A True Trailblazer

Alumnus leads others in the sport of rodeo

The rolling hills of Payne County, Oklahoma, are a far cry from the towering buildings in bustling Stamford, Connecticut, but if you ask Bud Bramwell, National Finals Rodeo first ever Forgotten Trailblazers Award winner, he will tell you these hills are his home.

Growing up in Stamford, Bramwell led a typical life for a child in the city, he said.

“We played football in the streets, we roller skated, nobody locked their doors,” Bramwell said. “Times were good back then.”

Before Bramwell held reins in his hands he always wanted to be a cowboy, which was not normal for an inner-city kid in the northeast, he said.

“When we were about 10 or 11 years old, I started horseback riding with my mother, dad and two sisters,” Bramwell said. “We took English riding lessons, and I was the only one in the family who kept it up.”

Riding horses with his family ignited a passion, he said, and he became fascinated with cowboys he saw on TV.

“There were a couple guys in Connecticut who went to Arizona and lived out there about a year,” Bramwell said. “They came back and bought a place in upstate Connecticut. We would go up there every week, and they would charge you 25 cents to run a calf. They started us and helped us learn how to rope.”

The desire to lead the cowboy lifestyle was ultimately what drove Bramwell to leave his home state and venture south to the plains, he said.

“I knew I wanted to come out here, to Oklahoma, and be a cowboy,” Bramwell said.

Although he was accepted by the University of the Philippines and by Tuskegee University in Alabama, Bramwell chose to come to the plains on a rodeo scholarship to Oklahoma State University, Bramwell said.

“School at OSU was good,” said Bramwell. “Walt Garrison, an All-American Cowboy football player, was in school then. He used to rope with us every day.”

An animal science graduate of 1963 and a resident of Stillwater since then, Bramwell has seen many innovations and changes take place at OSU.

“Stillwater has changed a lot,” Bramwell said. “None of the buildings had air conditioning in them when I went to school.”

Even after Bramwell graduated from OSU, he continued to be involved with the rodeo program of his alma mater by practicing with the rodeo team members at his personal arena, said CR Bradley, a former OSU Rodeo Team member.

“For two years, I roped with him almost every day of the week,” Bradley said. “I took all my classes in the morning, and then I would rope with him all afternoon almost every day.”

Mentoring a younger generation is a reason Bramwell is so well respected in the rodeo industry and among the people he meets, Bradley said.

“I spent a lot of time with Bud, and he did a lot for me,” Bradley said. “In 2004, I made the NFR, and then I went on to a be 16-time American Quarter Horse Association world champion.”

Aside from mentoring the college rodeo athletes in Stillwater, Bramwell said he made it his mission to educate children who came from his same background about rodeo through the American Black Cowboys Association.

Bramwell was a co-founder of the American Black Cowboys Association and served as president of the association in 1969.

“Our goal at the conception of the association was to educate Black kids in the inner-city,” Bramwell said. “That was our sole purpose.”

Visiting schools and teaching children about the heritage of African- American cowboys was only the beginning of Bramwell’s journey with the ABCA. The association would go on to host a rodeo in the neighborhood of Harlem in New York City, he said.

“We were given about $5,000 to get a rodeo in Harlem,” Bramwell said. “We made up a formula to get guys with one pickup and put four guys in it, so we could pay for their gas.”

The Harlem rodeo was the first of its nature, and a movie was made to document the event, Bramwell said.

“We made the movie ‘Black Rodeo’ with guys like Mohammad Ali and Woody Strode,” Bramwell said. “We showcased that movie in Philadelphia and Baltimore. It did pretty good, but it didn’t really make any money. We even had Mohammed Ali riding a horse down 125th Street in Harlem.”

Ted Alexander, a graduate of Langston University and friend of Bramwell, said Bramwell is a person who leads by example and cares for the people around him.

“He’s an inspiration to everyone,” Alexander said. “Everyone who has ever talked to him was inspired because every time you talked to him you learned something.”

Bramwell’s outreach has been felt by more than the college cowboys of Stillwater, Alexander said.

“I met Bud Bramwell while I was at Langston University,” Alexander said. “Bud put on a rodeo at Langston for us and he was also the one who built the arena at Langston.”

Bramwell has seen the positive impact the ABCA has had on professional rodeo, especially for minorities, he said.

“The percentage of people of color has greatly increased in rodeo,” Bramwell said. “When I came here in 1962 and got my Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association card, there were only 10 Black cowboys in the PRCA out of 4,000 members.”

The world has evolved and so has the sport of rodeo when it comes to people of color, Bramwell said.

“Times have changed for the better,” he said. “Prejudice is not what it was. Guys have made it to the top now, which gives inspiration to the guys who are hoping to be there.”

If you ask people in the rodeo community, Bud Bramwell is a hero of the sport, but Bramwell said he has his own idea of who a hero is.

“My dad was my biggest hero,” Bramwell said. “I always looked up to him because he taught me that if you work hard, you can accomplish anything you want.”

AUSTIN CAMPBELL

Story by Austin Campbell of Canadian County Oklahoma