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BART
CLENNON
LAST
OF THE SIGNERS OF THE COWBOY TURTLE’S
PETITION
When the top cowboys of the day
signed the Petition to form the Cowboy
Turtle Association and demanded better pay
offs from rodeo producers things for
cowboy competitors got much better.
The Petition, signed by sixty three
top cowboys was presented to Colonel W. T.
Johnson, premier rodeo producer of 1936.
This was done at the
Boston
Garden
the first day of the month long rodeo.
The only living signer of that
Tetition, Bart Clennon, of
Tucson
,
Arizona
, will be ninety seven years old on
November 5th
of this year.
Bart was known as the cowboy’s
cowboy.
He rode saddle broncs and won many
rodeos across the country.
He was born in
Aberdeen
,
South Dakota
, to Bart and Edith Clennon and had four
brothers.
Bart was the middle child.
Father Bart, put on rodeos at Ash
Creek on the 4th of July for
years when young Bart was growing up. By
the time he was eighteen he was competing
in bronc riding at Ash Creek.
The family built the chutes and
small corral and the cars of the
spectators made the arena.
The festivities always included a
baseball game in addition to the various
locals who would ride a bronc someone
would bring to the event.
Bert’s wife and others would make
a meal for everyone.
Young Bart went on to compete at
Grindstone and Belle Fourche in
South Dakota
, and by then the rodeo ‘bug’ had
bitten him – good.
Bart spent over twenty years as a
professional rodeo bronc rider and hit all
the big rodeos and many of the little
ones, too..
“I played and lived with the
greatest bunch of buys in the world,”
said Bart.
Although he never kept records his
memory of the horses he has ridden and how
they bucked is amazing.
Bart truly has a phenomenal memory
when it comes to bucking horses.
He learned ten years back that I
had been raised near
Sterling
,
Colorado
, and he competed at the Logan County Fair
& Rodeo there in 1938, and won the All
Around.
He wrote me a letter giving a full
account of his experience there 69 years
ago.
A few years back I received an
inquiry asking:
“There
was a Canadian bucking horse named
Tumbling Mustard in the 1920s that became
very famous as a bronc later under a
different name.
What did they change his name
to?”
I had no idea.
I had never heard of Tumbling
Mustard, but I knew if anyone would know
it would be Bart.
I called him and asked him and he
said, “God damn, Gail, I haven’t
thought of that horse in years.
Give me a little time and I’ll
think on it.”
Within the hour he called me back
and told me that the horse’s name had
been changed to Five Minutes to
Midnight
, a
very famous bucking horse.
Bart won the Saddle Bronc event at
Madison Square Garden in 1945 after fifty
performances, Cheyenne Frontier Days in
1949, Sidney, Iowa, twice; Livermore, CA,
once; Elko, NV twice; Fort Smith, once;
Burwell, NE once, Hershey, PA once; San
Angelo, TX twice; Deadwood, SD once;
Kissimmee, FL once; Salt Lake City, once;
Nampa, ID twice; Boston once; and many
more wins, too numerous to mention.
Although he never kept records he
knew he made a living riding broncs!
Some of the horses he rode were:
Hells Angel, Conclusion, Mighty
Mite, Y Bar Me, Home Brew, White Pelican,
Nicotine, Wildfire,
Scene Shifter, tracy, Top Hat,
Trail Tramp, Will James, Pikes Peak, Lee
Ryder, Pearl Harbor (later named Lee
Ryder), Duty Bound, Hell N Set, Crying Jew
just to name a few.
And if you have a chance to talk
with the former bronc rider he could tell
you just how each one bucked.
Bart has stayed active in rodeo his
whole life by attending the National
Finals yearly, as well as Cowboy Reunions
whenever possible. He has been inducted in
to the Rodeo Historical Society Hall of
Fame at the
National
Cowboy & Western
Heritage
Museum
. These days he doesn’t get far from
home, however.
My hat is off to this cowboy who is
truly a living legend.
Happy 97th coming up,
Bart!
{If you care to send a card to this
‘Cowboy’s Cowboy’ from the 1930s
through the ‘50s.
Send it to my address:
4807 Park Lane
,
Austin
,
TX
78732
, and I will see that they are forwarded
on to Bart.}
CLICK
HERE FOR PHOTOS OF BART FROM HIS RODEO
DAYS
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