The Ben Johnson

This was year number 71 for the Ben Johnson steer roping. It’s part of the greatest Osage County celebration of ranch life. First greatest thing? Pake McEntire played the National Anthem on the fiddle. Yes, that is Reba’s brother. Their father Clark was the first McEntire to do some winning at the Ben Johnson, and later Pake did the same. He was carrying on the history of one of the most important steer roping contests.

Justin McKee did the announcing. He was born and raised right up against the Osage and married a girl from the neigboring county whose uncle, Shoat Webster, has won the Ben Johnson more times than any other roper to date. Matter of fact, she was from Lenapah, a tiny town in Oklahoma that boasts more national steer roping champions than the whole rest of the United States! This meant Justin married into the best possible family to learn steer roping. He did. Being a record-setting steer roper himself, and kin to so many winners, he is just part of the history of the Ben Johnson.

By the way, the Ben Johnson is not named for the actor. The actor was the son of Ben Johnson, Sr., the roping’s namesake. You often hear that Ben Johnson, Jr., the actor, whose family on the Osage called him “Son,” was a champion steer roper. That’s wrong. He was a champion team roper. Not to say he didn’t rope some single steers, but team roping was his national championship.

When I first started playing on a women’s ranch rodeo team, I needed to learn to tie down a steer right and make him stay because that is one of the events. I knew Charley Lynn from salebarn and day work and he helped me with technique a lot. He taught me to string the bottom front leg. He said to string that bottom leg and keep it as low as you can. That way if he fights you can hold him better. “And don’t be pulling his legs up in the air,” Charley told me. “The higher you bring his legs, the more he’ll try to kick.” And string him up high. That gives you more room to cross the back legs and makes it harder for him to get loose. I’ve always done it that way and always will.

Most of the young guys string a top leg now. In other words, they tie a steer the same way you tie a rodeo roping calf. I’ve pondered that a lot.

Steve Perkins, a fine steer roper himself, and Paul Mayes were sitting behind me buying ropers in the calcutta. The bid was eight times the money and I didn’t understand that, because it looked like there were only seven things to bet on – four goes, time on two head, time on four head and the average. So after Steve and Paul had spent a lot of money buying four or five guys – I went up to get educated. Steve told me the other number eight bet was for the fastest time. I asked him about the stringing top or bottom leg thing.

He said he’d always strung the bottom leg and always would for the same reasons Charley taught me to do it. “You know Roy Cooper came along and started that top leg stringing. Thought it worked better. Guess it did for him.” What Steve meant was Roy Cooper won a lot of money single steer roping. So I thought, not surprising Roy would string the top leg – that’s what he was doing a long time before he started tying steers. Then it was funny because a little while later someone was tying a kicking steer and Justin said, “he has that top leg strung, bet he’s wishing it was the bottom leg now.”

Paul Mayes is kinda Osage famous. He and his wife Marcella used to manage the Roan Horse Arena, just down the road from the middle of Pawhuska. They put on ropings, barrel races, horse shows – all things horse – for years. And they had and raised some fine horses. Paul said three that were in the roping Sunday were horses the ropers bought from him. We watched a bay one that was really a nice horse. I asked Paul how he was bred. “Doc Bar mare,” Paul said, “but the daddy is that Top Sail Cody horse.” Well, I said, they aren’t going to get out run. “Nope,” Paul said. “I like a horse that can catch up if he needs to.”

I’ve dayworked quite a lot on the Osage and gotten to know so many fine steer ropers. I got to say hi to Kelly Corbin, famous in the steer roping world, between gos. Kelly judged a few of those ranch rodeos I have played in. The Garnetts are working on generation number three roping at the Ben Johnson. Pecos made a good showing this year. He follows in the footsteps of Rocky and Cody. Rocky took his share of other people’s entry fees and he is making sure his grandson does the same.

Cody and Lauren Garnett own The Bucking Flamingo and Cody has a big plastic one in a trailer he pulls all over town. The flamingo is wearing a saddle and Coleman Proctor was riding him when Cody drove into the arena hauling the dummies for the kid’s roping contest. The little truck pulling the trailer now has bows with a wagon sheet in the back (an addition since I last saw this rig) and there is a longhorn steer head on the front of the sheet above the cab. Coleman was trying to rope the longhorn, but the flamingo rocks while the truck is moving, his head is really high and I think you might need a 40-foot rope. Coleman happened to have a kid’s rope. Coleman is a champion PRCA team roper, but he will tell you straight up what he wants to do is trip steers. He’s good at it, too.

That’s one of the greatest parts of the Ben Johnson. Nobody thinks they are a celebrity. To start with, a lot of them are – but to end with, nobody cares. It’s just a bunch of friends and neighbors having a great time. There are a lot of other events spanning the whole weekend, but the Ben Johnson has always been on Father’s Day and it caps off the big celebration of ranch life.

When we were leaving Mike observed that although traffic was funneling from three ways onto the road out, no one was in a hurry and each stopped in turn to let one vehicle in from the other way. No one was nosing in and almost hitting someone else’s cow catcher. Just taking turns. Mike said if all traffic would do this, roads would run a lot smoother and have fewer traffic jams.

Vin Fisher won the Ben Johnson this year. It was a tough contest made tougher by the fact that mud moved it from the giant arena outside to the smaller one inside. And by the way, he strung his steers on the bottom leg.