Cowboy Great: S.D. cowboy inducted into National Western … – Tri-State Livestock News

April 8, 2023 - Comment

[ad_1] For eighteen consecutive years, Tom Reeves never missed a year of making the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. The Eagle Butte, S.D. saddle bronc rider is a 2022 inductee into the National Western Heritage Museum. Born on the Cheyenne River reservation in 1964 to Dean and Emma Lu Reeves, he grew up ranching and rodeoing,

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For eighteen consecutive years, Tom Reeves never missed a year of making the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo.

The Eagle Butte, S.D. saddle bronc rider is a 2022 inductee into the National Western Heritage Museum.

Born on the Cheyenne River reservation in 1964 to Dean and Emma Lu Reeves, he grew up ranching and rodeoing, and at age five, knew he wanted to be a champion bronc rider or bull rider. As a kid, he had ten bucking bulls that he rode for practice, kicking the chute gate open himself, so he could practice without needing help.

Reeves had his own fire and motivation. “My mom will tell you that. I’d go (to the practice pen) and practice by myself.”

While his buddies were dragging Main Street, Reeves was going to rodeos.

In high school, he won the South Dakota high school saddle bronc title and the National High School title at age fifteen. The next year, he got second at Nationals, and his senior year, after spending the year in Burden, Kan., with world champion and Hall of Fame bronc rider John McBeth and his wife, he won the Kansas High School bareback, saddle bronc and all-around titles.

When he was 16, he got his PRCA permit and had his card the next year.

From 1985-2002, he never missed qualifying for the National Finals, winning the average title in 1993 and the world title nine years later.

He’s won every big rodeo there is: Cheyenne Frontier Days, Deadwood, Red Bluff, Calif.; Ft. Worth; the National Western in Denver, San Antonio, and more.

Reeves retired from rodeo competition in 2006, and weeks later, began as rodeo coach for Ranger (Texas) College. During his three-year stint with the college, the men’s team won the Southwest Region twice and the national title in 2007.

After that, he worked in the directional boring business, helped Stace Smith with his rodeo company for nearly ten years, and owned his own stock contracting firm, Wild Card Rodeo Rough Stock, Inc. That business sold in 2013.

About ten years ago, he and wife Casey began a different rodeo venture.

Named Building Champions, Reeves aims to work with youth and young adults to get them involved in rodeo, especially the bucking horse events and bull riding.

His first youth training session was held with his bucking horse 868, Lindy Lu, at Red Scaffold, S.D., a tiny reservation town.

“They told me there were no more cowboys,” Reeves remembers, “and I said, no, there are cowboys there, you just have to slow things down and work with them.”

That was April of 2018. He worked with youth across the Dakotas and Montana that summer, and by fair time on the Cheyenne River reservation, he had thirty kids getting on in the rookie saddle bronc riding and another thirty getting on bareback horses and bulls.

Building Champions is a 501-c-3 non-profit. Reeves loves to take his schools to reservations, remembering how it was for him, growing up on a reservation. But he doesn’t limit it to native peoples; he loves to break down barriers and bridge ethnic gaps.

In 2019, he had 53 live-out performance schools, putting kids on live animals – bareback and saddle bronc horses and bulls – from Oregon to New York.

He teaches more than how to ride bucking stock. He emphasizes the code of the west, integrity, ethics, and the business of rodeo.

He is also careful about the animals the youth get on, making sure they’re on horses or bulls that match their ability level.

“We don’t bring them in and smoke them (get them hurt) on animals they’re not ready for. We don’t baby them, but when they’re ready, we put them on what they need to get on.”

He and Casey also supply equipment to the kids who don’t have the means to buy their own. “I can’t train a kid to ride saddle broncs if he doesn’t have good equipment,” Reeves said.

The couple is working towards building training facilities for roughstock cowboys. They have one started in Big Springs, Neb., and another one begun in Ranger, Texas.

Building Champions is also Reeves’ PRCA stock contracting firm; they produce several events each year.

In addition to the National Western Heritage Museum, he is a member of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame (2008), the Texas Sports Hall of Fame (2010), and is a Cowboy Great in the Casey Tibbs South Dakota Rodeo Center (1998) in Ft. Pierre, S.D.

Reeves is passionate about the next generation being involved in rodeo.

“Rodeo and the western lifestyle is an industry, the greatest industry in the U.S., for youth to come into.”

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