Say Cheese, Cheese! The countdown is on for the ProRodeo Hall of Fame Class of 2025, which will be inducted into rodeo immortality on July 12 in Colorado Springs. And 1996 World Champion Header Steve Purcella is all smiles about it. Never one to take himself too seriously, that’s Cheese showing off his shiny “Billy Bob Teeth” smile in the NFR grand entry at one of his 14 NFRs.
Purcella’s NFR partners included Tyler Magnus at the first one in 1992, and Jhett Johnson at Cheese’s last one in 2009. He also headed for Kory Koontz, Britt Bockius, Wayne Folmer, Kirt Jones and, of course, Steve Northcott in Vegas. Purcella and Northcott won the NFR average and the world championship together in 1996.
Virtually no one calls Purcella Steve, so here’s the history on Cheese.
“Shotgun Passig stuck that on me,” Purcella remembers well. “I was in college, and Shotgun (who’s dad to 2018 BFI Champ Cade Passig, who won it that year heeling for Chris Francis) put us down in a little roping there in Portales (New Mexico). After the roping, we stopped at McDonald’s, and I got six 39-cent cheeseburgers. Shotgun named me Cheeseburger that night to start with, then shortened it up to Cheese over the years, and that stuck.”
And while we’re talking history here, let’s whip through Cheese’s roping resume on the jackpot side. He won the George Strait Team Roping Classic three times, with Koontz in 1994 and 2000, and Allen Bach in 1996. Purcella and Casey Chamberlain won the 2007 BFI together. Cheese is a five-time Windy Ryon champ—once each with Northcott and Dennis Gatz, and three times with Rich Skelton.
If you see Purcella around at a roping now, you might see him pulling a refurbished old friend.
“I sold the truck and trailer we won at the Strait in 2000 after driving them a few years,” Purcella said. “I bought that 2000 trailer back last September, and had it redone so it looks like new. I’m pulling it around again a little bit now. Guess I’m getting a little more sentimental with age.”
The Strait trailer isn’t the only one this sentimental softy has overhauled. Purcella also took an old Grunwald four-horse inline that was originally owned and pulled by living cowboy legend Phil Lyne, and made a bar trailer out of it.
“Phil told me they only made six of the four-horse inlines, because it was like suicide pulling that thing with four horses in it,” Purcella said. “The original idea was that it was cool, because you could pull it with a car. After Phil owned it, they say Kim Gripp (who was Spicer’s roping son) rodeoed out of it behind a motorhome for awhile.”
By the time Purcella paid $700 for it, he had to buy new tires just to pull it home. But like the Strait-trailer redo, it became a passion project, and he named the finished product “Mama Tried” after the old Merle Haggard song.
The next sure sighting of Mama Tried will be at the 2025 Spicer Gripp Memorial Roping, which’ll run July 31 through August 3 in Purcella’s hometown of Hereford, Texas. Books open July 1, and this year will feature $125,000 in added money and an $800,000 cowboy-friendly payout.
