A Champion’s Legacy

He’s been gone, but Jim Shoulders’ athletic feats in the rodeo arena will live forever in halls of fame and rodeo fans’ hearts.

By Stan Paregien Sr.

Editor’s Note: This profile was written from one of the last interviews Jim Shoulders gave in his life. We received it from writer Stan Paregien shortly before getting the news that Shoulders had passed away.

Stan Paregien with Jim Shoulders. Photo by Sharon Shoulders

Jim Shoulders has lived in a nice house on a quiet residential street in Henryetta, Okla., for over 30 years. My guess is that there may be young people who live on that same street who don’t even know that a rodeo legend—an all-around world champion, 16 times over—lives in the modest red brick house on the corner.

However, when you step through the front door into his living room, the interior decorations loudly declare that somebody unusual lives there. The room is furnished Western style with collectibles everywhere, and sitting close to the floor are two saddles of great historical significance. One reads, “Madison Square Garden, 1948” and the other “Madison Square Garden, 1958.” Shoulders keeps those two saddles on display, so his grandchildren can have fun riding them.

What really grabs your attention though is the huge head and neck of “Bufford” the bull hanging on the north wall. Bufford costarred with Shoulders and other celebrities in those popular Miller Lite beer commercials that ran for several years back in the 1970s.

“I spent a lot of time with ol’ Bufford in some of the finest bars in the country,” Shoulders said with a note of sentiment in his voice. “Those commercials were fun to do, and he was just as gentle as he could be.

“Bufford holds the world record for the number of times he [crapped] on those barroom floors. Why he probably [crapped] inside more bars than you’ve ever been in,” Shoulders laughed as he turned his head from the bull and looked at me.

I wouldn’t argue that point with Shoulders or with Bufford, even if the latter is mounted on a wall.

In 1942, when Shoulders was 14 years old, his hair was dark and naturally curly, and he was slim and athletic. Today at age 79, he has a full shock of wavy gray hair and is a bit stooped and a little heavier than in his prime. But his mind is sharp, and he seems to move about effortlessly, a small miracle considering he had one of the world’s most dangerous occupations for 28 years. He rode in bareback bronc and bull riding competitions all those years. Most rodeo fans think he is still the very best bull rider the sport ever produced.

Shoulders won the All-Around World Championship in 1949, ’56, ’57, ’58, and ’59. He won the bareback bronc riding world championship title in 1950, ’56, ’57 and ’58. And in the event for which he is most famous, he won the bull riding world championship in 1951, ’54, ’55, ’56, ’57, ’58, and ’59. Plus, amazingly, he finished second (“Reserve Champion”) in either bareback bronc riding or bull riding 10 other years. So he actually came very close to holding 27 world championship titles.

Whew, that’s a lot of riding. That means in scores of rodeos, year after year, he would ante up his entry fees for both the bareback competition and the bull riding. Then he would climb on a rank, jugheaded bronc and try to stay on for eight seconds and then try to get off without getting injured. And a few minutes later he would climb back in a chute to get in the driver’s seat of a large bull with a larger attitude problem. That routine was a recipe for brutal physical wear and tear on the human body.

In fact, Shoulders’ medical sheet lists a number of painful injuries. He had his collarbone broken three times. Each of his arms has been broken, not once, but twice. And he had a broken ankle. All that doesn’t even begin to count his litany of concussions, cuts, and contusions. So I asked him how he deals with his accumulated aches and pains.

“Aches and pains?” he said. “It is all in your mind. I just choose not to think about it.”

No wonder he could fight through the injuries and fatigue, the “normal” rodeo-related bruises and over-extended muscles. He was a tough gent. Still is.

Shoulders was born in Tulsa, Okla., on May 13, 1928, to Joe and Ellen Shoulders. His father farmed for a time and then was an oil well pumper before joining the Army and going off to battle in World War I. When his father returned, he became a body man in an auto repair shop on the outskirts of east Tulsa.  Joe and Ellen Shoulders raised four boys: Marvin (who now lives in Afton, Okla.), Joe Jr. (lives in Collinsville, Okla..), Jim, and Bob (each lives in Tulsa).

It was his oldest brother, Marvin, who first got Jim involved in rodeo. “Somebody told him to try it, and he did, and he liked it. So I would often tag along with him to all these small rodeos around Tulsa and watch him perform. He was pretty good at bull riding and steer wrestling.”

Then one summer, Shoulders, then 14 and in the ninth grade, was working for farmers in their wheat fields. It was hot, dusty, and hard work. And it didn’t pay well, though he was glad to get any amount of money back then.

“I got a whopping 25 cents per hour,” he said with a big grin and laugh. “But I worked 10 hours a day running the bundle wagon, so I made $2.50 a day on most days. That was a decent day’s pay.”

Then something happened that changed his life forever. On one of his days off from farm work, he went to a small rodeo near Tulsa. He climbed on a big bull, pushed his hat down on his head, and hunkered down. The gate flew open, and the bull gave him a wild ride.

“I hung on for dear life and sure was proud to hear that 8-second buzzer go off before I did,” Shoulders said as he relaxed in an oversized easy chair, his black boots resting on a chocolate colored ottoman.  “I got my $18.00 in first-prize money in cold, hard cash. That was $18 for 8 seconds of work. I figured that sure beat the hell out of bundling wheat for 25 cents an hour. I knew right then that bull riding was what I wanted to do.”

However, Jim had promised his mother that he would complete his public school education. So he honored that promise and kept taking classes at East Central, at least most of the time.

“My parents knew I needed to leave school early on some days, depending on how far I had to drive to get to a rodeo,” Shoulders said, sipping a cup of steaming coffee. “So I always carried a few excuse slips in my billfold that my mother wrote up. I’d sometimes have to leave school about noon on Fridays, sometimes earlier than that. But my parents knew it was something I loved to do and that I was pretty darned good at, so they helped me all they could. My dad would either bum a ride to work or hitchhike, just so I could use the family car to get to my rodeos.

“Plus, it was a good time to get into the rodeo game. You see, with World War II going on, many of the really experienced rodeo cowboys were off in the service somewhere. So it gave me the opportunity to win some money when I might not have otherwise.”

In 1945, a young female student named Sharon Heindselman moved from southern California to Tulsa and entered East Central High School. It didn’t take long for her to hear about the teenage wild guy who, instead of playing basketball or football like the other young men, climbed on 1,000-pound bulls for his kicks. Sharon Shoulders said with a twinkle in her eye, “The first time I saw Jim I thought he was the most handsome young man in the world. And I still do.”

Jim and Sharon married in 1947. Their honeymoon was a trip to the famed Madison Square Garden in New York City and another rodeo.

“I reckon you could say I was at the right place at the right time,” Shoulders said of that 1947 trip to New York City. “You see, at that time Blue Bell Company was the largest maker of work and play clothes. And they decided to compete with the Levi Company head-to-head in the jeans market under the ‘Wrangler’ brand. So at this rodeo that gave complimentary Wrangler denim outfits to every competitor. We each got a denim shirt, a denim jacket, and a pair of jeans.

“Plus, they gave us a survey to fill out on each item to tell them what we liked or didn’t like about their clothes. So most all of us filled out that darned survey just to get a free pair of jeans. And some of the better-known performers signed on to endorse their line of Wrangler duds. I wasn’t asked to endorse anything, because they didn’t know me from Adam.”

That changed very quickly. Jim ran away with the bull riding championship, earning a paycheck that boggled the newlywed’s mind. “It was for just over $5,000. In those days that was a big pile of money for most anyone and especially for me.”

The New York City newspapers filled their sports pages with items about this tough, young bull rider from Oklahoma. And in January of 1948, the officials at Wranglers came calling.

“They were nice to me, so I signed with ‘em. And I’m still under contract with ‘em today, nearly 60 years later. They tell us that I hold the record for the longest running sports endorsement ever.”

Sharon added with a smile, “That Wrangler endorsement bought us our first color TV set in about 1966. And it fed and clothed us and all of our kids for many years. It still helps pay our bills.”

He has also been a paid endorser and promoter of Justin Boot Company for just about as long.

“That endorsement thing still works pretty good for me. It gets me into the best rodeos in the country. And I don’t have to buy a ticket.”

Of course, Jim did all right at the rodeo pay window too. In 1949, when the average American earned less than $ 10,000 per year, Jim Shoulders earned $21,495 (minus entry fees, motel, and gasoline expenses). He had his biggest year, not counting outside money (endorsements, his bull riding schools, etc.), when he earned $43,381 in 1956.

What was going through Sharon Shoulders’ mind each of the hundreds of times that she saw her husband climb on the back of a bull that was eager to throw him off and, if possible, stomp him into the ground?

“Well, here’s the way it was,” Sharon said with calm matter-of-fact tone. “I just assumed he knew what he was doing, and I expected him to win first place. So I was surprised when he didn’t. And early on Jim made me promise that if he ever got hurt in the arena, I was not to scream or cause a scene. And I never did. But I just about squeezed the arm off my stadium seat quite a few times.”

Here’s a trivia question for you. What do you visualize when you hear someone mention the movie Urban Cowboy? Oh, yeah, some may see the hot dance floor routine. But most of us probably see John Travolta, cowboy hat and all, riding that mechanical bull.

Here’s your second trivia question. Who invented that mechanical bull? If you answered Jim Shoulders, you get the prize. “Yup, I came up with that contraption in 1962 to help teach young folks how to ride live bulls without getting stepped on or boogered up in the process.”

Shoulders explained that he ran a bull riding school at the community of Bryant (west of Henryetta, Okla.) from 1961 to 1985. “We had three sessions per year, each ranging from four to six days. But we found that most of those folks just couldn’t handle a six-day school, so we cut it down to three or four days. We averaged about 50 students per session, with folks from Germany, Canada, New Zealand, and Native Americans from Arizona and New Mexico.”

When asked whether he keeps a diary or a daily journal, Shoulders put his feelings about that in plain English. “Why would I keep a damned diary? There’s a lot of things I want to forget. And I’m getting good at that, because my memory just isn’t what it once was. I tell people today that I know everything, but I can’t remember nothing.”

He is also plain-spoken about politics and politicians. When asked if he was involved in politics, and he said, “I try not to be. My father was never involved in politics. I’ve cussed a lot of politicians and even bragged on a few. In this rodeo business I’ve spent a lot of time sitting on arena fences, watching the other fellas until it was my turn. So when it comes to politics, I’m just like most politicians—I stay on the fence.”

Jim and Sharon Shoulders are proud of their family. Their son Marvin runs the family ranch about eight miles southeast of Henryetta. Their daughter Jamie lives in the Tulsa area and works for an investigative service, while daughter Janna is a financial advisor in the Tulsa area. The couple has six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Shoulders is also proud of the growth of the Professional Bull Riders Association. Thanks to televised broadcasts and major sponsors, today’s successful bull riders are raking in bucks like rock stars. They rodeo yearlong for the right to compete at the finals for a $1 million dollar bonus. And that money is in addition to their normal winnings and their paid endorsements. And along the way they have expanded the geography of rodeo into Mexico and even to Hawaii.

Shoulder’s long and successful rodeo career has resulted in a large number of major honors, not to mention the barrels of trophies and belt buckles he has collected in competing. He is a charter member and a lifetime member of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame (Colorado Springs, Colo.). He was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City. He is a member of the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame, as well as the Rodeo Hall of Fame (Ellensburg, Wash.).

Surprisingly, Shoulders doesn’t even own a single cow today. “Our son, Marvin, was a pretty fair bull rider,” Shoulders said with a note of pride. “But he didn’t like the grind of the travel from one rodeo to another, so he gave it up. He now runs our old ranch, and I don’t have anything to do with it. He has a cow-calf operation and raises mainly Black Angus-cross cattle.

“Fact is,” he says with a sly grin, “I don’t own any cattle anymore, because I found out that it will put you in too high of a tax bracket.” That’s an insider joke, reflecting the fact that raising cattle can and all too often does result in financial losses.

Today you won’t see Shoulders ride a bull, and he seldom climbs on a saddle horse. But his life is full of activities ranging from personal appearances at scores of major rodeos and cowboy festivals across the country to spending more time with family and friends. Shoulders has a smile on his face and is still spurrin’ hard and ridin’ high on life.

Stan Paregien Sr. is the editor of the world’s largest database of Western writers and entertainers, found at www.cowboydirectory.com. His email is cowboydirectory@inbox.com.

PHOTO CREDITS: Photography by Stan Paregien Sr.
                                                           

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