Casey Tibbs - Inducted 1976

Casey Tibbs: Born March 5, 1929 near Fort Pierre. Perhaps the most famous rodeo competitor of all time, Tibbs was to rodeo what Babe Ruth was to baseball. A 28-foot tall bronze statue of Tibbs riding the famed bucking horse Necktie was dedicated outside the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs in 1989. At age 14, he started riding rodeos in South Dakota. By 15 he had moved on to nationwide competition. In 1949, at 19 Tibbs became the youngest man ever to win the national saddle bronc riding title. Between 1949 and 1955, he won a total of six PRCA saddle bronc riding championships, a record still unchallenged, plus two all-around titles and one bareback title. He was on the cover of Life magazine in 1951, when he became the first person to win saddle bronc and bareback titles the same year. In 1954 he rode in 54 rodeos and won $43,000. During his career Tibbs suffered some 44 broken bones. Tibbs was one of the founders of the Rodeo Cowboys Association, dedicated to improving the image of cowboys and pro rodeo. For many years he wrote a syndicated newspaper column, "Let'er Buck," for Rodeo Sports News. He also wrote, produced and starred in the movies "Born to Buck" and "Young Rounders" and starred in the movie "Bronc Busters." In 1958, he took a rodeo troupe to the World's Fair in Brussels, Belgium. In 1973, he introduced rodeo to the Japanese with 162 performances of his troupe.