ND Cowboy Hall of Fame - Stories & Articles

Cowboy Hall of Fame Selects 2010 Ballot Nominees

The North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame’s (NDCHF) have selected the nominees for 2010 induction. Its 200 Trustees will vote on the nominees in nine categories beginning in mid-April.

This year’s 10 inductees will include rodeo stars, ranchers, a ranch, a rodeo horse and an artist/entertainer. They will join the 115 people, events and rodeo animals inducted since 1998.

NDCHF Executive Director Darrell Dorgan says, “The candidates, in the nine categories, will be inducted on June 26 in Medora.”

Ballot nominees follow by category.

In the Modern-era Rodeo Division, four are nominated, two will be selected.

LEE SELLAND

Lee Selland of Bismarck was born in 1935 and raised near Steele. From 1963 to 2005, he competed in more than 650 rodeos, participating in calf roping, steer wrestling, team roping and cow cutting. He belongs to the RCA, PRCA, NPRA, NARC, USTRC and NCHA.

In 1970, he claimed an unprecedented achievement, winning four saddles at the NDRA championships: calf roping, steer wrestling, team roping and all-around cowboy. Through the years, he won 22 championships across the country. Selland has produced and managed rodeos from Towner to Wishek and taught countless rodeo schools.

Selland has two sons who also went the cowboy way and did well in the arena. He taught school when he wasn’t sharing his expertise and teaching horse sense. Selland, a retired school teacher, owns and operates a horse stable near Bismarck and still competes in several rodeos a year.

BOB CHRISTOPHERSEN

Bob Christophersen of Grassy Butte was born in Iowa in 1950 and began wrestling steers at youth rodeos in 1959. He competed in high school and college rodeo and earned his RCA card in 1967. Christophersen qualified for six NFRs in the 1970s, winning the average in 1971 and 1975. He lived on what he earned on the rodeo circuit during the 1970s.

After a stint as a welder that allowed him time off to travel to PRCA events, Christophersen operated Big Sky Hitches in Glendive. He coached the rodeo team at Dawson College while living in Montana and also mentored his sons and their friends in the sport.

After Christophersen remarried in 1989, he and Eunice moved to a spread west of Grassy Butte where they ranch, and he continues to participate in PRCA-Badlands Circuit and NDRA events.

JOHN “BUZZ” FREDERICKS, JR.

John “Buzz” Fredericks, Twin Buttes, lived most of his life on the Fort Berthold Reservation, except for the years he spent in TX and NM, where he earned a post-secondary education degree. He also served on the National College Rodeo Board of Directors.

Fredericks was born near Halliday in 1933 and later operated his own ranch west of Twin Buttes. He entered bareback, saddle bronc and steer wrestling events from 1947-1964. During the ‘50s, he took up bull riding, steer riding and wild horse racing. He closed out his circuit days in the team roping contests.

Fredericks was a member of the RCA, NIRA, NDRA, and the All Indian Rodeo Association. He appeared at Madison Square Garden in 1959, the Calgary Stampede and the Denver Stock Show, with “champion” preceding his name in many rodeo records. He was also a school teacher, Community Action Program Director and business consultant in Indian education, agriculture and economic development.

RALPH KLEIN

Ralph Klein was born in Washburn in 1922 and got his education there. He belonged to the Bismarck Horse Club before he entered the U.S. Army in 1942. While serving in the South Pacific, Klein belonged to the “Roping Club” and participated in Sunday rodeos in Burma and India with fellow Gis who were well-known in rodeo circles before swapping their Stetsons and Levis for khaki uniforms.

Klein was a member of both the NDRA and the RCA and took the Calf Roping State Championship several times in the 1950s. It’s likely that his wife, Mary Lou, was in the stands rooting for him and her brother, Dean Armstrong, at many venues throughout the western Dakotas and Montana.

Klein ranched at McKenzie and also worked at Schnell Livestock in Dickinson until he was killed in a plane crash with Howard Schnell in 1955.

In the Pre-1940 Rodeo Division, two are nominated, one will be selected.

HENRY G. “HANK” BAKER

Henry G. “Hank” Baker was born in a log cabin southeast of Garrison in 1907. He rode saddle broncs in area rodeos during the ‘20s and ‘30s. After his marriage to Alice Tower in 1927, he ranched on the Fort Berthold Reservation and on his parents’ homestead until taking over his in-law’s spread in 1931.

Baker’s proudest rodeo accomplishment occurred on July 4, 1930, when he took first place in the Saddle Bronc event at the Schmochers Coulee Rodeo in McLean County.

Baker operated a livestock trucking business from 1942-1950 and, in 1955, established a ranch near McClusky where he raised Herefords and grew grain crops. He enjoyed conducting his own cattle drives so that his cattle could be shipped to market by train.

Baker also served as a rodeo judge for the Dakota Boys Ranch Rodeos in Minot, and he and Alice were both active members of the Minot Trail Riders Club. He spent his later years studying history and reading about the early days of the Wild West. He died in 1982.

HOWARD WANNA

Howard Wanna was born on the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Reservation in SD in 1906. Sent off to Indian boarding school in Wahpeton, he met and became fast friends with Martin Old Dog from Fort Berthold. He found his way to Elbowoods and spent many years with the Old Dog family and at other ranches in the vicinity, doing ranch work in exchange for room and board. He broke horses, a natural progression into the sport of rodeo.

Wanna (sometimes spelled Warner) was a familiar figure at local rodeo events in Elbowoods, Sanish, Yucca, Minot and Killdeer. His skills were captured on photographs by Frank Fiske and Leo Harris, and the photo of him on Sky High at the Beulah Cowboys Reunion in 1928 was used on the advertising billboard.

Wanna symbolizes American Indian history of the early 20th Century. He was born during the bleakest period, and his life reflects the astonishing changes and challenges faced by his people on the plains as the buffalo-horse culture was left behind. He was among the first generation of Indian cowboys, his contribution to the world of rodeo and ranching.

While serving in the Pacific Theater from 1942 to 1945, he contracted cholera. He returned to South Dakota to recuperate. He died in a tragic house fire in 1949.

In the Modern-Era Ranching Division, two were nominated, one will be selected.

PAT O’BRIEN

Pat O’Brien, Belfield, was born in Billings County, ND, in 1926 and raised on a ranch near Fairfield. Educated at Black Butte School, he graduated from 8th grade in 1939 and, soon thereafter, began ranching with his father until 1944, when he joined the Navy.

After the war, he ranched in the same area where he grew up. O’Brien started auctioneering with farm and household sales, but his real desire was to sell livestock. In 1953, he started working at Western Livestock, in Dickinson, eventually working his way up to full-time auctioneer and to head auctioneer. He became president and manager in 1987 until he semi-retired in 1994. O’Brien won the ND Livestock Auctioneer contest in 1969 and the MT competition in 1971. He has competed in the world contest four times.

O’Brien has donated countless hours and a lot of dollars helping young people in 4-H, providing a stepping stone for them to get a toe into the livestock business. He announced amateur rodeos in the southwestern ND during the ‘50s and ‘60s and was instrumental in starting the Junction Rodeo Club in Belfield. He also competed in team roping and won a few buckles, including the Medora Ranchorama in 1970.

He was awarded Rodeo Rancher of the Year in 2000 and the Medora Old Fashioned Cowboy Christmas Military Veteran Award in 2006. He no longer auctioneers, but still runs a few yearlings, branded with the Bar 4 Bar, on his spread west of Belfield.

RUSS SILHA

Francis Russel Silha (pronounced Sheelha) was born on a ranch in Grainbelt Township northeast of Bowman in 1924. He lived there all of his life, operating the Lazy JS Ranch on his own from 1963-1997. His son took over the operation and continues the family tradition: raising Corriedale sheep, Polled Hereford cattle and American Quarter horses.

In 1947, Silha married Frances Susag in Bowman, and they raised five children on the Lazy JS, Bowman County. He got the rodeo bug in the late ‘40s and took part in as many local events, where his specialty was calf roping. He was an active member in the Polled Hereford Association, the Horned Hereford Association, the AQHA, the American Corriedale Association and the ND Stockmen’s Association.

Silha was named the first ND Master Purebred Sheep Producer in 1979. In 1968, he and Fran were awarded a well-deserved Soil Conservation Award. Their ranch was also on the ND Hereford tour several times. In January 1971, the American Polled Hereford Association gave him the Recognition Award and, in 1994, he was nominated for the AQHA Best Remuda Award.

Russ raised and trained Border Collies for himself and others to assist in ranch duties. He served on the Bowman County Fair Board in the ‘50s and the Grainbelt Township Board for four decades and was a charter member of the ND Cowboy Hall of Fame. Silha died in 1997.

In the Pre-1940 Ranching Division, two were nominated, one will be selected.

ANGUS W. BELL

Angus W. Bell was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1876. His parents moved to Jamestown, ND, when he was young. When he was 15, he went out west to Medora and found a job breaking horses at the Eaton Brothers’ Dude Ranch.

Bell later filed on a homestead west of Medora and developed a ranch. He won the heart of a Jamestown girl and persuaded her that setting up housekeeping on the ranch out west was her destiny. They had one son, Edwin.

Highly respected and well known as a rancher, Bell not only ranched for more than 30 years, but also traded horses and ran a livery stable in Medora. Lucky in poker, Bell won the Rough Rider Hotel in a card game and was its proprietor for years.

Bell died in the winter of 1935.

MATT CROWLEY

Matt Crowley was born in southern MN in 1875 and moved with his family to Dakota Territory in 1887. They brought along purebred registered Herefords from IA to start their ranching operation. Crowley worked with his dad until 1910, when he established his own ranch near Elm Creek, Mercer County.

He increased his holdings and returned the acreage to grasslands for pasture. Crowley’s original ranch house was only a sod shack, and he boarded cattle on shares to get a start. He drilled the first artesian water wells in the area. He married Pauline Shoemaker in 1914 and built a wood frame house with running water and a Delco plant to provide electricity. In 1933, he donated 2.35 acres of land to the State Historical Society of ND.

Crowley supplied horses for the Beulah rodeo for many years and did plenty of horse trading, mainly with Bill McCarty, Medora. His brands were the Lazy J and the Jumping J. Active with the Western ND Stockmen’s Association, the ND Farm Bureau and the American National Cattlemen, Crowley was honored by ND Agricultural College’s Saddle & Sirloin Club in 1937.

Crowley served as a County Commissioner during the ‘30s and was a representative to the ND State Legislature during the 1931 session. He died in 1955. In 1960, he was the third North Dakotan to be posthumously inducted into the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, OK.

In the Leaders of Ranching and Rodeo Division, two were nominated, one will be selected.

REX COOK

Born on his parents’ homestead north of Sentinel Butte in 1928, Rex Cook broke his first horse at age 12 and bought some ranch land when he was just 14. After graduating high school, he started teaching with an emergency teaching certificate at the Goldsberry Country School, situated 45 miles north of Medora.

He entered the calf-roping and wild horse race contests in his first rodeo and also announced the rodeo! To pay his way through college, he mastered the art of saddlemaking. To date, he’s created over 100 saddles and was honored to demonstrate his craft on the state capitol grounds during the 1989 State Centennial celebration.

After a stint in the military, Cook returned to Dickinson and began a career with the Dickinson Public Schools and spent a stint as manager of the Dik-ota Clay Products Company. All the while, he maintained a steady interest in horsemanship and rodeos. He rode, trained and sold cutting horses and promoted team roping. Along with Tex Appledoorn, he produced the 1958-59 ND Team Roping Championship in Belfield. Merle Aus and Jim Jefferies were two of his team-roping partners.

His knowledge and expertise were conveyed to scores of Dickinson State College students during the 20 years he taught horsemanship classes. Cook also traveled to the IA State Fair to co-teach horse training clinics. He judged countless horse shows throughout the tri-state area and as far away as NC.

Cook has been a member of the ND and National Cutting Horse associations, NDRA, AQHA and U.S. Team Roping and the Wrangler Roping associations. During the 2007 Dickinson’s Roughrider Days Rodeo, Cook was presented with the Rodeo-Rancher of the Year Award. He now serves on the boards of the ND Council on the Arts and the Theodore Roosevelt Nature and History Association. He continues to reside in Dickinson.

PETE PELISSIER

Pete Pelissier was born in 1865 and left his widowed mother and siblings behind in MN when still in his teens. He headed west, showing up at Eaton Brothers’ Custer Trail Ranch near Medora in about 1883.

Pelissier also worked at the HT Ranch, owned by A.C. Huidekoper. The Little Missouri Horse Company was considered the world’s largest horse outfit at the time, and he was a top-notch roper.

Pelissier married Harriet Eaton, and they built a ranch on Sully Creek where they raised four children. Theodore Roosevelt was a personal friend and ranching associate.

For a few years, Pelissier served as sheriff of Billings County, resigning when he organized a Wild West Show. His show appeared at many important events around the state. This enterprise traveled along the route of the Northern Pacific Railroad and even performed as far east as Boston, MA. The specialty acts and Pelissier’s sense of showmanship and style were well received, and the moniker, “Buffalo Bill of the Missouri Slopes”, is most appropriate. He died in 1912 in Sheridan, WY.

In the Arts and Entertainment Division, two were nominated, one will be selected.

LEO HARRIS

Leo Harris is known as “the cowboy photographer” who chronicled the ranching culture in western ND in the ‘30s and ‘40s. His parents moved to Dunn County from Missouri when Harris was young, and he saw first hand the transformation of the open range into widespread farming and ranches fenced with barbed wire.

Harris attended photography school in Chicago and worked as a press photographer for the Chicago Tribune and the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph. He returned to Killdeer specifically to photograph the Killdeer Mountain Roundup in 1924. Using a big-box still camera, Harris depicted rodeo action and camp scenes. He was an absolute master at capturing split-second action in the rodeo arena.

After a stint in Pittsburg, PA, Harris moved back to Killdeer in June 1932. Setting up a studio, he developed his negatives in an improvised dark room at the Park Hotel, Killdeer. Harris was prescient when he produced a booklet entitled “Water is Coming”, illustrated the area landmarks to be lost when the area was inundated and included portraits of Fort Berthold Tribal members. He maintained connections with the Associated Press and was a Bismarck Tribune correspondent.

Somewhat of a loner, Harris rarely participated in ranching culture, but was on hand to document that life. He moved on to Livingston, MT, in 1950 and died there in 1962. Many of his old-timer portraits are displayed in the Cowboy Bar on Killdeer’s Main Street. The Cowboy Hall of Fame in Medora also features Harris’ photographs in its hallway galleries.

ROBERT “COWBOY BOB” RINDT

Robert Rindt was well known in ND for his more than 40 years of teaching; performing rope and whip, trick shooting 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 for a performance at Minot State University. Rindt was so good with a whip that he could cut a small piece of paper out of her mouth at 15
feet, performed riding tricks hanging from the side of a horse by only one stirrup and rode saddle broncs and Brahma Bulls and bulldogged steers.

Living 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 with the $15 he won in the saddle bronc riding event. For the next 50 years, he worked 10-15 rodeos each year, including performing for President Truman at a Missouri rodeo.

Rindt and Doris were educators and taught school from 1945-1966. While 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 met Rindt at a Fort Totten Indian Fall Fair in the late ‘40s and says Rindt had a trailer load of the best tack he had ever seen. Rindt hosted play days and “mount money rodeos” where Howard and others learned the basics of bronc riding and steer wrestling.

After his retirement from teaching, Rindt raised horses and Brahma cattle on his B.R. Ranch west of Sawyer, produced his own “Wild West Shows” there for several years and enjoyed sharing his expertise with 4-H club members and Boy Scout troops. Rindt was a throwback to the wild and wooly days when “cowboys were cowboys”. Hedied in 1997.

In the Rodeo Arena Division, two were nominated, one will be selected.

BOB ABER

Bob Aber has been intimately involved with the sport of rodeo throughout his life. Born in 1934 in Beach, he was raised and still resides in the Sentinel Butte area. He began competing in bareback riding and joined the PRCA in 1953. However, a fractured neck in 1959 contributed to his retirement from competition.

Aber took up stock contracting and rodeo producing in 1963 and has produced the ND Winter Show rodeo ever since. He has taken a lot of bucking stock to the National Finals Rodeo over the years, including Old Shep (1975 Saddle Bronc of the Year), Double Jeopardy (1977 Bareback Horse of the Year) and Top Hand (1977 NFR #1 Bull of the Year).

The consummate care he has provided his animals has been instrumental in producing great rodeos all over ND, MN and MT.

MONICA HOVDEN

Monica Fettig Hovden was born in 1919 in Killdeer. After high school, she attended Dakota Business College, Fargo, and spent some time in Hollywood as a movie studio secretary during WWII. In1945, she married Morris Hovden. A self- employed accountant, she was the city auditor in Killdeer and taught business classes at Killdeer High School while raising her three children.

Hovden found her niche as a rodeo secretary extraordinaire. Her brothers, Phil and Jack, formed the Fettig Brothers Rodeo Company, and Hovden’s business skills were an invaluable resource to them. She worked as secretary and timer from the early ‘50s until ‘69. She and Phil were visionaries who strove to improve every aspect of rodeo as a spectator sport--from showmanship to rodeo stock. They perfected a serpentine ride for the grand entry that culminated with the Bar over Y brand spelled out in the arena by the flag bearers.

Hovden collaborated with the Schnell and Tescher outfits to create and promote the Match of Champions Ride, where she served as secretary. She worked with the Vo-Ag instructor to start the Killdeer High School Rodeo, while encouraging cowboys and cowgirls everywhere to stick with the sport. Whether it was an NDRA, RCA or NDHSRA event, Hovden was game.

Cowboys from far and wide made it a point to enter the Killdeer Mountain Rodeo Round-up because they enjoyed the gracious hospitality the Fettigs and Hovden provided for all the participants. She attended to the myriad of details that make up a successful event and worked tirelessly until shortly before her death in 1970.

In the Ranches Category, two were nominated, one will be selected.

BUDDY RANCH

The Buddy Ranch, named for the toddler son of its founders, Walter & Bessie Nichols Ray, was established in 1924 east of Medora. Moving from their honeymoon homestead on Wannegan Creek, they relocated her parents’ log home to their new spread. The log home eventually became the central lodge of the Buddy Ranch, which was at first a working cattle ranch.

The Rays bought a railroad observation car, covered with clinker rock, and added a screened porch on the west. This became their summer home and a perfect setting to raise their three children. But Bessie had vision and, in a few years, the ranch morphed into a first-class dude ranch, offering hospitality in an old -time ranch setting. Twelve cabins were constructed, and guests began to arrive by automobile (the ranch was one mile off Highway 10); by rail (transportation to and from the Medora depot could be arranged on appointment) or by bus (it was also a “flag stop” for the Greyhound Bus lines).

Dancers waltzed around the lodge before a huge fireplace of scoria clinkers, while wholesome, home-cooked meals were served in a separate dining hall. For the most part, the vegetables came from Bessie’s garden, and the dairy and poultry products were also produced on the ranch.

Gentle, sure-footed cow ponies of the Badlands were the mounts that tenderfoots used to explore the saddle trails through the rugged Badlands. Rates were charged by the day or week, and plenty of folks came out from Dickinson for the meals alone. Artesian wells provided good drinking water for the canteens, and there was “local and long-distance telephone service”.

Bessie boasted of the natural wonders to be seen in the Badlands. Soon the Ray family was producing rodeos for the Northern Pacific excursion trains that stopped in Medora en route to Yellowstone. They also produced rodeos throughout ND and MN. All during the banner years of the ‘30s and ‘40s, notable folk found their way to the Buddy, including Marquis de Mores’ son and Queen Marie of Rumania.

After a quarter century of operation, the ranch was sold to Chuck and Josephine Cooper. In 1954, the Roosevelt Park bought them out, and the buildings were sold at auction. The railroad observation car is now part of the Clyde home in Medora. Walt moved his dude horse string to a little place just east of Medora, now known as the Medora Stables. He ran that operation until he died in 1964. Bessie died in 1959.

TAYLOR RANCH

The Taylor Ranch is situated in the sandhills of McHenry County, the third most populous cattle county in the state. The four Taylor brothers arrived in Towner in 1900 from Montgomery County, IN. They operated a livery stable in town, a brick plant east of Towner and the cattle and horse ranch toward the southeast.

In 1927, the livery stable was partially dismantled and moved to the ranch by teams of horses and is still in use today. Cattle and horses were grazed on Taylor pastures and on unfenced, unclaimed surrounding land.

The Taylors were raising registered purebred Herefords as early as 1915 and, although a series of tragedies took the lives of the three men on the ranch within two years, their widows regrouped, put the cattle out on shares and moved into town with the children. Pearl, the matriarch, had bought those Herefords with her school teaching pay and in her own name, about the time women were finally allowed to vote! When Bud, Pearl’s youngest son turned 18, he moved back out to reclaim the family’s cattle and horse-raising legacy.

After serving in the military, Bud came back home and began ranching again. The Taylor family helped build the rodeo arena in Towner for the first RCA Rodeo in 1951. And it was the Taylor Ranch that introduced one of the area’s first registered Quarter horse studs in 1956.

Ryan Taylor is the fourth generation to own and run cattle on the same place, and there’s already a fifth generation in the wings learning the ropes. As Taylor notes: “the ranch isn’t the biggest in the state, comprising 3,200 mostly contiguous acres of sandy rangeland and native hay meadows, but it’s never been a passive investment for distant shareholders, or a holding that came without great hardship and sacrifice. It’s not a farming outfit, as 90 percent has never been broken by the plow. It’s a cowboy outfit that’s still managed from the back of a horse.”

It’s a 107-year-old family homestead that was started from scratch—no railroad acres, open range or land purchases made with outside money. Strong, resilient ranch women persevered and kept the ranch intact after their husbands died.

In the Rodeo Livestock Division, two were nominated, one will be selected.

ANCHORS AWEIGH

Anchors Aweigh was raised near Blaisdell on the Clarence Wirtz Ranch. In 1971, Wirtz brought him into town to be tried out at the Blaisdell NDRA Rodeo because he didn’t appear to be cut out for regular ranch duties. Wirtz thought he was maybe meant to be a bucking horse. Indeed, he bucked in the bareback and saddle bronc riding events that day, and the Figure Four Rodeo Company out of Watford City purchased the horse for $100, proving to be a good investment.

Cowboys loved to draw Anchors. If they didn’t make a mistake, they were almost always guaranteed to win the rodeo, be it outdoors or in, come rain or shine. However, Anchors didn’t like people and often had to be blindfolded just to allow the rider to climb on. Then he’d buck hard when the ride began and would be bucking just as hard when the whistle blew.

Anchors dominated the saddle bronc riding scene in ND for two decades, was NDRA Saddle Bronc of the Year several times and, in 1982, earned the title “Most Outstanding Saddle Bronc Horse” at the North American Rodeo Commission Finals in Denver, earning his owner $1,000.

Anchors Aweigh’s name was given by Wirtz’s son, Bernard, who christened him with the nautical term just before he sailed off with the U.S. Navy to serve in the Vietnam War. Anchors Aweigh was retired from active duty in 1986 at 19 years old.

DOUBLE JEOPARDY

Double Jeopardy, of Sentinel Butte, was born in May 1970, and Bob Aber paid $500 for him in 1975. The rancher complained that the horse was no good for his purposes. He always had to walk home because Double Jeopardy would buck him off.

The steed’s rodeo career got off to a fine start in Forsyth, MT, and he appeared throughout the tri-state area, in Cheyenne and at the Valley City Winter Show. For seven years, Double Jeopardy was trailered to the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. He is the most decorated critter of the Aber bucking stock, was the first-place top bareback horse in 1977 and came in third place in ‘78 and ‘79.

Joe Alexander, seven-time world bareback champion, said Double Jeopardy was the rankest horse he ever rode. Monte Carson, out of Grassy Butte, hightailed 800 miles from another rodeo just to ride Double Jeopardy in Ellendale. He did not go home disappointed.

Double Jeopardy broke a leg at the ND Winter Show in 1983. He was transported for veterinary care to Fort Collins but, sadly, the injury could not be repaired, and Double Jeopardy had to be euthanized.

The 200 NDCHF Trustees are responsible for selecting the inductees into the Hall of Honorees. They will receive ballot packets in mid-April, and those selected for induction will be announced Memorial Day weekend. More than 110 ranchers, bronc riders, distinguished events and popular rodeo animals have been inducted over the past 12 years. Formal Induction ceremonies into the NDCHF will be held June 25 and 26 in Medora. NDCHF President Phil Baird of Mandan notes, “Those not selected for induction into the Hall of Fame this year are eligible for re-nomination in future years.”

The NDCHF’s Center of Western Heritage and Cultures opened in Medora in 2005 and was named North Dakota’s 2007 Tourist Attraction of the Year.

The NDCHF is open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. from May 15-Sept. 15 and by appointment during the rest of the year. Its galleries and exhibits detail the history of the Plains horse culture.

The facility is also used for meetings, reunions, weddings and other events. An attached patio provides room for more than 200 people for catered events. Catered food and beverage service is available, and reservations are now being taken for 2010 and beyond events.

A statewide fundraising campaign continues to pay off the Hall of Fame’s mortgage in 2010. Contributions for the project may be sent to the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, 120 North 3rd Street, Bismarck, ND 58501-3860.

Anchors Aweigh

Angus Bell

Bob Aber

Bob Rindt

Buddy Ranch

Double Jeopardy

Henry Baker

John Buzz Fredericks
John "Buzz" Fredericks

Lee Sellend

Leo Harris

Matt Crowley

Monica Hovden

Pat O'Brien
Pat Obrien

Pete Pelissier

Ralph Klein

Rex Cook

Russ Silha

Taylor Ranch