The sweetest thing happened under a shade tree on the patio of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame on Friday night. It was about 30 minutes before they opened the doors on the ProRodeo Hall of Fame Cowboy Ball, which kicked off this year’s 45th annual induction festivities in Colorado Springs. There they were, the guy they call The Godfather of Team Roping, Bob Feist, who this year was honored with the Ken Stemler Pioneer Award, and 1968 World Champion Team Roper Art Arnold, who was just inducted with the Class of 2024 on Saturday.
They were sitting there visiting about the good old days when it was all dally team roping in Feist’s California home country, team tying in Arnold’s native Arizona and 50-50 every other round at the National Finals Rodeo when Feist whips out a copy of the first-ever issue of Ropers Sports News, dated December 1968. And there he was, Art Arnold, lead photo on page 1 for winning the world.
“The Ropers Sports News was where we got our roping news, and we all looked forward to it showing up in our mailbox every month,” Arnold said of the four-page folded paper pioneer of roping publications. “Us ropers owe a lot to this guy right here.”
READ: Team Roping Triples Down in ProRodeo Hall of Fame Class of 2024
That’s a fact. The Bob Feist Invitational Team Roping Classic (BFI) started it all for world-class team roping jackpots, and the RSN did the same for team roping pubs. Pretty cool to see a couple of old cowboy friends first joined by a big dream for team ropers and a gold buckle circle back 56 years later to be honored on the same grand occasion.
Mad respect, thank you and great big congratulations, cowboys!
