc riding was different but the Gay Rodeo Association the Capital Crossroad Gay Rodeo Association was very kind in letting me sign up. And the persons working behind the chutes, Travis Gardner, was sort of my involuntary mentor. He said, “You want to ride broncs? Okay, let's get you suited up. Let’s get you strapped in. Let's get the rigs on. You don't have a rig? Okay, we'll borrow that guy's rig. You're going to wear a vest or you going to wear a helmet?” I said, “No. Maybe I'll wear a vest.” But I wasn't going to wear a helmet, I was going to wear my hat. So that was my first taste. He got me strapped in and I got my first ride. I made it maybe three seconds, maybe a second, out the gate before I went head over heels. But like the old saying you fall off a horse and you get back on it. I came back on Sunday and did it again. I didn't win anything. It probably took maybe five years before I won something, maybe eight years.
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RS: How did you hear about it?
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JR: Through the community. Through the gay and lesbian newspapers, they had flyers. They put flyers on my windshield. And I thought this is great because I do identify with and I have a big respect and admiration for the Western lifestyle and for cowboys and cowgirls and people who work with animals. They call broncs rough stock, the bulls, the steers. Because for obvious reasons they are rough. You are getting bucked and thrown or kicked or you're up close and personal. And I guess I live for that. Being ex-military I like challenges and so this was just another challenge in life.
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RS: So, after college were you able to interact with animals much, or did you…?
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JR: No no it was probably almost ten years. I graduated in ‘87 and 1990, no fault of my own, but Sprint was a company I worked for, and they laid off some people and I was one of them and they offered me transfer to Sacramento. So, that's how I ended up in Sacramento and for some reason that was a perfect fit because again it was that culture and it is--there’s a culture in Sacramento. The social economics are different and compared to the city like San Francisco which is very diverse. Sacramento to my knowledge, in my experience was not that diverse, but I saw the cowboy culture there. So in San Francisco when I was going to college, no, I think the only animal I saw was the seagulls you know that you know were sitting on the roofs of the building or flying around but nothing else.
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RS: When you were living there did you still feel like part of your identity was grounded in working with animals?
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JR: You know, it is…that is true because of where I grew up. It was a culture shock moving to San Francisco. The feeling to me was that I was not fitting in. I was lost in San Francisco. I didn't identify with the Asian community and I didn't identify with the gay community but more so the gay community than anything else and so I tried to fit in with the gay community but it still wasn't my crowd. When I got to Sacramento and I saw cowboys and country western night dancing, I mean it was elbow-to-elbow, you couldn't dance on the dance floor at Fences. And the music was grea.t I knew the tunes, I knew the music. I knew the singers. I just didn't know how to dance and to this day I still don't…well, okay, I know how to dance, do the two-step and waltz. I have to hand it to some other folks within the cowboy community they're good line dancers. But yeah, so then I thought: “Wow. Gay community, Western lifestyle.” I just fell into it. The fact that now I've heard that there’s a rodeo then even more so. So it was day and night. It was day and night coming from a rural community where I grew up, moving to the city, but still wasn't right, wasn't the right fit. And then it was a day and night moved to a big city in the Central Valley that had a Western community, so I felt good.
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RS: How long have you been involved, I mean…?
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JR: I joined, I had to be a member to rodeo and like I said that was back in ‘99 and so I've been a member of the Sacramento Capitol Crossroad Gay Rodeo Association since ‘99. Their Sierra Stampede has been going on since about ‘97.
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RS: And have you held positions in either the local association or with IGRA?
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JR: I have. Not with IGRA. I am a…right now the vice president of the rodeo operation for Capital Crossroads and I am assisting with the rodeo this year. Next weekend September 17th and 18th and I've been in that position for about two or three years. Our association is fairly small now and so we haven't put on a rodeo in three years. I'm really looking forward to this, making a big comeback this year. I haven't held any positions at IGRA. I have gone to convention as a representative for my association but that's what that's about the highest I’ve gotten.
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RS: Do you travel to many of the other rodeos?
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JR: Unfortunately, not. I have a good job. Especially during the financial crisis of 2008/2009, I didn't fair too well. So money was tight and I made it to Denver for the World gay rodeo finals. That was my first finals. I had qualified at San Francisco and Sacramento’s rodeos to have points that got me to participate and compete. So I went to Denver for that and did well. I've been to San Diego's rodeo but that’s about it. Did well at my first finals rodeo.
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RS: Will you be riding today?
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JR: No, I will not. I’m no longer riding because of recent surgery. I’m afraid I’m done.
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RS: Now how do you characterize IGRA in general or the local chapter in particular as far as race goes is there a lot of racial diversity that you find here?
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JR: I do. In San Francisco’s bay area chapter, the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association has a very diverse membership compared to Sacramento we have persons who are of mixed race but it’s not obvious by skin color or other traits that they represent another diverse community. We obviously promote it. The International Gay Rodeo Association is very inclusive and we are very open to, as Travis Gardner did for me back in ‘99, didn't matter who I was or what my name was it was you want a ride come on and we extend the same thing to all people in the community gay or straight and you know Caucasian, white, or Asian, or black you want to learn come on out and tell us, we will show you.
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RS: Did you attend many mainstream rodeos before getting into involved?
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JR: As a kid, I actually did and every once in a while, I wouldn't say I went to every bull riding or every rodeo that happened with in the state of California but yes, I had been to some local rodeos.
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RS: Did you ever have any experiences with homophobia or racism or anything like that at mainstream type events?
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JR: You know I have and there's no lie that I don't know necessarily look Hispanic or necessarily look Asian but probably more Asian to some people. But when they hear my last name it just doesn't compute. You know, Rodriguez? Filipino? What's that? So yes, it was a misunderstanding I guess you can call it racism but nobody was overly hostile or antagonistic. It was, “Okay, you're wearing a cowboy boots, cowboy hat, you're pretty cool. Okay.” I guess it's like any other social situation people have to get to know you and that's not just in the straight rodeo. You know, being a fan, a spectator because there are a lot of Hispanics within the community within the Mexican rodeo for an example. There's people of all colors there but I've also experienced the same attitude, that same experience in the gay rodeo. It's: “Who are you?” and “Where are you from?” and “You don't look Mexican. So, oh you're Asian.” Yeah.
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JR: Hey, embrace it. Yes, I am gay. Yeah. And I would probably never tell a straight cowboy that. I've never been in that situation to tell him about my sexual orientation, but I have over the last five years been more comfortable with saying, “Yes, I rodeo and this is who I rodeo for the Gay Rodeo Association and we do good things.” “So, oh you guys make millions of dollars?” No, we do it for charity we give back to the community and that's what a lot of people don't understand even within the gay community we don't make big money here. It's…we're doing what we love, it's a hobby, it's a passion, and a desire. And it's also our desire to help the community, to give back to the community whether it’s an AIDS crisis center, the Lavender Community Center that provides community services to gay and lesbian community. Sacramento Capitol Crossroads is—going off on tangents so stop me if I'm going too fast. In terms of being on the topic of being inclusive, Sacramento Capitol Crossroad Gay Rodeo Association’s beneficiary for a long time was United Ways’ Saddle Pals program which was matching… which was supporting a horse riding program that allowed children with disabilities or challenges to get on a horse and connect with horses and it was a good program.
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RS: Have you ever experienced any sort of outwardly hostile homophobia on your way to a gay rodeo or at the event itself?
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JR: Yes, I've been asked that question before and yes, I have. It was a rodeo in Sacramento years back that a couple people showed up at the gate. They were they definitely weren't there to welcome us they were there to show their protest signs, show off their sign, and never became violent but words hurt as much as violence does. So, seeing these people telling us that we shouldn't be rodeoing and that we were a disgrace to the sport, they just never saw what we did. If they saw that many of us were bull riders and many of us have horses, that we love horse lifestyle, they would understand it. We're just like them, if they are actually people of the sport. And so let me backtrack to some of the other rodeos that I've been to. My first rodeos was 1982 in San Francisco. While I was in San Francisco the San Francisco Rodeo came to town and was held at the Cow Palace and, yeah, that's where I fell in. But it was only once a year and I, for whatever reason, didn't know that that that the the Bay Area was the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association existed in San Francisco. It's only once a year that I knew this. So I went to three or four of consecutive rodeos there but it was there at their rodeo that I also met protesters. You know, just a handful and there wasn't like a hundred or a thousand protesters and they weren't loud, but they would stand there and, you know, shake their heads and with their signs. It was very overt. And you wouldn't expect that in San Francisco but I guess maybe you would. Because the Cow Palace, which where's the rodeos held, the Cow Palace is a big rodeo venue for the straight rodeo. The Grand Nationals have been held there in the past.
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RS: Have you seen any changes in that over you know the seventeen years you've been involved?
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JR: I have. In terms of acceptance in the community, it's really interesting. And I don't want to jinx it. But there was there are increasing numbers of of people from the straight community who embrace it, the gay rodeo, they embrace the gay rodeo and they want to actively come out and support it. Look where we're sitting right now. We are sitting in Duncan Mills, California. It is…To me, in forty-five years that I've been coming to to this to this area, as a child, as a kid, spending my summer vacations up here, my family having a couple properties here, I've always thought of it as this was a little conservative enclave surrounded by a very progressive or liberal county. Never in my life did I think that Duncans Mills would host the Gay Rodeo Association. And here we are three years later and the rodeo association is still here and the so-called, in-quotes, the straight rodeo association has welcomed us back and they've been, the local businesses and people, have been very accepting.
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RS: Now in your larger life how has being involved in the gay rodeo influenced anything from your job to your relationships? How you go about your everyday life?
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JR: I've been working for this company for five years and I've never been shy to explain that I was going to a rodeo and was never shy when somebody asked what rodeo is it. Is it, you know, the PRCA or is it the PBR? Oh no, no, no. This is the International Gay Rodeo Association. It's one of the chapters from Sacramento or San Francisco. And then people realize, oh. They stop and think: Well what do you do at the gay rodeo? Well, I'm a bareback bronc rider and I have ridden bulls. Wow. So my co-workers know now that when I say I'm going to a rodeo, they know it's a gay rodeo. They wonder where it's at. This weekend some of them will ask: “Is it in San Francisco or is it the Cow Palace?” “No, we can't afford it. It's going to be at Duncans Mills.” And, you know, I would much rather have it at Duncans Mills, personally. Rodeo has been like the military for me it's made me who I am. It's made me a better person and have a better respect for the people who ride bulls and handle steers, who rope. It's given me a bigger respect for my sport of bareback bronc riding. And also made me maybe a hard worker because it takes a lot to throw a charity event like this, like a rodeo, and I go back to work and sit behind a computer for eight hours for forty hours a week and I can't complain. Sitting behind a computer for forty hours a week is a lot easier than rounding up cattle or rounding up steers or cows and helping people get ready for their events and then, of course, rodeo is also about show, it's about putting on a good show for the audience. So we would not be successful if we didn't do our best to work hard at our events and put on a good show.
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RS: Well, obviously rodeo has a bit of a dress code with the western wear.
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JR: Yes.
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RS: Do you wear that at work or do you switch to your business suit?
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JR: I do. I don't wear...I'm pretty relaxed at work. It's a professional office setting. I do walk in with a cowboy hat and Wrangler jeans and a nice pressed shirt. Yes. It goes…is part of the lifestyle.
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RS: And how long were you in the military for and which branch?
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JR: I was in the Coast Guard's United States Coast Guard Reserve and I was in for 8 years.
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RS: Do you feel like any use of that was a very key part of your sort of identity formation? Do you think there's a lot of overlap between between sort of military experience and your experiences in the rodeo? The type of people who are really drawn to it?
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JR: Yes. And some people could could say otherwise but I take away a couple traits: the hard work, the the responsibility that goes with taking care of animals could be equated to taking care of your crewmen or your fellow soldiers-in-arms. It's about following rules because there are a lot of rules in rodeo and you just don't get away with winning by breaking rules, and that's the same thing the military. If you don't follow the rules if you don't follow guidelines, things things can break then somebody can get hurt. And accountability. In the military you are accountable for your actions and in the rodeo the same way. You're accountable for your actions in the arena and outside the arena. When you're wearing your rodeo gear, your cowboy hat and your association's shirt, you represent the Western lifestyle and so being accountable for what we do inside the rodeo, in the arena, how you act is equally important outside of the rodeo. And so, it's the same thing with the military. When you're in the military and you represent an agency or an organization an institution of the military is you're held to a higher standard. Being accountable is very important and taking care of your animals and not mistreating your animals. Same thing. Taking care of your comrades and not mistreating them.
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RS: Now have you had any larger LGBTQ Community push back on rodeo of just “that's just too conservative?”?
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JR: No. No, the community has always been supportive and maybe that's because we are the International Gay Rodeo Association of Sacramento, Capitol Crossroads Gay Rodeo Association, or the Golden State Gay Rodeo Association we are contributing to the community. Some of the organizations are beneficiary and they benefit from the proceeds that we take in from the rodeo. Many of them have helped us to produce the rodeo. And they should because we are all part of the same family in the same fabric. We, the Sacramento Capitol Crossroad Gay Rodeo Association, did get some pushback because as I mentioned earlier for many years United Way Saddle Pals program was our beneficiary. Many of the community felt it was not gay enough but that's not what we're about. That program unfortunately no longer exists in Sacramento. There are other programs that I think, I don't know much about them, and I have, you know, our organization, Capital Crossroads, now benefits the gay lesbian community.
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RS: How would you talk about having the opportunity to bring together, you know, your Western lifestyle that you've talked about loving and also being out and open with your sexuality?
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JR: I still don't understand your question but maybe I can answer it this way. I'm one person. I happen to be a gay man that's my sexual orientation and I'm part of a community; that community happens to be gay also. I don't know how better to answer that. I can't change that. It's like I can't change the color of my skin I can't change the slant in my eyes you know it's just going on it's just where I fit. And it may not be for everybody, like your previous question there is some pushback because there are some people who believe that the rodeo is too conservative and it doesn't represent the the gay lesbian community but I tell them that's wrong because we come from the gay and lesbian community and we also happen to be cowboys and cowgirls.
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RS: Well it so is there any part of your personal story you would like to share that you haven't had an opportunity to?
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JR: Accomplishment, you know, no I think that I've rambled on I've told you what quite a bit, you know, I won my first World Gay Rodeo Finals buckle. I think doing that had garnered a lot of respect for me, personally as a person and not just with in the gay community and within the gay rodeo, but also my family. Because my mother, one year I came back from the Capital Crossroads Sierra Stampede rodeo, and I'd won the buckle and I showed it to my mom, who was 80 years old at the time. And she was just like, “This is pretty…you know, your father would be very proud of you.” Cool.
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RS: Was she ever able to come see you?
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JR: No, and I don't mind that she hasn’t seen me. As a matter of fact, I did get hurt pretty seriously in 2010, at the Gay Golden State Gay Rodeo Association’s rodeo at Lahanda. My bareback bronc ride went wrong. I got stuck in the rig and ended up underneath the horse and getting trampled. They had to life flight me out of the rodeo and flew me to Stanford hospital where I spent the night. So my mom, she knew I was at rodeo, she didn't know what I was doing. But somebody at the rodeo posted pictures on Facebook and said, “Joe, we are praying for you. I hope you do well and come through this.” And while I was in Stanford, I didn't have any cell service up there. And so my mom she wouldn't have been able to contact me and I wouldn’t have been able to contact her. But I called her from Stanford and she goes: “Hey, your cousins just called me. Your cousins are wondering where you're at and if you were in the hospital.” And it’s like, “Oops, okay, yes. That's where I'm calling you from, Mom. I'm in Stanford general or Stanford hospital or whatever. It is like that I'm fine. I have a busted nose. I got kicked in the face. I had a cut scalp. But I'm doing just fine.” And she said, “Okay, you going to be okay to come home on the drive home? I'll be home tomorrow. You're not riding tomorrow.” And I said, “I might.” [laughter] Most of the cattle folks back at the arena said, “No, you're not riding tomorrow.” So that's the, I guess that's, the one personal tragedy, you know. [Laughter] Suffice to say I did not win the buckle that weekend.
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RS: Have you experienced other injuries or just minor?
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JR: No, just minor. Maybe…for some reason I've been breaking my nose. At the Gay Games in Cleveland again I got kicked in the face, in the nose. There's pictures of me walking through the arena with a bloody nose but I covered the ride and I got the buckle and it's a once-in-a-lifetime buckle and Brian Rogers sponsored the buckle, so he always bugs me about that he wants it back. That's what that whole—when I walked in here—why the little push and shove that we have going on there.
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RS: And did you say you had that on your wall back at home?
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JR: Yes, I did.
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RS: Do you keep all your buckles up on the wall?
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JR: Not all of them, no. Most of them I wear but that one is special, so it has a special place along next to the Gay Games gold medal that we got, that I got.
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RS: Now were you ever able or inclined to participate in other events other than rough stock or did you mainly be roughstock?
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JR: Mainly roughstock, but I did try to do calf roping on foot and yeah, I haven't got the timing down with the roping. But chute dogging I’ve done and I found that I don't have much of an upper body strength a lot of people have. And bull riding. And bronc riders and bull riders, I know some of them are listening to this, and we have our rivalries, which one's the roughest sport. And they see bronc riding as a rougher sport than bulls and I look at the horns and go, “No, bull riding—it's too dangerous for me.” So, we go back and forth, there’s a rivalry of who can do better and who can ride longer, which sport is just absolutely asinine, crazy, idiotic. We have our banter. And those who listening know who they are.
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RS: What about drag events? Do you like their inclusion in gay rodeo?
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JR: Yeah, it appeals to the gay lesbian community the LGBTQ community because it means that it involves them. It's also among straight audiences who have never seen it before, it's a hilarious. So, yes. Camp evens, drag events have a big place. And they the drag events can be very dangerous cause you're wearing a guy wearing a dress he's never worn a dress before never worn heels before is trying to wrestle on steer. A steer who's very violent and very you know aggressive and jumping while.
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RS: So, moving forward, do you think is gay rodeo going to revive and get some new people in it or you sort of looking to mainstream rodeos to expand their inclusivity?
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JR: That's a good question. That's a good question for IGRA. It is a challenge that all our association are facing right now. What is the direction of International Gay Rodeo? And how do we bring in more contestants? And I think that it's going to be it's going to come down to IGRA and the individual associations to come up with a plan. Whether it be hiring publicity marketing company who can help with that strategy. Again, advertising for the local rodeos and getting the word out to just the gay community is not always been the most efficient and successful marketing decision. Because it is only as seen by a particular by you know a particular community. And as long as we have the rodeos, having those rodeos, especially like in the community like Duncan Mills which is small, the straight community does see it. Will we be become one with a straight rodeo? I don't know but it's going to become…it's going to take some some very strategic planning from a public and marketing standpoint to figure out how to attract gay and straight. And I think most gay rodeo contestants, most straight rodeo contestants know that we exist, it's whether or not they want to participate. And do they want to do it for charity benefit verses the big money. So there are a lot of challenges there.
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RS: Do you think that maybe plays into why maybe young gay kids might not be, if they are talented at rodeo why wouldn't they do the mainstream and potentially make big money versus investing in?
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JR: Yeah. Exactly. It is. It's a two-pronged, two-edged sword. Do you go to, if you’re a young gay person cowgirl or cowboy who does rodeo currently in high school or in the straight circuit, do you come out as gay? Do you go to a gay rodeo and help compete and help raise money for charity and take the risk of being outed? Because yeah, it's still difficult for gay cowboys to be open in the straight rodeo area. Now there are a lot of straight rodeo contestants out there who say, “We don't care. Come out and ride our bulls, come out and ride our bare broncs.” But, you know, you gotta think about it because sometimes you meet them on the road or on the street and they're not as accepting. So it may take some time and may take somebody who is openly gay and to come out like football players, like national football players and national soccer players and national basketball players that come out and say: “Yeah, I'm gay and guess what? I'm going to make millions of dollars playing football and playing basketball and playing baseball or soccer.” Now maybe a really good gay rodeo cowboy or cowgirl comes out and says: “Yeah, I'm making of millions of dollars, I’m a professional, and I'm gay or lesbian and there's nothing wrong with it. And if you can do better than me, I'll see you at the World Championships or the National Finals and put your money where your mouth is.” And that's what we would say.
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RS: It strikes me that this might be true as well as Asian-American Cowboys, there's not a lot of racial diversity either on the mainstream rodeo circuit.
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JR: Yeah. So, that's a good that's a very good question, and I know where you're going. And lady just walked up to the gate here this morning and she saw my shirt. You’re looking at my shirt: it's a white shirt and it says paniolo and she says, “I like it. Paniolo.” And I said, “You know what paniolo means?” And she said, “Yeah.” And she was wearing a gray sweatshirt with the Hawaiian turtle, they call it a honu, on it and I said, “Yes, so you know the honu, so you know paniolo.” She goes, “Yeah, Hawaiian cowboy.” And I said, “Yeah, you from Hawaii?” She says, “Yeah, I'm from Maui.” And I said, “Great, so is my family.” My family is from Lahaina, that's where my family when they migrated they went to the sugar and pineapple plantations in Maui. I took the name of Paniolo Joe because a couple people asked me if I was from Hawaii. A Hawaiian cowboy and you’re rodeoing and yeah.
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JR: Ten years later, about ten years after I stared in 2009, I met a bull rider down in Sacramento and he saw my buckle and he saw my shirt, and he says, “Oh, you rodeo?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he goes, “Hey that's cool. What do you do?” I said, “I’m bareback bronc rider.” He says, “Oh cool. Yeah, well I'm a bull rider. And yeah you should come down and bull ride with us down in south Sacramento.” There's a rodeo school down there and I said, “Okay, cool, thanks. I'll think about it.” He goes, “But you're not Mexican are you?” And I said, “No, I'm Filipino.” “Filipino? You know we got a Filipino bronc rider down in south Sacramento.” You know we're out there. We may not be Hawaiian, we may not be from Hawaii or born and raised, we may be Filipino, we maybe Chinese or Japanese but we're out there rodeoing, and I guess maybe we haven't gotten much spotlight. Myself, being being humble and modest, I don't look for the spotlight but I'm more than willing to share my story if someone's willing to listen. And you know we’re in America so it's a great opportunity to do what you love to do. Right? So if a person loves to rodeo, come on out, get involved, maybe you're not a bull rider, maybe you're not a bronc rider, but there's many other events. Whether straight or gay. We have the throw off the labels, “Oh, I’m Asian and therefore I cannot be this or I cannot do that.” I don't live for labels, I don't like labels but I recognize the heritage of my name and the color of my skin and my heritage, my ethnic background, and I acknowledge that. I just also happen to be a rodeo cowboy.
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Amy Griffin

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Revulai Detiv: Hello, this is Revulai Detiv. I’m here with Amy. We are at the IGRA convention on the 22nd of October—
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Amy Griffin: —November.
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RD: Oh, sorry. 22nd of November. Thank you. [Laughs] In Denver, Colorado. And so, I guess just to begin, where’d you grow up?
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AG: I grew up in San Francisco. I was born in Michigan. But…marriages and divorces and so forth, and ended up in San Francisco when I was seven, and stayed there until after college.
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RD: What was your childhood like?
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AG: [Quiet laugh] It was pretty chaotic. My father was the, uh, marrying kind—and also the divorcing kind. So, he was married quite a lot. I have one brother who’s two years younger. Nothing unusual, really.
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RD: Okay. Do you feel like talking more about the kind of divorce/marriage thing?
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AG: It's whatever you want.
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RD: —Oh.
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AG: —I mean…my parents were married for six years, and my dad did something pretty unforgivable. And my mother picked my brother and me up (and she was very tiny, so it was like, I don't know, if she got like Incredible Hulk strength or something) and carried us out of the house in the middle of winter and pretty much never looked back. She remarried, they moved. We moved with them to Dallas. And then at some point, I guess I was about six, she decided she was going to leave her second husband and wanted my brother and I to be safe when that happened.
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AG: So, she called my father, who was then in Minneapolis and said, “Hey, can you come and take the kids for two weeks, ‘cause I need to take care of some stuff?” And we woke up the next morning, and my dad was sitting there. We hadn't seen him for three years, and it was sort of like, “What's he doing here?” We went back to Minneapolis with him, found out he had a new wife. Then he wouldn't let us go back to my mother. And we moved to San Francisco. He got divorced. He got married again. He got divorced. He moved to Texas. I stayed in California. He got married again. He got divorced. And by that point, I was in graduate school. So, it was sort of—I was kind of out of the picture. But he spent, I don't know, the last 15 years of his life in Texas. But San Francisco, that's where I consider home. I don't live there now, but that's where I grew up.
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RD: You mentioned graduate school, what did you study?
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AG: Uh, art history.
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RD: Oh, great.
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AG: I…funnily enough, went to PhD school.
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RD: Oh, nice.
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AG: Did that, and when that was done, I…Well, I lived in Scotland for many years. Most of the 80s. And then I moved to Los Angeles, where I’ve lived for almost 30 years now.
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RD: Wow. What was life like in Scotland?
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AG: It was fantastic. It was beautiful. Very cold, very damp. But the people are magnificent, and it's just a different…In my experience, people have a greater appreciation of the little things in life and are less…socioeconomically competitive. And I would still be there, but, at the time, all the things that one would think would make me an attractive candidate for permanent residency actually worked against me: being from an allied country, native English speaker, highly educated, Caucasian. They were all negative marks. So, when I finally gave up and said, “You know, OK, this is—I'm gonna have to leave.” And so, I moved to Los Angeles and started a new career, and I've been there now…yeah, it'll be 30 years on December 1st.
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RD: Oh, wow. Well, congratulations.
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AG: Thanks. [Laughs]
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RD: What kind of career?
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AG: I work in legal administration. I'm an administrator for a nonprofit law firm. And I've been in my current job…I'm in my twenty eighth year. So I'm, you know, reasonably stable.
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RD: For sure.
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AG: I don’t jump around.
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RD: [Laughs] So, I guess, how’d you get involved in IGRA? That's, like, the big question.
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AG: [Laughs] Yes, of course. Well, I mean, I grew up in the city. So, rodeo was not something that was on my radar. And I had a couple of friends in Los Angeles who did camp events: wild drag, steer decorating, goat dressing. And they had been trying to talk me into becoming their wild drag partner for about two years. And I thought, you know, “You guys are just crazy.” And they acquired a Golden State Gay Rodeo Association—that's the California Association—membership for me, forged my name, paid my dues, and signed me up as their partner for the L.A. rodeo in 1993. I found out about it about 24 hours before the rodeo. I was absolutely terrified. I'd never even seen it before. I mean, I'd been to a couple of rodeos, but I was really young, six, seven years old. But this was, you know, I mean, completely sight unseen. And one of the guys got hurt on Saturday in steer deco and ended up being out for the season.
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AG: So, all of a sudden, the other guy, Mark, said, “Hey, great. Now you can be my partner in all three of these events!” [Laughs] I'm thinking, “OK, you want me to partner you in an event where our friend just got hurt?” He's like, “Oh, yeah, it's fine. We'll be fine.” And that was the start of it. I mean, we just had so much fun and I…I wanted to…I wanted to participate, and I wanted to learn about different areas that I could be involved in. You know, in terms of the larger picture. Because it occurred to me pretty early on that being an all volunteer organization, people are always very happy to show up for the party, but getting people to do the work is a little more challenging. And I thought, “OK, you know, how can I gain knowledge in a bunch of different areas and make myself more useful?” So that's what I did.
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AG: I was a contestant. I served on the board of both (at the time we had two) L.A. chapters. Different positions on both of those boards. Got the royalty program. Did a couple terms as state vice-president. I was on a royalty team for IGRA. Served a couple terms as IGRA vice-president. And I chaired a number of committees over the years, chaired judges, co-chaired judges. Rodeo growth and planning. Health and safety. Hall of Fame. I think that's it. I don't know. I would have to, like, really think about it, you know? I was a scorekeeper for five years, and at the time we had two auditors. And that’s…we have scorekeepers who report to secretaries who report to the auditors, and at each level somebody’s checking your work. And the auditor is where the buck stops. And it's a very critical position.
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AG: Well, we only had two. And at the time, we had a lot of rodeos. I mean, we had, I don't know, 20, 22 rodeos a year? We were much bigger. You know, we had a lot more members. We were much younger. I mean, not just the organization, but, like…as individuals, we were much younger as well. And one of the auditors got very, very sick. This was 1996. And I thought, “Oh, shit.” If we lose him…we…I'd better learn how to be a secretary so I can learn how to be an auditor so that, you know, if we lose him, then we have two auditors, but hopefully he gets better, but then we might have a backup. And so, I went through the secretarial program—hated it. And I think I was one rodeo away from being certified, and this gentleman—thank goodness—got better. And he's still here.
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AG: And, I thought, “OK, well, then, I'll just go back to being a scorekeeper and a contestant. Great! Everything's good.” And I went through the judges program a couple of times in the mid 90s, but I wasn't really ready to…commit to it pretty much full time as opposed to… You know, I'd been a contestant, I liked being a contestant, and when I was approaching 40 and hadn't been hospitalized for any rodeo injuries, I thought, “Okay, maybe this is a good time.” And I got certified as a judge when I was…right before I turned 39, and I've just completed my 20th year of judging. The first few years that I was a judge I competed as a contestant sporadically, but was primarily judging. And now…I probably haven't competed in…at least 10 years. And here we are.
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RD: What kind of stuff did you do when you competed?
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AG: I started out with what was just supposed to be wild drag race. But, back then, we had divisions. We had geographical divisions, and the way to earn points for finals was to compete within your own division. This was actually a brilliant system because whether you had a small rodeo or a large rodeo, it didn't matter where in the country you were holding an event, you were guaranteed to have contestants, because they could only get points in their own region. So, at that point in time, the Division 1, which was the Pacific Coast and Nevada, the first rodeo wasn't until April. So, what was supposed to be one event turned into three events on the very first weekend.
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AG: So, it was wild drag, steer deco, goats. And not long after that, I added calf roping on foot. Because, back then, everyone, 100 percent of the contestants had to be present on Saturday morning for a mandatory contestant meeting. Calf-roping on foot was usually held immediately thereafter. And I thought, well, if I'm going to be here…you know. And I think it was the next year that I was trying to decide between steer riding and chute dogging, and I ended up going with chute dogging, because I figured, if I think I'm going to get hurt, maybe if I let go, the steer would go away and not try and kill me. And yeah, that was it. That was enough. Five events.
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RD: So, how do you identify in terms of, like, gender and sexuality?
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AG: I’m sorry, what?
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RD: Oh, I said…[Repeats question.]
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AG: Female, gay. [Pause]
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RD: Sounds good, yeah.
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AG: Whatever. She/Her/Hers.
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RD: Oh, yeah. So, I guess, what was it like for you coming out?
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AG: You know, I never really came out.
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RD: Oh, OK.
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AG: I never…I was never really in. I grew up in San Francisco, which…it's very different now, but in the 60s and early 70s, it was an absolutely magical place to grow up. Very diverse culturally, very diverse ethnically, sociologically… There was everything there and…I wouldn't say—I mean, my father was very strict. He was former military, not the least bit progressive. But, I was in a very progressive, highly academic school, and…it was just no big deal. I mean, just, you know—you'd see gay people, and it was like no big deal. And, you know, it was until…I guess a couple years after college that I sort of…I don’t even know how to put it. I mean, I dated men for quite a while. And…you know, I had a long-term relationship when I lived in Scotland, and when I moved back to the States, I only dated women. Who knows now? I don't know. I'm a widow, so anything could happen.
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RD: Did you ever face any discrimination for that?
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AG: Yes, and…yes. There was political discrimination at my graduate school, and it was not pretty, but I'm not one to back down, and…things could have gone better. But I'm glad I made the choices that I did. And, you know, I’m fortunate. Aside from the times that I lived in Scotland, I've always lived in a very cosmopolitan area. I mean, you know, San Francisco—nobody gives a shit. It’s like, as long as you don't frighten the kids or hurt the animals, you're okay. Los Angeles, you know, when I moved there, there were a lot more gay bars than there are now. And, you know, it was different for people of my generation back then. To some extent it was a safety issue to be segregated, as it were.
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AG: But it's just different now. It's totally different now. We…I mean, I think the last time I intentionally went to a gay bar in Los Angeles, I had friends that were visiting from Australia, and they were staying in West Hollywood, and they wanted to go to gay bars. And I'm like, “I don't even know what to tell ya.” And they found a place they wanted to go, and I'm like, “OK, I'll meet you there.” This was probably seven or eight years ago. You know, occasionally when I'm at a rodeo, maybe I'll go to the bar with some friends. But generally, at this stage in my life, I’d rather just get something nice to eat for dinner and go back to the room and relax rather than go out partying, you know?
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RD: That makes a lot of sense, yeah.
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AG: We used to be able to do this, y’know? I mean, when I was in my early thirties, we would start at the big rodeos at 7:00 in the morning and we'd finish, like, 11:30 at night. It was insane. And then we would go directly to the nearest gay bar, close it down, go back to the hotel, crash for a couple of hours, and get up at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning and do it all over again.
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RD: It's impressive.
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AG: There aren’t many of us that have the stamina to do that anymore—or the inclination.
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RD: Yeah.You think the larger LGBT community supports the rodeo at all?
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AG: That's a tough one…I think less so than it used to. You know, it's a very expensive sport and…we need younger people. Honestly, if we change the ‘G’ in ‘IGRA’ from gay to geriatric, it would be fairly accurate. But it's difficult for us to recruit younger people, partly because a lot of them don't hang out in bars and have grown up not having to feel threatened the same way that we did. And, just, not thinking it's a big deal to be gay, and who cares what other people think? And, you know, it's…how do we reach those people? Also, younger people are…it seems like it's taking longer for them to become financially independent adults.
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AG: So, there's the issue of the…increasing cost of living. And do they have the seniority in their jobs to be able to take Fridays and Mondays off several times a year? And do they have the cash or the available credit to do it? And it's, you know…even for we old people it's not easy. I don't know. I've been saying for years and I think we should approach the extreme sports people, because we already know that they're adrenaline junkies. You know, these, like, motocross guys and gals, and the base jumpers, these sports that are adrenaline fueled. But, you know, I feel like the people in their 20s and 30s these days, by and large, just don't see any reason to be segregated. So, we have—it's the greying of IGRA, y’know?
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RD: That makes sense.
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AG: Yeah.
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RD: [Long pause] Do you see IGRA eventually just morphing into normal rodeo?
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AG: You know…we have an increasing number of…I don't know the right language, I don’t want to sound politically incorrect… Non-gay contestants. For example, here, there's a couple who—I won’t mention their names, because I don’t know if they’d want to be mentioned—but it's a heterosexual couple who happened to move in next door to two of our oldest members—longest time members—and said, “Wow, that would be fun.” And they started coming to our rodeos as contestants, and they're just part of our family, y’know? They have a little boy who is…I think he just turned six in September, I want to say (no, he can't be 7 yet. He must be six.) And [coughs] it's like, they bring him…when we come to Denver in the summer, we do a junior rodeo on Friday night.
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AG: He competes in that. He knows everybody. He loves everybody. His parents know that if they're both competing at the same time, that this little boy is going to be well looked after, you know? That there's no danger whatsoever and he's got a couple hundred uncles and aunts that'll keep a close eye on him. We've got a bunch of speed event—horse speed event—women, here, in New Mexico, and Texas, particularly.
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AG: You know, straight girls that are local girls that like to do barrel racing, and they come down. We have some rough-stock men that are straight. And [clears throat]…I think some of them…are a little resistant to telling their friends what kind of rodeo it is that they're going to…But the ones that are particularly secure with their masculinity or whatever don't seem to have a problem. And some live in places that are, you know, smaller places in Wyoming, in Oklahoma, here in Colorado. But they're…they keep coming back. And our people—we don't give a shit, you know? We don't care if you're gay or straight or transgender or whatever, but it's…if you want to come and have fun, please come and join us. We’re open. We're open to everybody.
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RD: It sounds like it's a really supportive community overall.
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AG: It is. And, you know, years ago it was very rare that we would have a contestant come along who was straight, or was transgender. And…it's just different now. It's like…it's just…you want to come and have fun and play with us? Come on down. We welcome you. [Pause] I don't even know if I answered the question.
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RD: No, no, you absolutely did. I think I made a statement.
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AG: It’s morphing.
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RD: So, have you experienced any protests, or any kind of homophobia at the rodeos?
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AG: [Laughs] You know, not for quite some time. It was very, very common in the 90s. You know, the PETA protesters, and the religious people with their big signs—and more often than not they had small children with them, with big signs that say GOD HATES FAGS. We had…three rodeos in Washington state in…I want to say ‘93, ‘94, and ‘95. I believe it was. And the rodeo was in this little town called Enumclaw. And it's really a little town [laughs]. And, I don't know, it was probably…it seemed really far away from Seattle. It was probably 45 minutes outside of town. And…we did our registration and stuff on Friday in Seattle, and then we drove out to this place for Saturday and Sunday.
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AG: And on Saturday…one of mornings, I think it was Saturday morning, there were all these ten penny nails in the parking lot. And some extremists had targeted the parking lot because, you know, the fags are coming. But I think there’d been some sort of straight event there the night before, and they’d put the nails in at the wrong time. And…that was a little threatening. It was a beautiful arena, and it was just surrounded by, you know, Washington State. It was just surrounded by all these massive big green trees. And what we didn't know at the time was that there were police sharpshooters in the trees keeping an eye on us. Which was pretty radical for 1993, in a little town, in Washington state. We haven't…it's been quite a while since we've seen a lot of more PETA protesters. .
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AG: We went to Florida for four years, I think it was, four or five years, starting in…maybe 2008-ish… 2007 or 2008…and there were a lot of protesters outside the gate, but we also had, like, 5000 spectators over the course of the weekend. So, the protesters did really get very far. You know, we have a PR spokesperson, and we have very, very rigid rules dedicated to the welfare of the animals. You know, the stocks that we effectively rent for the weekend for our contestants’ own animals. We are very, very big on animal welfare. And in the past, when we've tried to explain this to those people, they don't want to hear it, because… it's just not what they want to hear. It's been…yeah, it's probably been 10 years since I've seen protesters. So that's good
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RD: Yeah, that’s great.
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AG: Yeah.
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RD: So, when you were doing stuff in the rodeo, did you ever get injured?
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AG: Not horribly.
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RD: Okay, that’s good.
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AG: You know, I got a lot of bumps and bruises, but I never had to go to the hospital.
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RD: That’s good.
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AG: That's definitely, definitely positive.
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RD: Do you feel comfortable talking about the racial diversity of the rodeos?
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AG: Sure.
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RD: Have you been to any that were, I guess, exceptionally racially diverse?
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AG: I have not. There's…I don't even know if it's still there…there used to be a black rodeo not too far from where I live. And…I refer to it as black rodeo because that's what it's called. It's called the black rodeo, it's not called the African American rodeo. And it's held in a facility where we have held a number of Los Angeles rodeos back in the in the old days. And, you know, every time I drive past that place—which isn't very often—I think, “You know, I really should find out when that rodeo is, because I’ll bet it would be really fun to go.” I have seen some Mexican rodeos in Mexico, but just at a distance, not as a paid spectator. But, you know, that's it.
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RD: OK. [Pause] So, when you’re at the rodeo, do you, like, have Western wear? Or is it, like, 100 percent of the time kind of deal?
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AG: Do I wear Western wear a hundred percent of the time?
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RD: Yeah. Or, at the rodeo.
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AG: No. I…I'm a California girl. This is me. And if I wasn't in Denver, I'd have on shorts and sandals. You know, as a judge, we have uniform requirements, and it's basically the same uniform requirements that the contestants have. I used to have lots of boots and lots of fancy clothes. And travel has just become so…it used to be fun, and it used to be easy. And since 9/11 it is neither one of those things. I mean, for example, I used to dress up for Sunday night awards. Every rodeo. And I did it for 10, 15 years. And I had this really amazing, brand new sequined dress. And we were in San Francisco. It was the first time I'd worn it, and the drag queens are just like drooling at my dress. And I got home from…we did awards, we went to this bar, you know, kind of as an en masse, right? Because they were a sponsor.
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AG: And I got back to the hotel—I only had this dress on for, like, three hours—I got back to the hotel, and there was a huge burn hole in the back of the dress. I'm like, “Oh, shit, my dress is burned. And I thought, You know, [squeak] do I really need to keep carrying stuff like this just to wear for a couple hours on Sunday night? And my answer was, No. [Laughs] No, I don't.” So, yeah, no. I'm…you know, I have lots of buckles, but I don't wear them at home. I mean, I'm very fortunate that I don't have to dress up for work—I mean, I can't wear shorts. But I mean, you know, if I wanted to wear jeans and a Western buckle, I totally could. I'm just too lazy, basically.
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RD: Do your coworkers know about the—?
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AG: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Years ago, they’d be like, “You’re going on vacation again?” And I was like, “No. I'm traveling Friday, I've got meetings Friday, I'm working Saturday, working Sunday, and traveling on Monday. No, I'm not going on vacation.” And now they know better. They're just like, Oh, yeah, she’s….yeah. [Pause] They think it's weird.
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RD: Oh…yeah. Coworkers. So, what's it mean to be a cowboy or a cowgirl for you? And I guess, would you consider yourself one as well?
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AG: Well. Wow. That's actually a really tough question. For me, it's really more of a philosophical thing. You know, just. What do we value? I mean, we value honesty and we value integrity and…camaraderie and…being respectful and supportive of each other. Helping out, you know, when people need help. Whatever. You know, if the arena crew’s shorthanded and they need help drawing a line well, yeah, if they want us to help, we're gonna jump in and help them. I think…I don't know. This is a really extraordinary group. Over the years, I've participated in a lot of different sports and…this is—I mean, I've done racket sports, and I skiid, I rode—not here cause that's for rich people—and this is the only sport I've ever been involved with where more often than not, your biggest supporter is gonna be your direct competition.
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AG: And that's just…that's how we roll, y’know? And I mean, I remember…I think it was in San Diego, sometime in the mid 90s, and it was chute dogging. And I could’ve won the buckle. And it was down to one gal who could beat me, and I did my run and it wasn't very good. And then I jumped up on the back of the chutes, and I was cheering for her. And some of the other people back there were like, “Why are you cheering for her?” You know, and I'm like, “Well, because she's my friend,” y’know? And she won. Which was cool. I wasn’t, you know—didn't make me unhappy or anything. But…not everybody is the same, they're going to be exceptions, you know, ‘cause there's assholes everywhere.
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AG: But this is a really supportive group. And the contestants, but not just the contestants. I mean, the judging team I see at pretty much every rodeo, we will talk to people and say, “Hey, you know, if you try this, it might work better,” or, “Here's what went wrong,” or, you know, “Maybe if you look at it from this angle” or, whatever, or, you know, “Hey, if you do this, you’re costing yourself time.” And we want people to succeed, and we want them to be happy, and it's just…the level of support kind of across the board is…I haven't experienced it in any other sport. Ever. Y’know? And I'm 59, so…it's been a while [laughs].
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RD: Where do you think that comes from?
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AG: I don't know. I mean, you know, in the beginning…we—the Big We, IGRA- we—got together to be able to do what we love in a safe environment. And I don't mean like safe from injury. I mean safe from people that…might threaten our welfare and…we—It's like a big family, y’know? And we look out for each other, we stand up for each other, and…it's very different than it was in…I mean, I don't know what it was like in the late 80s. I didn't live here. I didn't get involved ‘til 1993. But in the bigger picture of IGRA that's still, you know—I mean, that was 27 years ago. That's still relatively early days. I think there's a…I don’t know, what is it, like, strength in numbers or something? There's a sense of security that is inherent when you're with a group where you know you're safe. And I don't think it's, like, a conscious thing. I think it's like more like a feeling, y’know?
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RD: That makes sense.
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AG: I don't know if I even can articulate it.
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RD: I thought you did really well.
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AG: I've been talking all day, so…[Laughs]
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RD: It’s okay. [Long pause while interviewer formulates next question.] So, what are your thoughts on IGRA and trying to get more people involved?
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AG: I would love to see more people involved. We have been in a period of declining numbers: declining numbers of rodeos, declining numbers of members. Part of it is that people are aging out. People are dying. Some people have just said, “You know, if I didn't do this, I could have a really, really great vacation.” Sometimes, you know, people's interests change. It's tough because such a high percentage of our core membership are people in their 50s and 60s. And, I think it's a tough sell to be attractive to people in their 20s and 30s when they see all these old people. I don't know what the answer is. I think that as far as the number of rodeos go, that we're better off having a smaller number of rodeos that are successful than a larger number of rodeos that maybe aren't all successful.
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AG: So, what works in Little Rock might not work in Denver, and what works in Minneapolis/St. Paul might not work in Dallas. And I think, you know, we have to continue to encourage our hosting associations to…structure their events in ways that work for them in their market. And, you know, it's not often we get new associations anymore. In fact, we've been losing them. But when we were going through a massive growth spurt in the 90s, I think that new associations felt—I don't think IGRA put the pressure out—but I think that they felt some sort of internal pressure to host a rodeo or host a convention, because, well, “We can't be in the club unless we do this.” But that's not true. And it's like—no, you can totally be in the club. You don't have to do this. And please don't try and run before you can walk, because maybe you're setting yourself up for failure.
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RD: Yeah
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AG: And we had a…there was a suggestion from an external sponsor type person, years ago, that thought we should do away with small rodeos. Because they didn't—presumably—sell enough of his product. And there was one particular rodeo that was targeted and, you know, people like stood up and yelled and screamed and stamped their feet and said, “Look it, if you're in Peoria, Illinois, you're not going to have the population to draw from that you're gonna have in Phoenix or Dallas or Denver or Los Angeles.”
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AG: So, if Peoria can get 400 people over the course of a weekend and they're holding an event—a gay event in a place where they've got lots of military bases—that's successful for them. You can't hold every place to the same standards because they're not dealing…it's not apples to apples, you know? And in fact, this particular organization—which is not Peoria—had a…I can’t call it what it’s real name was…they had facility. They had a facility that belonged to them 365 days a year. And they would hold events there and they would rent it out to other community groups. And they sold a lot of beer in their facility.
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AG: And they made a lot of money in their facility, and it enabled them to have an event in a place with a low population, and not a huge number of attendees, and still be able to pay for it. So, you know, we've had…California used to have rodeos in Los Angeles, San Diego, Palm Springs, and Bay Area. Well, also Sacramento. Now we have rodeos in Bay Area and Palm Springs. So, San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento just closed this year. Los Angeles and San Diego, just, kind of…people weren’t interested anymore. Nobody wanted to do the work. Nobody wanted to be a board member. They've been closed for quite a while. And…that's fine. We have…I think we have 9 or 10 rodeos on the list next year—which for us is small. But it's sustainable.
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RD: Yeah.
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AG: OK? They can get the contestants. Minnesota and Arkansas now take turns. So, in the even years it's Minnesota, and in the odd years it's Arkansas. Because they know their market, and they know what they need financially to not dig themselves into a big hole. So, they've made they've made the decision to just take turns and do a rodeo every other year, and that has worked very well for them. Had they continued to try and hold rodeos every single year, you know, would they still be with us? I don't know. That's a big question. I think IGRA could do more to support the local associations. I don't know how we increase the membership. I just don't. I hope that we still exist five years from now. It has been an amazing experience for me. And, you know, back to when I started and wanted to learn different aspects of how things worked, trying to be useful, I still want new people coming in to be able to have similar experiences and be excited about this and want to come back and want to see it continue. It remains to be seen, right?
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RD: Yeah
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AG: Yeah.
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RD: So, how has gender inclusivity been during your time?
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AG: Well, you know, we've always…I don't know what the percentages are. I would guess, I don't know, 70/30, 75/25. I'm not the person answer that question. It's always been at least two thirds men. Easily. It's at least two thirds men. But as a woman, I've never felt unwelcome because I was a woman. I mean, there are always fewer women than men that are competing. But, you know, a lot of things changed. A lot of things changed in in the 90s. [Pause] Before the AIDS crisis really came, like, slamming into us.
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AG: I think that the genders were much more segregated. And I know an awful lot of women who were the first ones to step up and take care of our brothers when they got sick. And I think that the community’s learning to accept the help maybe went some way to break down some of those barriers. Maybe. I mean…just…things are very different now. You know, I don't even know how to articulate it. But I do think that, where there used to be, you know—I have never had a problem going into a gay men's bar—I grew up in San Francisco.
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AG: So, my first bars were gay men’s bars. [Laughs] Y’know? And, you know, it was just sort of…I didn't really have to think about it. I just thought, “Well, I'm going to be friendly and pleasant and tip well.” And I've never, ever had a problem. But…a lot of people have. And…I think things are…there are still gonna be places that are very, sort of, I don’t know, exclusive or…unwelcoming, I suppose. But I think that the 90s made both the men and the women in the community break down some barriers. You know, for the better.
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RD: Yeah.
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AG: Yeah.
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RD: OK. Did you have anything else that you wanted to…?
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AG: No, I don't think so—I mean, this is a great project. I wish that there were fun things like this to do when I was in grad school.
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AG: Yeah, this is…it’s…I didn’t know a whole lot about it when I started, and just the more I’ve been in it the more I'm like, this is really great…I think we went through most of these…I don't want to be like…going by a script, you know?
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AG: No, it’s OK. Whatever you need to do.
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RD: OK. [Long pause]
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AG: I mean, if I could do anything differently, it would probably be to have not spent two years arguing with my friends Mark and Bill about coming out and playing in the dirt with them. Because I would've been involved two years sooner. And I mean, I've been very fortunate that, well, that I've been able to be involved for so long. And that my work situation is such that, you know, I can take a lot of long weekends—I mean, I'm always on. I always bring my laptop! I’ve got work to do. But I've only ever had to cancel one rodeo because of work. And I'm in the neighborhood of about 250 now. I feel very privileged that I’ve—first that I'm still here—but that I've been able to participate in so many different aspects of our organization.
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RD: Yeah.
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AG: And, you know, while we really want more younger people, I think it's important…I'm glad that that all of we old people haven't left. Because continuity is important, and a sense of our organizational history is important. And, you know, if you can get some voices of reason in the same room, you can do great things. Yeah.
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RD: Well, great.
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AG: You’re gonna be… Tomorrow's either gonna be very, very boring for you, or you’re just gonna laugh your asses off. Maybe both.
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RD: I think we'll have fun. We were in a couple of the meetings, and it is pretty great. So, yeah, unless you’ve got anything else.
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AG: No, I’m good. You good?

Desirey Benavides

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Rebecca Scofield: Okay, so this is Rebecca Scofield and I am here with Desirey. It's May 13th 2017 and we're at the hot rodeo outside Palm Springs. So can you tell what year you were born?
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Desirey Benevides: Yup, November 7th 1959.
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RS: And where did you grow up?
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D: Predominantly in Lakewood. I actually started off in Long Beach, and then around my 4th grade year is when we moved to Lakewood. That's where I went to school and graduated from Lakewood High.
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RS: Did you guys live sort of in town, did you own property?
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D: My Dad, we had a house in Lakewood and was there with my Mom, my Dad and then I have a younger brother, we're a year and a half apart, my younger brother.
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RS: What did your parents do, for a living for most of your childhood?
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D: My mom was a housewife and my dad worked for GTE, and then around my junior high years is when they got divorced after 20 years of marriage. Then my mom ended up having to, you know, go to work, so then she was a waitress.
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RS: Did you spend much time around animals when you were growing up?
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D: No, typically dogs, that type of stuff. My parents are from south Texas, which is in Kingsville which is is owned by the Kings ranch. I remember a couple times going out to King ranch because I think, my grandfather, on my mom's side, he used to work at the King ranch, so we used to go out there, but we didn't play with steers or any of that thing. Typically growing up was always like being a cowboy, dressing as Roy Rogers and Zorro or something like that.
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RS: That's nice. So, can you tell me how you identify in terms of gender and sexuality?
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D: Well I mean, I had my surgeries so I am a female, but I mean I still am part of the transgender community. So people ask, yes, I am transgender. Though I don't, I don't try to label myself as being transgender because you spend 35,000 plus to became a female, it's what you wanted to do so why I wanna tell people. Sometimes it happens and people, you know, "Well, how come your voice is so deep" or "How come you dress as a guy when you're at work?" I work at the postal service, I'm an area maintenance specialist, and I'm doing kinda guy work. They're like you kinda act like a guy sometimes and I'm like okay whatever, it's my, my job. But, no I, somebody says I'm female. Course kids, they're really hard to trick, adults are not too... you know it's usually pretty easy for adults unless I'm on the phone or something and they're like "Yes sir", and I'm like, "No, it's ma'am", but kids are always like, "You're a guy". *jokingly* I'm like "Shut up; go away, Where's your parents? Get away from me." But no, I typically try to identify as a female but when people ask, yes I'm part of the transgender community and I try to support it and help out in any way I can.
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RS: How did your relationship with your gender identity manifest as a child?
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D: Growing up... I always was, I guess there was just something that was a little bit different. I remember stealing some of my cousin's cloths, I was always jealous of her. Her name's Else. Anyways I was always jealous of her and so one time I stole some of her clothes. And then in my 4th grade year is when I almost got found out, because I had hid her clothes underneath my mattress. My mom used to flip mattresses every spring, you know, the flipping of the mattress, and found them and confronted me with it. I was like, I don't know how they got there, talk to Else. Else got in trouble for it, I told her later on in the years, "Sorry," for about those spankings you got. But... it's interesting because... once my parents got divorced and I really started dressing because my mom was never home, she was like I said a waitress, during the day she was a waitress at night she was a cocktail waitress, she had to do two jobs. So, mom was gone, my brother was a jock, so he was out, so I'd dress up in my mom's clothes and was like, "Oh yeah, this is great." But, it was... it was interesting cause later on in the years after my mom had passed, my mom passed about a month after I had my surgery, I was talking to one of my, Comadre -- my Mom's best friend, and her names Yolanda; she lives in south Texas. And I was talking about her and she goes, "Yeah, you and your mom and I we used to talk about you we knew something was different with you", and I was like, "Why didn't you tell me, why did you wait till I was 40 some years old before I find out, I have this, this certain part of me that needed to be expressed. Not 40 even early, I mean I was, I was way into it before that. Even, even to realize that they saw it... the way that I sat, the way that I acted, the way that I, I'm like "Okay, I'll come," but of course when you're growing up in a Hispanic type family, even though my dad forbid any kind of Mexican type stuff, it was predominantly machismo type things. I did all the boy stuff growing up: play sports, was a boy scout and did all that kind of stuff. Up until the time when my parents finally got divorced, I wasn't a jock. I did the sports like in the park league, I never got into the school league. I played in the band. I was a trumpet player, so did that kind of stuff. My brother was the jock of the family and that kind of stuff.
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RS: And after you graduated high school what did you do?
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D: Wow, after I graduated from high school I moved to Redding with my mom and the guy I call my step-Father, we opened up a Mexican restaurant, I played soccer in Redding. I met my first wife, knew we were getting serious, and had kept my dressing pretty well, under cover -- it was like closet type stuff. Went into the military, joined the Air Force in '79. Pretty much put my dressing on hold throughout that period of my life. Then shortly into my military career, she went somewhere, I don't know where she came and she came home early and caught me and oh god the shit hit the fan. And so anyways shortly thereafter we ended up getting a divorce ourselves.
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RS: Was your dressing the main reason for the divorce?
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D: I really don't know the exact reason, I think there was a lot of different stuff going on. She had mentioned, she wanted someone who was more... a guy, assertive, I'm not the type of person, now a little bit I am, I don't know why. But when she would say, where do you want to go to eat, I'm like, "I don't care, wherever you want to go, as long as it's not this, this, or this, I'm fine." I don't do Sushi, I don't do Thai, I don't do, but anything else is game. I get in and she said, well I want a man that says "We're going here," and I'm like "This is not it, I'm not the type of person". So I don't know if that was, partly and then of course with the catching me dressing. I went TDY, to get retrained in another job. And found out that she had somebody else, or was seeing somebody else, who knows?
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RS: What was it like to be in that military culture with this side of yourself?
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D: It was interesting because once we started getting our separation, I started dressing a lot more, and I was going out, dressed as Desirey. And it was interesting cause I met a lot of military personnel that were, at these bars that I was going to. I guess you could call them gay bars, but there was transgender in there, drag queens. I remember one time I was in there and somebody kept buying me beers and I'm like, this is cool, I like this part of it. And finally I asked the waitress, "Whose buying me these beers?" and she is like, "Oh that guy over there", and I recognized him. So I went up and I said, "Hello Staff Sergeant Adams," and he was like, "H-how do you know my name?" I go, "Staff Sergeant Benivides." I was actually the swing supervisor for structural repair, he was the swing shift supervisor for jet propulsion which was right, our bays were kind of connected. I was like, "Oh I didn't know it was you", well I know, that's kinda the point isn't it. So it was kinda interesting, being in the military and dressing. And then I lost a child, my second child. Then I ended up losing it in the military and throwing away an 8 and a half year career. But it is what it is, so you do what you gotta do. I look back on it, would of, could of, should of, but it happens.
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RS: So after you, left the military, what did you do next?
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D: Drank heavily. Then went to my dad and my brother and said I needed to get back into the workforce and so I ended up getting a job at the McDonald-Douglas. Still dressing pretty much on the side, just... back then though, I got out of the military in '87 and I remember contacting a few of the gay bars, and "Do you guys allow transgender?", and a lot of them were like "No, we don't want that kind in here." So it was kinda different trying to find a place to go that you could be comfortable and not worry about getting the shit beat out of you.
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RS: Did you ever sleep with men?
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D: No, I didn't want to have anything to do with guys, I like girls but I like to dress as a girl. I had girlfriends after I got out of the military, and for the most part it was like fun and games. A lot of them that I met were like, "This is fun", and then after 2 or 3 months, "Okay, I want you to stop" and it was like "Yeah, no". It ain't stopping, this is who I am and I'm gonna go all the way. But, I got out of the military went to went at Douglas, and just, did that until I got laid off from Douglas. That's what I did.
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RS: You mentioned that you had children?
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D: I had three children with my first wife, and lost two. First one was stillborn, and then had Rey the third -- he is my namesake, my old name. Then I had another son, and he died when he was three years old.
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D: And then I married a second time. This is when I was still working at Douglas, I think it was around '90. I had decided that I was gonna throw Desirey away. Got rid of all my female stuff everything, became a fat Mexican guy. Mustache, short hair, the whole shot. Met this girl at "The Hop," it's a 50's dance bar, and like 2 months later we ended up getting married. Stayed with her, she caught me dressing. She told my dad. That didn't go over too well, and we ended up getting an annulment 9 months later. The interesting part of that was, when I worked at Douglas, when I first started working at Douglas when I was still dressing, I had long hair, I had earrings, then I threw it all away and I became Rey. I got rid of all that, like I said mustache the whole shot. Then when I went back, I remember this one black supervisor -- I really liked her, she was a nice supervisor and she had come up to me and said, "I'm glad to see you're back". I never left, what the fuck you're talking about? She's like "No, that other person was a real asshole, I'm glad to see you're back." And that is when I came to the realization, you know what? I need to be who I'm meant to be. Trying to be something else is not who I am. Even when I started, I met Janet and, in '92, met Janet, and we were starting to get serous and finally figured, I gotta let her know. So we went to our usual place to walk, we would walk on the Seal Beach pier, and I said, "We need to talk." I asked her, where do you see this relationship going? She goes I'd like to see it go further, I said I need to be upfront with you I need to show you something. She thought I was gonna show her I was into bondage, S&M or something, and it was pictures of me dressed as a female. And she's was like "Okay", and I go no, this is not okay, I mean per say. I mean, I'm saying this is who I'm gonna be; I'm gonna go full time, so if you're not alright with this, let me know upfront, and we'll just be good friends. Because, I've dated too many women, and this is all just fun and games, and then after a few months, "I want you to stop, go back to being who your body tolds you to be." That's not happening, I'm gonna take my hormones, I'm gonna do all the stuff. She was alright with it, course she wanted to get married right away, and it was like, no, I'm gonna wait. So I moved in with her shortly thereafter but we didn't get married until '94. I think 2 years in, finally I said "Okay, I think you're in for the long haul". Not that it hasn't been easy, she has 2 older kids. I remember when we told, in '94, is when I told her kids. I was giving my son, the visitations I has for my namesake, I would get 30 days in the summer. I only thought it was fair that if I tell her kids I'd tell my son, and my son told his mom. And that was the last I saw of Rey the third until 2000 when he finally came back into my life. Now I think it was only so he could get his degree as a chef because, I haven't heard from him. I had my surgery February 2010. He left, well he's always been a mama's type of boy, but I haven't seen him since then he really hasn't been in contact with me. I'm like "Okay, it is what it is, you'll have to deal with it in your own way." As far as I'm concerned I'm still his father, can't change that.
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RS: What did you do for work after Douglas?
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D: I bounced around in jobs, was an office manager for a psych department for some psychologists, worked in geriatric psych, used to work in the adult daycares. Got tired of that cause, I get attached to people. I had these blonde moments where it's like, I'd go to pick up somebody and it's like, "They're no longer with us," and I'm like "Where did they go?" and they're like "They're no longer with us," and I'm like, "Okay so what facility are they at, I'll go pick them up there?" and they're like "Hello *knocks*, they're no longer with us." I'm like "Oh, they're no longer with us. Okay, now I get it. Lightbulb. Ding, ding, ding! It got too much so after that, I ended up being a, kind of a housewife. Went back to school. I got a degree as a recording engineer. I thought well that'll be a good degree because there's a lot of crazy people in the recording industry, you see all kinds. And when I told... the boss, this guy Wes Dooley, pretty well known in the audio industry. He was owner of audio engineering associates. I used to, refurbish ribbon microphones and build specialty audio equipment. When I told him I wanted to go full time he goes, "I don't understand why you want to be a second class citizen". And, I was like okay, I never thought of women as a second class citizen, but to each his own. And then when I had these done, my breasts done in, like 2001 I think. I told him I was getting my breasts done, well you know I only hire small breasted women, because big breasted women distract me from my work. Okay, I can see where this is going. So I ended up quitting that job, which I really did like. I ended up quitting and becoming a office manager, escrow officer, loan officer, notary for a loan company at hard money loans. This guy that I knew, he hired me and I ended up working there for a few years, something like 2002, somewhere around 2002, 2003 to like 2006 when the loans started crashing. Then after that, I tried to do some loans on the side. I told Janet that if I don't get anything that I'll look for other work. The post office was hiring and I never thought I'd get a job at the post office but they're really into diversity, which I didn't know. So I got hired on, but my driver's license had already been changed to Desirey, had it already set to where it said female, so I wouldn't get that clash about using the wrong bathroom, you know, back then, but my social security card still said M, because I hadn't had my full surgery yet. I remember going to work at the post office, and of course my supervisors had access to my records. So, in my records showed M, but I was working as a female. I remember a couple, well when I went to my orientation this one, ex-marine -- not that I had anything against marines, my father-in-law is a marine and my brother is a marine. But anyways we were in orientation and I kept on raising my hand cause I had questions, and he was like "Yes, sir?", and I said, "its ma'am", and he answer "Yes, sir." So I said, "Call me sir one more time, and we're going to take a walk over to HR, and we're going to explain to them why you want out me. How do you like that private?" Cause I could tell by his marine plaque, that he was a gunny, a gunny sergeant, and he looked at me and I go "Yeah." Some people, back then of course when I started at Douglas it was like '06, so you know the whole transgender thing hadn't progressed yet so there was still people that, liked to flex their power and show that they could try to out me or whatever. But, I didn't put up with it. So I ended up getting a job at the post office, which I enjoyed, quite a bit.
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D: I'm a past empress for the imperial court system. Once for Long Beach, I'm the "Bouncy Tigger Transgender Emerald Empress of the 29th Reign," I'm also past empress of orange county. I'm the "Country Western Yellow Rose (Don't Mess With Her), Transgender Emerald Empress of the 29th Reign." So, like when you were asking what do I identify with. Okay in my titles I have transgender and I think that with that I knew when I would walk, as an empress, and they would read off my title, other people would say, "Oh you're transgender, can I talk to you? I've got questions. How did you do this?" or "How did you do that? Can you help me with work?" That type of stuff, and so I ended up becoming like, the spokesperson for transgender. I mean I even spoke. I spoke twice at Cal State Long Beach for the human sexuality class. I spoke once over at the Santa Ana college at the human sexuality class, trying to educate the students of what it means to be transgender. Back at that time I hadn't had my surgery, and wasn't planning on getting my surgery. Didn't really have a desire to get it, until Janet's oldest, Kathleen had, Johnny our first grandson, and back then Janet was the night-night grandma and I was the play grandma. And Johnny and I would wrestle and that type of stuff, and of course he wanted to take a shower with me and so most of the time I would wear swimsuits, swimming trunks, and he was like, "Why do you wear swim trunks in the shower grandma?" Because we have to, let's put it like that. But we would wrestle, even in the pool, my inlaws had a pool. I was always afraid something would fall out. What happens if, and how would I explain it to him? Janet and I talked about it, and we're not really using it, per say, so we ended up taking, we have property out in the desert, we ended up taking a loan out on that property and had my surgery. When was that? 2010. February 16th 2010, is when I had my surgery. My final surgery, the big one. I had that done, and I had my Adam's apple shaved.
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RS: I think we should pause and check on steer decorating.
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RS: So I'm back here with Desirey, so you were just talking about going through the final surgery. What was that process like, emotionally, physically?
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D: Well the thing about it is, it was really. When I finally decided to do it, Doctor Bowers who was the one that did it, you have to have all these papers, you have to have this paper from the psychologist, you have to have this paper from the psychologist, the psychiatrist, or therapist and the psychiatrist. All this stuff, plus you had to have been taking the testosterone blockers. And the thing about it was, when I, when I first started my transition I was getting my pills from Mexico, because back then they weren't prescribing it. I have went to, I had Kaiser with Janet, cause Janet worked for the city, and so Kaiser wasn't doing it. I remember asking one of the doctors I said I need to go on hormones, and he said we don't believe in giving something to enhance one person's body. And I'm like, you're not enhancing my body, you're putting it where it's supposed to be.
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D: So, when I finally, this was in, finally I think in 2001, I had an appointment for an endocrinologist and Kaiser finally paid for my hormones, and also put me on testosterone blockers and that type of stuff. And so when I had to get these papers filled out from Kaiser, I went into the psych department I had to see the first person, the therapist they had to ask me a bunch of questions. I was like look, let's cut to the fucking chase, basic bottom line, I'm going to get my surgery, all I need you to do, that paper that's there in front of you, just sign it, that's it -- that's all I need you to do. They're like, well how come you never seen, I said cause I don't want to see you guys, I'm tired of talking to you guys, I don't like talking to you guys, just sign my paper, this is easy, I'll be gone, we're done. So they're like no, we need to talk, and I'm like, no we don't need to talk. And the same thing with the psychologist, the psychiatrist, they wanted to ask, I'm just here to sign the paper, that's all I need you to do is sign the paper. Basic bottom line I got the paper signed from them, and got my surgery date and everything. But because I didn't do it the way, that you're supposed to do it, I went around the system.
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D: So my surgery was a little bit... different I guess you could say, when I finally got Kaiser to get on board with everything. Like I was saying out there, because I had three kids it's like, they don't give you a manual on how this thing is supposed to work. I'm like, okay, after the surgery, you have to do the dilation, you have to do this, and you have to do that. I didn't know that, typically when you go to the bathroom you don't rub it clean, you pad it. I was like, how come this thing, is bleeding all over the place, well you're rubbing the stitches. Well nobody told me, you pat dry the darn thing. It was an experience for me. Dr. Bowers is cool, she was nice, it was done over in Trinidad, Colorado. Now I understand she moved to Santa Rosa, California or something, but I had it done in Trinidad Colorado, which is a really nice place, snowed, cause I had it done in February so it snowed. Janet does not drive very well in the snow, she doesn't drive very well period. She has a tendency of falling asleep. I remember when we were coming back, I wasn't supposed to drive for a couple weeks. So I'm sitting in the passenger seat and Janet's driving and I'm hearing *brbrbrbrbr* *brbrbrbrbr* I'm like, "Honey are you alright?", "I'm trying, I'm trying," I'm like okay, sitting there *brbrbrbr*, I'm like "Okay, at the next rest stop pull over," "Well you're not supposed to drive," "Just pull over, I'll figure something out." We had borrowed our daughter's forerunner, she had let us use her forerunner instead of taking our car. And it had cruise control so I told Janet, I says, I tell you what I do, once we get going, I'll just set the thing on cruise control, that way I won't put any pressure, I won't put any pressure down there, set the cruise control and I'll be fine. The thing about it was, I was supposed to dilate it, at that time it was 3 times a day for 10 to 15 minutes, so I'm pulling to rest areas, come on get a towel, trying to get some privacy so I can stick this thing inside of me for 15 minutes so I can get to driving again. So, we made it, we made it back.
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D: Then I was off from work. Like I said in the post office a lot, when I first started I was an automation clerk, and then I became a mechanic and... A female doing a guy's work, but some of the guys I had already known. There was another girl who had transistioned, she actually was a guy, become a girl in the post office, but I came in as a girl. But, this other person put, put a lot of them through hell, from what I understand, made them take diversity training, this training, that. So when I got into mechanics, everyone thought I was gonna be almost like Sara, I finally had to tell them, look I'm not fucking Sara, don't treat me like fucking Sara, all I want to do is be treated like a human being, and be treated like the person I was meant to be, period. If you can't do that, then don't work with me, I have no problem working by myself; I can get the job done. So, when I went for my surgery, I guess there was a lot of the guys in the mechanics who took up a collection, and they were gonna buy me flowers. Well, Sara caught wind of it, and was gonna file a grievance, she was gonna file an EOO, blah, blah, blah, because they didn't do shit for her when she went in for her surgery. So, the guys ended up not buying me flowers but when I came back, I finally came back to work, the guys presented me with this pink hard hat. I thought that was really cool that that was their way of accepting me into the group. And it got to the point where I had built up a good enough rapport, with my coworkers, that it got to the point where they would come up to me and ask me, "How did you fix this?" or "How did you do this?", "How did you get this done?", because I ended up knowing, cause I knew about working on equipment, or working on buildings. I'm a building mechanic so I have some experience behind doing that. So it got to the point where it was really good, they knew that, I just wasn't some... person that didn't know nothing, I actually do have a head on my shoulders when it comes to that kind of work, so that was kind of neat.
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RS: And, where were you in the adoption process with your children at this point?
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D: They were still part of the, part of the foster care system, they were still wards of DCFS. Like I said we had gotten Robert, and he has another sister, and Emariah, a black girl, we got them first, and then Ciara was on her way. So we got him in March, end of March. Ciara was due in June. We picked up Ciara, right out of a hospital, and then, Ciara's grandma, the father of her, who, he was in NORCO state prison. They wanted, Sierra, I mean and Emariah, I mean their side of the family, and I was like, I can understand their point, but I was kind of glad myself, because I did not know how to care for a little black girl. Her hair, I mean trying to figure out how to comb that, and they're whole, I remember the case worker well you know, we don't wash our hair every night. Excuse me? They're out playing, and you don't wash their hair? What kind of shit is that? So I was kind of glad when her side of the family wanted her, cause whenever she would go over and visit, her hair would come back all braided with the beads, the ribbons or whatever in her hair, and I thought, that's what she needs, she needs to be on that side of the family. And Emariah, shortly thereafter they took Emariah to her side of the family and they adopted her. And then we has Robert and Ciara, which Robert and Ciara are only 11 months apart, so I mean they're real real close, and then Christopher the baby was born in January in 2012. And like I said, at first I just did not want three kids, two's enough, there's no way I'm gonna. One of my supervisors at work was like, god's not gonna give you any more you can handle. So i'm like next time you talk to god, tell him that I'm done. This is too much. But I ended up spending the first 3 weeks of his life, with him. I remember, like I said, the case worker calling and saying, well I'm still trying to find someone to take him. I'm like "Yeah, fuck you," you knew what you were doing, my motherly instincts kicked in, and I said he's not going anywhere he's staying here. And he's actually, he's my baby, he's my little cuddlier, if I want someone to cuddle with, he's the one, though he can be a handful, he's a handful. But at night when he's telling you, mama, arm, so I put out my arm, and he puts his head there and then he takes my arm and moves it to where it wraps around him, I'm like, okay, Im done, I'm done.
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RS: So what motivated you to take on these three?
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D: Janet, Janet, I didn't want any. I did not want to raise, at 50 years old I wasn't anywhere near wanting to raise, raise babies again. I'm 57 now, I'll be 58 in November, and it's funny because some of the guys, when I came into the post office, I mean when I finally came back full time regular. You can buy back your military years, so I bought back my military years, I have 8 years, 2 months, 13 days I bought back through the post office which means I have that towards my retirement. So I think, 12, I'm done, we're hitting the road Janet, we're gonna see the sights. Now, some of the guys mess with me like, yeah Desirey, so how long you got in the postal service? I'm like "F you, I've got a 5 year old, I've got 13 at least, 13 more years until he gets out of high school before I can get out of the postal service." So I'm like fuck you, shut up, just shut up. There's, there's good days and there's bad days, I mean there's days when it's like, why do we even bother doing this, cause we do have some issues with the 2 boys. They got the brunt of the drugs in their system from their parents. Christopher had tested positive for opium and meth in his system. And Christopher was on AZT for about the first 4 months of his life, both parents were HIV positive and hep c, they took Christopher C-section so that none of the blood would be on him, but just to be on the safe side they put him on AZT. So I mean they've got some stuff, sometimes it manifests itself and you're just like, why did I do this, but then there's those moment where it's like okay, okay, it's good. Like going to the rodeo, they really love, we've been bringing them to the rodeo since they were babies. A lot of the people that's out there, they know my kids, and it's like a family reunion for them. So they get to come out here and see their uncle Red, or this other cowboy they know, or some of the cowboys that have horses when they're practicing will sometimes throw the kids on the horse and give them a ride. So they just love it, they love being a part of that, and it's fun for them.
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RS: And when did you first get involved with gay rodeo?
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D: In '99 is when I became a member. I didn't compete back then, I was still in the court system, pretty heavily in the court system. But I did volunteer, they'd look at me, and I'm kinda stout, to say the least, and I'm a kinda a... butch looking girl sometimes. So they used to put me as far security they would put me in these gates, and they'd say, we're gonna put you in security cause no one's gonna mess with you. I'm like I'm not that kind of girl, I'm not a fighter, my brother is the fighter of the family. I mean, I remember getting into fights and, I didn't back down from a fight, but people would be like, there was one time I was at a skating rink, this was junior high, and this guy wanted to fight me. We were going around the corner, and so he says, "Before I fight you, who are you?" And I said "I'm Rey Benivedes." He said "Stop, what did you say your name was?". And I said "Rey Benivedes." "Do you have a brother?" And I go "Ya." And he goes "What's your brother's name?" and I'm like "Rick Benivedes." "Oh, never mind," and I'm like, "What are we gonna do this or what?" "No never mind." So I remember going home that night, and like I said my brother and I are a year and a half apart so he's younger than me. So I'm getting ready to go to bed, my brother and I stay in the same room, and I said, "I was gonna get in a fight with this guy and, I tell him your name and he didn't want to fight me," and he goes, "I'll take care of it". And I'm like, "Don't take care of it, Rick, it's already done." So then I remember the next day at school, I heard my brother had got suspended, and I'm like "What did you do?", he goes, "Well remember that guy, well I took care of it he won't mess with you again." And I'm like, "Rick, he wasn't gonna mess with me in the first place once I mentioned your name." And he's like, "Well he won't mess with you now, and I'm only suspended for a day" So, yeah I'm not too much of a fighter. So anyways I would do security and stuff and then, when did I start competing? I don't know people say it was almost 2011, 2012. When I got the bug, somebody had asked me they needed a girl for wild drag. They said all you have to do is this, I could do that, I could do that, and after that I got the bug, and then I did that most of the time. And then some girls, in San Francisco's rodeo said, "Hey a friend of ours needs a person for Steer deco, you've got some guns on you." Well ya my arms are kind of big, but I've never done this, and they're like, "Aww you'll be fine." Got into steer deco, so yeah it kinda progressed. I've been laid out in the area, at Santa Fey Springs I was laid out for a few minutes, had the wind knocked out of me, from a steer stepping on me. My wife, my kids ran out, ohh mom are you alright, Ama, Ama, cause I go by Ama, I took on my mom's name when she passed, cause that's what I used to call my mother, Ama. So I took on Ama and Janet's mom. So Janet will ask me, "So how much longer are you gonna be doing this?" I'm like, "I don't know man, maybe when I hit 60 I'll stop." But, the guys that's my partner, he's 62 and he's still competing, so I don't know, I don't know. I know, I'm not getting any younger, things start breaking down, a lot easier, when you start hitting those ages.
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RS: And both in the court system and in rodeo did you do a lot of entertaining?
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D: Yes, oh ya.
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RS: What is your specialty?
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D: Well country western, cause I'm a country western girl at heart. So a lot of the music that I do is, country western. People say, "You'd be great doing this one". Well ya I've done Britney Spears and worn a school girl outfit, I've done all kinds. My first emperor, when I was in Long Beach cause I'm Benevides, and he says, "You ought to do something from your culture." Like, I didn't wanna do nothing, so I ended up doing, Linda Ronstadt when she did the music for her father, the mariachi music. I've done Paulina Rubio, so I've done some Hispanic stuff. I've done, but most of the time when I perform, even when I became royalty for the LA rodeo, before they folded. And then I was asked to be royalty in 2015, for Palm Springs, I do country western, thats just the kind of music I usually like to listen to.
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RS: And did you hear about the rodeo through the court system?
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D: I think so, I think in '99 I heard about it, and I went to my first rodeo and I liked it and I joined. Janet and I joined, and it was just Janet and I. Janet would work the ticket booth, or where they'd ban you for making sure you're old enough to drink, she's not much into... manual type labor, and I don't mind it, so, that's how we got into it. And then, one year, at the LA rodeo, they were honoring the royalty. I remember walking, me from Long Beach, the empress from LA, the Empress from Santa Monica, the empress from Ventura we all kind of, was on the grand entry. I think I heard from it, through the court system cause I mean, I was pretty, I stayed in the court system a pretty long time, I mean '99 till, 2003, cause after I got out of being empress I ended up being president of board of directors for both organizations. Then finally I got tired of sitting around looking pretty with a gown and a crown and I wanted to do something, I'm very hyper active. And so I thought, "Where can I go to, where I can still be a girl, still have fun, still move around? I'll go in the rodeo, start competing, I mean now I compete as a girl." So that's what I ended up doing.
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RS: Have you ever experienced any of that, you talked a little bit about the transphobia that you has seen in the gay bars, have you ever experienced that at the rodeo at all?
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D: No, no, not at all. Everyone's been, and even... even when I started competing as a female nobody really questioned, I mean I did carry the letter around, and I think I sent it in, one time, just so that they'll know, yeah I am official. They never really, questioned are you, you know, actually a female can you compete as a female instead of competing as a male they never really questioned that? So it was... it was never, an issue, as far as the rodeo, they just always treated me as a female. So yeah, it's been, my rodeo experience has always been really good, everybody has been really friendly. Even to my kids, I mean they get rambunctious and they have to scold them every now and then, you know climbing the fence or whatever, but for the most part my rodeo experience has always been good.
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RS: What do you think it is about country western that draws you to it, that you love to perform it?
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D: I don't know, like I said growing up as a kid I remember, for Halloween dressing up as Roy Rogers. Didn't get to be Dale Evans but hey whatever. I dressed up as Zorro... and I don't know why I had this thing for, I remember watching Sheriff John, which was a, kinda like the Hobo Kelly, the romper room back in the day, captain kangaroo, back in the day, watching that. But I don't know, I've always had an infatuation for western, my dad wasn't, my dad was not western, my mom was not western. My grandparents on my dad's side, my grandfather on my mom's side like I said I think he worked in the Kings Ranch for a while, he was a jack of all trades, he was a really smart man, too bad I couldn't speak Spanish so I can understand what he knew, because he knew a lot of stuff. But my dad forbid Spanish speaking in the house, so my brother and I didn't get to learn it, my parents are bilingual.
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RS: Can I ask why your dad did that?
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D: My dad grew up in a small town, Kingsville, at that time it was a small town. And my dad wanted to be like a white man, he wanted to have the two cars, two houses, a wife and a mistress, so he forbid any Spanish speaking in the house. The only Spanish speaking my brother and I heard was when my parents were arguing and they didn't want us to know what they were arguing about. All Mexican food was forbidden, except for the American type, tacos, enchiladas, burritos, cause my mom, knew how to cook all that, she knew how to make homemade tortillas, you know the whole shot. So, he didn't want to have, nothing to do with them, I mean, even to do this day people kid around with me, some of the people that know you know I'm Hispanic, they'll say, you aren't Hispanic you're a coconut, and I'm like that's right, I'm brown on the outside white on the inside. I didn't grow up in a predominantly Hispanic, type culture. I grew up in Lakewood, Lakewood High, right around the corner was Lakewood country club, all my friends that I knew were, white. That's all I knew, didn't speak any Spanish, none of that stuff. I could understand some Spanish because, my grandma on my dad’s side didn't speak any English, and my grandfather on my mom's side didn't speak any English, so my grandma Alaniz even though she spoke some English, she would speak in Spanish. And of course, when grandma speaks you better know that she's saying, so if she says, "ben para ka" you better come cause you know, something's up. I knew enough to get me, to keep me out of trouble but that was about it, I didn't speak. And I remember taking Spanish in junior high and ended up getting kicked out of the class, because my mom helped me with my homework, and my mom speaks tex-mex, which is kind of a slang Spanish, and the Spanish teacher had said something about my mom. And I went off on her, and I got called to my principal's office, and then when my mom came by to pick me up and I told her my mom what this lady done, and then my mom went off on this Spanish lady, and I didn't have to go Spanish class anymore so ended up only had 6 periods instead of 7 so I got to take off early every day. I didn't get to, sometimes people say, "Don't you ever want to learn Spanish?" No, I have no desire, when I had my surgery, my step daughter said, "That would be a good time for you to learn a second language, you get one of those Rosetta Stone, I'm not gonna learn any damn language." If I'm gonna learn anything its sign language, so I bought some books, I knew how to do A B C, so I started learning that type of stuff, how to spell my name in sign, that type of stuff. And I, because I work with, Handicapable Adults, these are adults with Down syndrome or mental disability. I'm a Square Dance Caller, I learned how to be a square dance caller back in '93. I started working with these kids, they're adults a lot of them, but mentally their kids. And some of them, they communicate with sign because their vocabulary is not very good. They can understand me, and I have one girl that, she's not dancing as much anymore, they get to the point to where sometimes they don't. She's deaf, but she knows what I'm saying by watching the other dancers, so I thought that would be kind of cool if I could learn sign language, but I just never did. It's one of those things where if you don't use it all the time you can't communicate, you have to be able to sign, to do it enough, and I just don't do it enough to be able to do that.
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RS: And do you square dance and 2-step?
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D: I do square dancing, I don't 2-step. I do western themed parties where I'll teach some easy line dancing. People are like I want to learn slap and leather, no I won't teach you that. Something that's easy that everyone can get up and do, that's the stuff I do for western parties. And I teach square dancing, and of course when I did do my transition I lost a lot of my bookings, when I finally became Desirey. So I don't call anymore for the... normal, if you wanna call it that, the normal group, I don't call anymore for that, I typically just call for my Handicapable dancers. There was an article done by a writer, KCET... on how, because of who I am and cause who my kids, I call them my kids, who they are, how we kinda connect and they are misunderstood for who they are and sometimes they get ridiculed, how I was misunderstood how I get, used to get ridiculed. Some of these kids, they still do know me as Rey, and they'll still say he, and sometimes some of them will call me Rey, but I don't, I don't get mad at them, cause I know who they are. But there are other callers, other people that still remember me and they call me Rey, they'll call me he, and I'm like, "Hello?", and they're like, "Well I just remember you from back then," and I'm like, "Been a female for, since, hello, you know, 2000, when I started my transition, come on, get with the program."
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RS: Do you think, you said you lost some bookings, was that simply because you were recovering-
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D: No, I think it was a lot of from my transition, a lot of, a lot of people couldn't quite. But it's weird because I called one dance as Desirey, and I remember there was this one older couple, I knew them from this club that Janet and I went to, and... oh first call... ... and I remember them dancing that night and they came up later on and they said "Wow," and I'd go, "What?" And they go, "Your calling has gotten 10 times better, you're happier, your voice," and I'm like thank you, so, I guess for me to be me, it showed even in my square dance calling.
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RS: So I was just wondering, over the, time that you've been here, what almost 20 years, in gay rodeo, what are the biggest changes you've seen?
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D: More families, more kids, I have noticed that, first coming out to the rodeos it wasn't as many kids, and one of the things that, as royalty, that I was bringing up as the fact that we are getting more gay couples that are having kids, and they're coming to the rodeo, and we need to start doing more, family oriented stuff. San Francisco did some really neat thing, they had a play area, but it was filled with corn kernels, and my kids had a blast in there. I mean they were just digging in there and coming out of all of these corn kernels they had in there, kind of like a big sandbox but out of corn kernels. But I think with more gay couples getting children, adopting or however, however we have them, or get them, I think we should start doing more family oriented stuff. And I mean I understand that, where the rodeo came from, and a lot of it is still the drag queens, and there is still a lot of drinking, but we need to start gearing, looking our focus, we have that, that's good, it keeps our major, the majority of people who come to the gay rodeo, keep them happy, but at the same time, for the parents, the couples that do bring out their kids, I think we ought to do something for them. And that's one thing that Red, the guy I compete with, and my kids, they end up calling him uncle Red, and he does things with the kids: teaches them how to rope, or plays bulls with them, or whatever. He's just a big kid at heart, he'll get the squirt guns out or whatever. So I think that's kind of neat, there's someone like him, to keep the kids busy.
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RS: And as someone who does, camp events, what do you think the sort of value of having those types of events at the gay rodeo is?
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D: Well, I mean, I think mostly our camp events is geared for us, and it does, I think a lot of the spectators get a lot out of it. It's something they chuckle about, they have fun watching, weather its putting underwear on a goat or watching a guy in drag trying to get up on a steer and cross the 70 foot line. But that's our draw, that's our draw, that's why everybody comes. I mean I'm not saying everyone comes just to see the camp events, but they do have a tendency to stay in for that. That's why you notice the wild drag is at the end, because they're trying to keep the people in the seats, that’s what makes us unique, I think. When I talk about rodeo and I talk about it to people that might do the straight rodeo... they just don't understand. It was funny talking about straight rodeo, I took the kids, because my kids have gone to gay rodeos all the time, and as you can see they're running up and down the bleachers, they're running around with Red, just all over the place. So I took them to a straight rodeo, and Janet and I were sitting there, and the events, not all the same but there's a few, but my kids were running up and down the bleachers, and a lot of the people there -- not giving me the evil eye, but like why aren't you controlling your kids? And I was like, "Sorry, my kids are used to a different rodeo," a rodeo that's more like a big family reunion than it is a rodeo for them, because I've been competing for so many years that, for them, they get to see all these. Just like today, half a dozen people coming up to me saying, "I haven't seen your kids in so long, they've grown, they've gotten bigger." A lot of them have seen them when I first brought them out and they were babies, Ciara was in a baby thing. Christopher, all of them, so, not only for this rodeo, they watch the kids, grow, in the rodeo. Like, when they have the community goat dressing, my kids usually compete in it, and they help them out. There's always some cowboy that's gonna help them out, and they get a kick out of it. So then when I talk about putting them into a junior rodeo, and they say, I want to do what you do, I want to do goat dressing and steer deco, I'm like, "They don't do that in those rodeo's, I'm sorry you're gonna have to do the stuff they do in their rodeo." That's kinda where it’s at, the camp events, that's what makes us a gay rodeo, that's what makes us fun. And you know, girls get to compete at some of the same stuff guys get to compete in, steer riding... bull riding, chute dogging, you don't ever see a girl competing in throwing down a steer, you don't see it. But, in our rodeo, whatever the guys do, the girls can do it. Have at it, if you want, if you're game to do it then do it. So that's one thing that's nice about our rodeo is that we don't have that gender thing of saying, "No, I'm sorry you're a girl, all you can do, like in those other rodeos, is barrel racing, you can't do bronc riding you can't do, some of these other events, all you got is barrel racing, that's it." Whereas in our rodeo, and even for our guys, the guys do barrel racing, the guys do pole bending, the guys do some of the events that, in a straight rodeo would be predominantly a female type sport.
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RS: So, a couple of other people have mentioned to me that, rough stock events aren't as popular as they once were in the association, that bronc riding for instance, isn't offered today, why do you think that would be?
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D: I think for us, a lot of us still have jobs, we still have to get up and go to work. We still have to get up on Monday morning and be able to do our job. We're not, a lot of us are not 100% rodeo that's all we do, where as you see in some of these other rodeos, that's their job, they go from rodeo to rodeo. Ours is, the basic bottom line is ours is for fun, you're coming out you're having fun. So there's not many people that are... probably fluent in that event to provide it. if you only got maybe one person, what's the use in having the event, that person is gonna win, but at the same time you only got one person. If there was enough people that were interested in it, then maybe it would be something that was beneficial, but there isn't, and at the same time, even though we do provide bull riding, I think everybody associates rodeo with bull riding. The first thing people say about rodeo is, even for me, they're like so you ride a steer, or bull, no, I just wrestle them around a couple times, and they find that, kinda hard to believe, ya I don't do chute dogging, I'm not gonna throw them on its back, there's no way my body strength can do it, I don't think, because I had back surgery, I have 2 screws holding my right foot together, there's just, I mean I would love to try it, just to say I did it, just the same thing with steer riding. I wouldn't mind trying it once, although Janet would probably shoot me, if I did. When I was with my first wife, I was stationed at Edwards Air Force base, they had a rodeo team, I wanted to join, because prior to going into the military, me and this guy I knew, in Redding, we were gonna go into team roping, and I was training to do heeling, get into heels. But I ended up going into the air force so we didn't get to compete. But they were actually looking for someone to ride bulls, "Well we're gonna train you on a baby bull," and I'm like "yeeaaahhhh, I've got 2 kids, I don't know if I should be -- ." And that's the thing a lot of us, we have to think about that. Hey, I've gotta get up on Monday morning and go back to work, and my job, I don't sit behind a desk or something like that, so I have to be able to do what I have to do, the next day. But for rough stock, the ones that we have are the ones that people want to watch: throwing a steer on its back, steer deco is somewhat rough stock cause the fact that you're wrestling that. But it's also somewhat camp because who ties a ribbon on a steers tail, not that we're tying it. But in a roundabout way, that's what we're doing. So I think what we do as far as rough stock, it's enough, it brings in the people and they get to stay and they get to watch, it's just like in Nascar, people say you don't go to Nascar to watch the cars go around the track, you actually watch it so you can see if there's gonna be an accident, a crash, I think it's the same thing. It's good to watch, but after a while you wanna see that F-ing train wreck, it's not funny but we do play with 1,000 pound animals and anything can happen. Like I said, I've been laid out on the arena, it's not fun, I've had my foot stepped on, that's not fun, butted heads with a steer on wild drag. It's part of the adrenaline rush that we get, even my boss, when I was leaving today, leaving yesterday, he was like, "You better be careful, you better come back to work," I'm like, "I'll be careful, don't worry."
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RS: And as someone who has really brought up your kids around this, what would you hope for the future of the association?
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D: For me... I don't really have a whole lot as far as where do I see myself, as far as the association. I just continue to support it, whatever way I can. In 2015 when they asked me to be royalty and I was like "Ahhh, been there done that, it's a lot of work." You try to, as... you know even as empress you try to travel, cause that's the way you promote your organization you gotta travel, you spend money because you don't get a travel fund, it comes out of your pocket. And then representing, looking nice, your outfits, whatever. So I try to support the rodeo, and I just want to see it continue to thrive. What I wouldn't mind seeing is, a little on down the line, if my kids were able to compete, not that they had to be gay, or even Ciara be a lesbian, but just that if they get to that point that they would like to, to compete, that would be kinda neat. I don't, I haven't really looked at the bylaws, I would think they would have to be at least 18 to compete. But that would be neat. if they were to follow someone in their footsteps, and compete in some of these events that I do, but if they find interest in it that's fine, if they decide no, they just wanna keep continue go with momma just to watch it that's fine too.
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RS: Well they are trying to put underwear on dogs, so
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D: Yes, they are putting underwear on dogs or trying to ride Lance in the backyard which is kinda funny, but who knows? For me I just try to give them every opportunity to try everything that's out there, I'm not gonna sit there and say no you can't do that it's too dangerous. There's danger in everything. We have property out in the desert, and they ride motorcycles, they ride quads, I have BB guns, I have a bow and arrows. So, I just try to teach them to be safe, and teach them to be, got to know your equipment, whether it’s a motorcycle, a quad, or a thousand pound animal, that you're trying to put a ribbon on its frickin tail, so it's one of those things.
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RS: As a cowgirl, what does it mean to you to be able to compete as a cowgirl in these rodeos?
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D: Oh, it's the ultimate -- I mean for me, I had put on Facebook prior to coming out here that I was real nervous, because I had started my recovery last year. Spent a few years in Kaiser, addiction medicine. Last year's rodeo, I was only like 14 days sober, which was still new, and this year, I'm over a 100 and some odd days, or over a year sober. So for me, it's the adrenaline rush. I mean, it's knowing that I get to do something that I've always dreamed about doing is competing in a rodeo, I may not be doing team roping, I mean I don't own a horse. First thing everyone asks me, "So you own a horse?" "No." I keep on joking with my wife I want a horse, but they're expensive and I think my RV costs us enough. But, for me it's just fun and it's the comradery , I get to see a lot of people that I've seen in the circuit since I've started. And then to just, some of the I look up as being the pros, the ones that really, always seem to get the buckles, always seem to get the number one ribbon tell me, "Good luck, you'll do good." Like when I posted on Facebook, that I was nervous about coming out here, how many responses I got saying "Girl you got this, it’s like riding a bike don't worry, you'll get it done." So that was nice, people encouraging me and saying, "You can do this, you got this, don't worry about it." Getting out there for the first time, in steer deco, I was a little nervous, and a little apprehensive about getting behind the steer and putting a ribbon on them, but once I did it felt good, felt good. Same thing with goat dressing, I'm sure I'll have the same jitters for wild drag, but once I've got that thousand pound animal coming at me, it'll all go out the window.
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RS: Well is there anything else you wanted to say?
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D: No, this has been real interesting. Glad I could help out, if there's anything else you need to ask, you got my email.
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RS: Thank you so much.
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D: Just give me a call, or send me an email, I'll answer whatever questions you felt didn't get answered.
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RS: Amazing, thank you.
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D: You're welcome.

Judy Munson

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Saraya Flaig: I'm here on November 22nd with Judy Munson. This is Saraya Flaig at the Denver rodeo convention on November 22nd, 2019, and it's about 10:45. So, Judy, can you tell me what year you were born?
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Judy Munson: 1949
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SF: And where did you grow up?
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JM: Actually, I was born and raised in San Diego, California.
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SF: Oh, wow. So not a very rural area.
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JM: No, not at all.
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SF: So, did you grow up there for your entire childhood then?
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JM: Yep, my entire childhood and then I went away to university, to Utah, and then when I graduated with my Master of Science degree in Utah I moved to Canada and then to Calgary. Then I got a teaching job there and I’ve been there ever since.
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SF: Did you grow up with any rodeo background or any agricultural experience?
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JM: None, in fact, my first exposure to, well, my parents, we used to rent horses now and then do trail rides, you know, outside San Diego County. But that was kind of it. But my first exposure to large animals was basically in my 40s with my partner, who I'm still with. And yeah. So, she bought me my first horse and we live on a ranch now, we live in a quarter section, which is 160 acres and we board horses and have horses of our own. But I had no experience with rodeo or anything like that.
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SF: So what was your first exposure to rodeo?
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JM: Actually, the first time we ever went to a rodeo, well, we were in Calgary, so the Stampede, obviously to watch and do that. But the first rodeo we participated in was the gay rodeo outside of Calgary at Simons Valley. We were retailers. We were selling stuff; we had a company called Queerly Canadian. And we sold pride stuff and that kind of stuff. After that year, we went to a meeting to explain some ideas that we had about retail, well then they appointed us as any volunteer organization. They appointed us retail coordinators, so we got involved that way.
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JM: Then my first year competing, I was at a Friday night function before the rodeo and we were drinking and having a good time. And this gal from Texas, who was one of the IGRA officials came up to me and said, “Hey, I got a couple of guys that want to do Wild Drag, but they need a girl.” Because wild drag is typically two guys and a girl. “And they're from Montana, would you be interested?” I went, “What do I have to do?” So she says, “Well, all you have to do to hold the rope on this itty-bitty calf. And when the calf comes out, you hand the rope to your cowboy and then you're done.” I went, I could do that. So, I signed up.
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JM: Well, we continue to drink that night. And later I heard, well, it wasn't a calf. It was a cow. And I went, “Ehh, that's probably still okay.” Well, the next morning we're having breakfast and we met this guy from California, and he says, “Oh, are you girls competing?” And we’re all excited and say, “Yeah this is our first time doing it.” He says, “What are you doing?” And we go, “Wild drag.” He goes, “Well, just remember this. Get the hell out of the way of the steer when it comes out of the chute.” So, I was like, oh, my gosh. So, it was completely different, but it was like such an adrenaline rush. And it was just so much fun. So, yeah, I got hooked. We got hooked and we've competed ever since.
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SF: How did that first wild drag race go for you then?
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JM: Well, it was good, actually, we got times both days and nobody got hurt. So that's a good thing. Wild drag is typically, even though it's kind of an it's a camp event, but it's one of the events there are a number of injuries because there's two teams running at a time. And so it can get pretty wild, crazy, but it's fun.
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SF: Had you ever been to a gay rodeo before that?
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JM: Just the one the year before when we were just selling product. But we hadn't really ever, we never even really watched it that much. So, we had no idea what the event was about or anything.
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SF: Going back a little bit, what was your childhood and high school experience like?
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JM: I don't know, it's typical for any city kid, I guess. I grew up in San Diego and participated in sports and, you know, did that kind of thing, and by the time I was out of high school, I knew I wanted to be a Phys-ed teacher. So my degree is in physical education, education and an emphasis in sports medicine. So, yeah. You know, kind of average.
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SF: How do you identify in terms of sexuality and gender?
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JM: I'm a gay woman or a lesbian. My partner and I've been together many years, thirty-five years. And we used to kind of resent being called a lesbian. It was kind of like, almost like a derogatory term years ago until gay women took on that title. We used to go to our parties and mostly gay guys they go, “Hey, here comes our lesbians.” But it was. Yeah. And so I don't know. You know, I've dated guys growing up. I did the whole, “Am I gay? Am I straight? I'm not sure,” you know. And I came from a very religious background, so that was tough, and coming out and determining which path I was going to take.
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JM: You don’t really choose who you are, but you choose whether or not you recognize who you are and embrace that. That was tough because, like I said I come from a religious background, so that was very difficult. But I guess I've kind of always known. When you look back, you look back and you go, oh, that's why in high school I felt like this or I felt like that or I was impacted by certain people in certain ways. But sometimes when you’re going through it, you’re not that aware of it.
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SF: When did you officially come out?
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JM: I don’t know, I didn’t have a great big coming out thing. My family kind of knew that I always had friends that you know…but I was also in university, I was dating men or guys and still had a girlfriend. So, it was kind of like that whole I don't know, you know. I don't know, I think my family just gradually accepted who I was and that kind of thing. So, it was never really a big “I’m gay,” kind of thing.
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SF: So are you officially out to your parents and family?
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JM: My parents are deceased. The rest of my family I’m out to. Interestingly enough, I have two nieces and they're both gay and they're both married to their partners down in the states. So, there's you know that whole thing. So, I went to actually my one niece's wedding about three years ago and she works at the Supreme Court. And she was married by her and her partner, were married by [Sonia] Sotomayor, the Justice. And that was amazing, yeah, it was really, really cool. And so, yes, so our family has a number of gay people in it.
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SF: You said you were really religious, what was that experience like grappling with what isn’t usually aligned with the church?
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JM: Well, yeah. You know, it's a religion that doesn't accept people who are gay, doesn't accept the gay lifestyle. I mean, they accept it, if you're not practicing or with someone, but it's tough because there're social norms. You know, you're supposed to get to a certain age and then you get married and then you have kids and those things are tough because that's the expectation and that's what you grow up with: here's what I'm supposed to be doing. So, to not be doing that, I kind of avoided that a little bit by going to university and going, “I'm studying and I'm, you know, working on this.” So, but eventually you have to come to grips with am I going to live this lifestyle that everyone expects you to live and not be who I am and not be happy or am I going to embrace who I am, and I think that that was for me, that was a tough thing and it wasn't really till I got out of university because I went to a religious university and so I couldn't really be out there, so, you know, it was a challenge.
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SF: When did you meet your partner?
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JM: I met her my fourth year in Calgary. I moved to Canada; I didn’t know anyone. I just got a teaching job and thought this will be fun. I wanted to teach in California, but there weren't really that many teaching jobs. At the time there was a lot of teaching jobs in Canada and in Alberta. And I went up to the Calgary Stampede and I thought, this is fun, I could live here. It was like ten days of the year and the rest of the time was very conservative. But yeah. So, we met and started hanging out together and stuff like that. So, we just kind of met through friends of friends.
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SF: Are you officially married?
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JM: We're not married, but we've been together thirty-four years. So, but we've never, I don't know at the time, like when we first got together marriage really wasn't an option. You know. And so, it wasn't a thing. It was something you pushed aside because you thought, well, I'm gay and I’m with a woman, so I'm just never going to be able to be married. Well, Canada passed same sex marriage laws way before the states did. We just thought, “Well, we don’t need to be married,” and a lot of the benefits up there for same sex, they call it on our tax forms common law, doesn’t say “same sex” but they recognize your investments and all that would roll over to your partner. So, we never really felt the need to have a big wedding, it wasn’t really on our radar when we first got together.
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SF: Do you notice a difference between how accepting people are in Canada versus in the United States?
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JM: Well, yeah, I do, the same sex marriage thing is huge. But there's still pockets of non-acceptance whether you’re in Canada or in the US. I notice a big difference between being out and being able to be out, I mean, I have friends that are considerably younger than me that have always been out. They go, “Oh, I've never had to hide it from work or anything like that.” When I was teaching, even in Canada, I mean, I was not out. When my partner and I were together for about ten years before we ever let anybody know we were really together. We lived together as “roommates,” you know.
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JM: Because I could have lost my job, because they would not have been able to fire me because I was gay, but they would have found some other reason or whatever. You just didn’t set yourself up for that, because it wasn't accepted. Now there's teachers that are gay and open. You know, everybody knows, and that's not a big issue, but yeah. I think probably in Canada, Alberta is probably one of the more well, we used to call it redneck, but they’re not really redneck, they're more conservative than some of the other provinces, much like some of the states down here are much more conservative than other states. But Alberta is loosening up, too, and they're getting considerably more accepting.
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SF: Are you still a teacher now?
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JM: No, I’m retired. We board horses now on a ranch and we have a business, we do a little self-storage business. We’re kind of semi-retired, get to tootle around. We get to do things like this, go to gay rodeos and gay rodeo conventions and that kind of things.
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SF: You say you had a business with your partner. What was that business again?
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JM: Well, we board horses on our ranch and then we own a self-storage facility.
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SF: The one that you first found the gay rodeo with.
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JM: Oh, that one, Queerly Canadian. Oh, that was just a little side business. I was teaching at the time and she was working full time. Yeah. We just, I don't know, we've always been entrepreneurial, and we've always had something on the side that we were doing right. It was really interesting because when we just had this little business, we would go to the Pride parade and sell stuff and then go the gay rodeo and sell stuff.
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SF: How long did you have that business for?
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JM: I don't know, probably four or five years maybe. And then we started doing land development and then we’ve done a number of different kinds of businesses. We’ve always done different things.
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SF: Does your partner do gay rodeo as well?
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JM: Yeah, she does. She's actually, she's more of, she competes a lot. I mean, I compete now also, but she competes more than I do. She's not interested in the administrative part of it. She goes I’m glad there’s somebody like you, that there are other people that will put it together and make it happen so I can compete. But she doesn't you know; she doesn't come to convention very often or anything like that. That's not her thing.
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SF: So what events do you compete in or have you competed in?
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JM: Well, in our home rodeo I’ve done all the horse events, which is barrels, poles and flags. I’ve done wild drag, steer deco, calf roping on foot. I don’t do the roping events. I’ve done pretty much all the events except the roping events, steer riding, and rough stock. Although my partner has done steer riding and won some buckles in that.
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SF: Do you ever wish you would have tried to steer riding or any of the rough stock events?
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JM: I kind of am still intrigued with chute dogging. That kind of intrigues me, but that's tough. You know, like standing in a chute next to a steer and then coming out and doing that. But it's kind of on my bucket list, somewhere down the road, I'd like to do that and at least try it.
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SF: What's kind of holding you back from that?
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JM: Well, usually I'm kind of involved in administrating and being rodeo director and you can’t compete if you’re rodeo director. But when you do compete it’s kind of out there, kind of a scary thing. And there's lots of girls here that do that, that do chute dog, and they’re very good at it. Maybe I’ll try it one day.
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SF: Did you find it hard to kind of join the rodeo community, not growing up in an area that had it?
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JM: Not really, because I find that, you know, we all think that gay rodeo is a lot of the rural kids that come in and get to compete. And that's true, they get to compete in an environment that’s welcoming and comfortable and they can be with their partner or whatever. But there's a lot of city kids that come out too, people that have grown up in the city that come out and go, I'd really like to try this. You know, also in the community itself, this is very, very welcoming and very warm and people want to help you. But I think that mainstream rodeo or straight rodeo, as we call it, that whole philosophy is the same there.
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JM: You see, guys hazing for each other and loaning each other horses and doing all those kinds of things, it’s kind of a culture. And so, in rodeo, whether it's straight or gay rodeo, everyone helps everyone. And I think that that's a thing. All the gay rodeo does is allows us to participate with our peers and not be discriminated against or not have to worry about what anybody is thinking. You know, if I kissed my girlfriend before I go and do whatever event. So, I think that culture of rodeo is very typically warm and very welcoming and very helpful. I think we find that everywhere.
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SF: Have you ever won any rodeo events?
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JM: Yeah, actually in our last rodeo, which was the first Canadian Rockies gay rodeo that we had. My partner and I won steer deco and that was really cool. But I've also, I've got more awards than I have competitor buckles, but they're like, rodeo director and Grand Marshall, Hall of Fame, and those kinds of things. But they're kind of like, I kid with my girlfriend and I go, “Yeah, you go out, you run your horse for 18 seconds and you get a buckle. I worked for two years to get a buckle you know, like nonstop.” [laughs] But it's you know, I compete because I love it. And when I ride my horse, I mean, I'm not I'm not up there with the speediest or anything like that. But I just get the chance to ride him at our rodeo, which was kind of fun. It’s just something I like to do.
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SF: How did you get more involved with gay rodeo after that first time you competed?
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JM: Well, I don't know. You just kind of get hooked and then you think, well, maybe I could do another event, maybe I could do calf roping on foot, maybe I could do steer deco, maybe I could ride my horse, and so you just gradually do that. And then I was in, years ago for the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association, which started in the 90s, I was rodeo director for three years for that and then I was on the board for a number of years.
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JM: I wasn't on the board for quite a few years, but it stopped in 2015. They discontinued it and then a few of us were in Calgary, and were just going, you know, and a few people came up to me because they knew I was involved, and go, “You think gay rodeo will ever come back to Calgary?” And we go, “I don’t know.” So, one night some friends of ours were over and we were drinking and talking and go, “We need gay rodeo back in Calgary.” So that was last year, was our first year our inaugural year for the Canadian Rockies Gay Rodeo Association.
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JM: We started from scratch, set up a brand-new association and had to get accepted provincially and then had to get accepted through IGRA to be seated, and IGRA again. And so last year we were at the Stampede Park event center, beautiful facility, and it was our first year ever, so it was exciting, but it was a little stressful because we didn’t know what we would have for competitors, we didn't know a lot of things. It was just like a shot in the dark, and going well, I hope people show up.
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SF: Were you one of the head people organizing that association and getting them back?
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JM: Yeah, yeah, I’m President of that association.
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SF: What was that like kind of getting everything back together and reorganizing that?
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JM: It was a lot. It was hard in a year's time, because it was like well, you’ll run the rodeo the next year, you know, no we're gonna do it this year. So last November, when we were in convention we applied, and they accepted us. And I mean, the delegates here were amazing and they gave us a standing ovation. They were so excited to have Canada back because like I was kind of kidding that we say we’re the I in International Gay Rodeo Association because we're the only one outside the states. But yeah, people were really supportive in IGRA of Canada and they love to come to Canada to rodeo. So, we're hoping to get more American competitors up this year.
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SF: Do you have quite a few people in your association now?
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JM: We have five executive members and then we have a rodeo committee of about, varies between ten and fifteen people. So, it's a pretty good group and we progressed this year, we need more people on the rodeo committee to fulfill other areas so that we can kind of expand and grow a little bit.
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SF : What's it like being president of your association?
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JM: It's just fun. It's like, it's fun to see it grow and bring new people in. And we're really lucky because we have a number of new committee members that have no idea about rodeo. And last year was our first full weekend at the rodeo and so it was kind of enlightening for them. But they bring a ton of enthusiasm and they’re excited to be involved and that kind of thing. And we have on the Friday before the rodeo, we have a rodeo school.
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JM: And so people that want to try out some of the events, we have instructors that show them how to do things like chute dogging or steer deco or whatever, and they get to try to actually experience that and then they can register that night if they want to. And last year we had twenty-one in our rodeo school, and out of that twenty-one, we ended up with fourteen brand new competitors. So that was exciting, that was really exciting. And I think that was the largest number in IGRA for the rodeo schools because a lot of the rodeos now have a rodeo school and a dance.
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JM: And the rodeo school is for new competitors, if somebody wants to try it, or people who have competed before, it's kind of a practice. You know, you go and throw a loop, or you go and try chute dogging practice. It's a way of expanding our contestant base, but, you know, we're trying to get new people and younger people in and guys and girls wanna try it and sit in the stands and go I think I could do that, but I don't know what to do. So, it gives them the experience of trying it in a really welcoming environment, in a supportive environment, and lots of people mentor them and want to help them.
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SF: A lot of people have talked about the future of IGRA, do you have a lot of younger competitors in the Canadian association?
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JM: We don't have a lot, some of us are aging out. But we're trying to expand into that. So our goal this year, for our association, is to expand into a number of the LGBTQ organizations and pull some of the young people that are in those organizations into rodeo and have them come and experience it and try it, because once you try it, you're standing down in the arena. Honestly, you're hooked, or you're scared to death and you never come back. One way or the other. But it's about that environment where there's people there to help you and having fun. You know, it's all about rodeo and having a good time and supporting each other's back.
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SF: How do you see the future of IGRA, do you see it growing more?
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JM: I hope so, I hope that there's growth. Well, I mean, I just came out of Rodeo Rules, who were trying to change some things that make it easier for contestants to get involved and that kind of thing. And then I think part of it is PR, we have to really expand and explain IGRA to people. In 2014, we had the first ever gay rodeo affiliated with Gay Games and that was in Akron. The rodeo was actually held in Akron, Cleveland, Ohio and it was amazing. I mean, we didn't have any association there to help us do it. It was all my committee was, I was rodeo director and my committee was all across the United States and in Canada.
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JM: So, we all just communicated and then we'd go check out the site and all that. And then it was really exciting. I mean, we had 100 contestants. I mean, people hauled all the way to Ohio from California and everywhere. And it was really neat because the opening ceremonies was in this huge, big arena in Cleveland. And so, we were all wearing our red IGRA shirts, long sleeve shirts and white cowboy hats. So, we all walked in because it was like the opening ceremonies of any Olympics or Gay Games or whatever. And so, we all walked in, all these cowboys and cowgirls and all our volunteers and 100 contestants.
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JM: And it was just massive. It was just amazing. And it was a great PR for IGRA and that’s the kind of thing we need, is we need to let people know about IGRA. We need to let people know about gay rodeo, because you think people know. I mean, all the years the gay rodeo was in Calgary, I would still run into people and say, “You coming to the rodeo?” and they’d go, “what rodeo?” This is a gay community, and they didn’t know there's a gay rodeo. So it's like anything, it's like advertising and promoting it.
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SF: So have you participated in the Gay Games since?
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JM: No. Actually, I'd never even been to a Gay Games before we did that. But they had contacted our President at the time of IGRA, Brian Helander. And they said, “We want to do an exhibition of an event that we don’t normally have, would the gay rodeo be interested?” Yeah, for sure, and it was a huge challenge. It took us two years to put it together so that we were ready for it, but it was like the highlight. Even the guys that organized the Gay Games said that everybody's talking about the gay rodeo, like it was kind of a highlight of the whole thing. So, I’ve been affiliated with that, but I haven’t been to it since then.
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SF: So what normally happens at the Gay Games? I'm not familiar with them.
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JM: Well, there's like, oh, there's sixty some odd events and thirty something countries from all over the world. So there’s like, you know, gay competitors in swimming and there’s hockey and there's basketball and volleyball and individual sports and team sports and it just goes on and ballroom dance like everything, like everything that you see in an Olympic kind of thing you see in Gay Games. But they're just gay competitors, but they're from all over the world. It was really exciting. It's really neat.
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SF: You said that you've been rodeo director before, what rodeos have you been rodeo director for?
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JM: I was the director for the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association way back in the late 90s and I was rodeo director for three years for that, so that was fun.
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SF: How did you become rodeo director? Did anyone encourage you or was it just something you wanted to do?
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JM: It's just one of those things because at the time the rodeo director before me was resigning and you basically get nominated and elected into the position. And I just thought it was something that was intriguing that I thought I could grab a hold of and really liked. Because I had that experience, when Gay Games came up and I was contacted and they asked if I wanted to chair the rodeo and I said, yeah. Then they asked if I wanted to become rodeo director, so I moved into that position. We've got a new rodeo director for our association, and she kind of came in really late last year like right before the rodeo.
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JM: So, everything was all done in advance and so she just kind of managed things over the weekend. She said, “I think I need to go to convention and figure out and learn a little more what I should be doing and getting a little more information about things.” So, she and her partner are here. I was kidding with them that they’re Convention virgins. But so, they're hitting all the different things that are going on today and learning more about things and figuring stuff out. It just gives them more background and the more you learn, the more effective you are in what you do.
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SF: What is it like being a rodeo director? What do you do in that position?
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JM: Well there’s a lot of preliminary stuff you do throughout the year. We deal with the stock contractor and the stock contractor contract and the rodeo committee to make sure that they're doing whatever they need to for marketing or social media or, you know, there's like 15 different, there's a million different things that you can do and communications, all those kinds of things that you just basically can oversee and manage your committee, if you're lucky enough to have a committee.
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JM: Last year, it was like we were starting from scratch, there was like three of us and that was kind of it, and we were doing everything. And then you're trying to draw people in, would you like to do this or help out with membership or would you like to help with grand entry or, you know, those kinds of things. So basically, it's like a managerial position where you oversee things and people don't do jobs and you have to pick it up and do it. And just making sure things happen and then on the weekend of the rodeo, making sure things run smoothly.
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JM: An IGRA official comes in because you have your official judges and your timers and your scorers and your auditor and your secretarial and they come in and kind of take over and then kind of take charge of that whole thing and then you're kind of their little gopher and you're running, get this and get that. I remember my first year as rodeo director for the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association I remember, one of the officials came in and I said, “Michael, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do this weekend.” And he goes, “You just hang around and if we need something, we'll let you know, otherwise, we got it covered.” But, you know, I mean, IGRA is really good at what they do, and all the officials are certified, and all of your support staff are certified.
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JM: But the interesting thing is everyone there, with exception of stock contract, is a volunteer. No one gets paid. So, this whole thing you see all these people here for delegates and association presidents and all that, it's all on their own dime. They travel on their own dime. They pay for their own way. You might pay for the judges’ rooms for three nights and help them out a little bit with airfare as an association, but basically, it's all volunteer with their time as a volunteer. That's how that's how passionate they are about rodeo and about gay rodeo.
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SF: Have you held any other positions within IGRA besides rodeo director and president?
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JM: Well, that was a local association president. Well, the local association, I've been in practically every position except treasurer or secretary and I’ve done fundraisers, sponsorship, president, vice president, rodeo director. IGRA, I’ve been a delegate and I was rodeo director for Gay Games, chairperson for that and that’s basically it.
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SF: So what do you think is one of the big differences between gay rodeo and other rodeos or equestrian events?
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JM: Well, if you look at straight or a mainstream rodeo versus gay rodeos, I always say one of the biggest differences is that in gay rodeo men and women compete with in everything. So, women can steer ride, they can bull ride, they can do everything. They can do whatever rough stock, chute dog and men can do all horse events. You don't see that in straight rodeo. Typically, girls do barrel racing and now in Alberta, they've changed it so women can do breakaway roping. But in gay rodeo, everybody does anything. And that's part of it. And then the other part is of gay rodeo, we have, I don't know if you’ve seen the videos, but we have camp events. So we have wild drag, which is a really fun event. We do goat dressing, which is really funny, but it's the introductory event. We get people involved, and then calf roping on foot. So, we have what we call camp events and so we have just kind of fun events, but they are pretty challenging. But it's a way to get people involved in, so you don't have to have a horse. You don't have to ride a steer, but you can still be involved in gay rodeo, and compete and get involved in it.
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SF: Have you ever competed outside of gay rodeo?
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JM: I've done jackpots, and barrel races, and that kind of thing. But I haven’t really ever done any other kind of rodeo events.
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SF: You said earlier you are in the IGRA Hall of Fame, what year were you inducted?
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JM: I believe it was 2017, so like three years ago, it wasn't that long ago in Little Rock at convention. So that's the one convention my partner came to because she knew I was going to be inducted, so it's fairly recent. And let me tell you the people in the IGRA Hall of Fame I read their bios, I was just blown away by what they've accomplished and what they've done and how long they've participated in things. I mean, a lot of them have grown up on farms and been on horses since they were two, you know. But then there's others that have it that are just, you know that just committed a lot of time and energy.
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SF: What was that experience like for you being inducted?
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JM: It was really an honor. It was just a huge honor, as I said before, before I went down to the convention I went on the website and started reading the bios, the people that were on the Hall of Fame, and it was just a huge honor.
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SF: Have you ever experienced any forms of homophobia at the rodeo?
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JM: At our rodeo? No, not really. Not really. It's interesting because this year, last year we were at Stampede Park, which is a stampede grounds for the Calgary Stampede where The Calgary Stampede is held. We weren’t in that arena, but we were in an indoor arena on that facility. And typically, stereotypically, the Calgary Stampede is like the redneck cowboys. You know, that kind of thing.
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JM: So, when we met with them, they actually contacted us and said, “you know, we understand that you're bringing an association back for gay rodeo. Would you like sit down with us and talk about maybe holding it here?” And let me tell you, ten years ago or even five years ago, we never thought that would happen. We always thought, you know, when people said, “Really at the Stampede Park? “And we said yeah.
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JM: They sat down with us and they worked with us and they kind of shaved down costs and helped us get through things and worked things out. And we were treated so well, so well. And at the end of it, we did the wrap up with the event managers and not only the staff and everybody just so positive toward us. They said that their staff loved working with all of our competitors and our officials, and everybody was so welcoming and warm. That's such a good weekend, it's a whole weekend given it starts on Friday night at Rodeo School and goes until Monday morning.
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JM: I guess, you know, we can camp there in the hope we have a host hotel in downtown Calgary. You know, so but yeah, and I would think if we were going to experience it in gay rodeo, that might have been where we would have experienced it, but it did not happen. Everybody was just so supportive. I know and people go, Stampede Park, really? They're going to let a gay rodeo in Stampede park. Yeah. And actually, the girls that we work with, the event managers were fairly young, and they were going this is so long overdue. There's no reason we shouldn't have had gay rodeo here forever.
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SF: You said the association in Canada went away for a while, were you still involved with IGRA during that time period?
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JM: No…Well, let me think. Did I go to convention then? Because what happens is when the association stops existing, then they're taken off of IGRA records. And so, the new association that we started had to reapply and be reseated.
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SF: And how long did the association not exist before you brought it back?
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JM: They canceled it in, I think the last year they had it was 2015 and we brought back the new association 2019. So, four years, so it wasn't that long, but it was long enough that people were used to the rodeo in Calgary. And were going, “We’re missing the rodeo.” So, it was just four years.
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SF: And what does it mean to be a cowboy or cowgirl to you?
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JM: I don't know. Well, I guess I consider myself a cowgirl. I don't know. It's just being able to enjoy horses and livestock and rodeo and, you know, like we talk about our rodeo family. It really is it's like, I'm just talking to a guy last night who lost his partner earlier this year and he was saying what everybody was like around him. He said, you know, rodeo family was like, they just lifted me up. So I think that's it. I think that and being, you know, now that I live out the country, if you had told me ten years ago, maybe twenty years ago that I was going to be living in the country, on a ranch, I’d go, “Yeah, right, not going to happen.”
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JM: But, you know, it's just a lifestyle. It's taking care of your neighbors and helping them. We have elderly neighbors down the road, and we’ve fed his cows through the winter sometimes and his wife just fell and broke her hip and so we've been helping them out and helping her out. And it is it's a lifestyle, it's just part of who you are.
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SF: Have you ever experienced the rodeo family yourself or found that community?
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JM: Oh, yeah, from the minute you get involved, you do. Just the minute you get involved and you see people you haven’t seen in a while, you know, like I didn't do any rodeos last year except ours because we're so busy planning it and booking it. And so, when I came back to the convention here and saw everybody, it was just like home and seeing everybody again, you pick up where you left off.
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SF: Is there anything else you would like to add specifically about your experience in gay rodeo?
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JM: No, just that I hope that the promotion of it increases. Because I think there's a real need for it even now when people are saying they don’t need gay stuff anymore because everything is so accepting. There's really still some areas where the gay lifestyle is not that accepted and not that welcome. And so, for people to be able to participate at this level and be accepted and come in and try something new and get excited and experience that whole thing it would be a shame for it to ever disappear.
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JM: I think there's always going to be a need for it. I think that the people are what make it, the people you see around here are the ones that make it. And like I said, they're the ones that are getting here on their own dime. They’re spending their own money and their own time and their days off from work or whatever they have to do to get here. That’s the commitment and that’s the commitment that will keep it going. That makes it really important for people just wanting to hang out and be together.
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SF: Do you see yourself continuing participating in gay rodeo for the foreseeable future?
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JM: Oh, yeah. I don't know at what level or doing what, but yeah, I've got another year of my tenure for president of CRGRA, so I've got at least another year. You know, in some capacity, I think there's always room. I mean, if people want to be involved and don't really want to participate in competing, they could be secretarial or they could get certification for judging or all those kinds of things, there’s always people needed to run a rodeo.
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SF: Well, thank you very much.

Lisa Smith

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield, and I'm here today with Lisa Smith. And we're at the 2016 Annual Convention of the International Gay Rodeo Association. You said you were a veteran?
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Lisa Smith: Of twenty-four years, with the army.
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RS: When did you join up?
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LS: For the gay rodeo?
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RS: For the army.
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LS: Oh, back in 1977. Now I'm dated.
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RS: And what all did you do during your long career?
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LS: Oh, well, I was in communications and also had a stint with the aviation, and the operations part of it, and also got involved with chemical warfare and I retired out as a First Sargent.
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RS: How did you find out about the gay rodeo?
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LS: We had friends that were members. In fact, the night of my holy union—course back then you couldn't get, or thirteen, fourteen years ago you couldn't get married—we joined up that night. I don't know why that night, I guess cause everybody there were friends there that belonged to it.
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RS: Did you grow up on a ranch or…?
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LS: No, I'm a city person.
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RS: Where did you grow up?
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LS: Little Rock, Arkansas. So I didn't really have an experience with cattle or horses or bulls or any of that such thing. The closest I got was to a state fair one year. And otherwise I was more of a PE jock. I was the jock, I played a lot of sports and things like that…And I wasn't in the cowboy western way either. I grew up in the 70s, and 60s and 70s music so.
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RS: So awesome, awesome music.
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LS: Yeah, you bet.
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RS: And how did you meet your partner?
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LS: Well, we met through the military. She comes to Arkansas, back in the early 80s and I met her then, and you know we worked in the training area and it wasn't ‘til I don't know fifteen years after that something turned my head and decided hey, you know.
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RS: So you were both retired by the time?
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LS: Were both retired. She retired out with thirty years, and we've been volunteering for IGRA since then, pretty actively.
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RS: What all have you done with IGRA?
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LS: Well we've both started out as security at our rodeo, ticket takers, selling raffles, you name it. The stuff that nobody else wants to do. Well, actually the very first year we just watched. We went to a couple rodeos and thought, “Do we really want to get involved with these people?” And then we volunteered and it grew from like I said the ticket takers to the to the other positions and then I thought, Well I want to work in the arena.” so I started working with what they call the arena crew, and I really like the arena crew but I was also getting older and in the arena crew you need to be able to run if you can run and set up barrels or set up the poles or run seventy foot tape across the arena or something like that, so I went in to chute, the chute area, and fell in love with the bulls and the crew, basically it's the crew that got us hooked. We both do the same thing. In conjunction with all that though me being me, I wanted to be a rodeo director. So I started out as an assistant but the next year I was the rodeo director so. Went, you know, went to…IGRA has a University and I went several years to university and took in as much knowledge as I could take in and put it to work at the rodeos. So now I've been led in to…I've branched out to where I wanted to be the rodeo director of the World Gay Rodeo Finals. So bout five years ago I kept ringing their bells saying, “Pick me. Pick me.” and they finally said okay. We'll bring you on board, and so now this coming year, I'll be the rodeo director for World Gay Finals in Albuquerque.
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RS: That sounds great.
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LS: Looking forward to that. And I have also been the University's chancellor, I'm back down to Vice Chancellor kind of stepping back. I like to volunteer.
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RS: Did you ever compete in any?
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LS: I did compete. That was an experience, we did really well. Jeanie, that just talked me into this Jeanie, introduced me to fellas said, “Y’all are going to do goat dressing.” I said, “Okay.” And his name was Kenny, and I said okay. I didn't know, I couldn't remember what Kenny looked like from Friday night to Saturday morning but we did…we qualified both days, and I was real proud of myself, and we didn't win any money, but you know. Then we then some of my people we decided to do steer deco, which is another camp event and we did that and we qualified. We never got any money but at least we qualified. And I guess wild drag was the other one, and I loved it. And they gave me quick instructions on how to steer the steer with its tail and so we did pretty well. But that was it. I thought you know, I need to stick back in the chutes and produce some rodeos. So that's what I did.
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RS: And what's the sort of gender dynamics of the association? Is it pretty fifty/fifty between men and women?
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LS: In our association, in mine or IGRA overall?
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RS: Either.
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LS: I really can't speak for IGRA, I would venture to say it’s pretty eighty/twenty in IGRA. In my association, which is out of Little Rock, it's right at fifty/fifty. So we do have a lot of women that are involved and from my understanding of the history of Diamond State, we've always had a lot of women involved.
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RS: And do you get to travel to a lot of other rodeos?
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LS: Oh yes. Yeah, well yeah, I get to travel as long as I've got the money. Yeah, I've been all over the United States to different rodeos and things. I still have a few that I haven't been to. I want to go to Phoenix and there's a couple in California that I'd like to go to.
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RS: Do you have friends at most of the other associations?
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LS: Oh yeah, we're all friends. We're all good buddies.
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RS: Tha's very amazing. Well, I don't want to take up all of your time.
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LS: What time is it?
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RS: We've got ten more minutes…five more minutes.
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LS: How about five more minutes?
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RS: Five more minutes. Well, is there any one moment when you were in those early days going, were you like, “This is the thing I want to be involved in?”
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LS: Well, yeah, but in my situation, I started late, okay. I'm a late bloomer as far as getting involved with this stuff. Right now I'm sixty-one years old, so it's kind of hard to get back involved in the competing part of it, even though I think I could get up on that bull and ride that bull, something tells me I know better. Yeah.
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Man walking by: I'd pull you off.
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LS: I mean, I know the mechanics of it now, ‘cause I've watched enough putting the riders on there and all their equipment and what you gotta do and this and that, it's just that my body tells me, “No.” That's the only thing I really regret. Is not doing this sooner. Yeah.
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RS: Were you already retired from the military by the time you started this?
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LS: No, it was kind, of course you know “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” was still in place. But still I had to watch what I was doing, or not doing, or whatever so I didn't get kicked out. I'd hate to get kicked out at the very end.
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RS: Was that pretty scary to deal with?
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LS: Yeah, that's a whole different animal of wondering whether or not you're going to get called in and say, “Hey so’n’so saw you here with you know,” it's not a not a fun thing.
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RS: Do you think, do you think things are different now that people can sort of participate in gay rodeo or…?
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LS: I do know some military folks. In fact, we tap in with the we have an airbase there in Little Rock and the Little Rock Air Force Base and now those guys can come out and ride with us and not have to worry. But the stigma of it being gay so...I kind of...I'm always trying to recruit people to do that. To come out and participate that couldn't do it before. I wanted to put an ad in their paper out there, ‘cause they do have a veterinary section that has horses and stuff and they do ride and everything and they wouldn't let me put that in there ten years ago. But now, it's cool. It’s cool.
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RS: So, do you consider yourself a cowgirl?
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LS: Sometimes. I've learned a lot about the bulls and the steers and the calves and the horses and things. Somewhat. Somewhat of a cowgirl, you know. I appreciate the real cowgirls that I see that live on the ranches, that have to feed those horses and those animals everyday—morning, noon, night, and the veterinarian what they have to go through. You know I know it costs lots of money and takes lots of time and the weather’s rough and…were you on a ranch?
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RS: I did.
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LS: From Idaho?
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RS: Yeah.
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LS: Yes.
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RS: Yes, I grew up on a small ranch but I actually spent most of my time hiding to read books ‘cause I was so scared…
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LS: Maybe I was hiding. When I was playing softball and basketball and volleyball and tennis and thought, “You know, I really don't…” I just wasn't into the country side of it, you know. I'm not a country-western fan so to speak, even though I love the two step and the waltzes and stuff, I think it’s so neat. I'm just not a dancer either. Not very coordinated. No rhythm. Give me a few beers, I'll dance for you but otherwise, no…
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RS: Well, I know you're pressed for time but I would love to continue our conversation.
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LS: And I have met a lot of good people some of the best people around. They’re definitely family.
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RS: Have they always as a support network?
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LS: This is different, you know, there's just this the closeness here that you won't find in a lot of other sports-type activities. I mean you're buddies and stuff but this is somebody has a financial problem, you know, you're going to find somebody that's going to help them out. Or you know we've lost a lot of friends, you're gonna travel across country just to go to their funerals, or something like that. I mean it's just it's tough, we shed a lot of tears here, yeah, so. Don't cry.
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RS: It's nice to have a community to do that with.
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LS: It is it is. You know besides cause that's this is my gay community so to speak I don't really we have friends that we go out with in Little Rock as far I'm not the marching the Pride Parades thing even though I've been known to do it, uh, even though we do get in the parades as a rodeo association cause we want people to come and know who we are. But they don't experience what we experience. Isn’t that right, David?
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David: That's true.
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RS: Alright, I will let you go for now.
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LS: Okay, thank you, ...

Patrick Terry

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Rebecca Scofield: This is Rebecca Scofield and I am here with Patrick Terry and it's October 21st, 2017, and we're at the World Gay Rodeo Finals in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Can you tell me when you were born?
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Patrick Terry: Yes, November 25th, 1957. I celebrate my 60th birthday next month.
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RS: Congratulations!
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PT: Yes, I am treating myself to a cruise.
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RS: That's gonna be amazing. So where were you born?
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PT: Denver, Colorado.
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RS: And...
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PT: Born and raised on the west side, graduated from Almeida High School, and then went on to college and graduated from CU. I have a bachelors in PR and business management.
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RS: So the area you grew up in, was it pretty urban?
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PT: Yes, yes.
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RS: Did you grow up as a city kid?
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PT: No. People might say I did, but I didn't 'cause even though I didn't have my own horse, I had people that had them and so I was constantly riding.
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RS: Were you pretty horse crazy as a kid?
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PT: Yes I was. Always have been and still am.
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RS: When did you first learn to ride?
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PT: Oh gosh, I would say probably about when I was about 6, 7 years old, I first rode and I then I knew. I knew then, and still do, that I love it... So then, you know, through high school, our high school didn't offer an equine type of program like that so I went into the program called the Westernaires, which is a professional riding, I mean kids riding, group that puts on a show for public events. And when I was in it there was about 15, no there was about 500 people in it, and now there's 2,500.
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RS: Oh, wow.
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PT: Yeah.
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RS: And to do that, did you have to have your own horse?
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PT: No. And see, I was fortunate enough that my father's boss had a horse and so I was able to do it. But of the four kids, I was the only one who took an interest in doing it, and so I did it and then, you know, had my own horse for a while and then sold it for different reasons, various financial and everything. But I always have had that passion to ride and be a part of rodeos and everything else. And so then, I came out as a gay man in 1987 and right away jumped right into it, into the western lifestyle and gay rodeo, and have gone on from there.
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RS: And so, when did you first know you were gay?
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PT: Very interesting question, because people, a lot of people will say you're born with it. I don't believe that at all. I have gone through two engagements to women and it was during my year that I travelled in Up With People, which is a singing/performing group that travels all over the world, I did that and was a staff member also one year, that I started having feelings because, you know, a lot of times we'd share, 'cause we stayed with host families wherever we went, so a lot of times we'd share a bed with another handsome man. You know, 85% of the men in Up With People are gay because its theater and production.
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PT: And so I started having these feelings, and then I was so scared because my brother, my little brother, was gay. And it all came out when he was 16 and it wasn't good. He got caught fooling around in the park, got arrested, you know. My dad had to go bail him out. My dad bailed him out and then kicked him out of the house and wanted nothing to do with him. And so he grew up. And I have always said, he paved the path for me to be able to come out because it was so much easier for me to come out. My father never knew that I was before he passed away but my mom, I told her right away. I said, "You know, this is it. I am this."
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PT: My brother had seen me working at a gay bar. He came for the grand opening of this one particular bar and I was bartending. And it was kind of, kind of... not a real good thing. But he, rather than talk or say anything, he goes and stands right in front of the register where I was bartending, he and his partner, all night. And so, then he brings it up at Thanksgiving, that I have this job. And he says, you know, "What's your extra job that you're doing?" 'Cause at the time I was working in retail.
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PT: At that time I was store, I mean department, manager for the entire mens' department of Bradburry Southwest. I had seven departments in one, 55 employees, 3 assistants, and it was a multimillion dollar business a year. It was big. I was the first one with that company to ever have multiple departments. So, I was working there and doing that and then I started, you know, going to gay bars and then, all of a sudden, they're asking me, "You wanna bartend?" And so I did. I went to Charlie's and in 1987, it was probably in August or September, and, right away, they were in the process of moving downtown from the Aurora area, they said, "You wanna work here?" And I helped put the new bar together and everything else. Which, ironically, was the same place where I went to my senior high school homecoming dinner. It used to be a restaurant called Emerson Street East and it's ironic to go back into that building. And I was bartending, DJing, waiting, bar backing, and everything.
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PT: And so, after I'd left the other bar and went on with Charlie's, then it was after that because the owner, the general manager, he was one of the founders: Wayne Jakino, he was one of the founders of IGRA and CGRA. Actually, CGRA first and then IGRA. He pushed me into getting more involved. I went to my first rodeo in Phoenix, Arizona, finals rodeo, in 1987 and had a great time and everything else and I said, "This is it; I want to." So I did, and I got in. And so, in 1988, I joined CGRA and from there the general manager continued to push me into a position that he had helped create for the International, which was the administrative assistant, and so I took over for a guy that got sick and eventually died of AIDs.
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PT: I took over 1993, worked in the office as the administrative assistant for 10 years 'till 2003 and then resigned from that for other reasons, you know, which probably aren't so important. But I did that and have been involved, basically, with gay rodeo since 1988. Have been rodeo director of Denver's rodeo twice, I've been finals rodeo director, can't remember what year... 2013. How can I forget that? 2013. I was finals rodeo director in Fort Worth, Texas, and have served on various committees, not only at CGRA level but also IGRA level. I've been trustee for CGRA twice and have done other things, committees and everything else.
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PT: Then in 2000... gosh, sorry can't remember, either 2013 or 2012. I think it was '12, I was inducted into the hall of fame. I found out that I was not only nominated once, but twice in the same year. The first year that I was nominated, I went into the hall of fame. It's very dear to me. It's an honor. It's, you know, means a lot. And I've served on that committee and everything else but I had to recuse myself because I was on the committee at the time I was nominated. So the chair said that I had to back out of it during the process of them deciding who was gonna make it. And so, I believe it was in 2012, was at convention in Las Vegas, my rodeo mom and dad and my real mom, sister, and her husband came to it and supported me during this time of recognition and everything. And so...
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RS: So, can I ask, going back, what year did you travel with Up With People?
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PT: 84 and '85.
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RS: 84 and '85. So, it was right around there that you came out?
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PT: It was after. Basically, right towards the end of it in '85 and then, I was so scared at first because I saw what my brother had gone through. And I was so scared that I stayed in the closet for two years until coming out in 1987.
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RS: And did anything particularly draw you to Charlie's, to the sort of country western side?
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PT: I loved the music, I loved the dancing, I loved the animals. And, through the years I've done various things with IGRA including, one of them being, I was score keeper for several years. I did it but I didn't really like it because it took me away from the contestants. And during the 10 years that I was the administrative assistant, I worked directly with the contestants, and that to me was the thing.
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PT: So, now that I've taken a couple of years off and I've come back, today reassured me. I belong with the contestants, not up in the booth, but back there. So I pulled gates, did the gates for the speed events, for the horse contests, and everybody was really excited to see me. Not only see me back 'cause after being gone for two years, but that I was wanting to volunteer. I said, "Well, it's just, I can't just sit there and watch. There is no way I can go and sit in an audience and not participate."
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RS: So, at the very first rodeo you went to, did you compete or did you just watch?
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PT: Nope, I just watched.
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RS: And what did you think?
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PT: I was hooked. I was hooked and I was ready to start competing, and started competing in 1988.
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RS: And what events did you compete in?
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PT: I did calf roping on foot, wild drag, steer deco, goat dressing, chute dogging, steer riding, and bull riding. And I competed from 1998, I started competing right away, and I competed until, I think it was about 1994, '95. And then I went into the certification. I was getting too old. It was too hard to come back from the injuries. And at that time we had 20 to 25 rodeos a year and, I mean, sometimes we had rodeos that were back-to-back, and so it was hard to recuperate and then go do it again. But it's, it was something I always wanted. My mother refused to come watch. She, you know, I think she supported me, she just didn't want to see me in case I got hurt. I had my injuries. I definitely did. Broke both collar bones, almost every rib, and got stepped on and, you know, but its still....
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PT: And, I've been thinking about it, when I started to get back involved with CGRA, I started thinking about that I would love to one time go back and steer ride. So, possibly next year, I'm going to do it. Just do it one time, just to satisfy my craving for it because it just, it, ugh, it is so hard to explain. People ask, "How can you ride a bull?" And it's so hard to describe because it's, in that moment, it is the biggest thrill you could ever have. And that, I always said, I'd never do broncs. I said it's too high. It's a lot higher up there to fall down. But, then, drawback is broncs usually don't come back after you, bulls do. Only thing I ever really attained, I mean that injury I had from bull riding, was a broken collarbone. And it was a fluke, it was a simple fluke. I fell off but I landed on my shoulder and it broke.
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RS: What were those early rodeos like in the '80s?
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PT: Oh my gosh, very well attended. I mean, you could go to the LA rodeo and, I am not kidding you, there were ten thousand people a day. Partying, out dancing, watching the rodeo, all these other things, and I mean, it was just, we were just thriving. And there were 20, 20 to 25 rodeos a year. We had up to 28 associations at one time in IGRA and it was really going really strong. I mean, pool parties at the San Diego rodeo. You just did not want to miss it.
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PT: And so, it was all this, but the most important thing at all of this, and I realized this after being gone for two years, was the camaraderie and the friends. You meet friends that become your family and they, you know, you really do care about them. It's not that I don't care about my immediate family, but these people mean a lot to me, they do. And I had a lot of people yesterday and today say it's wonderful to see me back and that, you know, that they truly, really do love me and are excited that I'm back in it.
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RS: And you mentioned your rodeo mom and dad. Who is that?
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PT: Turned out to be... it was the funniest thing, because I was a certified scorekeeper and at the Chicago rodeo I got invited to be the score keeper. And this rodeo was on the facility, I mean on the grounds, of this couple's home. One of their sons lived across the driveway and everything, but then they had their own full arena back there and everything else. Well, when I first went in and met her and everything else, she thought I was the most pretentious queen that she'd ever seen. And it was so funny, but we grew to be so close, so close, I just... And when I was inducted into the hall of fame, she came to Las Vegas and she broke the news to me that she had cancer. And she fought it for about a year and passed away. And it was a very, very devastating to me. It was very, it was so hard. I just can't even imagine.
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PT: And I, you know, I lost my father but my father and I weren't really close after my parents divorced because I was involved with, I was the one that found him, caught him cheating on her and everything. And then I had to help her out when he filed for divorce and moved out because she had never had a job 'cause she raised us four kids. And, all of a sudden, here she's in a five bedroom home and no money to have to pay utilities while this was going because he had taken their checking account and...
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RS: How old were you when that happened?
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PT: Let's see, I was... um... I'm trying to think... I would say maybe, '79 or '80, 1980. [...] They'd been married 28 years. We had, us four kids had, put on this huge party for them for their 25th anniversary. My parents traveled, through my father's business he was able to win these trips to go. They traveled all over the place. They went on a trip to Portugal, came home, mom said everything was fine, and then he didn't come home that night. He insisted on going bowling and, sure enough. I was the one who caught him doing the whole thing and it was devastating to me. So after that, my father and I did not speak and we had no communication with each other.
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RS: And when did he pass?
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PT: He passed in 1995, I think. No, he passed in 1991 'cause my brother passed away in 1995 of AIDs. He was, it was really interesting because I am HIV positive myself but I am in no danger. I have never been in danger because I accepted it and I dealt with it. My brother, little brother, was in total denial of the AIDs. And him and his partner had all these holistic views about saving him. So, it was very difficult 'cause when he did get sick, he was so sick. He went in the hospital and 18 days later he's gone. After being in the hospital, being fed intravenously, and he's losing a pound and a half a day, just deteriorating something terrible. I had to educate my entire family on what exactly was going on. They couldn't understand how I could be HIV positive, but he was in full blown AIDs, full-blown AIDs. His T cell count was five when he went in. They thought at first he had tuberculosis but, then upon starting to.... But my brother had been tested somewhere, don't know exactly where, but he used his social security number.
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PT: And so, when he died, we got the death certificate and his partner really got upset because it put it on there, the information, they have to, that he had been HIV positive for 10 years and full-blown AIDs for 18 days that he was in the hospital. And so, you know, it was really difficult. So, I'm educating my family on what is going on with my brother deteriortating like that, and I just had to say it. In his final days, we spent lots of time together. We had never been real close because he always kinda despised me 'cause he was right behind me and I accelerated in school and he didn't and the teachers expected the same out of him that they got out of me, so it was difficult. He actually attempted suicide once, blaming me, and so it was a rough road but those, probably 15 of those 18 days, him and I had a lot of talk. A lot, you know, about each other and everything. So at least I got to go away with that. But he survived that.
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RS: And, does your, how did your mother cope with that? With losing a child?
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PT: She did very well, and she does very well with things like that, but I know, deep down, it was really difficult. But as far as the level, I was the most devastated because I was scared to death that this is what is gonna happen with me. But, I accepted when I found out that I was HIV positive, which was in 1995. I was on a study for HIV negative people and my test results came back positive. And, you know, people say different things. They used to say you could contract it and everything else but I know exactly what happened. I know when and strictly mine. But the nurse was just astonished, she could not believe it, so she had me come in and do another blood test 'cause she thought it was a false positive. And it turned out it wasn't.
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PT: But my T cells have never, ever been below 500. I started taking medicine when they were between five and six hundred, the doctor felt it was a good time to do it. And I have applied, and my T cells are currently around the nine hundred to eleven hundred range so, I mean, the disease is there, it doesn't go away, but you have to accept it and you have to move on with it. And I've learned and felt really good about some things that have happened in my life, you know, becoming gay, coming out, and then becoming HIV positive. I don't look at it as a bad thing. It's something that's happened but with research and everything else, and I've participated in a lot of studies here in Colorado at the University of Colorado, I'm involved with studies. They call me all the time and do these different studies so they can work on trying to get, they're never gonna find a cure, but being able to control it.
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PT: I was very, very lucky when I started taking meds, AZT was very, there was very little AZT in the meds. And I have only in my 20 years, 15 or 20 years now, I have been on two different kinds of medicine. And I currently only take two pills a day. I take them in the evening. And one's a booster and the other one is... and that is what has really kept me alive. And through all these other medical issues that have come, you know I have crohn's disease, barrett's esophagus, cholesterol problems and all that. I take 38 pills a day but, you know what, it's kept me alive. It's kept me here and I credit that to that.
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RS: How do you think your rodeo family has helped through your various health struggles?
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PT: Oh, I mean, everybody's so supportive. Because this association is very unique, we don't do rodeo for a living. None of the contestants, you know, you can't, by the time you do all your expenses and everything else throughout the year, and especially if you have a horse, you go into it knowing you're gonna lose money. But, there's more to it than that. And that's why our rodeos and the umbrella IGRA association, all proceeds go back to charity. That's why we do this, to be able to give money back to charities.
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RS: So, you said earlier that you know Wayne pretty well. What was it like working with him? I heard he was very enthusiastic about IGRA and Gay Rodeo in general. What was it like working for him?
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PT: He was; and he pushed, and pushed, and pushed me. You know, 'cause he did. And we traveled together; went to rodeos together; and he gave me a lot of work, favors, and everything else so that I could go to these rodeos and all this other stuff. And he was just like a dad to me and it was very devastating when he passed away. He passed away of pancreatic cancer. And that was very difficult, once again for me, but his ideas and his creativity continues to live. He's very proud, I know he's very proud. I know when he died he was very proud that he had created this and watched it grow to where it had gone.
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PT: And, you know, we've struggled in the last few years. We've struggled because financially it's difficult, it's becoming more and more difficult, to find sponsors because sponsors look at it as "butts in the seats." And we can have as many contestants as we want but it's [...] our rodeos are very recreational. None of our contests make a living off of 'em. They all have other jobs and do other things. So, it's very recreational but we do it because we give the money to charities and we feel good. And this camaraderie that you create, that you become a part of at the rodeos, it's indescribable. I found out when I had to take these last two years, take a break.
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PT: I really found out how much it really is in me, and how much I missed it. And I really missed the contestants. Being here this weekend and being, I was a timer in the rodeo, and I couldn't, I can't, just sit in those stands and watch the rodeo. I got to be doing something. So I volunteered to go back behind the chutes, behind the alleyway, and help with the arena directors, with speed events, and pulling gates. It got me right back with the contestants. Because when I was a score keeper, you're isolated into a different spot so you don't get that. And I just, I miss that so much, because I became so close to the contestants while I was in the office. I just became so close to them and, you know, confided in them, they confided in me, and it really was a family. And I missed that when I went up into, as a scorekeeper, because I was isolated up there.
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PT: I retired as a scorekeeper in 19, in 20...um, let's see, it would have had to have been about 2011 I retired. It was at the Florida rodeo, that was my last rodeo. They gave me a big old send off and everything else and I said, "Well, I'm not going away, I'm just retiring." And the reason I was retiring was because I had been diagnosed with Parkinson's and my writing was very difficult, and I did not want to subject a contestant to a wrong score because the secretary or the auditor couldn't read it.
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PT: So I took that step but I found myself, I think 'cause I like so much being with the contestants, I found myself going to becoming barn manager. And this turned out to be just a total fluke. I had gone to the Oklahoma rodeo and I was supposed to be scorekeeper. And I came in a day early and I stayed with the rodeo director and then helped him set up. Well, he needed to go to a VIP party on the Thursday night and he didn't know how he was gonna be able to do it 'cause these contestants were starting to come in. And I said, "I'll do it. It can't be too difficult." You just check their papers, and give them a stall, and ask if they need shavings, and it's very simple. And that really brought me back with the contestants, really brought me back, and so it's something that I totally enjoy.
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PT: And all this weekend people have said over, and over, and over, "We've missed you so much." It's kinda hard to grasp. I never realized that it really, people really did care, and do care. And so, it's been a wonderful, wonderful weekend. To be back into this. And I'm jumping right back into it. Of course, I'm not gonna be quite as involved as I really was before but I've submitted my name to be back on the finals committee. I just told them, I'll do anything on the committee - just don't make me rodeo director again. Been there, done that, and don't wanna go through that again 'cause it's not easy. It's a lot of responsibility and a lot of pressure. And, you know, with our rodeos starting to struggle in 2000... probably about 2010 or '11... starting declining and everything else, it was becoming more and more difficult. Unfortunately, the rodeo that I was rodeo director of, finals wasn't as successful. It was really hard for me. It was really hard for me that it didn't, it wasn't, successful like I wanted it to be. But it was happening, and we're happening right now.
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PT: And I tried, you know, I've served on various committees, probably almost every committee you could possibly think of. And I have been trying to preach that, with the difficulty of getting sponsors and everything else, we need to, rather than create new associations and then they jump in and do a rodeo first year, and they don't know what they're doing, and they don't know and don't realize, and they end up losing a lot of money. And, unfortunately, some have folded. I have really been trying to push, and I'm going to continue to push, that associations work together, come together, and be. We had four associations that were the GPR: Great Plains Rodeo. Four associations: Kansas, Oklahoma, Little Rock, and Missouri. And the rodeo rotated. It rotated to the different cities. And it worked. And that was at a time when the rodeos were successful, but it worked. Then they eventually went off and did their own rodeos. And that's what I'm trying to get back again because we have some little associations that are struggling, they are struggling to even stay alive, stay in business. And it's very disheartening when we lose one, so I'm gonna try to continue to try to push for the coming together. Not being, feeling like you wanna be independent, do your own thing. Because it's hard; it's not easy.
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PT: And some rodeo budgets [...] our finals budget can run anywhere from 150 to 200 thousand dollars budget. And it's hard, it's very hard, 'cause see, what the contestants put in - at finals they have put in a percentage all year long towards the finals rodeo and then their fees for the finals rodeo itself and what's been participated - this all comes into the big pot and every single event no matter how many people [...] are in the event, the payout is the same for all 13 events equally. And then it's broken down as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I've seen bronc riders, bull riders, that that's all they do. They are the only ones that cover, and they walk away. I've seen them walk away with 3,600 dollars just for two rides. And, so, it is a big thing but even then it's becoming more and more of a struggle. Like I said, we don't do this, there's no intention of being professionals. Some of our members are PRCA card holders because they do other professional events: roping events, barrel racing, you know those different things. But we... ours is recreational. And it's more, it's more than just the rodeo, it's the camaraderie, the chance to see friends, be together, spend a weekend together.
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RS: So, with you getting started in 1988 were you, did you, experience the cancellation of the 1988 finals? When it was supposed to take place, I believe in Nevada, and then all of a sudden got canceled?
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PT: I'm not quite sure that was 1988; I believe it was earlier than that. I would have to go back and look but, yeah.
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RS: Did you experience any sort of homophobia on the circuit?
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PT: Yeah, I mean, we did. PETA used to protest a lot of our rodeos. So, we had to deal with that, but they had their limits on where they could protest and we just did not let that affect us and, you know, not get to us. 'Cause we have very strong, how would you say, rules or guidelines for animal safety and we thrive on that because that it is so important to us. And part of, you know, the mission of IGRA and everything is for the country western lifestyle but [...] we don't tolerate abuse of animals.
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RS: How do you think the culture has changed overarchingly in terms of homophobia?
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PT: Oh, I think it's changed: it's become much easier. Gay marriage is becoming legal now and, more and more, it's changed a lot and it's a lot more comfortable. I've always said that with my brother, it was very difficult because that was during an era in the '70s that it was not accepted and you had to be very careful. And there was a lot of, you know, hate and everything going on. And you just really, you know, you really had to be careful and a lot of people remained in the closet or very isolated because they were so scared. And nowadays it's much more accepted and everything else.
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PT: But the one thing about our rodeos, too, is that we have never, ever turned somebody down for their race, their sexual orientation, anything. We have straight people that compete in our rodeos, we have a couple of 'em this weekend that are competing, and we have always, with open arms, invited them in. And they, the first thing they say, after they've completed one day is, "This is unbelievable. Everybody is so wonderful and so nice." And they say it's a much nicer atmosphere. So we're really proud of that, you know, that we're able to bring that out into the community and open it up to anybody. And we do not discriminate.
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PT: We're even working on trying to get kids now involved. The problem we have is the legal age and stuff like that so currently kids cannot, depending on what the legal age is in the state, cannot compete. But we're getting, we've gone, in a direction now where some of the associations, CGRA has done it, we have junior members. And they come to gymkhanas, they come to the other events that aren't sanctioned rodeos and everything, and then they come to the rodeos and watch their friends and/or family members compete. I mean, a lot of kids come that their parents are competing. It's really, it's a very gratifying, very satisfying, feeling and it also, you know, it's just become so much easier.
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PT: And I've said, you know, I was so blessed to come out when I did. Not only did my brother pave the path with my family but [...] it was at a time where it was getting much better and it continued to get better all the way up to today. It's become much more acceptable. There were times, you know, in the early years that we were a little fearful. When we went into cities, we had to be very careful. We had to be very careful. We didn't allow people to go out by themselves; we had to be very careful because of the acceptance of being gay, lesbian, transgender. And so, it's come a long ways and I think it's continuing to become more and more acceptable. And I believe that's happening around the world too. Countries that never used to acknowledge women are now acknowledging women, gays are no longer being tortured and murdered for being gay, and so it's a good thing. It's good and I feel very proud to be a gay man living in the 21st century.
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RS: Now, could you describe what you did as the administrative assistant for those 10 years? What did that job look like?
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PT: I was a lot like the liason for the contestants. The contestants would call the office if they had a problem with the registration - they couldn't get registered, this, that, and everything else - they'd call. And I, that's the one thing I did do that has still continued [...], is I gained the respect of them. Because I listened to them and I helped them get better or get through the obstacles that they needed.
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RS: And the physical office was in Charlie's?
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PT: Yes. Yes, the initial, it started in 1991. Wayne created this position, it was another bartender that was at Charlie's and he started, Ricky Joe Newly, and he was the administrator for two years and then he got sick. So at the time he did, Wayne said, "Okay, here's your opportunity. Go." So I interviewed at the finals rodeo, no the Texas rodeo, in 1992, and started January 1st, 1993, for 10 years. And that was a wonderful, wonderful thing. If I were to ever get the opportunity to go back, I would do it in a heartbeat. And it would be because of the contestants.
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RS: And were you mainly doing most of your work at that time via telephone and mail?
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PT: A lot of it was mail, snail mail, and telephone. The internet was beginning and all that but a lot of it was snail mail and telephone.
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RS: Did you ever get an email address?
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PT: I did, I did actually, during my time and I still have it. I still have it. I have an account, it's IGRA@att.net but it's still one of my own personal accounts. So, yes I did. And then, when I was an administrative assistant, I had one: administrativeassistant@igra.com. And then I had one, when I was trustee for Colorado, I had different emails. So I did. But I got to experience the beginning, the real beginnings, and the popularity of email and the much easier way of translation.
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RS: And was that your full-time job, or were you doing that in addition to other things?
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PT: It was a part-time job. It was, let me see, how many hours a week was it? It was probably about 30 hours a week. And then, and I worked in conjunction with working at Charlie's as a bartender, DJ, and all that. And my office was downstairs in the basement. So, sometimes I'd come in and work up until it was time for me to go upstairs and go to work or...do that. But it gave an, and this is exactly what Wayne wanted, it gave an avenue for contestants to be able to go. When you couldn't necessarily go through your association because, for various reasons, you had an avenue to go that would help you. And, I believe today it still has gone on.
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PT: And Tommy Channel, when he took over my position in 2003, and is currently in the position, a lot of things have changed. The office is no longer there; it's all done remote. You know, Tommy works out of his house and everything else but... he just received on Thursday, Thursday night, no, Friday night, last night, he received the Wayne Jakino Western Lifestyle buckle. And I've won various buckles across the years; my most favorite one is, of course, my Hall of Fame buckle. I wear that very proudly, but I wear other ones too. But, that's one I do not have yet and I hope someday before I die that I will get that, because Wayne paved the way for me. He pushed me into all this. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for him. And he was just like another dad to me. And it was just, it was so hard, you know. It's hard to describe, I mean, just how we bonded so well.
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RS: Can I ask what the western lifestyle means to you?
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PT: Western lifestyle, in my opinion, is the beginning of the West. You know, the beginning of cowboys and Indians, you know. That was the start, that was the beginning of the United States. And it could have even been the beginning in other countries, but it was really the United States where the western cowboys and Indians started. And at first they were fighting against each other, and then later on, you know, and now to this day, get along. And I don't know if you were there for grand entry today, when they blessed? That was very moving. That was unbelievable. I was just like, "Wow." Just to be there in that and face the different directions, and she would bless the directions. And they all had - you know, north, east, south, west - all had meanings. It was, it was quite the experience. I thought it was just amazing. I told the person that was in charge of getting that, "That was just amazing, it really was."
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RS: So do you consider yourself a cowboy?
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PT: Yes, I always have. I always have. I've always worn the jeans, the cowboy hat, everything else. And, ironically, I'm the only one in my family that does. Nobody else did. My father grew up on a farm in Iowa. He was basically on his own at 14. He had 10 siblings, actually he had 11 siblings initially and two of them died so then it was him and nine other siblings. There are two of them left. But he grew up there, you know, on the farm, so I attribute some of that to him being that way.
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PT: My mom was pure city slicker. She was born in Salt Lake City, wasn't even there a few days and was in Colorado, so Colorado recognizes her as a... I am a third-generation native because they recognize her as a native 'cause she spent most of her life here in Colorado. So, yes, my family comes from Fairplay area. I have a lot of relatives that are buried up in, outside of, Fairplay, in Alma. And we, when we have a death, [...] we go as a family, we go up and spread the ashes at the same place where we've done all the others. And we've even marked a tree so that we know we have the same place. It's something that our family does that just, it's just what we do. And it means so much because it goes back to where our roots and where my great-grandfather was and grandmother.
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RS: So did you leave Charlie's at the same time that you left the administrative position?
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PT: No, no. I continued at Charlie's and worked there up until I left there in 2000. I met my partner at the time; we met by mutual friends in Puerto Vallarta and hit it off right away, dated for six months, and then I moved to Colorado Springs. 'Cause he had just taken over, him and his brother had just taken over, their father's business. A 30-year painting business. It was very reputable. They don't have to advertise because they have all these people from before that return, so it's quite the deal. So when my partner and I, Craig, talked about it, [...] I said, "You know what? I'll go. I'm ready to go." I'd been in the bar business 15 years and that was, it was enough. It was enough. And I just really wanted a relationship that I thought was going to be forever. Unfortunately it was not but... and part of it was my fault because I was so heavily involved in rodeo and travelling so much that my partner strayed, and therefore...
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PT: But I left 2012, moved back to Denver, lived with my friends for a year, and then my Mom and I moved in together and I started taking care of her as she started getting, you know, progressing and getting older. And she's getting pretty frail. And probably we're gonna have to put her into a, some kind of, assisted living or nursing home in the next six to eight months because it's gotten to a point I can't... and she needs medical assistance. And so, once again, I'll be out on my own but I'm ready to do that and I'm ready to do a little bit different than what typically people do. I want to be, I worked up, I just left July 22nd, I worked up the Jefferson County fairgrounds in Golden, Colorado. I was the campground supervisor. It was a position that this director had created with, specifically with, me in mind running it. 'Cause he had seen what I had done when I was barn manager for CGRA rodeos, and he wanted that to happen, so he created the position. I was there for 15 months before I had to resign because I was having medical issues, and I just was worn out. [...]
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PT: But during that time, I was, I had attained a trailer, a fifth wheel, a small fifth wheel, ' cause I stayed in it sometimes if we had events going over the weekends and, you know, it was gonna be the long hours and all that. So I had it, and with the help of two of my very dear friends, I was able to get that fifth wheel and did that. Well, during that time it convinced me, that's the way I wanna live, I wanna live. I was the campground supervisor and I just loved the people, the stories, oh my gosh. People from all over the country, even out of the country, you know, they come to camp and everything else. And hearing their stories... You know, it's becoming more and more people, and not just older people but younger people, are living full time in their RVs. And so, you know, of course, even though I left Jefferson County fairgrounds, I've been told I'm always welcome to come back. So, I definitely wanna be a camp host. Because I can do volunteer, not have to pay rent, because for volunteering it's in exchange. Then I can still do the rodeos. 'Cause I'm back. I told them today, I told a lot of them today, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere.
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RS: So when you took the last two years off, was that really to sort of focus on your health?
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PT: Partially. But partially I just needed a break 'cause I had gone non-stop and, you know, through losing a relationship, partially to my involvement with rodeos and commitment. Not that my commitment wasn't there, but it's difficult because I traveled a lot and so then he....
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RS: And so he wasn't interested?
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PT: No. Oh, no. I tried to get him interested once and boy, was that the wrong thing to do. He just didn't care for that. But in the beginning he supported me completely but then, I just got too involved. I didn't realize until it was too late, you know, how involved I was. And so, I took the two years just to get a break away from it, but also because I was working full time up at the park. Even though it was part time, it wasn't. I was working very much full time but only getting paid part time, which was okay with me because of my being on disability, I can only make so much a month. So it wasn't the money issue, it was the job. And I loved it, and I would go back in a heartbeat. I would go back to it, if offered that, but even if I don't, I'm welcome to come back as a camp host and do that. So, I'm looking forward to that. It's very unfortunate that we have to do what we have to do with our mom but it's part of it. So I kinda get my independence back, because it's been interesting.
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RS: Its difficult.
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PT: Yeah. I love my mother to death, but it's been tough.
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RS: Do your other siblings help at all?
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PT: My younger sister does; my older brother doesn't help too much, but it's mainly my sister and I.
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RS: It's a lot of work.
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PT: Yes. Yes. Can we take a little break?
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RS: Yes, of course.
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RS: Alright, we are back here with Patrick Terry and I was wondering if you would be willing to talk a little bit about the effort that went into building the amazing archive that you helped donate to the Autry National Center?
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PT: I, when I was a competitor, I always kept the programs. I kept them myself and everything else so I had accumulated boxes. Then when I went into the office, I was still competing but, you know, I was going and having access to and getting rodeo associations to send me their programs, advertising posters, everything. And I went into the office and I said, "You know what?" And it had been somewhat collected prior to that but it was mainly just thrown into a box, it was not organized or anything, and, you know, I'm a very organized person and probably a little overboard but I started arranging it. And then I thought, "You know what? This stuff is gonna come back. Someday it's gonna be important, someday it's going to be beneficial. I know it will. Maybe not while I'm alive, but I hope that people that continue on after me will continue to collect it.
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PT: So I started collecting and putting it all together, organizing it, get it all in order by year, by rodeo. And started doing that when I went in the office, you know. Heavy contacting all the associations, telling them they had, whether I went to the rodeo or not I told them, that they had to send me the program, the advertising, their flyers, their posters. We used to do a poster mailout, CGRA used to do a poster mailout, to bars, organizations all across the country. And each association would submit their poster and we collected, we'd get them all, and then we'd put them all into tubes and mail them out, CGRA did. So that was going, so we had accumulated lots of posters. I'd accumulated quite a bit and, you know, I'd put 'em up on the top shelf thinking someday and everything else. But then I went full force getting as much as I could from the rodeos and/or events that the associations had put on. And it, it was fun. I loved it. And I knew that someday it would be.
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PT: So, then through the relationship that we built with Gregory Hinton, he came to Charlie's and we were going to ship archives. Well, I wanted to retain some for IGRA, for the International. And so it was kinda interesting, when we met and we started going through it, Gregory wanted to take it all, and I wouldn't. And so, Brain Helander was the president at the time and he got kinda, became the referee for, you know, what we were doing. And he said, his words were, "Patrick is entitled to keep whatever he wants." Then whatever will go to the archives. And so Gregory wasn't too happy with me about that, but it worked out. So we went through all of it, all of it by year; I had it all in order by year. We went through every single one. If there were duplicates, I would keep one, one would go to them, or maybe two or three, because I was collecting about four to six programs from every rodeo and as much of the flyers and all that stuff. So I was doing all that, and so we went through all of it. It took three days, took us two days, three days.
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RS: And where was it stored?
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PT: It was at Charlie's, in the basement of the administrative IGRA office. And it was all there, in these big, heavy-duty shelves. And I had put them all into these large, really long, file boxes and had them all in order by year, by rodeo, blah, blah, blah. So I had them. So by the time Gregory and I finished going through, I kept what, I felt, IGRA should have. And then we sent the others and Tommy Channel and myself drove to Burbank, California, and [...] we had to actually get a special SUV, large SUV, a suburban, because of the weight. There were 22 of those boxes, full to the brim of programs, flyers, everything you could possibly think of IGRA.
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PT: And so, when Gregory had approached us and said this opportunity was... it was the same time that Brokeback Mountain had just come out. And so the understanding we had was, it was gonna go on display right away. And when we arrived there, I had to sign off on there, meaning it was no longer our property but theirs. And it was difficult. I had a real difficult time signing that piece of paper. I hesitated, and hesitated, and said, "You know what, I don't know if I can do this." But then I kept thinking, for the future of people and studying, researching as yourself, and doing this, it will benefit. So, I finally signed the piece of paper. I have to this day, still, that piece of paper that I kept myself. I took a copy and put it in the archives but I kept the one I signed to myself and I just...you know. So we dropped that off. So we were anticipating that it was gonna go on display fairly quickly. And I don't know if you've talked with Gregory in depth and everything else but at the time, the Brokeback Mountain, the two guys' shirts, had been donated. Some guy bought them and didn't know what to do with them but he had wanted to buy 'em. I think they said he paid 40 thousand dollars for them. So he donated them to the Autry with the understanding that they were going to be displayed immediately. And that's where we thought our archives were gonna go, in conjunction with that, and we're gonna be displayed.
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PT: Unfortunately that didn't happen. It took a few years for them to archive it, and catalog it all, and everything else. And we had people from associations, if they were in the Burbank, California area, that they would go. But they never allowed, never anything was allowed, to leave the Autry. It was never allowed to leave the library. You checked it out but you could only do your research right there; you could not take it home with you. There was nothing to take. Unfortunately, the archives was never really fully displayed, but there was a, like a, ceremony and everything else and Mrs. Autry was there. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make the event but, you know, it was okay. Everybody knew that I had done this. And that was probably one of the biggest highlights of my entire time with IGRA. It was so gratifying, and just that whole idea that I knew, someday, somewhere, that it would come into play.
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PT: And you know, people have researched, people have gone and researched. We did have some of ours on display for a while. I don't know that it still is but, you know. So it was a little disappointing that we anticipated it'd go farther than it did but, the fact is, it's all cataloged, it's all there at the Autry museum, and Mrs. Autry was so... she could not get over, she said, "I have never seen any organization that kept so many things, you know, and archived them." [...] So, she congratulated me on doing that and sent it through people, you know, and so they told me. And that, to me, was the top of it. Here was all that, it had come to fold and had come. It was now going to be put to use, rather than sitting in the boxes in the closet down at the office at Charlie's, in the basement. It had its purpose, but yet we still had ours.
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RS: So, one thing that really struck me going through the archives was that a lot of people, when they do archive rodeo things, they do flyers, and they do programs, but they don't do filing of complaints, or they don't keep stock contractor agreements. They don't keep that sort of business side and I'm wondering how you decided which of those sort of, those business-end of things, to keep in the archive?
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PT: Well, I mean, it was more of the how International Gay Rodeo Association board felt about it. Whether or not they wanted that released because of people at the times, you know, it was just starting to get better, but people's names and everything else were associated and they wanted to remain anonymous. So we were, we had an obligation, to our members to keep that quite, keep that as quiet as possible. So, therefore, it was difficult to pass on that stuff. We kept all of it and still have it and it's currently being stored up in a semi-trailer that we share with the Colorado Gay Rodeo Association, the International does, in storing in this big semi-trailer.
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RS: And for the pieces you've kept, that's really helped Frank Harrell construct his online archive.
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PT: Correct. He took it to yet another level. A level that I never even envisioned would happen, and it's just been absolutely wonderful and it's made, it's brought Tom and Frank and myself so close, we are so close, it's amazing. Because he continued making my dream come true and making it happen. So, we still have a lot of the paperwork and everything else, but, you know, that basic stuff that I kept when Greg and I went through it, went over to Tom and Frank. And from there, Tom and Frank, or Frank and I helped some, we put together, started cataloging ourselves and putting it so that we could put it on our website so people could see this. And if you go onto our website, you go in there, you can pull up, by rodeo, by year, if we have the program and we have almost all of them there. We've gotten down to, I think, in the 20s. It might even be lower than 20s. Now, as far as programs, people have discovered, and have come forward, and have given. So that's all been done and that just was, to me was, it was my dream come true. That I knew someday, somehow, this would be important.
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PT: And with technology where it's gone and everything else, we don't do posters very much anymore. Flyers, all that, it's all electronic, but we still have the programs. Not always do the associations elect to do a program. But we still, if they do, we still collect it and Frank archives it and keeps it on the website. And it's a very, very interesting portion of the website to go to. You can get a lot of information, a lot of stuff that I learned over the years that I didn't even know occured. And finding out more and more, and I'm still finding out more and more, about gay rodeo that existed before CGRA or IGRA were created. That was going on. And then being thrown out of Reno, Nevada, for our finals rodeo and not being able to have that take place after contestants were up there and ready to go and everything. It was very difficult, but we managed to make that event and/or time still be part of gay rodeo. And, you know, all around, that year that they couldn't have the finals rodeo they gave- at that time there were 2 divisions- and they gave the persons that had the total points, both men and women in division 1, division 2, their buckles as All Around buckles because the buckles had been ordered, everything was in place, but then they couldn't have the rodeo. So did that.
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PT: That's why, if you look at spreadsheets that I've also done for years, and years, and years, and I still do. And I send the updated information to the announcers for the rodeos just, you know, all the people that won, how many they've won by year, everything else. And it took a long time to put that together, I mean, I had to do a lot of researching and look, and looking up stuff myself, but people love it. They love that information and, it once again, makes me feel so proud to be a part of this and do this. And, I'm still doing it. Even though these last two years I took off, I still updated the information and everything else. And there's a big spreadsheet that has all the women, all the men, that have ever won, all around at any rodeo and/or finals. But what's interesting, this year is actually the 31st... World Gay Rodeo Finals but, the one year we awarded two all arounds, both men and women, that screws it up to make it one more. So there's 32 years because I felt it still needed to be recorded and was important.
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PT: And we've been working on, we just celebrated, the 500th rodeo, or 500th gay rodeo event. I have to be careful I say it to make sure I get it all in. It wasn't just rodeos, but it was other events that have taken place. I tried to keep on top of it as much as possible but then when I left from the office it was more difficult for me to keep that updated and everything else. So then, another gentlemen in the last two years came forward, Rodger Bergman, and he went through everything and all that. Now him and I still have a little bit of disagreement on which actually is the 500th rodeo but, you know, it's there. It's there, it's just a matter of when. But it was decided by the board of directors and everything else that the 500th rodeo was the Bay Area rodeo outside of San Francisco, up in the Russian River this year.
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RS: And were you able to make that one?
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PT: No, I didn't. I wasn't able to make that one. This is my first rodeo besides Denver's rodeo that I've gotten back into and so....
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RS: So, as a at-home-archivist, is there, like one poster, or program, something that you think of as your just favorite thing?
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PT: You know, I try, I really do, but just when I think I have it, I look at another one and it's.... It's so hard for me because it brings back, for me, so many memories, people I have met. One of our biggest all around cowboys ever was featured on the front page, I mean on the cover, of the program the year of the finals after he had past away. And that one was my favorite for so long, because I was such good friends with that gentlemen and...
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RS: Can I ask who it was?
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PT: Greg Olsen, Greg Olsen. And, I went to his memorial service and everything. But it was my favorite and then others started coming up and, you know, as electronic and everything else evolved, things become fancier, you know, and everything else. So it's very difficult for me to really pinpoint one thing because I can give an excuse or a give an answer to every single one of them. *laughs* So it's hard for me, personally, to figure out.
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RS: Well, is there anything I haven't asked you about that you want to cover?
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PT: Not really. I mean, I just, you know, the fact that it meant so much to me, and doing that project was so gratifying, and I have been recognized so many years by the International for that. That was part of my getting into the Hall of Fame. I'm a lifetime member with CGRA. So if, it's that whole process. My involvement with IGRA, or with CGRA and IGRA, is part of archives and part of the memories that go back. I share many, many memories. I can't even tell you how many rodeos I've gone to because there's, I can't even remember some of them, because I went to so many. But its not, numbers are not important to me, it's the fact that the history of IGRA, the International, and the archiving, that means more to me because it's beneficial, it'll be beneficial down the road in years to come.
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RS: What do you think it means to young gay people to have their history documented that way?
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PT: I don't know that they really understand archiving; I don't think they really realize it. I know I really didn't until I was older. I was 30 before I came out and so, for me, I was more mature and everything. The young kids, I don't think they really understand archiving and the importance and everything else. They think it just happens, museums just happen, this stuff happens[...] So I would say most people, most of our young folks, don't collect like, like I did, and like a few others.
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PT: There's another gentlemen that, honest to god, his place in Arizona - his name is Dan Iverson - he has collected. And I mean, he has two trailers full of it, to the door. Full of programs and stuff like that. He's got an entire, practically an entire, basement full of it and everything else. And he's very protective of it, he doesn't like to give it up. I had to beg on some of 'em to give, to make it so that we had our archives. And I was never, I've never been able to go down there and spend enough time to go through all of it. 'Cause I'm sure if I did, with all of it that he has collected over the years and everything... 'Cause he was one right in the early years and he was actually Greg Olsen's partner in events, in the camp events, for years. And they were very identifiable, they wore shirts with polka dots on them, and they were both the same [...].
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PT: But, yeah, he saved his stuff and everything else. But every time I've gone to his house and I see something and he's like, "Umm...." And I'm like, "Please, can I have just one? I'm sure you've got another one." Just so that we can make our's complete. And he's good, he's really good about it. But I've never gotten the opportunity to go down there and actually go through everything and I really should before, you know, too late. You know, or something happens, maybe to them. I don't know how long he's gonna keep those trailers full that sit on his property. And all these archives, these just, filing cabinet, after filing cabinet, after filing cabinet in the basement in his house full of all this stuff. And, like I said, I think we could pretty much complete it but it would take a lot of time to go through all that stuff to find... because he wasn't necessarily organized in filling it like I was. He, it's all, kind of thrown together. So it could be various years, could be intermixed, and stuff like that. Maybe someday... maybe someday I can get down there and do it. But I think what we have put together - and I say we because Frank, and Tom, and Brian Rodgers, and people that have served on the committee - have spent a lot of time doing this, but it's all for the good of the organization and to get out and really show what we are.
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RS: Well, thank you so much for your time.
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PT: Absolutely. If you have any other questions, I mean, feel free to contact me; you have my number.
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RS: Wonderful.

Greg Begay

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Renae Campbell: This is Renae Campbell and I am here with Greg Begay and we are at the Denver, Colorado, International Gay Rodeo Association Convention. It's November 22nd, 2019, and we're going to talk a little bit about your background first, if that’s okay. I'd like to start with asking where you were born.
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Greg Begay: I was born on the Navajo Reservation in Fort Defiance, Arizona.
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RC: Okay. And did you grow up there?
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GB: Yeah. Not specifically in Fort Defiance, but in a small local town called Klagetoh. There's probably less than a thousand people that live there.
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RC: So that would be—would you consider that a rural location, probably?
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GB: Well, it's so rural that to this day there's not really cell phone service there. And it's kind of primitive because you have to haul water for some houses—they still don't have running water or plumbing. And some houses don't even have electricity. I love it. It's kind of what I've grown up with, so starting a fire or doing anything manual is not very hard.
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RC: Do you live there still?
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GB: My parents do. My dad works for a company that supplies natural gas to, basically, the U.S. They have a house that runs with electricity and then they have a house that doesn't have electricity. So, you do get both sides of it. I love being back—even though my phone doesn't work.
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RC: So, did you go to school there?
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GB: I went to school there. And then in high school, we went out of town—out of our town—and we went to a private school, a Catholic school. Then ventured off to Tempe for college.
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RC: You said “we.” Do you have brothers and sisters?
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GB: Yeah, I have two sisters and one brother, one older and the other two are younger. So, kind of a big family, I guess. I would think its normal size for that day because nowadays people like to have one child or two children. Unless you're like, what is it, Kate Plus 8?
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RC: It sounds like you and your siblings had a pretty fun time growing up?
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GB: Well, there's a pretty big gap with the younger siblings. I believe my brother is seven or eight years younger and then my little sister’s another seven or eight between them. So, it's kind of like a fourteen-year gap between me and the youngest. We grew up near our cousins, so we always had kids to play with.
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RC: And were you involved in, any sort of—were you around horses, or rodeo, or anything growing up?
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GB: My dad learned rodeo from my uncles and just went with it. And then we were born, me and my older sister, and we kind of just grew up on the road—loaded up into a van in the middle of the night, and drive to a rodeo, and then hang out and play underneath the bleachers, and watch our dad rope. And then, as we got more comfortable with riding and he put us on or he, like, sat us up there, we were like, “We want to do this.” So, we did junior rodeos and little gymkhanas. And then my older sister was very good at sports, so she didn't really do it past like, going into middle school. But I ended up going into high school rodeo. And I did that.
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RC: So, you have a pretty strong background in it?
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GB: Yeah. It's more of a love than just kinda something you picked up. I’m still having the passion to get better, to do better at rodeos. It’s kind of just what I love.
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RC: Nice. So, did you graduate from college?
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GB: I did not, unfortunately. I chose a subject that I’m passionate about but didn't have the focus to remain and do well. And so, I don’t have a college degree.
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RC: What was the subject?
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GB: I went in for pre-veterinarian. Which, there are some days where I think, “Oh, I totally could do that now.” But that’s more bills on top of bills that I have to pay for, right, being an adult. Before it was like, “Oh, I can just go to school, have my parents pay for it.” But it’s not the same now.
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RC: Yeah. So, what do you do for work now?
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GB: I am a blackjack dealer.
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RC: Oh.
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GB: Yeah. It’s fun. I mean, it's fun for me. […] It's fun…90 percent of the time. Ten percent it's, like, dealing with a disgruntled guest or a player that didn't win.
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RC: And where do you work?
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GB: I work in Scottsdale at Talking Stick Resort and Casino, Arizona. I've been there eleven years. I’ve also been doing this going on 14 years, since I turned 21, mostly.
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RC: And you said you were born on the Navajo Reservation?
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GB: Yeah.
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RC: Are you Navajo?
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GB: I am 100 percent Navajo, yes. And my parents, um, they were lucky enough to grow up with family that their first language was Navajo. And then they went to school and they learned English afterwards. Not the same as […] growing up we lived with quite a bit of, what is that, Caucasian families? And they spoke English. So, the difference between me speaking English because we lived with a bunch of families is different than having Navajo kids just normally. The English is a little different. That's kind of how they were. It wasn't like a normal thing to hear people speak English then. Them learning afterwards, it just kind of evolved.
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RC: In your household, then, did you speak primarily Navajo?
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GB: When we were young, it was kinda just English. In high school, me and my older sister had to take Navajo language as an elective to meet the requirements for certain Navajo scholarships for college. We did that and we did pick up on most of it. Conversation-wise, we're not very good but we know certain words and we fill in the blanks, mostly.
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RC: So, when your parents are talking, you can…?
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GB: You’re like, “Oh, they're talking about us.” And then like, “Uh…no, it's not good, let's go.” But Rosetta Stone did make it as a language, so I plan to get that. Because my grandmother passed away two years ago, and I couldn’t really have a conversation with her because she never spoke English. She knew certain words like “pop” or “soda,” but having a conversation with her was, well, was never achieved. I missed out on that.
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RC: So, you did rodeo in high school and then did you keep doing rodeo after that?
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GB: I still compete in both rodeos. I mean, I’m a member of the Gay Rodeo Association, but I also compete in the World Series of team roping, and Indian rodeos, and, just everywhere where horses take me, really. I didn’t really stop. I did traditional rodeos all through high school ‘cause, at the time, I was competitive enough to stick with people that are older than me. And doing high school rodeo was, it was just fun. I didn't have a great partner then because I kind of got into it late. I started my senior year and so I kinda got the leftovers, I think. So, sometimes it clicked, most of the time it didn’t, but it was still fun.
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RC: How did you discover the IGRA?
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GB: I think I was like nineteen or twenty, and I was hearing all this gay stuff, like, “I think there's a gay rodeo.” And I searched it up on the internet. And then I forgot to delete the search history and my mom was like, “What is this?” I was like, “Oh, I was just wondering if they had an association for themselves.” Because I didn't come out until I was twenty-one, so it kinda led into something that I wasn't prepared for. So, when did I go? My first gay rodeo was—I think I was twenty-three.
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RC: You came out before you joined?
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GB: Yeah, I joined in February of 2009. So, I’d already been twenty-one, or maybe it’s twenty-four. Yeah, twenty-four. And so, that’s when I joined them and went to my first rodeo. And I wasn't as involved then as I am now. At the time, I was living paycheck to paycheck and I was like, “I really have to watch my money.” And when I went to my first rodeo and I got paid I was like, “Man, this check isn't really what I'm used to winning.” Like, when I win, it’s not very big, so then I was like, “Okay….”
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RC: So, did you participate in the first IGRA rodeo that you went to?
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GB: Yes. I entered; I went…. I think I got there Friday during the day. And then I went and I kinda did some research on, like, entering, and reading the rulebook, and new contestants will have no late fee. I was like, “Okay.” So, I went, and I registered, and I competed. I did well. I think I won the breakaway and I might have placed in the team roping. But I was still new so I kind of—I competed and then right after I was done, I would go back to my truck and I would sit in my truck because I didn't know anybody and not a lot of people talked to me. So, I just kinda went back to the truck and then sat in there and waited ‘till my event came up again and then went back to the arena.
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RC: And then, you decided relatively soon after that to go to another one? Or did you think about it for a while?
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GB: Um, no. I think the next rodeo I went to was like August. That was in Las Vegas. And it, that rodeo, was only a one-round rodeo. So, I went to that and did well. I didn't take my own horse then. And I asked somebody, “Hey, can I borrow your horse for this event?” And, fortunately, she said “Yes.” And I did well on it. And then, um, I think I went to my first finals—that was in Albuquerque in 2009. And I didn't have enough points to go in the team roping myself, so I had to partner with somebody and then get invited through them. I made it in the breakaway also, so then I had two events. Did that, and it was fun for me.
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RC: And is that when you kind of started meeting more people?
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GB: I mean… yeah, but there wasn't a bunch of communication. Like, I was either too shy or I didn't know their phone number. Back then, I think it was like MySpace, and I just didn't get all that together yet. But, um, I went to—the next year, I think I went to three rodeos. But I didn't go to finals because I had just gotten this new job and I kinda was like, “Now I have to wait.” I was tempted to do the suicide missions of going to work, and then driving three hours to the rodeo, rodeoing, drive back, sleep for like 30 minutes, and then go to work again. I was like, “I think I can do that,” but I was like, “I can't, because when I am going to sleep? And I might run off the road with my horses.” So, I opted not to go to the finals. And it was sad because it was fairly close to me and I really like the facility because I've been there before.
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RC: So, what are your main events that you compete in?
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GB: Currently?
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RC: Yeah—has it changed over time?
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GB: Oh, yeah. Back then, I think I did the calf roping on foot, break-away, team roping, barrels, poles, and flags. And I tried wild drag then, but never really was successful so not a lot of people asked me or competed with me. But now I do break-away, calf roping on foot, team roping, barrels, poles, flags, steer decorating, goat dressing, and wild drag.
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RC: You do a lot of them!
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GB: Yeah. It's an all-day event. Things just go, and go, and go. Like, from the moment we wake up to feed the horses, to the night when cleaning stalls, and watering, and graining; having sometime to eat something, or get relaxed enough to have a drink and hang out with people. Sometimes, I'm just not feeling it. I'm just so run down, I’m like “I'm going to sleep.” And it does… make it look like I don't want to be around people, but I’m literally just thinking about myself like, “I want to be able to do well tomorrow.”
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RC: Do you go to a lot more rodeos now?
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GB: Right now, I think I went to seven. Arizona, Palm Springs, Santa Fe, Denver, San Francisco, Vegas, and finals. So, yeah, seven. When I first started, I only went to two a year and now I go to seven. And, I mean, I really wouldn’t to be able to go to that many without my sponsors because they do help financially and they're supportive enough to, like—I'm able to get to there without having trouble or being in a predicament where I wouldn't be able to enter as many rodeos.
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RC: What's the process like for finding sponsors?
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GB: I would think it’s—I think it's mostly about personality and what you bring to the table. I mean, anybody can be good but you’re essentially representing that association, or those people. So, the process, I mean, I went up and I talked to people. Face-to-face is always easier and you're gonna get a better response than writing a letter. And I've done that. I've written letters and I've gotten turned down. And some sponsors asked, “What can you do for us?” I'm like, “Well, this is what I plan to do. I don't know if it'll work.”
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RC: So, who are your sponsors now?
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GB: I’m sponsored by Charlie's of Phoenix and John King—he owns the bar there in Phoenix. And my friend owns his own horse—performance horse training— and providing horses, and he sponsors me as well. I do have another sponsor in California. She is an equine therapist, it's called “A Step Ahead Equine.” And she does Acuscope and Myoscope treatments, sort of like relaying micro-pulses of electricity through your body to help and heal. So, she's done treatment on my horses and myself—like when I tore my ACL, when I broke my leg, and when I fell off a horse. She treated me after the rodeo. It really did help with soreness.
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RC: So, have you had many injuries throughout your career?
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GB: I don't know. I wouldn't say… there's only been like one real injury where it did take me out, or—two actually—that really took me out from competing. One was a concussion where I tried to ride steer riding, and that didn't work out too good. And then, the second was when I broke my leg in the pole bending. I had a horse up front, unfortunately, slip and fall. And my ankle was the one that took everything, and it broke it. Stopped the rodeo. Ugh. That wasn't…. but it was fun.
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GB: I mean, in the sense that when I fell and I was laying in the middle of the arena, and people were trying to hide me from the crowd because they didn’t want to see what would happen, or if I was gonna say something. But I guess I was like, “Why are you guys hiding me from my fans?” [laughs] In all honesty, my ankle really didn't hurt until I got to the hospital. I think the adrenaline had worn off by then.
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RC: How long before you could compete again after that?
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GB: So, I think I got on a horse… a month after. Way before I was allowed to, but that's just, that’s just me. I don't want to be away from that. And I watched this movie recently, it was sad. It was very sad. It's like, I think it's “One of Us” or something like that. Where it’s talking with people about getting injured and ending up in a wheelchair. One person was injured when they were a toddler, somebody was injured like two weeks ago and they’re quadriplegic.
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GB: And it was sad because they're like, “I just want to get back.” Like one guy did stem cell and it didn't work, and he was like, “I’m fighting to get back to be able to walk.” And one guy kind of made improvements. But I guess that's what was in me. Like, I didn't want to get stuck away from that. I didn’t want to be that person that it got taken away from me. I think that's why I tried to get back as fast—trying not to lose what I love.
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RC: And was that—where you injured yourself—at an IGRA event or rodeo?
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GB: Yes. All the times that I've actually been injured has been in a gay rodeo. I got concussed doing gay rodeo that took me out of rodeo for the rest of the day. But apparently, I didn't know what was going on. Like, I would, I kept asking the same questions. Then, I got injured again when the horse broke its leg. And then, at finals in Albuquerque, I got kicked in the knee and tore my ACL. But I didn't know it. That was the second event of that first day, the first go, and I competed that whole weekend and ended up second in the all-around. But I won the team roping and the break-away. Not knowing that, I had a torn ACL for like eight months until I got it fixed. I competed that whole next year with the torn ACL. Can't stop me, I guess.
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RC: I guess not, yeah. And it sounds like you've won a number of all-arounds and other things?
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GB: Oh, that's, I mean…
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RC: Do you have some titles you’re particularly proud of?
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GB: I am particularly proud of the individual event that… I am very strong in the breakaway roping. It's fast; it can be difficult. The timing part and being together with your horse, it really does make it challenging for myself. And anytime I can be a two, I'm thrilled about it. But there are times where I have gone in no time and.... that's the one I really beat myself up on. If I make a mistake in that event, then I really am upset about that. As far as team events, I have been team roping basically my whole life and any time I can win the team roping with my partner—which is, I would say, ninety-nine percent of the time at the gay rodeos, is my best friend—and anytime we can win that together, it just it just makes everything that much better.
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GB: I don't know. Winning the all-around for the year end, does make things that much better. If you win the all-around, then you’re there. You’re on fire because you can't win the all-around just by winning a little bit. […] This past finals, the finals was really in my home town—basically where I live now. And I, I did let the pressure get to me the first day. I really wanted to do good, I just…. And that doesn’t happen all too often. But, the second day, I kicked butt. It was fun. I guess, I just let everything go. I was like, “I can do the things I can control but that's about it. I can't really hang on to yesterday because that doesn't make any—that doesn't make me get points for today.”
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RC: Did you have any family members or friends come and watch you?
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GB: My little sister has recently been an amazing cheerleader and team supporter of me and my friends. So, she was there all day. I think she got there Friday-ish late and stayed the whole weekend. My older sister came Saturday, and she stayed pretty much the whole day. And that's a big thrill. I did hear her when I was running poles. I heard her, like, I know distinctly I can hear her voice. And she's like, “Go!” I was like, I heard it. I was like, “Wait, I’m doing something right now. I gotta focus!” [laughs] But, this rodeo association has kind of become a family to me. We look out for each other, we help each other when we need it, or if we can. So, it's never like I'm alone. That’s just kind of how it's been for me. I don't know about everybody else, but it kinda transformed into a rodeo family and makes everything a little bit better.
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RC: That's actually something I hear over and over again.
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GB: Yeah, well, growing up in traditional rodeo and going all these ropings, you do get that same camaraderie. Sometimes it’s, they're out to beat each other, to win. And some people can't, if they're winning, they can allow themselves to help out somebody who needs it. The competitiveness drives more than just being normal—just a normal person. But here, not always. I mean, there are some people that just compete for themselves. It happens. Can't really control that part of that.
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GB: But, if I can help you in any way that you're going to do your best or that I can help you to do your best, I'm going to do it. If you need me to stand in the box with your horse right before I have to go, I’m gonna try to help you if nobody else can help you. I've helped several of my competitors do that this year because they, not only do they make me compete harder and with more heart, it just makes the rodeo better. When people are catching, and riding, and doing the best, then they're making a good showing. Why not try to help them?
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RC: So, is that kind of one of the big differences you’ve seen? Since you've been involved in different rodeos, is there something that makes IGRA different than the other rodeos you've been involved with?
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GB: Oh, man. It's not, there’s not a difference between night and day. It's like, little small things. It's an association that is including, like, down to the timers and volunteers. That in, that sense, what I see is different than traditional rodeos. I don't see a whole lot of the production side of traditional rodeos and what is involved. I go there, show up, rope, sometimes I leave immediately after. Sometimes I wait and watch some of the rodeo, or I get there early and watch part of the rodeo.
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GB: But, since I'm in so many events in the gay rodeo, I see it a whole different side and things that are different from my point of view. But, it's a rodeo. I mean, I can't really say that it's that much different, other than the quality of contestants is different. And, you're going to get that from different associations and rodeo backgrounds—like there are people that learn how to ride at an older age, or people that rode a long time ago but their training technique has is behind the curve, coming up and learning new things. So, it's not something that is directly different.
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RC: Okay. And, so are you involved in any of—sort of—the planning and behind the scenes type of stuff?
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GB: I am not. I would like to think I'm a leader, but I'm really not. [laughs] I am a very good teammate. I’m “You asked me to do this. I'll do it.” If you have an idea, I can help out, structuring it and figuring out how exactly to do it but I am not a good planner. I… planning doesn’t work for my lifestyle. Anything that I plan goes to crap and so I don't plan. I am very spontaneous. I take off when I want to. Like, buying plane tickets is hard because I'm like, “I don't want to go now.”
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RC: But I bet you have to do that for a lot of rodeos, right? Or, do you drive your horses?
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GB: Um, I drive. I drive because I have horses. And so, there's no, I mean, if that were an option, it would be easier—but no. This trip was probably one of the few that I didn't have to worry about my horses. But I had to make reservations for a hotel, and make flight plans, and stuff like that. And then, the last minute I was like, “I'll just take my own truck to the airport and park it at the east parking lot instead of having to get dropped off. […] The plan was to get dropped off, and then somebody drive me home so I could get my truck, so I could go to work. But then, I ended up changing that like, literally, the last minute. So, yeah, planning doesn’t work for me.
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RC: But you made it here!
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GB: Oh, yeah. That was always the goal. I wouldn't say a plan, but it was always the goal. And, like, a couple of days before I was leaving, I was like, “I’ll just stay home. They don’t need me.” But, probably should—I need to do something.
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RC: Is your local organization Arizona?
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GB: Yeah. Yeah, I kind of ventured away for a couple of years and then I went back. But I’ve always been with Arizona.
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RC: And did you—you said you did a couple camp events, is that right?
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GB: Yeah. I do the steer decorating, the goat dressing, and the wild drag.
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RC: So, you do a lot of them.
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GB: Yeah, I do a lot of it.
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RC: Are those events that you enjoy being part of the rodeo?
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GB: Um, I… I don’t know. It’s just, sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's challenging. And I do almost all—I do all my team events with my best friend. So, we know when somebody’s slacking or if they can't do it. And if we can't get it done, then we just say, “That's it, we left it all out there.” But, I mean, some of the events are funny. It just cracks me up. So I can't really say that, I mean, there's no event like it other than in gay rodeo. Like, the wild drag is an easier way of doing wild horse racing, being that they use a wild horse, and they put a saddle on the horse, and they let it go. Basically, they let it go. They don't drive it like we do with a steer.
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RC: So, is your best friend someone you met here? Or did they…
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GB: So, I met my best friend, yeah, through gay rodeo. But that's not how you should meet her best friend.
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RC: Why do you say that?
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GB: I met my best friend David in Palm Springs, like, six years ago now. And I had roped in the break-away and I won the first round, like by a considerable amount. But David was second, and his time was pretty good. And, on average, the times aren’t always great. So, I was like, “Oh, well, this is somebody that's gonna rope.” And then, um, he had slaughtered everybody in the barrel racing. And I ran but it wasn't that great. And then, like, I guess the tradition after that rodeo was everybody was supposed to go to the same restaurant and eat there. And it was called Grandmas, or something like that. It was like a small diner. And so, you get this huge block of corn bread with almost every meal.
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GB: And so, he's sitting there eating and then, he's like, “So are you gonna rope the same?” Or something came up with me roping and he wanted to barrel race I said, “Do you really need to be eating that cornbread?” And it was so bad! Like, it sounds really bad, but it was kind of like funny/shady. So, our best friends started with an insult. […] And then, I think we danced on Sunday night like normal, I guess. I don't know. We just danced. I was like, “No, I don’t want to dance.” And he’s like, “I'll show you. So, we just danced, and then like five, three—like three months later—the Bay Area Rodeo was happening and he had normally roped with this team roping partner.
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GB: And she went another way and teamed up with somebody else. And so, he was kind of searching for a partner. And then, he, I guess he got my phone number from somebody, he's like, “Hey, this is David [...].” And I'm like, “Uh, hi?” And he’s like, “If you fly up here, I'll find you a horse to ride in the barrels and poles. Will you rope with me in the team roping?” And I was like, “Um, I’d have to check with work but, I mean, yeah. That sounds fun.” And so I went there. And then we kicked his old partners butt in the team roping. And we’ve kind of been friends since. I mean, it evolved into being best friends and treating him like family. So, that's kind of just what we have. Our relationship started with me being shady.
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RC: So, do you country dance much? Or do other dance?
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GB: I don't. I don't dance country very often. […] And even if, it looks very amateur. But dancing is fun. I don't go out, typically, a whole lot. I haven't really been into that scene. So, yeah, I’m kind of like the boring homebody. I like being home with family, it feels more comfortable. That’s just me.
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RC: Yeah. Do you have any favorite moments from rodeos?
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GB: Oh, there—geeze—that's a big one. [pause] My favorite of, like, all time—well, one of them is when I, we went to Canada for the rodeo there in 2015. In order for […] me and David's rodeo to be somewhat financially profitable, we had to run the same course in one event. And I ran my, I ran, I won, the pole bending buckle that weekend. And, it was just, it wasn't easy because I had to run against David on the same horse. And that horse, he’s had that horse forever. And to get that, to be able to beat him, was a feat in itself.
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GB: And then I ended up riding that horse at finals that year. And I ran my first twenty on the pole bending on him. And that, I mean running twenties, is hard unless you're really small, like a small girl or a small guy and just having a horse that works really good. But to be over 200 pounds, you’re resisting—like that resistance is heavier, so it's going to slow you down anyway. But to ride my first twenty was amazing. I cried. It was awesome. But then…there's so many highlights in my life as far as rodeo goes. Like almost winning a truck, or winning a roping in Vegas. It—there's too many—there's too many highlights to say that one is better than the other because it just fills up everything.
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RC: Yeah. Do you sport your buckles that you’ve won very often?
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GB: Um, some of them. There's quite a few, so the prettiest ones, I guess I wear. I guess the buckle company sometimes that they order from, they end up just selecting the same outline and so they kind of look—a quite a bit of them—a few look at the same. Most of the time I wear them. Like right now I'm wearing the all-around buckle from the 2015, from the finals. It’s one I’m proud of.
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RC: And do you plan to kinda keep being involved in IGRA in the future?
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GB: Um, so long as it's still around, I plan to be in it. There's nothing that stops me really from going. Probably unless I got, like, if I had gotten a partner that was mind controlling and beat me if I left the house, that probably would be the only way stop. But I'm not in to those kind of people…
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RC: That’s good.
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GB: I guess nothing would really stop me. And I do support the association, and being that it's a charity event, it does—it gives back. I'm proud of that. I'm the entertainment. I'm like, I wouldn’t say I'm Beyoncé. But, if she were to do a benefit concert, I’m that. I'm that singer. But I can't sing. I’m horrible.
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RC: [laughs] You’re the Beyoncé that doesn't sing?
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GB: Yes. I'm a mime.
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RC: [laughs] Nice. Well, what do you think about IGRA in the future? Do you have any hopes or fears?
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GB: Ah, […] Hope is tough, because people feed on hope, and it doesn't happen, and it hurts. Like, I'm one of the youngest competitors. And I’m 34. So our pool hasn't really grown lately. Being that there are associations that pay better and there are gay cowboys and gay cowgirls that see that. They see the dollar signs. But they don't realize what can happen when you compete here. They don't have, they don't realize that, to be—their success isn’t judged by how much you win. Like, you can be successful and be friends with everybody. When you compete in traditional barrel races, you know, there's winners. But it’s not all about the money. I mean, in some senses, where I do enter, it's about money. Yeah, for sure. I'm going for that. But, to be able to hang out with people and feel like I don't have to worry about anything.
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RC: Do you feel like you have to worry about stuff when you compete in non-IGRA rodeos?
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GB: Oh, um, not anymore.
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RC: Okay.
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GB: I kind of give the, the notion that, nothing they do to me can hurt me. Unless they physically hurt me. I've crossed that mental barrier a long time ago. I put up with the, kind of the, hazing, as you could call it. I don’t, I mean, I don't care that I'm different in the sense that I like the same sex. But people do. And sometimes their view changes—and that's cool. But I won't make the decision to go or not because of some person. I'll do it foremost if my horse is healthy, or if I'm healthy, or financially I can make it.
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GB: That's what I plan on, or that’s what I go on. I don't go on the fact that somebody’s not going to like me. I’m real sure that not every person likes me. I'm not going to stop because some person doesn't think that I should be there. I've taken straight people's money just as much as I do the gay people's money. And being that competitor—like, I grew up doing high school sports and junior rodeos—I’ve always wanted to be. So, it doesn't matter where I’m at, I’m still going to try to win.
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RC: Nice. So, do you think that the money, maybe, is kind of the main thing that is holding back, maybe the younger generation from joining?
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GB: I think some. I think some view the money more, yeah. But I think some see that it's “gay,” the word “gay” is in there. And that’s gonna make people look at them differently.
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RC: Even if they are people that identify that way?
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GB: Yeah. I mean, I know a couple that recently got married that they go to all these barrel races, and they post about it, and they posted their wedding pictures. And they don’t come to our rodeos. I mean, I wouldn't understand why, because they live in Arizona. But like, why? I mean, our entry fees aren’t more than the barrel races that they go to, so I can’t see why. And if they think they have such great horses, why wouldn’t you go and show off a little bit? If you're going for the money, try to take our money. But they're scared. In some sense, they’re scared. They don’t want to be known, I guess. I mean, that's my personal opinion. I don't know if that's truly how it is. But typically, when people get beat up or... something gets taken away from somebody is because part of them is scared. They’re scared of something.
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RC: Yeah…
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GB: I don't know. Can’t really help them.
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RC: Yeah. Yeah, there's not much you can do then…
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GB: No. I mean, I've reached out even to people that I know that are gay. And I try to keep—I tried to say, “Hey, just so you know, there's a rodeo coming up that's pretty close—if you can make it.” And then sometimes they're like, “I don't have a horse right now, or financially I can't go.” And that's understandable. But I do try to reach out. Some people have asked me for help on how to do things or coaching. But I can't force—I can't manipulate people into going. They have to ultimately choose to go. And it sucks because some of the competitors that are good now won't be good next year. Don’t know.
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RC: Yeah.
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GB: I mean, I've gone so far as taking my little brother who is straight. And we competed in a few—like one year, we competed in the team roping. I hold the, our association's record in the team roping with him. That’s the fastest time. So, I’m proud of that.
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RC: So, does your little brother also do rodeo?
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GB: Yes. Everybody has done rodeo—even my mom, like, back in the day. She doesn't compete anymore, but she's a good videographer and she stresses for us more than we stress for ourselves. My older sister doesn't compete anymore. After our good horse when we were kids got hurt, and we had to retire him, that kinda fire left. So, she doesn't compete anymore. But I am roping with my brother in Vegas in a couple of weeks and excited about that. Really excited. So, I'm practicing a lot. And just getting ready for that. And we just had a rodeo this past weekend, just outside of Phoenix, with my dad and my brother.
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RC: Sounds like you stay very busy.
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GB: Oh, yeah. This weekend there was a roping that I wanted to go to but then I was asked quite a bit ago to come to this—to the convention. And so, I was like, “Yeah, I’ll go.”
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RC: Are you serving as a delegate here?
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GB: Yes. For the Arizona Gay Rodeo.
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RC: Nice. And have you been to convention before, or is this…?
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GB: I have never been. It's kind of an eye-opener. Sitting in rodeo rules, it's interesting the logic behind some people’s thoughts and how some person views this and, like, trying to change some rules to make it easier or more better for the contestants. But we’ll see what happens. I mean, it's not…voted. It's not approved yet by the whole convention. So, we'll see.
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RC: That's tomorrow?
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GB: Yeah.
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GB: We'll see how people like me then. They might not like me anymore.
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RC: Do you feel like you’ve been outspoken on some issues since you've been here?
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GB: Yes, yes. But...I always get the notion that people don't like me anyway. But, it's not like hatred, is just like “How many times are you gonna win?” Like, “You won, why don't you let us win.” I mean, I guess it's just the practice that I put in. I've been doing this a long time, so it's very…the muscle memory is there. And it might be a mental game with some people. I mean, I don't know. I mean, if you were to ask me, “What did I do wrong?” Well, this is what I saw but I don’t know how you feel like you were doing it. When I mess up or I do something wrong, I watched tons of videos. I go back and I watch it, and I break it down. I just pick myself apart to make myself a little bit better every time.
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RC: So, do you—you don't have to share this—but, were there any rules that you suggested changes to?
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GB: Um, yes. Two of them. One was with break away, just having a uniform string through all of it. Because some people use different densities or quality of string. And some is easier to break, and some is harder. Like, I rope with the hardest one to break. But it makes a pop and it makes the rope fly out faster. That’s just me.
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RC: Nice. Okay, So, is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you would like to add?
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GB: Um… I'm very single. [laughs]
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RC: [laughs] You want me to put that on the website?
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GB: Yes.
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RC: Okay.
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GB: No, I don’t know. I really don't know because there are tons of things to talk about, tons of things that don't get spoken on. But it doesn’t directly have to do with me. So, I don't—I don't stick my feet where I don't need to be. Um…I just wish there’d be more, I mean, I wish there were sponsors for our association that would allow us to probably grow as well as the PRCA, or even like some of the amateur rodeos that get kind of national sponsorships. I just kind of wish...I guess, I just wish we weren’t turned away as much as others. […] I reached out to one company, and they were like, “Well, we don’t support that.” So, wow, okay.
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RC: Wow, that’s frustrating.
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GB: Yes. Don't tell anybody this, but I eat Chick-fil-A. [laughs] They employ gay people, so who cares?
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RC: Yeah… that’s a personal choice.
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GB: I like Chick-fil-A, though.
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RC: I have never actually eaten Chick-fil-A.
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GB: Oh, my God!
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RC: Just because, I never really have. [laughs]
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GB: It's, like, right out here.
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RC: I saw it over there.
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GB: It’s so good.
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RC: [laughs] Okay. Um, so the last question that I usually ask everyone is whether you consider yourself to be a cow person/a cowboy or cowgirl.
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GB: Ooh. That's a tough question.
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RC: That’s why I save it for last.
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GB: In a sense that I'm a performance rodeo athlete, yeah. But as far as the old historic term of being a cowboy, I don't work on a ranch. I don’t heard cattle. I mean, yes. I do when they get out and I have to chase them back to the house. But, I mean, I know how to castrate a horse. I’ve done it twice this year, so there’s that. [laughs] But…as far as being an athlete, I am a cowboy. As far as farming and taking care of animals—like, animal husbandry—yes. But herding animals, no. It’s just, it’s a big question. It’s like, do you consider yourself a professional interviewer?
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RC: Huh. Probably not.
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GB: But you are an interviewer.
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RC: Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, it's however you want to answer it. It’s whatever nuance you want to bring to it, right?
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GB: Just, I mean, I feel like I am a performance athlete. Because I trained my body, I trained my mind, I trained my horses. Perfect practice makes perfect, not practice makes perfect. Because you can practice whenever and do whatever but until you try to make. perfect in everything…I mean, essentially perfect is never going to be attainable, but if you can allow yourself to train as if you could be perfect, that is attainable. Yeah. I think, I don't know…That's how I see myself, as a performance athlete.
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RC: Okay, cool. Well, thank you very much for sharing some time with me today.
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GB: No Problem
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RC: I'm going to go ahead and stop this.