Phillipsburg site of memorial bull riding for Stockton bull rider
Phillipsburg, Kan. – September 19, 2022 – A bull riding will be held Sept. 24 to honor a Kansas cowboy.
The Richard Schleicher Memorial Bull Riding will take place at the Phillipsburg Rodeo grounds on Sept. 24 at 6 pm.
The bull riding will be in honor of Stockton native Richard Schleicher, who passed away in a car accident on September 16 after competing at the Pendleton (Ore.) Roundup.
Tickets are $10 and will be sold at the gate; gates open at 4 pm on the 24th. Above-the-chute tickets are available for $25 each.
Mutton busting for kids will be held at 5 pm with a calcutta, to auction off the bull riders, to begin at 5:30 pm. The event is produced by Trey and Jimi Kerner of Kerner Bucking Bulls, Brule, Neb.
Schleicher always had a smile on his face, said fellow bull rider and good friend Garrett Wickett.
“When you walked into a room and saw Richard, you instantly smiled, because you know there was some kind of joke that would be played on you, and you would laugh.”
Schleicher, the son of Harold and Deb Schleicher, began rodeoing as a youngster, riding sheep and steers and competing at Little Britches Rodeos and junior high rodeos. He quit for a while but started back to rodeo after graduating from Stockton High School in 2015. In 2017, he got his PRCA permit.
Wickett, who was a few months older than Schleicher, traveled with him occasionally and watched him as he came up the ranks of rodeo.
“I met him a few years ago at an amateur rodeo. He asked me for pointers, and when I started pro rodeoing and going to bigger rodeos, I’d see him and he’d ask me about pro rodeo.
“I never met anybody who had as much try and dedication to riding bulls and wanting to get better. He was always asking for help: hey, how can I improve? Can you look at this video and tell me what I’m doing wrong?”
Schleicher was determined to improve his bull riding skills, Wickett said.
“When he first started, he’d go to Clay Taylor’s place in Oklahoma. Clay has some pretty rank bulls, and Richard would get on as many as he could. He always wanted to get on, because he knew that getting on them would make him better. He wasn’t going to quit till his head hit the dirt.”
Schleicher’s bull riding friends miss him, Wickett said.
“So many of us bull riders loved him because he was so much fun to be around. He was always happy, always with a smile on his face. If he bucked off, he’d always see the positive. And we’d play jokes on him and he’d do it right back to us.”
The Kerners have received a lot of support from the area, Jimi Kerner said, including the use of the Phillipsburg Rodeo’s “beautiful facility,” she said.
“We’ve had some amazing sponsors. The towns of Phillipsburg, Plainville and Stockton have been behind it one hundred-ten percent. I’ve had people call and message us, donating money. You can definitely tell how well-loved and missed Richard is.”
Kerner says thirty bull riders will be competing at the Memorial bull riding, including Wickett, Cole Fischer, ranked seventeenth in the PRCA world standings and Jestyn Woodward, ranked first in the Badlands Circuit, all friends of Schleicher’s.
All proceeds from the event will go to the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund, which provides need-based financial assistance to athletes injured through their participation in professional rodeo.
For more information, contact Jimi Kerner at 308.325.5558 or visit the event’s Facebook page (Richard Schleicher Memorial Bull Riding).
