When Brock Hanson and Rube Woolsey won Valerie Howell’s birthday 200-plus-team goat roping in 2011, Toni Tyree of TNT Silver hadn’t finished making the trophy buckles yet. Hanson and Woolsey promised Tyree that if she finished the buckles in time, they’d wear them to the Bob Feist Invitational.
Tyree went home, finished the buckles, and gave them to Hanson and Woolsey. A week later, Tyree died in a Jeep accident. The two were the last buckles Tyree had made.
“We wore them at the BFI, and that night afterwards, I gave mine to Dallas and Valerie Howell, and Rube gave his to Tom Bill Johnson because they were such good friends with Toni,” Hanson said. “After we found out I made the Finals this year, I called Valerie and asked her if I could wear it out there for superstition or good luck.”
Hanson had the buckle on when he and Ryan Motes won the first round of Hanson’s first WNFR, and
again when he and Motes won Round 5.
