Oral History Program Desiree Cooper Larsen Interviewed by Brian Whitney & Lorrie Rands 29 June 2015 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Desiree Cooper Larsen Interviewed by Brian Whitney & Lorrie Rands 29 June 2015 Copyright © 2015 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: Larsen, Desiree Cooper, an oral history by Brian Whitney & Lorrie Rands, 29 June 2015, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Desiree Cooper Larsen June 25, 2015 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Desiree Cooper Larsen, conducted June 29, 2015 by Brian Whitney and Lorrie Rands. Larsen discusses her father, Gary L. Cooper, recent inductee to the Utah Cowboy Hall of Fame. BW: Today is June 29, 2015 we’re in the Technical Education Building Room 102b on the Weber State University campus interviewing Desiree Cooper Larsen on behalf of her father, Gary L. Cooper. The time is approximately 1:30 p.m. and conducting the interview is Brian Whitney and Lorrie Rands. LR: Alright thank you very much Desiree for doing this and being here and letting us interview you, we appreciate it, because this is about your father we’re just going to jump in. I would love to know when and where he was born. DL: He was born in Utah County and when he was two years old his father died so he was raised by my grandmother. There were four boys and she raised them with a very stern hand. LR: I’m sure. What year was he born in? BW: 1930. DL: 1930, thank you. LR: So you said Utah County, do you know where? DL: Utah County in Lehi and that’s when Lehi was a very small town not like it is today. He was raised there with his four brothers and they lived right across the street from a park. They would harass people constantly as they’d go from the movie theater all the way home; they would hide in trees with flashlights in their 2 bib overalls and scare everyone to death. So they were terrors I think, from the stories that I’ve heard. LR: So where did he fall in with the siblings? DL: He was the second to the last. LR: And he only had brothers? DL: Only brothers. One was a highway patrolman, one was a legislator, one was a dentist, and my dad was a cowboy. LR: That’s a wide range. DL: A wide range, very diversified. LR: So his father dies when he’s two and he’s raised by his mother. Did he ever say how that shaped him or if that affected him in any way? DL: Well I think that it was interesting. In 2002 he was interviewed and he talked about being raised by a mother that was very stern, and she had to be the mother and the father. She was a crane operator at Geneva Steel and so she was a very determined woman and disciplined. She knew and they knew it was with an iron rod hand that she would discipline. They had to pick their own switch, their own stick if they were in trouble and she kept them in line. Four rowdy boys. He was missing the father element and my grandmother she had to make up for that. LR: Did he ever say that he missed having a father? DL: Yeah I never heard him talk about not having a father. I think the brother’s, they were so close that they bonded together because of that because they just needed each other. So they are a very, very tight family. So the Cooper name is 3 very important and they’ll go to the death to protect that Cooper name and to protect one another. LR: So what was the reason why he got involved with horses and being a cowboy because none of his other siblings went that route? DL: Right, my mother thought she was marrying a politician and decided he was going to be a cowboy. So I think he started with a group of friends and I think it’s the adrenaline rush and he was very good at it. So I think you have passions for things that you’re really good at, so therefore he would ride and it was the thrill of the victory and competition and the adventure, the diversity of it all, always changing. Every weekend was a different place rodeoing, but he didn’t go professional because he had a family. So he had a rodeo stock contractor by the name of Cotton Rosser, who is a former Utah Cowboy Hall of Fame Inductee. LR: Right, I’ve heard the name. DL: Yes he asked dad if he would go on the road with him because in those days they liked to have those cowboys go on the road with the stock contractors because that would then produce a really good rodeo. My father had a family and he decided not to do that so he stayed within the Utah boundaries of rodeos. He stayed within Utah because he wanted to stay with his family instead of hitting the road and going all over the country. LR: Interesting, you said your mother thought she was marrying a politician. What do you mean? DL: Well I think my father, from the stories I hear, was very charismatic and he could sell anything. So she thought that when she met him they were young and he 4 was going to be in politics. Instead the other brother went into politics and my father decided to be a cowboy. One thing that he used to do, he would break horses. So the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Posse, and in those days every town had a posse. My dad would break their horses, break the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse. They’d all bring their horses down, my dad would break them and then they’d go and ride for the summer and let their horses out for the winter. Then they’d bring them back to my dad again and so my brother and sister started to help my dad. There was a lot of interaction with horses. He always lived on a horse ranch and he was always raising horses or breaking horses. That kept him involved during the week and then the weekend I think it was, I can’t recall the very first time he got on a bucking horse. I never really heard that story, so my brothers and sister would probably know that. He also rode bulls when he first started and I don’t remember him riding bulls. I do remember, as a little girl, we would be at Lagoon every weekend at the rodeos and my dad would ride bareback horses. I would sit and play in the dirt as a little girl and watch my dad ride bareback horses. LR: So I know from the bio we read he was very big on the bareback, but you don’t know when he started or do you? DL: Let’s see, he won the championship in bull riding, no he rode for thirty eight years, so I don’t know exactly the years on that particular piece. I could find that one but I don’t know that right off of when he actually started. I do know that he rode until he was forty eight years old because I had a brother that was killed when he was twenty two years old and he was lead in the region in the bareback 5 riding and so the finals was two months after my brother was killed and my dad wore my brother’s shirt and chaps to those finals. It’s a very emotional, touching situation but he was forty eight years old. BW: I’d like to go back to some of the family background from where your parents came from and when they established themselves in Utah? DL: My grandmother, they settled in Cedar Fort, Utah which is west of Lehi. She was a Berry so they had these huge farms out on the west side, basically the west side of Lehi. That’s where she was raised, and he was raised partly in that town before they moved into Lehi to a park. You’re going to ask me how many brothers and sisters she had and I can’t even tell you. I know of three, one brother and a sister because I’m the baby of the family. I was the accident. BW: Were they farmers? DL: Yes they were farmers, they had huge farms. Wheat farms, hay farms and yeah and it’s all on the west side, now it’s starting to be developed with houses but that whole west side. Really the Berry’s were the main family that had moved out on that farm out on the west side of Lehi. BW: Are you able to share what the cause of grandpa’s passing was? DL: I do believe that it was heart failure or a heart attack, something to that effect. BW: Then education, growing up for your father and his brothers. What do you know about their education? DL: He graduated from Lehi High School and that’s as far as he went. He worked at Geneva, followed mother’s footsteps and he was a crane operator/truck driver at Geneva. He worked there for oh I don’t, I can’t even tell you how long that is 6 even. I think he started there when he was like 20 years old because when he graduated from high school he went into the army and he was a boxer. He was their champion, lightweight boxing champion. Then was discharged and came home in December and got married. I know that part. LR: Do you know what year that was? DL: Well if I had a piece of paper here in front of me I could tell you that. I want to say 1948. LR: Okay so was he drafted? I mean he was right there on the edge of… DL: No I think he went into the army and he was in California. I don’t know, he always liked to fight and he was known as a fighter, and tough. So that’s what he got into out there. They wanted him to stay and go into their system and become a boxer, he decided not too. He came home and decided to cowboy and I do not know what triggered that, but my brother and sister hopefully will know. BW: How did he meet your mother? DL: She was staying in Lehi with her aunt. She had a broken leg and she’d gone to a basketball game and he was there. He had this water gun and he was shooting these people, the guy ducked and hit my mother in my face. She looked at him like, “You’re dead.” So he says, “Well who are you?” She said, “Well you don’t need to know.” So then they started to date and then they got engaged and married. She was originally from Nephi. LR: Oh okay so where did they get married? DL: In Lehi and she was just there visiting her aunt for that time. She was seeing a doctor in Salt Lake so therefore she was staying with her aunt in Lehi. She went 7 to this ball game and then he was there and then they dated for a few months and got married in December, December 29th. BW: So professionally after marriage what did he do? DL: He worked at Geneva Steel. BW: Okay he stayed at Geneva Steel there… DL: Then he rodeod on the weekends. BW: Did he eventually just go into ranching at some point? DL: Well he was raised on a farm and so when he got married he had horses and a farm. I remember this story, I wasn’t born at this particular time, but they had a horse that was a Palomino colt and the mother had passed away and so they had to bottle feed this little colt. So it was like a pet and it would come and just lay around because they had to bottle feed it. So my brother and my sister could climb all over this little colt which is unheard of, but because my dad had bottle fed this colt you could go up to it, play with it, and it’d just come and follow you around. Then it grew up to be a horse that we all rode and I remember getting on that horse. I remember walking under that horse’s belly when I was little. So it was a very trained, and it’s all because of the imprinting. In those days they didn’t really know about imprinting, but nowadays when a colt’s first born, so he took and raised it on a bottle. BW: Very neat. I guess what I’m asking is did he go into full time ranching at some point or did he stay working for Geneva? 8 DL: He stayed working for Geneva, but he always had a horse ranch. Always would have horses, always would breed horses, train horses or raise horses. I mean there was always ten or twelve horses on our ranch. BW: So when he wasn’t busy at Geneva he was always tending his horses? DL: Right and on weekends he would rodeo. A gentleman called me and told me that he watched my father when he was a young child at Morgan when my dad would ride up there. They’d all try to find up when my dad was at the bareback riding and the bull riding, and that was before my time. He said that he was so good that everybody wanted to go the night he was up and that he remembered him. He just called this last year and he remember him and it was really exciting to see that I was still involved with rodeo. They used to find out when Gary Cooper was up. Speaking of Gary Cooper his nickname was “High Noon.” There were two reasons for that: one because Gary Cooper the movie star, in High Noon the movie. The second was there was a rodeo stock contractor that had a bareback horse that was called High Noon and no one could ride that horse. My dad was the first man to ride that horse so they called him High Noon or Coop, those were the two names that everyone knew him by. He used it to his advantage I mean he was in Las Vegas one time when Dean, Dean, Dean… BW: Martin. DL: Dean Martin was performing and so he just went and called the house phone and said, “I need Dean Martin’s room.” They said, “Who is it?’ He said, “Gary Cooper.” Dean Martin said, “Well come on up.” So he went up but it really wasn’t the Gary Cooper that Dean Martin was expecting. My dad was a character. He 9 was very colorful, larger than life. No one messed with my father, but he was very kind and gentle inside. You knew you didn’t mess with Gary Cooper. BW: Sounds like he was a rascal. DL: Yes very much so, very much so. LR: Talking about horses, so he was the bareback champion for three consecutive years. DL: Yes in the Rocky Mountain Rodeo Association. LR: Right, was that his main arena, the Rocky Mountain Rodeo Association? DL: Yes it was, but even though he did PRCA, we call it PRCA rodeos now, Professional Rodeo and Cowboys Association. Back then it was called RCA which was Rodeos, Cowboys Association. He would ride in the RCA rodeos that were here in Utah, but he didn’t go outside of Utah because he had to make a choice whether he was going to go on the road and leave his family behind, or stay here and be with his family. So he made that choice. He was one of the cowboys that worked during the week and rodeod on the weekends so that he could be with his family because it’s a hard life. I mean they go from town to town and back in those days they didn’t make hardly any money. Which sometimes they don’t now either depending on where they go, it’s a little bit better now as far as the added money for rodeos. So he had to make that choice, but he would compete against all the big names when they would come in and he’d win. So he and Ken Wilson, who is another gentleman who my father competed against. Those two decided to stay and be with their families and just rodeo on the 10 weekends, but they’re competing against the PRCA champions that would come into town and nine times out of ten they would beat the PRCA champions. LR: Wow, so he starts out riding bulls. What made him go to bareback? Do you know? DL: He, from what I’ve heard, riding bulls was difficult and dangerous, but there was a bull that almost killed him. In fact, we have a belt buckle that’s dented in half because the bull’s horn hit that belt buckle. He tried bareback and he decided that it took more physical ability to ride bareback horses than it did bull riding so he switched to bareback riding. LR: Oh wow so it was harder physically to bareback on a horse than a bull? That doesn’t always equate. DL: It doesn’t does it? LR: No. DL: In the olden days in the bareback, they slide their hand through a rigging and then their heels have to be at the point of a horse’s shoulders on the first jump out. So in the olden days the riggings were just really like a suitcase handle and they weren’t padded and they weren’t set at an angle that would really help you. They were just a handle, so that was very difficult because your core had to be extremely powerful because you would take your feet and then you would rake. They call it raking, they pull their feet back basically to their hips and then they go back to the point of the horse’s shoulders and then back. You still have to sit up and nowadays the styles a little bit different. They’ll lean a lot more back because the handle and the shape of their handle is a lot different. It allows them to hang 11 on a little bit easier than what they used to. So it was the whole core plus the strength of working those legs from the point of the horse’s shoulders back to the withers. So it’s a lot different than any other event in rodeo. Bull riding is very dangerous and it takes a lot of testerone and guts, I do believe, to do bull riding, but as far as just the physical ability to work the body bareback riding is one of the toughest. LR: It’s almost telling, he wanted the challenge. DL: Yes and he would take any challenge pretty much, but once he set a goal he’d achieve it. That’s what I think he instilled in all of us, his children. BW: So he was a rodeo clown on occasion. DL: Yes. BW: Tell me about this. DL: Well here again my brother and sister will give you more insight into that, but from what I understand he would ride bulls and then he would, after his ride was up he, would go and fight bulls. Every cowboy knew that if dad was out there they would be safe and they never worried because my dad was one of those that would risk his life for someone else. He was all about being tough. You never complained and you just went for it and you just dealt what you were dealt. Everyone enjoyed that piece because he wasn’t afraid to get in front. I know you’re interviewing Dean Steed and his family. LR: Yes we actually did. DL: He is a great man and they rodeoed together. LR: Did they? 12 DL: Yes. LR: Did they ever clown together? DL: No I think Dean was after my dad. I think my dad had switched to bareback horses before, but Dean was a great clown. So as I was little I used to watch Dean Steed and Jack Hanam. So it’s all a rodeo family. Tonya, I was the director of Miss Rodeo Utah when she was Miss Rodeo America. So I’ve been involved for a long time, but my dad was so tough that when I was queening, one day I had the flu and he said, “Too bad you’re going to be in this queen contest. You signed up for it you’re doing it.” So I went to this queen contest and I spent most of the time in the bathroom throwing up because I had the flu and then I went out and I couldn’t even get on my horse in the horsemanship competition because I didn’t have the strength to get on. The one thing he taught me was once you say you’re going to do something then you do it and it doesn’t matter how you feel or what’s happened to you, you go forward. That was his philosophy. BW: Did he develop a routine as clowning? DL: Not his clowning that I know, but in bareback horses yes he was very superstitious. He’d wear the same pants, he’d wear the same shirt, he had forty four cents in his pocket and he had a little rock in his pocket. He wouldn’t wash them so they would stay in the trunk of the car in his rodeo bag and when we pulled into the rodeo then he’d change his pants, he’d change his shirt, he’d put his forty four cents in his pocket and the rock. My sister can tell you about the forty four cents because I don’t know the story, I just know it was there, but he was very superstitious. He wore the same shirt all the time and I remember him 13 telling me one time that he just felt if something was working, if you win in that, then it’s good luck. So you just stay with it and so he did. LR: He never washed his pants. DL: You know I don’t really know when those pants got washed, but cowboys today there are some of them that are exactly the same. They’ll pull into Ogden Pioneer Days and we’ll see them and they’ll pull out the same shirt, the same pants and they’ve just been to Cheyenne or to Salinas and you can tell and they haven’t been washed. So it’s a tradition for those cowboys if they’ve been winning in that shirt and pant that’s what they wear. BW: That seems to hold true for a lot of competitive sports whether it’s football, soccer, and rodeo. People get superstitious about what they’re wearing. DL: Right it’s a lucky one. LR: So your father was the director of the RMRA for a number of years. DL: Yes he was. LR: How did he become involved in that? I mean did he just apply for it or did they ask him? DL: I think they asked him but I think there were a group of them, they’re the ones that really rodeoed, and so they became the leaders of that whole organization. So they wanted it to succeed because it really is for the cowboy, the weekend cowboy, and it’s for the cowboy that has to work during the week and then do his sport on the weekends. So they wanted that to succeed and that’s what they do for these cowboys even today. There still is that version of that association around today that cowboys participate in. 14 LR: Dean Steed talked about this a little bit, about this rodeo, but he called it something. DL: The RMRA? LR: No, do you remember? DL: Wilderness circuit. LR: Yes. BW: Yes that’s it. DL: Wilderness circuit. LR: Is that the same thing? DL: That is what they do now is they have these circuits. They didn’t have this when my dad was rodeoing. They have these circuits that they’ve taken all of these cowboys that kind of rodeo on the weekends and they’ve divided the country into I do believe its fourteen circuits. So the wilderness circuit includes Utah, and parts of Nevada, and Idaho. So these cowboys if they’re working the PRCA, the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association rodeos, that goes towards their circuit earnings and then they have a circuit rodeo. So if you’re in the top fifteen of the circuit you compete. If you’re a top fifteen bareback rider or top fifteen bull rider then they compete at a circuit rodeo and that’s great because it gives recognition to those weekend cowboys. Back in my dad’s era they didn’t have that association. So it’s kind of too bad because now it does give recognition to those weekend cowboys. LR: I was wondering if it was, so it wasn’t even… 15 DL: Established, not those circuits, no. Now the PRCA or RCA at that time, Rodeos Cowboy Association that was organized. However, the circuit divisions weren’t organized. So now they’re helping people a little bit, they’re helping these cowboys to get a little more recognition if they’re weekend cowboys. BW: Just kind of riding on that because we’ve been hearing this a couple times now. Was there a certain amount of antagonism or animosity between the weekend cowboys versus the full time cowboys? Was there a culture clash? DL: I think there was a little competition. I think it’s like in any sport they’re athletes that could be NBA players, that could be NFL players, but maybe they don’t get that opportunity, but their skills and qualifications are just as good. I think that’s kind of how it was with the PRCA. The PRCA cowboys would come into town and they would compete against these other cowboys that aren’t on the road all the time and these other cowboys could beat them. It was a little disturbing to some of them. I think my dad would’ve been a world champion if he would’ve gone on the road. I think everyone else would agree with that, that you talk too. He was the best there was in this area, in bareback riding and in bull riding, supposedly he was pretty good, but that’s a little bit before my time. I don’t remember that piece. LR: Interesting, he also was the director of the Utah State Cowboy… DL: High School Rodeo Association. LR: Did he have this desire to work with the young kids? DL: Well part of it was because I was very involved with the high school association and my sister was very involved with it. His affiliation with that was he was a 16 leader, he knew what to do with rodeo, he knew how to make it successful. He knew how to make it efficient and so they put him in as the director. My dad always worked with youth. I think you can find bareback riders to this day that would tell you that he really gave them their start because he was always working with young cowboys. Louie Fields was one of those cowboys that is also an inductee of the Cowboy Hall of Fame who was a world champion. My dad always worked with the young cowboys and would give them tips and techniques that helped them and it would cut the corners a little bit for them, and give them that edge. LR: He did that for… DL: Oh at the director of the high school? LR: Yes he did that for six years. DL: Yes for six years. LR: So it talks a little bit about coaching at what is now Utah Valley. DL: Yes, and that’s when Louie was there, Louie Fields was there. LR: So was he like the… DL: The rodeo coach? LR: Right, but was it a college at that time? DL: It was Utah Technical College at that time. So what is now Utah Valley University was Utah Technical College. So they had a rodeo team and a pretty good rodeo team. They have a rodeo team now, but they have a rodeo coach and that coach is the one that helps them get prepared, lines them up for their rodeos and makes sure that they keep track of the points and they got to a national finals, the 17 Intercollegiate Rodeo Association. They have a finals so these schools compete against each other, but Louie Fields attended that college when my dad was a rodeo coach. Louie knew my dad prior to that and Louie had worked with my dad or my dad had worked with Louie I should say. BW: Did your mother have any idea what she was getting herself into? DL: No, she did not. BW: Tell me more. DL: Like I said she thought she was marrying a politician. She was very quiet, she was very reserved, very nice and my dad was very flamboyant, gregarious, and charismatic. Like I said she thought she was marrying a politician and he ended up being a cowboy. She would travel with him as much as she could, but she would stay home with the family when there was times that he was gone on the road for a little bit longer than what the family could be left alone. BW: Was the lifestyle hard on her? DL: I think it’s hard. When your dad’s a rodeo cowboy you don’t get a weekend to Disneyland. I never went to Disneyland, we went to Wyoming one time as a vacation because every weekend we were at a different place. So it wasn’t a situation where like a traditional family, of trying to plan a family vacation. We had excitement and it was thrilling, but it wasn’t a traditional family upbringing. BW: But you and your sister remained involved to some extent. What about the other siblings? 18 DL: My brother that passed away, he was very involved. He was leading the bareback riding in the RMRA’s association when he passed away. So that’s when my dad, they both qualified for the finals, but my dad decided to wear his shirt and his chaps at that finals in 1976. I have an older brother, and he was a team roper. I guess when he was younger he rode calves and horses, bareback, he rode a few bucking horses but he just decided that wasn’t his thing. He was more of a sports guy in football and basketball and then he roped for a while. He was a team roper and my sister was very involved. She was a team roper and she was a barrel racer and she was the State High School Rodeo secretary actually at one point. So we’ve all kind of been involved in this rodeo piece for a long time. BW: So he trained all the children in techniques? DL: Yes. BW: Do you recall how young? DL: My brothers and sisters would ride when they were very young. I didn’t ride until I was thirteen. When I was three years old my dad would break horses and so my sister would take me to the rodeo grounds where my dad was and he was breaking this horse and he said, “Get on back, get on back of me.” We were riding double and he took the horse to get a drink of water out of this creek and the horse, he dropped the reigns and the horse stepped into those reigns and rode over backwards. I remember and I was only three, but I do remember thinking, “Oh, isn’t my dad going to save me?” So the horse rode over backwards and it shoved me under the water and so my dad was on top of me and the horse 19 was on top of me and I’m underwater. My dad literally picked that horse up, a 1500 pound animal and it was in an area that the horse couldn’t roll over to the side, so he had to pick him up and move him off because it was kind of a canal piece and the horse couldn’t get out. Then he got me out of the water. Yeah it was quite interesting. So I didn’t ride horses, I was scared to death of horses until I was thirteen. Then my sister was married and she lived out on a farm and had this really old haggy horse and it was just kind of an old nag and wouldn’t hurt anyone. So she put me on it when I was thirteen and then I started to rodeo from there. So everyone but me, but yeah he was tough. LR: Yes apparently. BW: You hear stories of people lifting cars off their kids and it’s that same thing. DL: The adrenaline yes and he did, literally with both his hands just picked that horse up. It’s interesting because I’ve heard him tell the story a hundred times but you really feel it when he talks about, he just knew that if he didn’t I was done. They said it almost cut my ear off and you could see the imprints of the rocks of the river, of the little creek bed and blood and dirt, but you can just tell. When he tells that story he would say, “I just lifted that horse up.” He had to lift it up and over a bank, not just lift because the horse couldn’t roll anywhere. So it was crazy. So I’m here today because of that and have been very involved in rodeo for years. I’ve been involved with Ogden Pioneer Days for thirty two years so it’s a great thing. LR: So there were initially four of you, siblings? DL: Yes. 20 LR: You’re the baby. DL: I’m the baby and my brother was five years older than myself. Then my sister’s seven years older and my other brother’s ten years older. LR: Okay a nice little gap between all of you. BW: It seems like there’s a pretty distinct rodeo culture and you kind of mentioned this as well. What do you think separates rodeo culture from the western culture in general? DL: Well I think you learn the basics of hard work and determination and dedication and you have to work hard to make it all happen in the western way of life. In rodeo it’s a sport where you’re a family and once you’re embraced in that family then it’s something that’s just with you for your lifetime. It’s one of those sports that even though they’re individual you can see a worlds champion get off a horse and come around and help their number one competitor and be actually cheering for them. It’s so individual and it’s so different and distinct because you have the animal against the cowboy or you have the timed event with their timing and their positioning and it’s all just a matter of those eight seconds or fifteen seconds in a timed event. It’s just really solely upon that individual. But as a rodeo family they will give their very best horse for their competitor to ride if it’s in a timed event or they’ll share their own riggings if they had too. They will be behind the shoots helping one another and really truly cheering them on and meaning it. It’s not a sport where it’s superficial, it’s a sport where it’s in your heart and it’s in your blood. You really do bond and you are a family so it’s your brother that’s out there riding. If you’re a bare backer it’s not your competitor, it 21 really is your brother. I think there’s something that’s instilled, and I don’t know if it’s just the competitiveness of it along with the challenge and the travel and the hard times that you work through together and so the bonding is there. There’s just something really unique that’s just really hard to describe because you can’t, you don’t really find it any another sport. You’ll find in other sports, yeah there’s one or two that will support one another but there really truly is a bond and if they don’t have that bond they don’t last long. If they can’t be embraced in that circle they won’t last long in the event because they take care of each other. They really, truly do. Like you know with clowns or bull fighters nowadays they have to, these cowboys rely on them. That’s their safety net and if they can’t trust that bull fighter that’s out there, it doesn’t really matter because their life’s on the line. It doesn’t matter if it’s barrel racers, if its bareback riders, bull riders, team ropers, they’re all just a family. They travel down the road together. BW: How do you think that your father is an example of this culture you’re talking about? DL: I think my father is a man that was bigger than life and that people admired and respected and feared all at the same time. He was tough and he would take a challenge and look at it as something that was an opportunity. He would achieve that challenge and it didn’t matter what it would take. He would do whatever it would take. He was a hard worker, he was constantly working, but then he was joyful and charismatic. He would make people laugh but you never wanted to 22 cross the line with him. So he was just the stature, I mean he was the real cowboy and he was tough. He lived that life. BW: What were some of the major changes that developed in rodeo during your father’s lifetime? DL: Let’s see well systematically the PRCA really took a hold and it grew. So therefore the circuits grew out of that, helping these local cowboys and the prize money, the notoriety, the exposure. An awareness really came to light and I do believe that that’s really kind of excelled over the past several years. Just to let people know the lifestyle that these guys live and how they have to go from rodeo to rodeo and they’re going from paycheck to paycheck and sometimes they don’t even have a paycheck. They’re just hoping they get one. LR: Do you think that’s one of the reasons your dad decided to just do it on the weekends? DL: Yes. LR: For the stability for his family? DL: I do, I think stability was very important to him. I mean if you travel with these guys they will travel in a car with maybe six or seven of them in a car. They’ll go from rodeo, to rodeo to rodeo, but they’re sleeping in that car. For like Ogden Pioneer Days they’ll come into Ogden Pioneer Days and then they will jump in the car as soon as the bareback ridings over with and then they’ll drive all the way to Cheyenne and then be up in the afternoon performance in Cheyenne. Then they’ll jump in that car and drive all the way back to Napa, Idaho or to Salinas, California, depending on how the run is working that they have to take. 23 That’s where that bond is coming from because they’re all trying to get to the next rodeo, but they’re eating very little and spending very little on accommodations because they don’t have the money and they don’t have the time. So I do believe stability was one of those pieces that my dad needed, so therefore that’s why he didn’t hit the road. LR: So when he would go on the weekends would it be a family thing? Would you all go with him or would it just be him? DL: It was a family thing the majority of the time. There were times that he would go to several different rodeos and there would be a group of them that would travel. I remember as a child that’s what we did, that’s what I did as a child. Every weekend I was at a different rodeo. BW: It seems like you fell in love with it. DL: I did after I got past my fear of horses. Then I high school rodeoed and I rodeoed in college. I rodeoed professionally for a little while and then I just became one of the workers to put on a rodeo. BW: What kind of advice do you think your father would give younger people who are thinking about going into rodeo? DL: I think he would say with modern day technology and some of the advances that are out there in techniques that they should live their dream. I think that he would tell them to really go for the big title. I think that’s one thing he’s always wondered, “Would I have been a worlds’ champion?” I think everyone that knew him would know that he would be a worlds’ champion. I think he would tell any of 24 the younger folks today that, to live their dream and if that’s what they want than to take the opportunity and to do it. BW: Do you think there’s more opportunities now? DL: I do, there’s more opportunities to survive as a rodeo cowboy. They get paid a lot more at rodeos. There are a lot more rodeos in areas that there didn’t use to be. So the opportunities are greater and I think that that helps and I think communication; it means having so much easier access. I remember when my dad would go into enter a rodeo we had a dial up phone and a rotary phone and you had to dial it and then you would call and it would be busy. So we’d all take our turns calling for him to get entered on the night that he wanted to get entered. Well nowadays it’s all computerized so it’s a lot easier, but back then we were all standing around the phone trying to get into that, trying to get the draw the night that he wanted so that he could do multiple rodeos. So we all shared in that and tried to get him in. Yeah I remember that as a child, the rotary phone. I think there was even a part where we had a party line so it was like, “Excuse me I really need to get this for my dad. We need to get into this rodeo. Could you just wait and then you can use the line.” LR: Wow. DL: I know think of those days. LR: Yeah, you have another question? BW: I don’t right now. LR: I have a feeling that you could talk forever and a day about your dad and never run out of things to say. 25 DL: That’s right, I could. LR: Okay, let me ask you this and it’s something we would normally ask at the end of an interview and he kind of touched on it just a little bit. What do you think is your father’s legacy within the western culture and the rodeo culture or just within Lehi itself? What do you think his legacy would be or is? DL: Interesting question on what my father’s legacy is. There was on Father’s Day a post from someone in Lehi on Facebook that says, “Gary Cooper, the real true father of Lehi.” I think that respect and reputation were two things that my father was very proud of. He was given respect and his reputation was one of being a kind person, but very tough and full of life. I think that his legacy is that he was one of a kind. They don’t make cowboys like my father anymore and I think anyone that knows him or that would tell you about Gary Cooper would tell you he broke the mold. They just don’t make people like him anymore. He was the soul of the earth and he was very dedicated to his family and to his work and to the sport of rodeo. He believed in hard work and he believed in being fair with people, but he also believed in respecting people and he required that of you, to respect him and you did. So I think his legacy is one of uniqueness and one of the true cowboy heritage. I think that that’s what he exemplified. BW: I’m clean out of questions. LR: Okay I think that’s a great place to stop. BW: I think so too. LR: I don’t think it gets any better than what you just said. So thank you for your time. DL: Well thank you.