Joe Berger

By Justin Felisko

Chad Berger walked into the Kist Livestock Auction Stockyard in Mandan, North Dakota, shortly before 9 a.m. on Monday and glanced toward the ceiling.

The reigning PBR Stock Contractor of the Year then let a small smile crack his saddened face.

Berger began to reminisce about all the times he and his brother Fred would crawl and run throughout the Stockyard’s catwalks as their father Joe was in the process of buying cattle in the late 1960s.

There is still an adrenaline rush and sense of excitement for Chad when he thinks about the joy that would overcome him when his dad and grandfather, Tim, would give him and his brother a show stick and let the two boys parade around the back pens as if they were the bosses of the Berger cattle operation.

The Kist Livestock Auction always floods Berger’s mind with priceless memories.

“It is good, but it is pretty hard to be here today as well,” Chad said on Monday morning. “My grandpa worked here as a foreman until he died. My dad as a little kid started working here, and by seventh grade he was pretty much full-time. My dad grew up in this sale barn, and then so did me and my brother. This sale barn has so many memories for me and my dad.”

Joe Berger sadly passed away on Dec. 25. He was 84 years old.

Joe is of the most successful cattlemen and stock contractors to ever come out of North Dakota. The Mandan, North Dakota, native became especially known to PBR fans for raising Little Yellow Jacket, the PBR’s first three-time World Champion Bull in the 2000s.

The legendary cowboy’s path to success, though, began on the floors of the Stockyard, where his son was set to buy some cattle on Monday.

As a kid, Joe Berger was fighting to help his family earn a living in the immediate years following the Great Depression, long before he was greeting PBR bull riders with a firm handshake, mentoring a range of successful cowboys and bull riders of various generations and raising some of the best bucking bulls in the world.

“My dad made his dreams come true,” Chad said. “They didn’t fall into his lap. He had a passion for what he wanted to do, and that is what he did. He was born in the 1930s, went through the Great Depression, and he and my mom grew up in one of the toughest times you could possibly grow up in. My dad came from nothing, and that is how he instilled work ethic in all of us. He just worked so hard.

“In the sale barn here, he would ride horses in for people for a buck a head. He would clean them up. Trim them up. He would get the halters off horses and sell them for 50 cents. He was aggressive. He didn’t want to be poor his whole life. He tasted that. He didn’t want any more of that.”

No one would have blamed Chad for taking a few days off following his father’s passing last Friday, but he also knew his dad would be proud of him for still waking up before the sun on Monday morning, putting on his cowboy boots and heading to work.

“If the sale started at six in the morning, you better be there,” Chad recalled his father always telling him before letting out a laugh. “He said, ‘You are there for the first one, and you dang sure better be there for the last one.’”

The Stockyard is family for Berger.

Fred Kist Sr., who leased the Morton County Fairgrounds in 1942 to begin a tiny livestock auction, became good friends with Tim Berger, Chad’s grandfather.

Their two sons, Joe Berger and Freddy Kist Jr., became best friends, and Joe would name his son Fred after him.

Chad Berger and Jerry Kist, Freddy’s son, are the same age and grew up as best friends in Mandan.

“This sale barn has more meaning than any sale barn I go to,” Chad said.

It is also a daily reminder to Chad of how his father was a manmade, rags-to-riches story. What Joe Berger may have missed out on achieving with a high school diploma, he instead replaced with hard work, cowboy grit and an endless determination to provide for his family in the face of adversity.

Joe refused to let having only an eighth-grade diploma hold him back.

“He was a hell of a guy,” Chad said. “He made a living educating himself. He never went to school. My dad learned how to add and subtract, and he bought millions of cattle in his lifetime.”

Chad was 11 years old when he saw his father’s hard work in 1973. Joe had just purchased his first-ever ranch and could not contain his emotions.

Father and son sat on a hill on the family’s new property, and Joe began to cry.

“My dad was a pretty tough guy. I am the sobber when it comes to us,” Chad said. “I cry at everything. But I will never forget that day when I asked him what was wrong.

“My dad responded, ‘I would give everything to be able to take my dad out here and show him this ranch.’”

Tim Berger, who had helped instill in Joe the same characteristics that he would pass on to his children, had passed away six years earlier.

Chad wouldn’t see his dad cry in front of him again for another 28 years until Little Yellow Jacket was named the Bull of the Finals at the 2001 PBR World Finals.

“I was sitting next to him in the grandstands at the Thomas and Mack, and they announced Little Yellow Jacket was Bull of the

Finals, and I looked over and saw there were tears coming out of his eyes,” Berger said. “Those were two of the only times I ever saw tears come out of my dad’s eyes when I was younger. I prayed that day that he would be able to see him win a world title, and I saw him see three.”

Little Yellow Jacket went on to win the PBR World Championship the next three seasons.

Little Yellow Jacket became one of the PBR’s first bovine superstars, and he was one of three bulls Joe Berger raised that won a world title in a five-year span. Moody Blues won the 1998 PBR World Championship and Yellowjacket was the 1999 PRCA Bull of the Year.

In fact, one of Joe Berger’s favorite photos was one of him and ninetime World Champion Ty Murray. Murray rode Little Yellow Jacket for 90.5 points during his victory at the 1999 PBR World Finals.

Coincidentally, Joe Berger’s passion for bucking bulls may never have happened if not for his sons. The two boys wanted to get involved in bull riding, and Joe decided to purchase, and eventually raise, bulls for his sons.

It was the beginning of what became a long and successful career spanning more than four decades. Berger began to organize and run amateur events and develop his own breeding program. He quickly developed a knack for raising some of the toughest bulls in the west while also still operating a successful cattle operation.

“In the late ‘70s and ‘80s, he was the best-kept secret,” Chad said. “We did amateur rodeos and stuff like that. I would put his set of bulls up against anybody in the world. I don’t think anybody had as many good ones as he had then. It became his passion.”

There was a time in the ‘80s when a good friend of Joe’s tried to convince him to sell his bucking bulls seeing as he was not making a ton of money, if any, by raising and hauling bulls to rodeos.

“One of the best stories I can tell you about my dad was one day a guy was giving him a lot of grief about them bulls,” Chad said with a chuckle. “In the ‘80s, you couldn’t make no money on a bucking bull. They weren’t worth nothing and you barely got paid to buck them. His friend said, ‘Why don’t you sell those damn bulls and run more beef cattle and make some money on the ranch?’

“This guy fished a lot, and he said to that guy, ‘Well, how much you make fishing?’ He said, ‘I don’t make any money fishing. This is my “My dad said, ‘Well, you like fishing, and I like bucking bulls. This is my hobby, so leave me alone.’”

It was a hobby and passion that connected Joe to thousands of rodeo and bull riding athletes and fans throughout the nation.

Chad’s phone has been ringing nonstop since he announced on Saturday that his father had passed away. There have been thousands of social media comments and an endless outpouring of support.

It is no surprise either, considering the kind of man Joe Berger was. Joe never just shook a hand. It was a handshake and a conversation.

“My dad would tell me there is more to being a person than just shaking a man’s head and saying hello to them,” Chad said. “The thing about my dad is he got so many young guys started riding bulls, and he spent time with them. He didn’t just talk about bull riding. He asked them about their family. He asked them about life. I can name off so many guys that succeeded in life just because of the lessons they learned from my dad when they were young.”

Chad always took that advice to heart. It is one reason why he has let countless bull riders spend weeks at a time at his ranch in Mandan and spent tireless hours in hotel lobbies all across the United States sharing stories alongside the best bull riders in the world and PBR fans.

“It was something my dad instilled in me,” Chad said. “I like to take an interest in their life and ask about their family and what they do for a living. I stop and spend some time with them, and that is how my dad was with everybody.

“There is a saying in the Bible, ‘A righteous man who walks in his integrity— How blessed are his sons after him,’ and I am certainly blessed for my dad.”

As he enjoyed retirement during the last 10 years, Joe continued to be blown away by the number of people who would come up to him and want to shake his hand and talk to him.

There was a moment two years ago at the New Town, North Dakota, Touring Pro Division event where Joe became emotional after someone called him a legend.

“Everybody keeps coming up to me and saying I am a legend and this and that,” a humble Joe explained to his son. He never expected to hear himself described as one.

Chad let out a laugh and told his dad, “Well, you are!”

“My dad built a stellar reputation in this country being an honest, hardworking man that never left anybody out,” Chad concluded. “Nobody ever walked by him without saying a hello. That is something you earn. You don’t earn that respect on the street corner.

“You earn it, and my dad earned it. I will always love him.”

Article provided courtesy of PBR.

Photo: Joe Berger, seated, with the winner from the New Town, ND PBR Touring Pro Division Bull Riding. Photo by Phillip Kitts / Avid Visual Imagery.