Back When They Bucked with Ed Sundby

Ed Sundby averaged 70,000 miles a year on his 1966 Ford pickup with a little white topper camper, while he rodeoed, and he loved every minute of it.
And to make money for entry fees, the North Dakota cowboy did some Roman riding as a specialty act.
Born in 1952 to Orvin and Ginger Sundby, he was raised in Williston and started out in horse shows and doing the cow cutting. But it was too slow-paced for him.
“That wasn’t enough action for me,” he said, so he started with Little Britches Rodeo, then progressed to high school, college, amateur and the professional ranks.
In high school, he was a steer wrestler, bareback rider and cutter, then added saddle bronc riding and bull riding.
He was the 1968 North Dakota High School Rodeo All-Around winner, and in college won the bareback riding for the Great Plains Region three times (1970-71, 74), twice while at the University of North Dakota-Williston, then at the National College of Business (NCB) in Rapid City.
He and his dad believed in practice.
His dad, who never competed much but had been a steer wrestler, built an indoor arena.
The Sundbys borrowed bucking horses from Marvin Brookman and Jack Fettig, and had plenty of steers.
“There were nights when I would bulldog fifty head of steers,” Ed said. “Dad would haze for me. He enjoyed it as much as I did.”
Then, he’d ride two or three bareback horses, and the next night, switch to saddle bronc riding. It was good practice time. “When I practiced, I practiced with a purpose. You have to, if you want to go on with rodeo.”
Even in the winter, they practiced, seven nights a week. The only time they didn’t was if it got to -5 degrees F, because they thought at that temperature it was too hard on the horses. The barn wasn’t heated, but with the bucking stock and steers, it was comfortable, he said.
Orvin liked it as much as his son did. “He was down in the barn with us, every night. He really loved it.” Orvin believed in hard work; his work day started at 5 am, and after work, they’d be in the barn practicing till 10:30 or 11 pm each night.
While in high school, Ed added a bit of Roman riding to his repertoire. He had been Roman riding a mare and her son, a gelding, in the practice arena at home.
As he got better at it, he was asked to perform at rodeos, mostly amateur, with his pay going towards his entry fees.
For a time, he put his younger brother Lynn, thirteen years his junior, on his shoulders as he Roman rode and jumped the horses.
The UND-Williston college rodeo team practiced at the arena, as did many of Ed’s friends, including college teammates Mark Ellis, Don Schwalbe, and Rick Woodward.
Between his time at UND-Williston and NCB, he sat out of college for a year, while he worked for his future father-in-law.
Ed had met Connie Schatz, also a high school rodeo contestant, at a high school rodeo, and he jokes that she chased him. “She was running after me,” he laughed, “and she just wouldn’t leave me alone.” While she finished high school, Ed worked for her dad, till she was college age. Then the two of them went to Rapid City’s NCB.
They courted for several years before marrying in 1974. “She had to chase me for a couple years before she caught me,” he joked. But in seriousness, he said, “She was always the one for me.”
After college, the couple moved to Williston. Ed began pro rodeo competition, but felt the obligation to get a job, rodeoing on weekends. “I thought, if you’re married, you should have a job,” he said.
For several years, he was a heavy equipment operator. Then his dad, who owned a federal meat processing plant, asked him to join the business. When Orvin passed in 1982, Ed and a partner, Gene Storoe, purchased it. When Gene wanted out, Ed got out as well, selling the company.
Then he went into the oilfield business in the abandoned well segment for several years, including buying and selling equipment.
After that, he managed Schatz Truck Stop in Minot for 18 years, then went back to the oilfield, till he retired in 2019.
Ed had become a Rodeo Cowboys Association (forerunner to the PRCA) member in the early 1970s, while in college, and continued to rodeo for the next decade.
He competed at a few N.D. Rodeo Association events, but at the time, cowboys couldn’t do both associations: they had to choose one. So he chose the pros. “And it was the right move for me. I did all right.”
At first, he did the steer wrestling and the three roughstock events, but by 1976, he concentrated solely on the steer wrestling and bareback riding.
He traveled across the western half of the nation, from Denver to Edmonton, and from Calgary to Texas. He and Connie’s honeymoon was at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, where he joked, “I was going to leave her at Alcatraz, but they didn’t want her.”
In college, he made lifelong friends, rodeoing with Paul Tierney, Monte Melvin, Billy Zurcher and Doug Corrington on his rodeo team. “College was great,” Ed said. “We didn’t get a lot of schooling in.”
He didn’t drink or smoke and attributes his good health to that fact. “I’ve never had a drink and never had a cigarette,” he said. “I was serious about what I wanted to do.” Hauling his steer wrestling horses was part of the motivation to not drink. “I always drove,” he said. “I never let anybody else drive, and I wanted to know where my hat was the next morning and where my vehicle was.”
He rodeoed against Tom Miller, who was a student at Black Hills State University (Rapid City, S.D.) from 1967-1971.
Ed “rode awfully well,” Tom said. “He was very correct in the way he rode. He just didn’t buck off many.” Tom remembered Ed always having a smile on his face. “Ed was very much a gentleman and a good person. Still is.”
Ed has made sure to give back to the sport. He held bulldogging schools for young people at the family arena in Williston, and judged rodeos, including high school events in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, and some pro rodeos as well.
He figures it was his duty to contribute. “I felt it was a way to give back,” he said, “to the people who helped me.”
Ed’s last ride was in 1982 in Sidney, Montana. Between work and a family, it was time to stay closer to home.
He and Connie have two sons: Ty, who lives in Bismarck, N.D., and Cody, a former PRCA and PBR bull rider who lives in Williston. They have two grandchildren and a great-grandson.
The couple spends winters in Gold Canyon, Arizona and summers in Hill City, S.D.
He enjoyed the sport. “When I went to a rodeo, I loved going. If I won anything, it was a bonus.”
The friends are life-long. “They’re amazing, and they’re for life. It’s like college. You never forget your college buddies, and rodeo is the same way. If you see them after 30 years, you pick up right where you left off.
Does he miss it? “I’d have to say I do. If I was 18, I’d love to start all over.”
Ed is a 2016 inductee in the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, a 2018 inductee in the University of North Dakota-Williston Sports Hall of Fame, and a PRCA Gold Card Member.