story by Sharon Adams
There are names known to any rodeo fan: Casey Tibbs, Lane Frost, Harry Vold, Charmayne and Scamper, Bodacious, Descent, Tuf Cooper, Everett E. Turner. Wait a minute, Everett E. Turner?? Never heard of him! He was not a rodeo star but without Mr. Turner, rodeo today might have been very different.
Everett E. Turner was a young professor of range management when he went to a meeting of college students at Sul Ross State College in Alpine, Texas. It was an informal gathering of students and he was the only faculty member to attend. The students were talking about joining men from some other colleges to form a college rodeo association. And it was not going to be easy. This was in November of 1948 and rodeo as a sport was looked on with little if any enthusiasm by most if not all college administrations.
As well-known Texas author Elmer Kelton wrote in an article from the 1970s about college rodeo: “Football was the official college sport. Rodeo, many administrators thought, was a narrow interest shared only by some over-the-hill war veterans and a few starry-eyed freshmen whose book-learning potential was subject to question. If a student had any intelligence, he wouldn’t compete in rodeo anyway. A man could get hurt.”
Over the next several months, students from several colleges and universities persisted in their efforts and the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association was formed. Those first few competitions made enough of a publicity splash to come to the attention of the manager of the Cow Palace in San Francisco and he decided to put on the first national intercollegiate rodeo finals. Each participating school could send a six-man team.
Rodeo clubs at the various schools began scrambling to put together a team with versatile cowboys who could make points in more than one event. Two Sul Ross club members who did not qualify for the team really wanted to see their school have a good chance at the championship. Ralph Hines loaned his good horse for the team to use and Bud Hawkins, in a time when most students did not have a car, loaned his car for the trip.
Sul Ross had a good team set up: Buster Lindley, Gene Newman, Charles Hall, Bob Hull, Hank Finger and Carroll Brumley. But at the last moment Carroll Brumley could not go. That is when faculty advisor Everett E. Turner stepped in. Sul Ross had a transfer student from New Mexico. He was a veteran, a B-29 radio operator in World War II. Mr. Turner asked him to take Brumley’s place. The team was not too happy about that. It did not seem fair, the new guy had only been around for a semester and they were in the dark about his skills.
Mr. Turner persisted and the new student was grudgingly accepted.
Harley May, the transfer student from New Mexico, led his team to the college championship at the First Finals in 1949, and the second finals in 1950, and the third finals in 1951! Each of those three years he was the Men’s All-Around Champion! In 1949, he was also the Champion Bareback Rider and Bull Rider. In 1950, he was the Champion Saddle Bronc Rider and the Champion Bull Rider. In 1951 he was the Champion Saddle Bronc Rider.
May went on to a remarkable career in professional rodeo, winning three Steer Wrestling championships, placing in the top 15 in all seven rodeo events at one time or another. He served four terms as president of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and in 1959, ten years after that fateful trip to the first College Finals Rodeo, he organized the PRCA’s first National Finals Rodeo in Dallas.
And that is why the sport of rodeo owes a debt of gratitude to Everett E. Turner! The Everett E. Turner Range and Animal Science Building on the campus of Sul Ross University acknowledges Mr. Turner and his contribution to range management and animal science. His insistence that the new student make the trip to San Francisco contributed a bit to the sport of rodeo, too! And maybe we can spare a word of thanks to those two cowboys who couldn’t make the trip but they loaned a horse and a car to help their team!
Thanks to Elmer Kelton, College Rodeo Comes of Age; article for NIRA publication,circa 1977, and Sylvia Mahoney, College Rodeo From Show to Sport, 2004, Texas A&M Press
