Lifetime Leaders of Rodeo & Ranching Rodeo Ranching Great Westerner Western Entertaiment & Arts Rodeo Producers & Livestock Special Achievement Cowboy Long Rider Legacy Award

Arts & Entertainment

Robert "Cowboy Bob" Rindt
2010 Award
Arts & Entertainment Division

Robert Rindt was well known in North Dakota for his more than 40 years of teaching; performing trick shooting, rope, whip and tumbling acts; and producing rodeos and other entertainment shows. His wife, Doris, was his partner in many of those acts, and they were once featured in Life magazine, with photos taken during a Minot State University performance.

He was so good with a whip that he could cut a small piece of paper out of Doris' mouth at 15 feet. His riding tricks included hanging from the side of a horse by only one stirrup. Not limited to trick acts, he also rode saddle broncs and Brahma bulls and bulldogged steers.

Living near Drake, in McHenry County, Cowboy Bob was 17 years old when he began participating in rodeos in 1927. He rode his horse 40 miles to Towner to enter that rodeo - and rode back home afterward with the $15 he won in the saddle bronc riding event. For the next 50 years, he worked in between 10 and 15 rodeos each year. He and Doris once performed a specialty act for President Truman at a Missouri rodeo.

Rindt's "straight" job was as an educator. Both he and Doris taught school in a number of locales from 1945-1966. Although his classroom was 6th grade, he and Doris also taught band and music. Doris was hired to teach physical education and dancing, and Bob taught leather craft before and after school. While teaching at Fort Totten, the pupils affectionately called him "Uncle Bob". He was 66 years old and still roping, riding and cracking the whip.

Duane Howard recalled meeting Rindt at an Indian Fall Fair in Fort Totten in the late 1940s. Howard says that Rindt had a trailer load of the best tack he had ever seen. He hosted play days and "mount money rodeos" where Howard, among others, learned the basics of bronc riding and steer wrestling. His influence and magnanimity were lifelong gifts to countless kids.

After his formal retirement from teaching, Rindt spent most of his time raising horses and Brahma cattle on his B.R. Ranch two miles west of Sawyer. He produced his own "Wild West Shows" there for several years and enjoyed sharing his expertise with 4-H club members and Boy Scout troops. He loved to entertain and never stopped teaching.

Rindt was a teacher, a rodeo cowboy and somewhat of a throwback to the wild and wooly days when "cowboys were cowboys". He is fondly remembered by many folks for all his contributions to the sport of rodeo showmanship in North Dakota. "Cowboy Bob" died in 1997 and is buried in Minot.