Rodeo fans select their most popular
LAS VEGAS – It took Will Lowe only two tries to do what veteran Rod Lyman has been trying 20 years to do: win a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association world championship.
But Friday, both were sharing honors with five other rodeo athletes selected in Internet voting as the most popular competitors in their categories since the National Finals Rodeo moved to Las Vegas in 1985.
Lowe, 21, won the championship in bareback riding last year, in his second National Finals Rodeo.
Lyman, 43, hasn’t won a world title in steer wrestling, although he qualified 16 times for the NFR before missing the field this year.
The 46th annual rodeo opened Friday and runs through Dec. 12 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
Others selected for the most popular honor are Clay O’Brien Cooper of Glen Rose, Texas, in team roping; Billy Etbauer of Ree Heights, S.D., in saddle bronc riding; Fred Whitfield of Hockley, Texas, in calf roping; and Charmayne James of Athens, Texas, in barrel racing; and Lane Frost in bull riding.
Frost, of Lane, Okla., won a world championship in 1987 before he was killed in a bull riding accident in 1989.
Lyman finished 27th this year in regular-season standings after competing in 59 of 75 qualifying rodeos. Attending this year’s NFR as a hazer for traveling partner Sean Mulligan, who qualified 10th in steer wrestling, Lyman said he was surprised by the contest and gratified to win fan acclaim.
“I didn’t know anything about it because I’m not a good Internet guy,” Lyman, of Great Falls, Mont., said of the contest sponsored by Las Vegas Events, a National Finals Rodeo partner with the PRCA.
He said being the only “Most Popular” honoree without a world title showed rodeo fans have noticed his efforts in events other than the 10-day finals.
“It’s neat to know that our fans have more depth than that,” he said. “It’s a great honor from the people and an honor I’ll always be proud of.”
Lowe’s professional career has been a blur of success. Fans cheer his exuberance and fiery expressions during major rodeos, which have benefited from national television coverage.
Lowe, of Canyon, Texas, finished second at the ProRodeo Tour Chute-Out in Las Vegas in May and won the ProRodeo Tour Classic in Dallas three weeks ago. He won all three ProRodeo Tour championship events last year.
He has won $485,975 in three years and started Friday as the 2004 leader in bareback with $143,121. He said he was surprised he was chosen as a fan favorite, and was looking forward to the caliber of the rodeo making all competitors better.
“When you’re staring at all those other cowboys that you know have just as good a chance of winning as you do, then you know you had better perform,” he said.
The most popular National Finals Rodeo contestants since the event moved to Las Vegas in 1985 were determined by a vote on ProRodeo.com, the Internet site of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.