ND Cowboy Hall of Fame - Stories & Articles

2010 Inductees Selected for Cowboy Hall of Fame

The 200 Trustees of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame (NDCHF) have selected two ranchers, a ranch, a great saddle bronc horse, a rodeo producer, a teacher who was a specialty act performer, another retired teacher who can rope the moon while reciting Shakespeare and three great bronc riders for induction in 2010.

NDCHF Executive Director Darrell Dorgan says, “The inductees, in nine categories, were selected by the Hall of Fame’s 200 Trustees, and they will be inducted into the NDCHF’s Medora Hall of Honorees on June 26.

In the Modern-era Rodeo Division, four were nominated, two were 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 various championships around the country. Selland has produced and managed rodeos from Towner to Wishek and taught countless rodeo schools. In 1974, he was featured in the state’s “Roughrider” travel promotion.

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. He still competes in several rodeos a year.

JOHN “BUZZ” FREDERICKS, JR.

Buzz Fredericks of Twin Buttes lived his entire life on the Fort Berthold Reservation, except for the years he spent in Texas and New Mexico where he earned a post-secondary education and degree. He also served on the National College Rodeo Board of Directors while participating in college rodeo.

Fredericks was born north of 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 1950s, he took up bull riding, steer riding and wild horse racing. He closed out his circuit days in the team roping contests.

From Sanish to Killdeer to Red Lodge and points in between, Fredericks was a member in good standing in the RCA, NIRA, NDRA, and the All- Indian Rodeo Association. He appeared at Madison Square Garden in 1959, as well as at the Calgary Stampede and the Denver Stock Show. Invariably, the word “champion” precedes his name in compilations of rodeo statistics and records.

His achievements go beyond the rodeo accolades amassed by Fredericks and his illustrious family members Pete and Buddine Fredericks and Joe and Emanuel Chase. He was an educator, a Community Action Program Director and a business consultant who emphasized Indian education, agriculture and economic development. He raised a family of eight children.

In the Pre-1940 Rodeo Division, two were nominated, one was selected.

HOWARD WANNA

Howard Wanna was born on the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota 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. This entailed breaking of horses and ponies, a natural progression into the sport of rodeo.

Wanna (sometimes misspelled as 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. In fact, the photo of him on Sky High at the Beulah Cowboys Reunion in 1928 was used on the advertising billboard.

Wanna personifies and 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 they settled on their allotments and began cattle ranching, the buffalo-horse culture left behind. He was among the first generation of Indian cowboys and that was his contribution to the world of rodeo and ranching.

Wanna served in the military in the Pacific Theater from 1942 to 1945. He contracted cholera, which left him very weak and, after an honorable discharge, he returned to South Dakota to recuperate. He died with two other relatives in a tragic house fire in 1949.

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

BOB ABER

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

He took up stock contracting and rodeo producing in 1963 and has produced the ND Winter Show rodeo ever since. Aber has hauled plenty of bucking stock to the National Finals over the years.

Among them were 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 North Dakota, Minnesota and Montana.

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

DOUBLE JEOPARDY

Double Jeopardy was born in May 1970. 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, Montana, 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 in Oklahoma City. Double Jeopardy is the most decorated critter of the Aber bucking stock: he was the first-place top bareback horse in 1977 and came in third place in 1978 and 1979.

Joe Alexander, seven-time world bareback champion said that this horse 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 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.

In the Modern-era Ranching Division, two were nominated, one was selected.

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 until his death in 1997. His son took over the operation and continues the family tradition of raising Corriedale sheep, Polled Hereford cattle and American Quarter horses.

Russ was exempted from the military in World War II because two of his brothers were already serving in the military. In 1947, he married Frances Susag in Bowman, and they raised a family of five on the Lazy JS.

Russ got the rodeo bug in the late 1940s and took part in as many local events as he could. His specialty was calf-roping. Through the years, 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.

Russ was named the very first ND Master Purebred Sheep Producer in 1979. In 1968, he and Fran were awarded a well-deserved Soil Conservation Award. Their ranch was on the ND Hereford tour several times, as well. In January 1971, the American Polled Hereford Association gave him a 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 1950s, the Grainbelt Township Board for four decades, and was an enthusiastic charter member of the ND Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Both his parents were born in Wisconsin and later moved to North Dakota. Ironically, Russ was back in Wisconsin when he died in 1997 at age 73.

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

MATT CROWLEY

Matt Crowley, born in southern Minnesota in 1875, was the third North Dakotan to be inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma.

His Irish-born parents boarded an immigrant train and moved their family to Dakota Territory to stake a claim in 1887. They brought purebred registered Herefords from Iowa along to start their ranching operation.

After only four years of formal education, Crowley worked with his dad until 1910, when he established his own ranch near Elm Creek in Mercer County on railroad land. Crowley later increased his holdings by purchasing acreage from homesteaders who were leaving the area. He allowed those homesteads to revert to grasslands to provide pasture for cattle and horses.

His original ranch house was only a sod shack, and he boarded cattle on shares to get a start. Crowley drilled the first artesian water wells in the area.

He married Pauline Shoemaker in 1914 and built a wood frame house for his bride. The house had running water and a Delco plant to provide electricity. Together, they raised three cowgirls on their spread north of Hebron.

In 1933, Crowley donated 2.35 acres of land to the State Historical Society of North Dakota, which is now known as the Crowley Flint Quarry State Park.

He supplied horses for the Beulah rodeo for many years and did plenty of horse trading, mainly with “Badlands Bill” McCarty of Medora. Crowley’s brands were the Lazy J and the Jumping J.

Active within the Western North Dakota Stockmen’s Association, North Dakota Farm Bureau and American National Cattlemen, Crowley was honored by North Dakota Agricultural College’s Saddle & Sirloin Club in 1937.

Crowley served as a County Commissioner during the 1930s and was a representative to the North Dakota State Legislature during the 1931 session. He died at home in 1955.

In the Ranches Category, two were nominated, one was selected.

TAYLOR RANCH

The Taylor Ranch is situated in the sand hills of McHenry County, the third most populous cattle county in the state. The four Taylor brothers arrived in Towner in 1900 from Montgomery County, Indiana. 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. That barn is still in use today. Cattle and horses were grazed on Taylor pastures and on unfenced and 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.

Bud served in the South Pacific in World War II, 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 and leads. As Ryan 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—90 per cent of the ranch 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 Leaders of Ranching & Rodeo Division, two were nominated, one was selected.

REX COOK

Born on his parents homestead north of Sentinel Butte in 1928, Rex Cook has come to personify the quintessential “renaissance man”. He broke his first horse at the age of 12 and bought a little bit of ranch land when he was just 14, while working for his neighbor. 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 in the calf-roping and wild horse race contests in his first rodeo that same year—and also announced the rodeo! The course was set: he’d divide his time between rodeo arenas and corrals and schoolhouses. To pay his way through college, he mastered the art of saddle-making. To date, he’s created over 100 saddles and was honored to demonstrate his craft on the state capitol grounds during the 1989 centennial celebration.

After a stint in the Marine Corps Reserve and a hitch with the U.S. Army in Japan, Cook returned to Dickinson and began a career within the Dickinson Public Schools. He also 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 as a rodeo event. Along with Tex Appledoorn, he produced the1958-59 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 Iowa State Fair to co-teach horse training clinics. He judged countless horse shows throughout the tri-state area and as far away as North Carolina.

Cook is a member of the North Dakota and National Cutting Horse associations, and is a past member of the NDRA, AQHA, U.S. Team Roping Association and Wrangler Roping Association. During the 2007 Dickinson’s Roughrider Days Rodeo, Cook was presented with the Rodeo-Rancher of the Year Award.

At present, he serves on the boards of the North Dakota Council on the Arts and the Theodore Roosevelt Nature & History Association. He and his wife, Ann, also an educator, raised two children and continue to reside in Dickinson.

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

ROBERT “COWBOY BOB” RINDT

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.

More than 120 ranchers, bronc riders, events, distinguished events and rodeo animals have been inducted over the past 12 years.

Induction activities will be held June 25-26 in Medora, beginning with a barbecue and dance on Friday evening at the Hall of Fame and continue with the Induction ceremony on Saturday at the Tjaden Terrace at 1:00 p.m. MDT.

NDCHF President Phil Baird 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 North Dakota’s 2007 Tourist Attraction of the Year. The facility is open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. May to October and by appointment during the winter months. 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.

A statewide fundraising campaign is underway 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.

Lee Sellend

John Buzz Fredericks
John "Buzz" Fredericks, Jr.

Howard Wanna

Bob Aber

Double Jeopardy

Russ Silha

Matt Crowley

Taylor Ranch

Rex Cook

Bob Rindt