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PatchWork by Joyce Whitis |
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PatchWork by Joyce Whitis |
Arena Lights........George Brown
George Brown, most mornings, can be found hunkered over a cup of black coffee at DJ's, corner of North Graham and Lingleville Highway. His coffee drinking buddies come trickling in as the day gets started and toward 9:00 the stories begin to glow with the warmth of friendship. Brown can tell a great story, and living 84 years, most of it in the world of cowboys and rodeo, has put a special flavor to his tales.
For 54 years, Beulah, the love of his life, shared that world and since her death, two years ago, their daughters, Sissy Poston, Toodles Bostick, Pam Bruner, son Danny, 12 grandkids, and 9 great-grandkids, have done their best to help each other fill the lonesome space left by this great lady.
I'd like to think that George and Beulah Brown helped make Stephenville the Cowboy Capitol of the World. George said that Beulah didn't know which end of a horse ate when they married, but that he taught her to ride and she became a winner. During the time that her husband was in the army, Beulah taught school but she had much rather run the barrels in rodeo productions.
When the kids were small, they used to pack 'em up, load the horses in a trailer, put everything in the car and go rodeoing. Once a friend asked Brown if he always took his wife and kids when he went to compete. Quickly another friend said, "Shoot, yes. Beulah had rather iron, pack, and haul the kids around the country than kiss George good-bye!"
The Browns got serious about traveling the rodeo circuit after George got out of the army. "I was discharged on November 11, 1945," Brown said. " That day I went to Dallas and the fair was going on. I took 3rd day money and 3rd day average. That, along with my army severance pay, made me think I'd never see another hard day!"
In 1946 Brown went to work for Jerry Hayes who owned a ranch nine miles out on the Glen Rose Highway. He trained horses and rodeoed. Hayes had high regard for his trainer because of a stallion that he owned valued at $20,000. In the '40's that was even bigger money than it is today. Brown trained the horse to run barrels and to rope and in the spring of '47 he and Whit Keeney hauled him to Comanche. George won the calf roping, Whit won the bull dogging, and Beulah
won the barrels, all with the same horse!
Whit Keeney and Howard Brown (no relation), George and Beulah, put on the first Tarleton Rodeo down at the park in Stephenville. At that time there was an arena where the little league ball field is now. "Some of those that entered were Myrtle Kelton, Earl Teague, Tucker Pemberton, Bill Hailey, and Marshall Pennington. And in '47 J.B. Mayfield built an arena out at midway where the road turns off to go to Green's Creek," Brown said. "We had good places to perform."
The Browns left Stephenville and moved to Euless, where George worked fifteen years for Ray Woods. Just before George took the job with Woods, the wealthy car dealer had built an arena and named it after the World War 11 hero, Audie Murphy. They held six RCA (Rodeo Cowboys Association, now PRCA), and Murphy appeared at five of them. Brown formed a Top Ten Roping Club and the top ropers in the country met on designated nights to rope in the Murphy Arena, and they also rented the facilities to Arlington College for their rodeos.
One of the really interesting things that Brown did for Ray Woods, was drive a four-horse team of Palomino Percherons hitched to an English style Tallyho. The conveyance, which resembles a monster stagecoach, would seat twenty-six adults. It was most often used in the Fort Worth stock show parade.
The Browns are responsible for the first "kid rodeo". They called it a PTA Rodeo and did it for the school in Euless. They initiated the stickhorse race as well as roping contests and barrel races. From that small beginning, pro-youth rodeos have become very popular events around the country.
In 1955 Ray Woods traded for the Hugh Wolf Place where the Stephenville High School is today and moved the Audie Murphy Arena from Euless to Stephenville.
"With the help of Dudley Everett, Kenneth Hammit, Red Cook, Joe Spindor, H.H. Hassler, Joe Fambro, Junior McNeill, G.K. Lewallen, Whit Keeney, Toby Stone, and others I may have forgotten for a minute, we put on the first PTA rodeo," Brown said. " We also put on the first Tarleton Rodeo Club Rodeo. I remember some of the entries were Jim Bomar, Ken Dorris, Pwee Durham, Carl Riden, and Doyle McSpaden.
"Jean Stone started a riding group for school aged kids called the Trail Blazers sometime in there. She had those kids dressed alike and they were really a good looking bunch in parades and grand entries."
About 1963, Ray Woods sold the land to Lem Brock and Delbert and Francis Wise bought the arena and moved it for the second time. This time to their place on the Lingleville Highway. They put on Junior Rodeos with the help of like minded people around the area. Some of those who promoted and helped make the rodeos successful were Toby Stone, Johnny Hampton, Arris Anderson, Doc Worrells, Sammy Watts, H.S Foster, and Bill Hailey. Besides kid shows, the Wise Arena staged horse shows and cutting horse competition.
Brown remembers that at the Audie Murphy Arena, the Lions' Club helped sponsor a kid rodeo every Saturday night. Charlie Hipp had some little Zebra Bulls and Delbert Wise furnished Shetland Ponies and Shetland Mules for the kids to ride. The same group helped Tolar put on a kid rodeo and Rosemary Colborn Tompkins and Dublin friends put on a PTA rodeo for the Dublin kids.
George Brown, at 84, has a very clear memory of many, many rodeos and events through a lifetime spent with cowboys and folks who love their style. The Wild Cow Milking Contests are some that he especially recalls with pleasure. He and Berts Wilfong were partners in many such contests but were told to never come back to Stanford after they won in '40,'41, and '42. They didn't team up again but in '79 their sons, Danny Brown and Bob Wilfong won the Wild Cow Milking in Stanford, and in 1980 Danny and Bob's brother, Harry Wilfong, won the contest there.
Brown remembers the pre-Madison Square Garden Rodeo put on in Dublin by Everett Colborn as one of the very best anywhere. Gene Autry was a partner in the rodeo and used to appear most every year. "Colborn's Wild Cow Milking Contest was the grand daddy of them all and if you won that, then you could say that you won something!" Brown said.
The 1958 program for the Dublin Rodeo's Friday night performance, August 8, lists, among others, George Brown, judge, also contestant in the calf roping . Whit Keeney entered in the Wild Cow Milking. Other local entries included Worth and Jo Barbee of Dublin, Georgianna Brown (known as Toodles to her daddy, George), Mark and Martha Tompkins (now Wright) of Dublin, children of Hall of Famer and World Champion Bull Rider, Harry Tompkins. The children's mother, Rosemary Tompkins, was the daughter of managing director, Everett Colborn. She was the arena secretary and performed in the quadrille in this production.
Delbert Wise of Bluff Dale, was a contestant in the junior horse show and Harry Bradberry of Dublin teamed up with Janette Plunkett in the Lightning "C" Ranch Horseback Quadrille. Bradberry and Plunkett wore white shirts and rode white horses.
George Brown put down the old rodeo program and picked up his coffee, long grown cold. He stared for a few seconds out the window at traffic passing by on North Graham. "During all that time, Beulah was running the barrels, keeping books and doing for others. She was president of the Euless PTA and president of the Stephenville PTA. She was president of the Chamber of Commerce and while she was serving her term, started the Cowboy Appreciation Ball. We were always a team, a good team and we lived and worked the cowboy way."
Beulah Brown died February 3, 1997, 5 days before she and her sweetheart were inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame at Belton. They were the first husband and wife team ever so honored.
** George Brown holds the PRCA Gold Cards earned by him and his wife, Beulah.
The cards are awarded to members over 50 years old who have been members for 15 consecutive years.