Central Plains coaches and Vicki Shireman, Central Plains Secretary for the past 20 years. – Photo by Dale Hirschman
Vickie Shireman has lived around the Elk City (Oklahoma) area all of her life. “My family rodeoed – that’s all we did,” said the daughter of Una and Jiggs Beutler. “My dad was part owner of Beutler and Son, he was the son. And my mother kept the books and timed.” Vickie and her brother, Bennie, and sister, Dollie Riddle, rode to the rodeos in a car when their mom secretaried. “We stayed in motels; we didn’t have a camping trailer. We were raised in a rodeo office. Back then, you opened the books before the rodeo opened so you answered the phone and after you got it set up, they would call back to see what the draw was.” They entertained themselves with fighting with each other and there were always things to do. “A lot of times the rodeo office was in the lobby of the hotel, and sometimes people would take us to the pool. I didn’t know anything else. That’s all we did.”
Vickie learned to trick ride with her sister from JW Stocker, a Hall of Fame trick rider and roper that stayed with the family one winter. “My sister and I went to the West Coast in the early 1970s. She trick rode and I was the ‘extra.’ By the next summer, my dad had us trick riding at the rodeos.” Dollie continued to perform, but after Vickie broke her back, she decided to stick with secretarying. Vickie went to Southwestern Oklahoma State for a year. “I secretaried rodeos and that turned into a full time job.”
She met her husband, Dennis, when he came to work for her dad. “He drove a truck for him and that’s how we met.” The two married a year after that and have two children, a boy and a girl. Vickie kept up with her secretary jobs, raising her two children in the rodeo office. “My daughter, Jennie Murray, has carried on the tradition, and is a rodeo secretary and timer.” Justin works for Hallburton and his rodeo career consisted of helping Bennie with the stock for a few summers.
Vickie took over as the secretary for Central Plains in1994. “My mother was the Southwest Regional secretary for 20 years, so I knew about the work, and I applied for the job and got it.” She has done it ever since. “I still like to go, and I enjoy them.” The region is the largest in the NIRA and she describes each rodeo as a marathon. When she got the job, they didn’t enter with a fax, the entries were mailed in. “I encouraged them to use the fax machine the next year and now most of it is emailed. The region has grown over the years – there were more than 500 this past year. When I started in 1994, Jim Boy Hash was the student director, and now he’s the faculty director. There’s only one coach left that was coaching when I started – Allen Russell from Colby.”
Vickie has been the NIRA Secretary of the Year, the PRCA Secretary of the Year and the WPRA Secretary of the Year. “I couldn’t have a better job – and this will be my 20th year working the NFR, and my tenth year as the office manager.” Her job while at the NFR consists of running the contestant rodeo office with the help of an assistant. She is responsible for the draws, the points, and the money.“I’ve raised my kids and I have five granddaughters.” She and her husband (Dennis) just built a new home out in the country, and that was one of her goals. Now she is working on the landscape. Other than that, “I’ve had a good career. I’ve worked lots of the top rodeos, and I love what I do.”
