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Rodeo Bulls Are Bred For Bucking

News - Linn County News

Written by John Teagarden

Wednesday, 29 July 2009 08:00

The bucking bulls at this year’s Linn County Fair PRCA Rodeo Aug. 7-8 in Mound City will come with ancestral lineage that can be traced for generations. The bulls furnished for the rodeo by New Frontier Rodeo Co. of Gypsum, Kan., and Winnie, Texas, will all be closely related and have been selected for the bucking ability for more than 60 years.

To fully appreciate the effort and years behind this line of cattle, we need a brief history lesson. They are known as “Plummer Bred” or simply as “Plummers” in the bucking bull industry. They are named after rodeo producer Charlie Plummer (1920-1986), Sayer, Okla. Charlie Plummer began producing rodeos in the 1950s and was known for bulls that “bucked and had a lot of fight in them.”

According to Charlie’s former wife, Rose Plummer Lamb of Madill, Okla., the Plummer’s breeding program took a big step forward in 1963 with the purchase of some bucking stock from rodeo producer Tom Harlan (1907-1994) of Kellerville, Texas. Tom Harlan began producing roping and riding events in the Texas Panhandle area in the 1940s. Harlan developed his line of bucking bulls using Brahma, White Park and Longhorn cattle.

The White Park cattle are a small, hardy, ancient breed from England with a white coat and dark pigmentation on the nose, ears, eyelids and hooves. Although many of Charlie Plummer’s original bulls and females were gray, black or reddish brown Brahma looking, the classic Plummer line recognized today by PBR and PRCA rodeo fans are white speckled or spotted bulls with black muzzles and eye pigmentation.
Both Tom Harlan and Charlie Plummer took great pride in their breeding programs, line breeding bulls that bucked to daughters of bulls that bucked. Following Plummer’s death, his estate dispersed his herd at the Sayer, Okla., Rodeo Arena in 1986. By then, several men in the rodeo industry were recognizing that the bucking ability was a heritable trait. That day, the Charlie Plummer and Tom Harlan genetics were passed on to breeders and rodeo producers including Bennie Butler, Elk City, Okla., DeLayne Long, Lyndon, Kan., Freddie Cordell, Kellyville, Okla., Ronnie Roach, Cache, Okla., Darrel Hargis, Henrietta, Texas, Elmer Anderson. Guthrie, Okla, Dillon Page, Ardmore, Okla., Larry Kephart, Lawton, Okla., and Jimmy Crowther, Gypsum, Kan.. All of these men or their descendents are major players in the bucking bull industry today.

Now, fast forward to 2009 and Mound City’s rodeo producer, New Frontier Rodeo Company and Jimmy Crowther — with a little more history thrown in. First, meet Richard Nevels, Hutto, Texas. For the past seven years, Nevels has served as Area Coordinator for the National Deployment Office, responsible for the northeast, southeast and south central United States. Nevels, originally from Dodge City, Kan., rode bulls at Plummer rodeos in the 1970s and ’80s along with Jimmy Crowther. Nevels also maintains a select set of Plummer cows. Like Crowther, Nevels was intrigued by the genetics and the “story” behind the Plummer bloodline. And few know the story better than Nevels, starting with Tom Harlan, continuing thorough Charlie Plummer to the present day bucking bull industry.

“Jimmy Crowther was a top bull rider. Jimmy also started accumulating bucking stock and producing rodeos while still competing in the 1970s”, recalled Richard Nevels. “Back then, most cowboys headed to the rodeo dance after the last bull was bucked. But Jimmy was following Charlie around after the rodeo or sitting on a tailgate visiting with him, learning all he could about bucking bull bloodlines. Jimmy was very interested in acquiring one of Charlie’s top bulls to start his own breeding program. However, Charlie didn’t part with his top end genetics.” That all changed one night in 1978.

“I was up at Charlie’s rodeo at Hardtner, Kan., on a Sunday night,” recalls Jimmy Crowther. “And like I always did when we parted, I asked him when he was going to sell me a good bull or two. Charlie just laughed and waved me off. Back then, Hardtner was always on a Sunday and Monday night. Late Monday night after the rodeo, Charlie called me at home and said ‘I’m going to sell you bull No. 75 (later named Road Warrior) and two other bulls for $4,500 if you can have the money here by 8 in the morning.’ I asked him what the other two were, and Charlie said ‘It doesn’t matter, they buck, so make up your mind.’ I called a friend at Medicine Lodge, Kan., and he took his trailer and a check for me to Hardtner before Charlie changed his mind. I found out later that Charlie had a land payment due on Tuesday and must have figured I was the only sucker that he knew.

“About two years later, I was order-buying cattle at the Hutchinson, Kan. sale barn when six freshly dehorned Brahma looking heifers came through the sale ring. They had Charlie’s CP brand on them, but Charlie never dehorned anything, so that threw me off for a while. Finally I realized those were probably ‘Plummers’ and got the last bid. They weighed 660 pounds and cost 48 cents. I traced them back through two cattle traders and found out these heifers had originated at the Sayer, Okla., sale barn. Sayer was Charlie’s home, so I was convinced they came from him.

“It was Jimmy’s friendship with Charlie Plummer and his sincere interest in breeding that caused that sale of No. 75 to be made to a 23-year-old cowboy back in 1978,” Nevels said. “Several older men had asked Charlie to price his top bulls. Perhaps Charlie sensed that Jimmy Crowther would be a ‘keeper of the flame.’ With the three bulls in 1978 and the six heifers in 1980, Jimmy had a several-year head start on other breeders who bought the genetics at the 1986 dispersal.”

Crowther bred the six heifers to No. 75 Road Warriors in 1981 and got his first Plummer calves in ’82. He bought two young bulls at the Plummer dispersal in 1986, No. 111 (Mr. Twister) and No. 40 (a spotted bull later names Top Gun).

“I bred the Road Warrior daughters to No. 111 (Mr. Twister) and have been keeping the line pure since then,” Crowther said. “One time I asked Charlie why he didn’t name his bulls, and he said it doesn’t matter, they won’t come when you call them anyway.”

So how has the Jimmy Crowther breeding program performed over the past 30 years? Let’s ask one of the most knowledgeable figures in the industry, PRCA Rodeo Announcer Justin McKee, Lenapah, Okla. McKee has also served as the PBR TV Commentator for the past 12 years and established his own breeding herd in the 1990s.

“Jimmy started with Plummer bloodlines. Those bulls and cows were mean and inbred and produced buckers. Jimmy has continued the Plummer/Harlan line for 30 years, carefully choosing the sires he used and culling the females that didn’t produce buckers. This has fixed the bucking gene in his cowherd. Today, Jimmy Crowther has the purest Plummer breeding of anyone in the bucking bull industry. And the percentage of his bull calves that buck is through the roof compared to anyone else in the industry.

“Jimmy Crowther and Jerry Nelson, Winnie, TX joined forces six years ago to form Frontier Rodeo. Neither Jimmy nor Jerry need the limelight or ever brag. Instead, they let their efforts speak for them,” McKee said.

The Mound City Rodeo will not feature many of Frontier Rodeo’s most elite bucking stock.

“The top 5 percent of the herd is reserved for the finals round at the largest rodeos and PBR events,” Crowther said. “But with several hundred head of buckers to pick from, the stock at Mound City will be plenty ‘juicy.’ The set of bulls headed to Mound City have had 98 outs at PRCA rodeos in Kansas and Oklahoma so far this year with 7 completed rides. That equates to a 92 percent buck off.”

Crowther said to especially watch for No. 530 Gray Squirrel, No. 454 Dark Shadow, No. 107 Cruel and Unusual and No. 431 Wee Man.
Plan to be at the Linn County Fair Rodeo at Mound City Aug. 7-89 and check out the rodeo stock of New Frontier Rodeo Co.

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