Oral History Program Ron Brown and Ginger Brown Interviewed by Woodrow Johnson 3 June 2014 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Ron Brown Ginger Brown Interviewed by Woodrow Johnson 3 June 2014 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Utah Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum honors men and women whose lives exemplify the independence and resilience of the people who settled Utah, and includes artists, champions, entertainers, musicians, ranchers, writers, and those persons, past and present, who have promoted the Western way of life. Each year, the inductees are interviewed about their lives and experiences living the Western way of life. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Brown, Ron & Ginger, an oral history by Woodrow Johnson, 3 June 2014, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Ginger and Ron Brown June 3, 2014 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Ron and Ginger Brown. The interview was conducted on June 3, 2014, by Woodrow Johnson, at the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Ogden. Lorrie Rands is on audio and camera. Ron and Ginger discuss their lives and their experiences with rodeos and traveling acts they performed. They also talk about experiences working with the film industry and animal training as well. WJ: Ron, when and where were you born? RB: I was born here in Weber County at the Dee Hospital up there on Harrison Boulevard, the old home. I was raised the first part of my life on a farm out at Farr West, Utah, and my parents, we raised row crops. Row crops are peas and tomatoes and onions and stuff like people consume in the garden. Then my father received a job with the Bureau Reclamation so then we moved to North Ogden and just farmed on the side. So we’ve been in North Ogden since then to present times. So my whole life, Weber County’s been my home. WJ: And yourself Ginger? GB: I was born at the McKay Hospital, no I think the Dee. RB: You were at the Dee. GB: I was born at the Dee Hospital and then I was raised in Plain City. My forefathers established Plain City as a little community. One of the things my great-great grandfather did, grandpa Skeen, was he worked with the irrigation company and he would dig out the ditches and the canals that we were able, to do their farming out there. I was raised on a farm. My family still has the farm out in Plain City. 2 WJ: Very nice. When did either of you or both of you get introduced into a rodeo or a ranch lifestyle? RB: Mine was at three years old. My dad would put me on the horse as he cultivated the beets and I’d just hold onto the reins, and then he’d tie a little rope around me so I wouldn’t tip off when I fell asleep. Then he would cultivate during the day and mom would be doing other stuff in the house, cooking and that for the field hands. So I’ve been on it my whole life and then it just advanced as I got older. Then when I went to move to North Ogden we got involved with the horses in 4H and the Weber County Junior Posse. We went through that program into high school rodeo program. I mean it just has been part engrained in our system and so I’ve been horsing around my whole life. I apologize for that, but that’s what I do. WJ: You say you were in the high school rodeo? RB: Yes. WJ: What did you ride? RB: Well we rode, I started out bareback riding and then rode bulls. It was only three events in the high school rodeo and that was roping, bull riding, and saddle, I mean bareback riding. That was before there was ever a Golden Spike Organization. It was Northern Utah High School Rodeo, so it included Weber County, Box Elder County, Cache, and Davis County. So it was right at the grass roots of starting. So that’s kind of what I could do, two events. I wasn’t very good at either of them though. WJ: What high school was it that you went too? 3 RB: Weber High School. WJ: Weber High School, and what years was that? RB: That was in 1961, and I graduated in ‘64. WJ: And after high school did you continue rodeoing? RB: Yes sir, and then right after high school in ‘65 I went on an LDS mission back to the eastern Atlantic states, and President Wilford Burton came to me one day and said, “I’m sending you to Winchester, Virginia, to do a fundraiser for their branch and for the LDS temple that’s going to be built in Washington, D.C.” He said, “They have no money, but they have lots of horses.” So he said, “They want to donate 27 horses, but I need two of my missionaries to go break those horses.” So I went for a period of time trained those horses then we went to Front Royal, Virginia, and sold them at the horse sale. The allotment for the little branch there was 5,000 dollars and the allotment for the branch to send to the temple was $7,000 and we made $12,100. So that’s kind of how, even on my mission, I broke the mission rules according to the handbook under the guidance of President Burton of course. Then we came home and I went to college. I didn’t do any college rodeoing because I had to work to pay for my school, but I went to the forest service and they hired me as a wilderness ranger on the North Slope. On the North Slope I took seven of my horses and I had 210 miles of trail that I rode every ten days with a pack string keeping the trails clean. Then after, on my spare time, at that time I was a mustanger and I went out on the red desert and this is before the mustang laws were the way they are on where private people could go out and catch a wild horses. So I went and 4 captured these wild horses, roped these horses and then I’d sell them for my tuition and my college funds. Two of the wild horses that I caught I trained as Roman riding horses because they were so unique. They had such a keen mind about them that it was totally amazing. I later married Ginger, Ginger of course recognized the value of those horses. Took those horses over and she became the only—it was only three other ladies in the United States that were doing Roman riding and she was one of the three. So she took over that team and rode them for 30 years until they passed away at 34 years old. So we have been in the farm, ranch, and horse circuit for our whole lives. Too much? LR: No, heavens no. WJ: No, no. As much detail as you’re willing to give we are willing to take. LR: This is just, I’m in awe. So this look is awe. RB: Okay. WJ: Ginger when did you start riding? GB: Well it was when I was a young girl. I would sit in the house and we had big windows that went along the sides of our home in Plain City. I’d watch the kids go up and down the road with their horses and I, oh I wanted a horse really bad. My dad said, “I don’t know about that. I had to use my horses to work and plow the fields with. I just don’t know.” So anyway I kept watching these people, the kids go back and forth. There was a contest that KLO was sponsoring, and you could win a horse. You had to do a little bit of writing, so I wrote this paragraph and kind of forgot about it. I turned it into the old radio. I guess we still have KLO radio station and I won. We had a place to keep the horse because we had 5 acreage in Plain City. They brought me the horse. Dad said, “Oh, alright. Looks like we got our horses.” Then after that I was in the junior posse like Ron was and that was a wonderful experience. It causes you to make a lot of friends with the same interests. We would do the pole bending, the barrel racing, the keyhole, rescue race, all the different things that junior posse still has this day. My folks always took me to the rodeo. That was their celebration. They loved the Ogden Pioneer Days so every year we’d go the rodeo, and I’d sit with my family and I would look out and watch those beautiful rodeo queens. “Oh man I want to do that someday.” Never thinking that I possibly could. Then the newspaper had a little piece, a little article on it that said, “We want interested girls to try out for Miss Rodeo Ogden.” I thought, “Well, yeah I think I’ll do that.” Then there was a little piece below it and it said, “If any of you would like guidance and help with this please call this phone number.” Oh I got a phone number I can call, so I called that phone number. So the gal came and she was the past Miss Rodeo Utah to help me. She brought Ron along and that’s how I met Ron. So she taught me some things and I worked with my horse and I tried out. I didn’t win queen, but it was okay. I got awards and won an attendant and then they entered us into the Miss Rodeo Utah contest, and I got awards and also was an attendant for Miss Rodeo Utah. To make a long story short, so I was an attendant two years to Miss Rodeo Ogden and two years to Miss Rodeo Utah. So and then after that I knew Ron at the time and he said, “You know, I think we’ll try something a little different.” I really didn’t have any idea what he 6 was thinking about. He was thinking about the Roman riding of course. So I said, “Okay.” I tried to Roman ride, but before that, I back up just a little bit. He was Roman riding and the RCA convention was held in Denver, Colorado, and the Brown Palace. We went to that convention to try to book his rodeo act. While we were at that convention Mr. Monty Montana came over, introduced himself. He’s a well-known trick rider, and trick roper. That’s what he’s primarily known for. He said, “I would like you, both of you to go to New Jersey and work in a Wild West Show.” Ron said, “Oh yeah, we’re doing that.” I said, “No we’re not doing that.” WJ: So now you’re heading to New Jersey. Is that when you started wearing costumes and everything? RB: Yeah. WJ: So Monty Montanya asked you to head out to New Jersey and so what did you do there? GB: Well we did a couple of things in New Jersey. We Roman rode in a Wild West show and this Wild West show I’m sure is probably the most elaborate Wild West show that has ever been created in the United States. Well maybe Buffalo Bill’s was, but ours was really good. RB: Ours was second. GB: We had top notch people that were expert in their field. We were asked to Roman ride and we did Roman riding. We were also asked to be in the western scene, so Ron rode in as a gambler and he shot the bad guy. We were asked to pull in magic wagons and they had magic tricks in them. So that’s what we did when we were in New Jersey. 7 WJ: How long were you in New Jersey for? RB: Two years. GB: Yeah, we were there for two years and then when our show closed we came back to Utah and we taught school, both of us. I taught at North Ogden Elementary and Bates Elementary and also Green Acres Elementary. Ron taught at Plain City. So, I lost my train of thought. RB: So then what she did then, we’d work our Roman acts during the summer. Then in 1983 and ‘84 they introduced another Wild West show and so they called us and so we went back in 1983 and 1984 to Great Adventure, New Jersey. Did that show there and then they sent us out on different little projects to Six Flags. By then Six Flags had bought the park and so we were under the Six Flags Corporation. Also to generate some income and to promote Six Flags, we went into Philadelphia and we did stuff in Philadelphia like the Mike Douglas show, these are TV spots. Then we went into Washington, I mean into New York City and did some little spots at the Madison Square Garden’s area. Went up to Boston, they did a little spot to represent the 1976 Centennial Year, starting that with horses and did kind of a Paul Revere ride. Went down to Washington, D.C. and did some stuff there at the monument. So it opened up lots of different opportunities, but I got to tell you the one thing at Washington, D.C. that was a little off center. I don’t know if you want to use this kind of stuff or not. We were asked to do our little thing and our slots are rules back there. The state has parks, national parks around the monument have horses. Then they have the polo fields so they were going to have us do the stuff by the polo 8 field. We pull in to do it, they said, “Oh no you can’t be here. You can’t be here.” So we go over to here and “Oh nope, you haven’t got clearance here. You haven’t got clearance here.” So at that time there was a road that ran right along the White House and the fence and then there was a grass area. So we pulled up alongside that White House and the rock wall. Got ready for our stuff, we had trailers and campers and all this thing. My mother-in-law says, “How come there’s people on the roof pointing guns at us?” Why I didn’t, they came out there. They were crazy. They just went like we were out of control. This is way before 9/11 and so they politely moved us off, gave us a ticket, and off we went. So you just never know what you get yourself into unexpectedly. They took care of everything after they realized what was going on. Right at first it was pretty wild. WJ: So after Great Adventures or Six Flags in New Jersey at the second time I guess. Did you have children by that point? RB: Yeah, yeah they worked in the act with us. Three boys, Ryan is our oldest, Lonnie is a youngest and Michael’s a middle boy. They had their own little act, we called it Little Red Fox. It was kind of a supplementary act. So they performed that and then they performed in our regular act by doing some trick roping and they held balloons while I shot. Mounted running I’d shoot the balloons off with their hands, hopefully not their hands, but every once in a while they got a little of the burnt gun powder. GB: Then my horse would sit down. I’d cue him to sit down and then my boy would rope him. 9 RB: Get him up. GB: Yeah they’d make him stand up. WJ: Wow. RB: You know and they put them on the stools. So I mean it was all part of our act and it was great. We did that forever all the time they were growing up. GB: Well and we also had our parents that traveled with us. RB: Parents traveled. GB: To help with the kids and so that was nice. RB: That worked out very good. We had some wonderful experiences. I mean the Utah Opera saw our act one day and they incorporated our act in with the Utah Opera. Who was it? Glade. GB: Glade Peterson. RB: Glade Peterson, he’s now passed away, but he was the director of the Opera. He had an American saddlehorse that he just loved to show and a big silver saddle. This gave him a chance to spotlight his horse. So we would do these ________ they’d call them for the Utah Opera. We would Roman ride and they would play the music and Glade would ride his horse. The kids would perform and they had other western singers come in and do different things. Same with Governor Leavitt. We did lots of stuff for tourism, Utah tourism with them. Then also Governor… GB: Herbert. RB: Herbert. During their campaigns, you know how stuff goes with western type things? Lots of delegations would come in that Hill Field would bring in, and the 10 state government would bring in from the Chinese, from Japan, what other delegations Ginger? We had the, from South Korea on the jets, we had what other? Can you think of any other delegations? GB: Oh I’m sure we had... RB: We had lots, lots, but I can’t think of everything right now. Then the Utah Film Commission hooked up with us and we hooked up with them. We did a tremendous amount of commercials, movies… GB: One of the ones that I was, that popped into my mind was at the airport. RB: Oh yeah. GB: We took the horse into the airport and you were riding him. RB: Yeah, yeah. GB: It was to promote Utah tourism. RB: Tourism, kind of the way the storyboard was is we’re in the airport and all these people are coming and picking up their luggage. Of course it was skis and it was mountain bikes and it was skates and it was family tourism and there was dancing and there was all of these things. The western side of the storyboard was the horses, said they needed a horse to go in, ride in and then as his luggage comes around he needs to reach in and pick up his bag. So we trained that horse to do that. Course we cheated a little by putting a little bowl of grain right there in front of his bag so then he reached in. Course then they cut, stopped the thing, so it shows the horse picking his grain. Then he moved over, picked up his little strap that he was trained too and then lifted. He had his baggage so yeah. I mean that’s the other side… 11 GB: We’ve had some fun experiences with that. Fred the Furrier. RB: Oh Fred the Furrier was a fun one we did at Park City was it? Go ahead you... GB: Well I was going to get the picture. RB: Oh get the picture? Yeah. Fred was from New York. Michael Mann you might have heard this director before. He was the director of this project. This is when he was just becoming really famous. So Michael brought this project in and is that too much glare? LR: No. RB: We can pull that out. GB: Just take it out of there. RB: So they hired these models to ride these horses with these spurs on and then Michael Mann wanted this actor to ride the Roman team, course he couldn’t so we had to double. I doubled it all and dressed up like he would. Then they ran the commercial and… GB: It aired back on the east coast. RB: Yeah it was an east coast type thing. We did Fanta, the soft drink company. LR: Oh yeah. GB: And it aired in China. RB: Yeah it was aired in China. GB: We did one on the, out at Wendover on the Great Salt Lake. RB: Oh yeah. GB: Not the Great Salt Lake, but on the Salt Flats. It aired in Germany… 12 RB: That aired in France and Germany. They come in. So there’s lots and lots of different things that we’ve been involved with through our state. Now most people don’t ever get that opportunity to deal within their state with this type of a business. GB: We drove a team of horses in our wagon in the centennial parade. RB: Yeah so you know and both on the politician side of different politicians, but also lots of stuff for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in promoting our western lifestyle. So it’s been quite a mish in our lives of what has been, from just one little mustang Roman team, getting up and falling off in front of people now and again lead to in our lives. GB: Would you like me to show you with the books? WJ: Yes please. GB: Things that we’ve done. WJ: You need a hang? GB: No I got them. RB: What one is it? GB: The little one. Okay, so we did the story, you can tell them. That’s the Sacred Stone. RB: This is a one where it meshes together. This was about the Sacred Stone. It’s a story about building the temples, but it’s also was produced by Lee Groberg who is an independent documentary filmmaker that lives in Bountiful. Lee takes the physical part and combines it with the religious part so it’s in line with both sides so non-members could’ve seen this and still got the historical part out of it as members see it to see what the temple was about, the Nauvoo temple. 13 WJ: What did you do for that project? RB: We provided all the oxen, animals, and equipment that it took to move the stones. Horses and that for these temples, the building of that temple. This is another of Lee Groberg’s, this is called the Sweetwater Rescue, of all the documentaries we’ve done this was probably in my opinion one of the very best. We’ve done documentaries with Rick Burns, who is very… GB: He’s a brother of Ken. RB: Ken Burns’ brother, Ken and Rick Burns. We did the project, ah the Donner party that’s been aired several times and modified several times. Which they did a very great job, but this one… GB: This one tugs at your heart. RB: This one tugs at your heart. The other one has some of the dark side of what the pioneers had to go through. This one right here is a story that what people really sacrificed to do, to get, and it was just not members of our church that sacrificed. It was many, many people that along the same trail sacrificed that year. So this is the Sweetwater Rescue about the Martin Will East Company doing their rescue from Salt Lake to bring them back from Martin’s Cove and Rocky Ridge. GB: We have several others. RB: Then this was a great project called Son of the Morning Star about Custard. It was actually done fairly accurate. We filmed this out of Harden, Montana, and I provided a number of cavalry horses and I myself was a cavalry person for reenactor, for this project. This is a great story, we’ve done a number of these old, these Hallmark projects. Probably four or five of them, but this Willard 14 Cotherd book was one of the, it’s called Sarah, Plain and Tall. Then it talks about the little gal… GB: That one’s Old Pioneers. RB: Oh is this the Old Pioneers? Excuse me, I didn’t even read it. GB: I didn’t bring the Sarah, Plain and Tall. RB: But the next project after the Sarah, Plain and Tall was the Old Pioneers and what was unique about this is they called and they needed a seagull and a meadowlark trained. So I went and trained a meadowlark to perform on stage and some seagulls to perform. I don’t know, people ask me how does this happen? How can you do this? I don’t have a real concrete answer of how this happens. All I can tell them is Heavenly Father has given me a gift and that gift is, I can help and do. I can make these animals perform out of the realm that they’re normally designed to live in. I don’t know why, it’s not something you can learn out of a book. It’s not something you can glean from. Now there’s other people, and we shared stuff back and forth, but it’s an internal feel of what is internally with you. That you can take an animal and study them a minute and we can connect and form a training level that they will perform at. GB: That’s kind of driven what you do. RB: That drives… GB: Because a lot of the things that we’ve done with horses we haven’t really asked to do. People have come to us and asked us if we would do those things and Ron has had it in his heart to just continue working with the animals. 15 RB: Now isn’t that goofy? See you guys are actually doing something important with your lives. Making a real living instead of doing stuff like this that you just don’t even know what’s the next problem going to be or the next thing that’s coming along. LR: But you’ve been successful at it though. RB: Somewhat, yes, yes, yeah. I don’t brag much about it. LR: I’m not, I guess I’m not trying to get you to brag. It just… . GB: We’ve been able to accomplish what people have asked us to do and it’s been in some really hard situations. RB: Yeah, but you know I taught school for 27 years. Retired, Ginger retired. I taught second grade and I loved it because they’re at the same level that I’m at. That’s what Ginger said. Those little kids are like little animals. I mean they are very sensitive to the weather, to storms, to the environment, everything and I could relate with them and I loved it. I really hated to see that part of my life change, but as I was teaching those little kids I was also gleaning from them things that I use with my animals. Now does that sound a little off center? But it all came together and hopefully my little kids I call them, they came in as weeds and now they’re grown up to be flowers. GB: I got a couple of pictures that show his horse training abilities. WJ: Yes, let’s see them. GB: Alright here’s the horses that I Roman rode on. Killer and Jerry, this was at the Pendleton Roundup and Ron trained these horses. 16 LR: There we go. Get a little closer here. GB: Do you want me to get closer? LR: Nope I got it now. Awesome, that’s great. RB: And they’re not tied together in anyway. LR: How do you…if you don’t mind me asking a quick question. How do you train a horse to Roman ride? RB: Well you get them together in a round pen and you buddy them up. So that they know that they’re their buddies. Then you whip break them. Now when you mention whip breaking to the general public they think that you’re just in there to beat them. That is not, that is whip abuse. Whip breaking them is training them to respond and to watch the whip. The whip is an extension of my arm. So a horse is very visual and very electric on his body. So if I extend my arm he says, “Oh I’m six feet away from that guy.” But if I extend my whip I’m another seven feet closer. So he responds. Then once you have got them so that they’ll respond and watch the whip then you stand up on the back and if you move the whip away they’ll follow the whip with their eye. A horse’s eye is in the front on the side. He don’t see in front of him very well. He sees on the side because 10,000 years ago he was running from saber tooth tigers and wolves and they always come in from the side and the back. So if I move that whip away from the horse then that horse will open up because that’s an extension of my arm. You see how, it sounds complicated, but it isn’t. I move the whip closer to them then they move closer together. LR: Who’s your kid? 17 GB: This is my boy. LR: Okay. GB: It’s myself and would be my brother-in-law. WJ: Oh is that his roping the horse? RB: Yeah. GB: He’s roping the horse. LR: That’s fantastic. GB: Then he’s trained them to get on the stools. WJ: So did your sons also Roman ride then? RB: They don’t, they’d love to have been able to continue on, but the things have changed in the world with the PRCA. The act business has changed to where it wasn’t making enough money to do it. GB: Now we have acts that are motorcycle acts. RB: Motorcycle acts and they’re great, it’s just a different… GB: Drifted away. LR: Right. RB: It’s just drifted away from the cowboy stuff a little bit, but it’ll evolve and come back somewhat. You know it always seem to have done that and we’re kind of purists in our family. We kind of do it the way that we’ve always done it. We don’t do our ranch work with 4-wheelers, I do use a tractor to lift my big bales around, but we do it all by horseback. We do teams and that’s just who we are. GB: Right now this is what we do. We work on Antelope Island, we have an operation that gives people horseback rides. 18 RB: Yeah we love it. We just put them on good ranch horses. We take small groups out and we’re not really on any set trails. We just ride ________ ride off of those horses and take the people to show the buffalo herds and our guests and they love it. We just tell stories and ride. GB: We take people from all over the world. RB: All over, there isn’t a place in the world that we have not taken people out on Antelope Island, show them whatever they want to do. Birds, we’ll do birds, if they wants buffalos, bison we’ll take them by, big horn sheep, mule deer anything they want to do on the island we do that. The state, in my contract, has given me that leeway which has been very successful for both the state and for R and G. It’s been very successful. Just the fact that we do small groups and their ride is tailored to what they want to do and man what a combination and I have great horses. WJ: So how’d you get with the state to get out on Antelope? RB: Well the state had tried a couple of different things and it wasn’t very successful, too restrictive. George and Gary Hamblin were the main concessioners for the island. He’d heard of us and they gave us a call, George and Gary from Syracuse. They invited us to come out and they said, “Here’s our problem and this is what we’d like. Can it be done?” I said, “It can be done if you let us do it the way it needs to be done.” They said, “Go for it.” So what George and Gary and R and G has always tried to do is surround ourselves with good, competent people and then we let them govern themselves to work into what will work. It seems to be our reason for success. 19 WJ: So do you have a family ranch as well as the ranch out at the R and G? RB: We have a family, other people call it a ranch, but it’s really not that big. So we lease some ground, if you include that, then we have our place in North Ogden which is beautiful. It’s right up against the mountain, we’ve got the creek that runs through our place. We keep our animals and the deer are there, that’s good. Then Ginger’s little farm out west. We lease some of that and so that’s kind of how we are, but the ranch when we say the ranch it’s usually Antelope Island, the Garr Ranch because we’re over the horse end of it, of that aspect. Then Clay Shelley, who is the curator, is over the buildings and the grounds and then Jeremy Shaw who is from Weber County and was raised here in Weber County is the park superintendent that’s over the management of the whole park. So that’s how it breaks down. WJ: So I understand that you raised horses your whole life. What other animals do you raise? RB: The movie stuff. WJ: The movie side. RB: Oh we’ve had them all. Right now I’ve got a 100 head of sheep, old world sheep that I’ve trained. Sheep are an interesting creature, they’re not that easy to— they’re easy to have them follow, but they’re not easy to train them. So on the movie projects we’ve been working the last four and a half years they wanted these sheep to at one moment be over here and the next moment be over here, or to lay down, or to stand up on cue. That’s taken some time, so we’ve had donkeys, goats, birds, pigeons, we’ve got ducks, chickens, horses, what else? 20 GB: Goats. RB: Goats, we mentioned goats. Cattle we’ve trained. We don’t have any cattle right now because I haven’t had a real demand. You can’t own everything because pretty soon they eat your profit up. See you kids are smart, while you’re sleeping nothing’s eating your profit. Every day when we’re sleeping we have things eating up our profit. So we have to run it in that kind of a light, look at it in that way. WJ: What has been your favorite animal to train? RB: Horses, I love it. WJ: Just hands down? RB: That’s it. Mules, I’m not the greatest mule person. They’re some great people that train mules and are very good at it. One of my very best wranglers I’ve ever had worked for me was Gary Mahas, lived in Weber County for years, raced here. Now he’s in Idaho and been very successful up there, but he’s the best. He has that gift with mules. So horses for me is my love. Next to Ginger, no I would never do that because every morning when I saw that little girl come out to, when she came to get some lessons I looked at her and I said, “All I need is a little Ginger every morning and my life will be successful.” I’ve been very fortunate in that aspect. WJ: What was the most challenging animal to train? RB: The meadowlark. A wild meadowlark that is totally wired to flight or die. That’s how they’re wired. If you don’t get away you’re going to be eaten, but that took me a couple of months just to form that bond. Most of the other animals it don’t 21 take me very long to do that. Seagulls were fairly easy believe it or not. You would think they’re wired to fly and flight too, but they’re pretty smart about it and they can figure things out a little better. Course we trained some oxen to do a special thing and Gary really did a lot of work on that. They were tough. Not that they were very easy to handle, to get them started, but to get them to do what you needed them to do on set. They were tough. Camels! GB: Oh camels. RB: Camels are a little difficult to deal with because the people that live with those camels have had thousands of years to genetically work with them and understand them. We don’t have that opportunity so their connection is pretty tough. GB: Sheep were hard. RB: Sheep are difficult, but goats are really pretty easy. Goats are, dogs, course dogs are really kind of fun to work with. Anything that… GB: I don’t know, would you classify children? RB: Children, yeah. LR: Yeah I would. RB: Yeah, they’re tough, kids, but it’s all doable and time. The whole thing with any of this is being able to have time with them. Time is the secret. Even with our little children or children we taught if you can spend that time, time is the magic word. It’s not force and it’s not bribery, it’s not promises with these animals, it’s one on one time. Then the reward is those other things, are rewards, but that time is the key. Do you agree honey? 22 GB: Oh absolutely. WJ: I got to thank you. I appreciate how much you’re trying to keep that I don’t know I guess you would call it old school now, that western heritage alive. RB: Yeah, it’s called the cowboy code. I wish I’d a brought the book. There’s a book out a guy wrote, it’s called the cowboy code, and in it we kind of followed our life by that. By that example, integrity, hard work, standing by your word whatever happens, and you get bucked off you get right back on and go for it. It’s worked in our life, probably not for everybody’s life, but in our lifestyle it’s been, it’s what we’ve lived by. GB: Everyday has been an adventure, but it’s been an enjoyable adventure and we’ve done it together. RB: And we’ve done it. GB: With our whole family. RB: Family and yep all the kids and everybody, it’s just been, and now the grandkids. We’ve got 10 of those and they’re great. They’re learning, their mothers have had to adapt some, it’s a little different, but it’s been good. They’ve had to, when they come to the place if they get scraped up and beat up a little that’s normal, but they’ll survive it. Some of their little moms have, you know they’ve been raised a little different so it’s kind of breathtaking, but they’re _____ aren’t they? WJ: Speaking of these scrapes, I’ve got to ask. Roman riding, standing on a horse versus your traditional way of riding a horse. You’ve had to have some close calls? 23 RB: Oh terrible. 10% of our rides are going to end up in a wreck. That means 300 rides, 30 of them are a wreck. Now a wreck is where you hit the ground or something really happened. 10% of those, 10 more, so 20% are ending up in a fall. So 60 of them out of 300 you’ll end up in a fall. That means you fall on one horse, that horse pulls you together and then you’re able to bounce back up. That’s why the extension of the arms and that. Instead of them falling and them splitting and leaving you in the air, that is the bad part, but falling and then when they hit on one horse then that other horse is trained immediately to come together with your other horse. You got him running, of course you’re running free, you’re not holding the lines then you can gather your lines, get in rhythm and then pop right back up. GB: That incident at Great Adventure popped into my mind. Where our horses collided with the chariot horses, that was amazing. RB: That was a terrible one. Can I tell you that story? WJ: Yeah, please do. RB: Okay we had the Ben Hur Chariots and Jerry Brown and J.R. Randle were the drivers. J.R. Randle’s dad was Glen Randle who trained all of the horses for the Ben Hur movie. Jerry Brown was one of his drivers. We were doing our Roman act out in the arena and up behind stage is the chariot ready to come in. The horses after doing four shows a day for months, they’re wired for the musical cues just like people are. They know what’s going on. Ginger had just done. GB: I’d left the arena. 24 RB: Just left the arena. I make the final loop around and then I jumped on my horses and turned backwards and I’m sailing out, waving to the crowd as I’m riding backwards out of the arena. As I come out of the arena the chariot horses run in full bore. The musical cue was off and the white team busted and Jerry couldn’t hold them. We collided in the middle of the arena so my sorrel horses were running backwards and the chariots coming down the ramp and run in. I hear the chains and I heard the chariot and I heard the team coming. I knew I had not time to turn around, I just knew it. Then I waited and I waited, things drop into a slow motion type of a thing, your mind. So I started calculating, knowing as soon as I knew that we were going to collided I jumped straight in the air and then course the momentum of the chariots and knocked my horses down. Tipped, and knocked them, but it slid past me and I didn’t get ran over, but the horses were all tangled up. There’s four beautiful, white clean horses and then my horses were all tangled up. They weren’t no physical injury to the horses except superficial, but all that blood on white horses looks like, oh it’s terrible. 6,000 people are in the arena, in the stands looking down at this wreck. They got everything untangled and got all the horses up and nobody was really seriously injured except for the looks on the white horses. Fortunately, the EMT’s check you out. That was probably the worst, one of my worst ones. Probably the most dangerous one, I was in Roosevelt and I had a wreck and my horse stumbled, flipped me to the head, my foot got caught in the reins. I got laid on the side of the horse, they come together like they’re trained too but I was hung up on them and the outside horse pushing, pushing because he was 25 waiting for me to bounce up. Push me alongside the fence and so I was going down and I could see it on the corner, this pole fence and I knew I’m going to get killed if I can’t get myself back up. I couldn’t and I turned the fence, hit the post and thank Heavenly Father that that post was rotted enough it broke. As it broke it pulled me off the horses too, I just sustained some superficial damage, but not too bad. GB: Horses are used to being in repetition and they don’t like changes. I was Roman riding at Great Adventure and they put the water hose that they would use to sprinkle the arena down and it happened to be in a different place up in the stand, the grandstand. So I was doing my regular act and my horses saw the water hose, I didn’t and they came to a dead stop. So they went from going fast to a stop and so, and then you know there was no way for me to recover so I jammed into the ground. Usually if we got into a situation we could jump down on the other horse and get them under control, that’s what would happen a lot of times. On this occasion there was no way to recover. RB: The worst has happened to my beautiful, little bride, my heart ached for her. She was working on a Touched By an Angel movie and she was Roman riding and doing like a circus deal. They had some, a set built, a human set of people standing up on pyramids and they collapsed in on her towards her and her horses. Course her horses sucked back and to the side and body slammed her and broke her back. That was probably our worst one. GB: It was the most painful. 26 RB: The most painful, but then again she was sustained because she was so physically fit that her muscles then took hold of her and held her spine so it didn’t cut her spinal cord which her doctor said was a miracle. Now she’s paying for it with aging. Which they said that’s going to happen with arthritis that forms in those kind of things. Overall, we’ve been very successful in able to do this for 30 years or more. I think 32 years. GB: Yeah I had a circus friend, well I have several but one of my little friends Lesse, she would do some amazing things. RB: Trapeze and sway pole. GB: You need to calculate your risk and I think that’s what we did. We calculated our risk, even though the things we did took a chance, but they were things we could do on a daily basis and not really do something that we knew would put us under. RB: Yeah and Charlie Fells, no not Charlie Fells, but doctor… GB: Dye? RB: Nope the one’s that up in Morgan. Oh… GB: Yeah, Kaden? RB: Kaden, Charlie Kaden come to me one day. He says, “You guys are physically amazing and you’ve been blessed with being real athletes except lately…” He says, “Your rebound isn’t as good as it used to be.” He says, “That day’s coming sooner than you think so you need to maybe think of something other because aging and rebound go together.” GB: I would have to say he’s right. RB: He was right. So anyway I appreciate your time. I hope we’re not going over. 27 WJ: No not at all. RB: You know if you have stuff you want to do, we want to give you as much as we can. LR: Are you done with your questions? WJ: I am. Did you have questions? LR: I do, this has been so fantastic. Speaking about the risk, was it hard to let your kids get involved doing Roman riding? RB: Well they grew up with it. LR: Okay. RB: We didn’t think of it as that big of a risk. LR: That makes sense. RB: You know I was more worried about them getting on the tractor to go down and cut hay and to bale hay than I was standing up on the horses running full blast on the road, but now mother… GB: Well okay and I was fine with it, but I looked through my photo albums and I see what some of the things they were doing and now I have grandchildren that age and I’m thinking, “No.” Please don’t do that with my grandchildren. RB: So isn’t that a crazy perspective? LR: Yes, it really is. RB: You know people have wondered they said, “Them crazy Browns are trying to kill their kids. Why would they even do that? They’re up there Roman riding without helmets on.” The horses were trained well, I would never put them on junk. If the horses made mistakes that were unacceptable, they were gone. 28 GB: We were just raised with it. I mean when my oldest boy was 16 he drove a trailer to Montana, no driving experience as we sent him to work on films in Nauvoo without, we weren’t even there. In Tennessee and Canada, my one boy got up into Canada and he was supposed to work with some horses that were there and the horses that they had for him to work with weren’t trained. RB: They weren’t trained so he trained them. The kids do have a certain amount of that gift that I told you about, they do. It’s genetically passed in or given to us from experience, but it’s a little different than what mine is, isn’t it Ginger? GB: Yeah. RB: I don’t know, but they can do it. It’s amazingly what they can do, but yeah I was doing Return to Lonesome Dove and Corky Randle who was the head wrangler come to me and he says, “Hey we need four wagons up here, four more. I don’t have a truck to go down and get them, a driver. I can’t, do you got anybody that can drive?” I said, “Yeah my boy just got his driver’s license, sixteen.” He says, “Well send him on up.” So I, we put four wagons on a 40 foot flatbed, I had Ginger drive him to the interstate so he didn’t have to make any hair corners. I told him, I said, “You’re on your way son. I’ll see you up here in 14 hours, in Silverstar, Montana.” He said, “Where’s that?” I said, “Just keep driving. When you gas up at Idaho Falls, call me and I’ll keep you going.” I said, “Make sure when you pull in the truck stop you don’t have to back up, that you just have a straight shot out. You’ll have to sit there a half hour.” Now his mother was quite upset about that, but he made it. GB: He did. 29 WJ: Were you more nervous to put him on a freeway than on a horse? GB: I think so. RB: Yeah. WJ: Times have changed haven’t they? RB: Well it is. Now my little grandkids, see their mothers are just, they’re just really protective. I’ll throw them up on the horses and they’re trotting around, chasing around. They say, “Oh, Ah!” You know and I’ll say, “They’re fine, they’re fine. They’ll be good.” GB: This winter we take our grandchildren to the Golden Spike and we’d ride because they had open riding. They were trotting and laughing and giggling and having a good time. Their mothers weren’t there. RB: Yeah their mothers, we didn’t invite them, not the mothers. Is that terrible? LR: Sometimes it’s what you have to do. WJ: If you, and I’m sure you’ve had to give advice especially to your daughter-in-laws. What would your advice be to someone who wasn’t raised around horses or any livestock at all who wants to experience the western heritage a little bit? RB: I tell people this and here’s what happens is, people are customized to their pets as their friends. This is the advice I give anybody that’s going to work with large farm animals, horses, “You always respect them. Never, never trust them. If you do that, you can live as old as I am. If you think that they’re just your pet, that nothing would ever happen, you’re trusting them and that’s a mistake. It will catch up to you.” So that’s what I always advise and then go for it, but always keep in mind the respect part of it not the trust. As great as my horses are, I never really 30 trust them because they’re wired to run away from a saber tooth tiger that comes out of the grass unknowingly around them. So that’s the advice I have. Do you have anything different? GB: Oh well I think that they should follow their passions and if they have a love for the animals I think they should invest their time and use their time for what they love. I think that’s important. RB: Yeah, but you got to remember we’ve only been in cars 100 years. People have been with horses 5,000 years. I’m going back to Solomon when he had 10,000 chariots. That’s 20,000 head of horses. Can you imagine how many? So we are hard wired, our body genetically is wired for the movement of animals and to be around them. Horses are very electric on the outside so people like to feel that. I get people coming to me all the time, they’ll say, “I just don’t know why, but I just feel like I want, I have to ride a horse.” I says, “No, that’s normal.” I tell them the hard wired and that. So they get on and they feel like electric charge and it stimulates them. These little children that have cerebral palsy do very well with the movement of horses because it relaxes, that electricity from the horse goes into their little bodies and it connects that and makes that muscle relax and move. Autistic children do very well. We do lots of those little kids that have those issues. GB: People with low self-esteem. RB: Low self-esteem is wonderful because they can feel that horse will accept them. Even though they’re saying, “Oh I can’t do that. I don’t know how to brush this horse.” That horse hears that, but yet he will accept that, and I’ll just say, “Look, 31 look how he accepted you. He’s licking his lips, look at his eye, it’s got real soft. That horse is accepting you.” All of a sudden they say, “Mhmm, wow hey I didn’t know that would do that. You know I’m kind of one of these that’s been beat down.” “Not today, you’re at the top.” So like she said, that’s really successful, self-esteem is another. LR: Well, you brought these amazing shirts. I’m wondering, is there a purpose for them other than just the showy part of them? The shirt, the costume for Roman riding? RB: Okay like this one with the fringe all over it? LR: Yes. RB: On a galloping horse and your arms are out moving. This just shows more showmanship. When you’ve got people sitting way out there, if I was in a tapered outfit they would say, “Well that looks like a pogo stick flying around on that horse.” This stuff attracts your eye and the pants would have the same, would have fringe on and it’s big. It’s decorative and man it does look sharp to us. I don’t know what it looks to the public. Don’t you think that’s a good, do you have something you want to say on this? GB: No, it’s the color and the sequins we… RB: Lots of that because the light picks that stuff up and on a galloping horse you can camouflage a lot of things that you don’t want people to see. LR: Oh okay. GB: The western cut it would be your snaps and then your yolk, the western has the yolk ______. 32 RB: Then these are more parade, more parade type things. LR: Oh okay. Those are a lot smaller size wise and you said the Roman riding ones are bigger on purpose? RB: Yes. GB: We need to be able to move. RB: To move and give us that mobility, otherwise you’re screeching down with your horse and reins collecting whips, in and out, yeah. This is Ginger’s by the way. GB: This is more form fitting. RB: Then these are more form fitting, but yet its’ still got the showmanship, but your audience is closer. LR: Right. RB: I mean we can put one of these on if you want or is that not something you… LR: That’s entirely up to you. I was just, you brought them and I wanted to hear about them. I didn’t want to forget. RB: So anyway it’s whatever you would like my dear. This is your show. What we are on the movie set is a human hitching post, standing there holding horses all day. Then on the scheme of things and sorry to say this, but you know there’s a hierarchy from top down to movie set. What falls out of the end of the horse falls on us so that’s how low we are. We are the bottom feeders you might say nowadays, people call that. LR: Well I just have a couple more questions actually if you don’t mind. RB: You bet. 33 LR: When you started, before we turned on the camera you were talking about your first time riding at a rodeo and meeting your photographer. RB: Jim. LR: Jim Fain and him, you’re both doing your first… RB: Ride. LR: And now you’re both, is it do you think it’s a… RB: Twist of fate? LR: Maybe. RB: I do. LR: That you’re both now being inducted in the cowboy hall of fame. RB: I really do. There isn’t a greater person in the world than Jim Fain. He’s been a true cowboy for the cause in my opinion. Successful because he has a passion for it and he has a gift. You look at his work, I don’t know, well I hope he’ll bring a bunch of it down. It’s very, very, very good. That he’s kept focus to what life is too. Now sometimes you can do the greatest work in the world and you get detached and end up going different directions, but Jim hasn’t. That’s my personal opinion. LR: That’s what I was looking for. So finally you talked about your gift. When did you first notice that you had this ability to, if you will, communicate with animals and what lead you to I’m asking two questions I’m sorry. RB: No that’s good. LR: Then what lead you to follow that to just continue that and work with animals? 34 RB: Well I was 12 years old and a good friend became a good friend, George Larkin, who is a mortician in Ogden here for years and years and years. He had this horse that he loved, Tennessee Walkers, and he had this horse that was a real jerk. He was not very trainable and my uncle ran into George and George was telling him and he says, “Hey I got a nephew that can ride that thing and he can do something with it.” So George came out and brought me that horse and that summer I rode that horse every day and I realized that there’s something special about me. That I can do something with a horse that should’ve gone to Archie Anderson’s feed lot to be slaughtered and yet we made something out of it. George, I worked all summer and George gave me a 50 dollar bill and I thought, “Holy cow I’ve got more money in my pocket than I’ve seen in my whole life.” Right then and there and then he brought all of them. That’s kind of how it all started. My parents kind of knew because they’d say, “Go catch this chicken out of the chicken coop, we’ve tried and tried, but I don’t want to run him too much because what we are catching him for is to cut his head off and eat him.” I could go out there and just in a few seconds just have that chicken sit right there and I could go pick him up. Now that’s weird. WJ: Yes it is. RB: That is weird, but it wasn’t till really in the movie industry and Roman riding is when I really got it. GB: Well you have the uncanny ability to choose animals that will do a good job. RB: Yeah now how did I can go through a herd of horses and they said, “They’re all ready.” I can go through and in 30 minutes I can say, “Well this one will work and 35 this will one work. This one will do it and this one will do this much, but it won’t do it all what you had in mind. That one back there, the one that the director thought was going to be the perfect one he won’t work.” I just got to be alone with them for 30 minutes. Again, I don’t understand that so that’s why I’ll always say it’s Heavenly Father’s gift. I don’t give credit to nobody but him because I don’t know where it came from. LR: There has to be another question. RB: It’s crazy isn’t it? Keep a going honey, whatever you want. LR: Oh I know, I want to think of another question. WJ: I just think it’s phenomenal what you guys have been able to do. RB: Well thank you. WJ: Especially in a world that is almost seems as actively trying to leave the western heritage behind. I want to thank you for carrying it on. RB: Well it’s kind of just what we are. People ask me about technology and I’m so embarrassed because I’m so lacking in that aspect, but I got an answer. Do you want to hear my answer? WJ: Let’s hear it. RB: If it don’t have hair on it, I don’t handle it. LR: I like that answer. RB: Yeah and guess what? They buy it. People buy that and it’s just an excuse for me. GB: No there’s some truth to that. RB: There’s some truth. 36 WJ: So curious, I’ve only seen most of the United States through the film industry and traveling and your riding. Why stay in Utah? RB: You don’t, we talked about that a lot. We could’ve moved ourselves to a different level down in California where the heart of the industry is and we have been approached a number of times by people wanting to do that. Here’s the reason, my family in 1857 came here to Weber County, Ginger’s family came in 1855 and she still has the original family farm that they farmed with. We love the intermountain west, this is to us our place and our family. We figured it would give our kids the best shot in life to be here where we are today. Not that there’s other people that are very successful in California, except the movie industry there’s a huge span from the corrupt to the honest. I just didn’t want my kids to have to make that type of a decision of where they’re going to fall into that. Here there isn’t, the camera crews, the production crews, the people with Utah film commission are more my type of people. They’re more family oriented and there isn’t that huge span of being to the top to get all the big bucks. Does that make sense to you? WJ: It does, absolutely. RB: So this is the road we follow, there it is. I should’ve said that instead of putting all that language in. Followed our hearts, that’s it right there you cute little thing. LR: So do you hope your grandchildren will glean some of the, some of your own western heritage and continue that with their kids? Are you hoping for that? RB: Very much so and they are. I see them. Billy is four years old. He gets so upset if he doesn’t come over and feed the sheep even though he scatters more hay 37 around and I have to go up and clean after he leaves, but he just can’t stand that, not coming over and taking care of the sheep. GB: It’s all about where you come from, I think, everybody needs to know where they come from and I think that helps to define who you are. My mom and dad engrained that in us children early on. We’d always sit and listen to him tell stories and to see the progression that happened during his lifespan. I didn’t realize that we would have that same progression with ours, but we really have. I mean when we were on the road, no cellphones, and no computers. So we’ve had an incredible lifespan just from the things that have changed in our lives and things go on and they’ll continue to change and I think that’s important to be successful, you have to be able to change. You can’t just be a constant and stay the same, because life changes around you and you change. RB: Yeah our older grandkids they’re not as close, but when they want to ride the 4- wheelers when they come, they want to work, ride the tractor, they want to get on the horses during the wintertime they want to do hook the horses and pull them around on the sleighs. I mean so that stuff is entrenching into them. Their Collin and Tyler wants to come up and work out at the ranch now that schools out. GB: My granddaughter Lucy, she wants to be a Whoopie girl. She’s six years old. RB: Yeah six year old. Her only dream is to be a Whoopie girl for the Ogden. If she wants to I’ll mount her on the best thing we have and if I don’t have it I’ll go get it. She’ll be whatever they want to do, but I want them to go where their gifts and talents and what they want to do too. GB: Our grandson Brighton, he loves all kinds of animals. 38 RB: Yeah. GB: Dogs, horses… RB: Dogs, horses, and sheep. He came down and got some sheep. Said, “Grandpa I need some sheep up.” He lives in Honeyville. He says, “I need them because they’ll eat my weeds.” I said, “Okay.” So we got him some sheep and holler broke them. He just wanted sheep up there to have around. GB: Then Billy has his little pigmy goat… RB: Goat oh yeah, what did he want for… GB: For his birthday. RB: Birthday, one of them wanted a goat so they got him a pigmy goat. You see how that’s just evolving, it evolves. Then he said, “Grandpa, I need some horses over to the house.” So they got him some acreage, a little acre there. We brought some horses over. I mean you know whatever they want. When they ask for it so we just kind of do what, without forcing. I don’t want to force them. LR: So are you still working within the industry or you just kind of taken a backseat? RB: No we’re going full bore. We’ve got a movie that’s coming in July, the Discovery Channel. We’re going to be working on providing eight, 17 horses on that for Indians. 1870’s Indian wars time and we’re going to be chasing some buffalo like they did at Dances with Wolves kind of a sequence. I don’t know how that will work out, I haven’t got the storyboard on it. Then we’ll go to Strawberry Valley up there by Strawberry Lake and they’re going to do some things there and then they’ll go on up the Provo River up into the Uinta’s and do a bunch of stuff there so that’s a 30 day project that’s coming. Lee Groberg ___ another project that’s 39 coming. We just finished one about Cortez, a documentary about Cortez and so we provide a bunch of soldiers and horses for that project that Lee’s finished. What else is on the books? GB: Well we are continuing with Antelope Island. RB: And then the LDS church. We’ll be doing some short stuff later this fall. Some old testament and then starting a book of Mormon stuff. So I don’t know, you think that’s or should a guy not do stuff? LR: No. WJ: Sounds like you’re planning to keep you busy. RB: Well yeah people think that I’m an idiot. I should be going on a cruise someplace. LR: You do what you love and that’s what keeps you going. RB: Well yeah, that keeps me alive. RB: Let me tell you, we love you kids. I’m proud of you. I’ve been watching you. You guys are good at what you’re doing. WJ: Thank you. RB: Be proud of what you do. Do you love it? WJ: Absolutely. LR: Absolutely. RB: Yeah, I hope that they pay you enough for what you have to go through. LR: Well… RB: It’s not enough, I know. LR: It’s not, I don’t do it for the money. I do it because I enjoy… WJ: It’s again, you do what you love. 40 RB: Yeah. GB: You do.