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‘Wildest Rodeo Behind Bars’
Muntsville
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Continued from cover
The inmate clowns circle the arena
looking and smiling, but not waving. Then
the “free world” clowns, professionals
Ralph Fisher, his brother John and Bill
Garcee, come in. At once the crowd
senses that something is going to hap
pen.
And it does.
Of 30 inmate cowboys who tried to ride
bulls for the regulation eight seconds,
The Texas Prison Rodeo is held
every Sunday afternoon in Oc
tober in Huntsville. For more pic
tures, see pages 6-7.
only four made it. The others literally bit
the dust.
More cowboys completed bareback
and saddle bronc rides. But for every one
that made it, one didn’t.
And then there are the events which
can’t be found anywhere else.
Inmates from the Goree Women’s
Prison, nick-named the “Goree Cow
girls,” compete in two events. Twenty
women, competing in pairs, first try to get
an axle-greased porker into a burlap bag
and carry it to judges standing in the mid
dle of the arena. It isn’t easy.
The second event isn’t easy either.
The same 10 teams have to drag a frisky
two-year-old bull calf to the judges. But
first they have to catch him.
And then there is the "Hard Money”
event, where 40 male inmates called "red
shirts” try to grab a Bull Durham sack
with $100 in it from between the horns of
a bull. A rookie in this event may try to
reach over the face of the bull, but usually
gets hurt for his trouble. The “right” tech
nique is to run beside the bull and grab
the money from there.
Last Sunday, headlining entertainer
Johnny Rodriguez and others increased
the prize money to $350.
The announcer, “Buffalo” Bill Bailey,
has his own event — bawdy prison
humor. First he asks the Goree women to
wave hello to the male inmates. Then the
men wave to the women. Then Bailey
says, “That’s all you’re going to get for
the next 20 years.”
Or if a rider fails to make the eight sec
ond requirement, Bailey says, oh well,
he’ll be back to try again next year.
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. JL •
•-*’** Sr
Photos by Lee Roy Leschper Jr,
Rider Ronald Evans leaves bronc with style.