Legends of the Old West - RODEOHOUSTON 1 | "The Mission"

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

The first of three special episodes that go behind the scenes of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. We learn about the history and agricultural mission from President and CEO, Joel Cowley (3:05); we hear about the army of volunteers from Chairman of the Board, Jim Winne (24:57); and we finish with the story of George Strait's legendary 1983 performance, as told by former Chief Operating Officer, Leroy Shafer (35:42). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Discover more value than ever at Loblaws. Like Fresh Promise. Produce is carefully selected and checked for freshness. And if it's not fresh, it's free.

Yes, you heard that right. From the crispest lettuce to the juiciest apples, Loblaws is committed to fresh, so you get the best fruits and veggies. Look for new value programs when you shop at Loblaws in-store and online. Conditions may apply. See in-store for details. Hello! Look at this! The announcer at that time, a man named Chuck Parkinson, who was a Hollywood announcer, quite a famous announcer, had that very deep voice.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. George Strait. And the spotlights hit the gate, and there's no George Strait there. And you can't see anything but those spotlights. And we're looking in the dark, trying to figure out where George Strait is. He had backed that horse all the way up the east ramp of the Astrodome, and he had it coming at full gallop, and it came through the gates, and he set that horse down in his truck. Welcome to the first of three special episodes of the Legends of the Old West podcast.

Welcome to the first of three special episodes of the Legends of the Old West podcast. In these episodes, we'll take you behind the scenes of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the largest entertainment event of its kind in the world. It's a three-week, Texas-sized extravaganza held every spring in Houston. This year, from February 25th to March 17th, millions of people will flock to the grounds around NRG Park, also home to the Houston Texans, to take in the livestock shows, champion rodeo events, and all-star concerts featuring some of the biggest performers in the world. In these three episodes, you'll learn about the history of the event and its unique mission.

You'll hear from one of the world's top rodeo athletes, and you'll hear exclusive interviews with musicians. And you'll hear more stories like the one that started this episode. That voice belongs to Leroy Schaefer, whom everyone just calls Schaeff, the former chief operating officer of the rodeo. He worked for the event for more than 40 years, and he has more stories than you could possibly imagine. That was just a little taste of the tale of George Strait's legendary first performance at Rodeo Houston. Stick around until the end of the episode to hear the full story. I promise you, it's incredible. But now, let's jump into the interviews with the top executives of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. In the first, you'll hear from current president and CEO Joel Cowley. He'll outline the history

and evolution of the event, explain its agricultural and educational mission, and give some hints as to what might be coming in the future. And then we'll hear from the rodeo's current chairman of the board, Jim Winnie, who, like Leroy Schaefer, has been a part of the event for decades. Jim's passion is the core of volunteers, 34,000 of them to be exact. As you'll hear, it takes a small city of people to make it all work. So let's get to it. Here's president and CEO, Joel Cowley. President and CEO, Joel Cowley. is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business. From the launch your online shop stage, all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage.

Whether you're selling scented soap or offering outdoor outfits, Shopify helps you sell everywhere. They have an all-in-one e-commerce platform and in-person POS system. So wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. With the internet's best converting checkout, 36% better on average compared to other leading commerce platforms, Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers. Shopify has allowed us to share something tangible with the podcast community we've built here, selling our beanies, sweatshirts, and mugs to fans of our shows without taking up too much time from all the other work we do to bring you even more great content. And it's not just us. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. Shopify is also the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries. Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. in 75 countries. Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash realm, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash r-e-a-l-m now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash realm.

shopify.com slash realm. This episode is brought to you by Lego Fortnite. Lego Fortnite is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines the best of Lego play and Fortnite. Created to give players of all ages, including kids and families, a safe digital space to play in. This show began in 1932 to promote cattle production in the Gulf Coast region. to promote cattle production in the Gulf Coast region.

Throughout the 1920s, cattle production began to really grow here in this region. This is great cattle country. You wouldn't know it now because when you come to Houston now, of course, lots of houses and strip malls and roads and whatnot, but it is fantastic cattle country. And it had tremendous potential back at that time. And then there was a new breed of cattle out at that time, too, that had just been developed called the Brahman. And it was developed in this region for subtropical environments. It was a breed that was parasite and heat resistance and did good on forage. And the folks in Fort Worth at the

Southwestern Exposition didn't think they maybe had the right number of chromosomes to be showing in the same show ring as the Herefords and the Shorthorns and the Angus. And so they wanted a way to promote the Brahman breed as well. So it was really a group of seven businessmen and cattlemen that decided to host the first Houston Fat Stock Show and Livestock Exposition, as we were originally known. That first show was held in downtown Houston. And for those who are familiar with Houston, where the Hobby Center now stands, that is where the Democratic Convention Hall stood. The Democratic Convention Hall was built for the 1928 Democratic National Convention, Democratic Convention Hall was built for the 1928 Democratic National Convention,

and it was a great first venue for the Houston Fat Stock Show because it was centrally located to the population, accessible by rail, so that livestock could show up. And cars weren't that common at that time as well. Not quite the freeway system that modern Houstonians enjoy. Yeah, and the interesting thing about that building, the Democratic Convention Hall, which is also called Sam Houston Hall, was that it was built in 64 days. Apparently, Houston, in its true can-do fashion, said, we're going to host the Democratic National Convention. They didn't have a venue, so they built that building in 64 days for that 1928 convention.

But that first show was held in that facility. It was not much more than a cattle show. Again, it featured Brahman cattle, and they drew 2,000 attendees, and they lost $2,800. But they felt that it did a good job of really elevating cattle production and the potential of cattle production in the region. And talked a little bit about the region in itself, but it surprises some people to find that as late as the 1950s, Harris County, Texas was still the number one cow-calf county in the state of Texas. There

were more cow-calf pairs here than any other county. As late as the 70s, it was still in the top 10. And that's not the way it is anymore, certainly, but at that time there was tremendous potential. And there's no doubt that the cattle industry had a big role in the early development of Houston. So what's kind of the early benchmark then after after it started as a livestock show obviously a cattle show what was the earliest benchmark where it expanded into more of the entertainment side of things? What we know today. So they actually held the show much in the same manner from 1932 through 1936.

And even though it was struggling financially, they felt, again, it was doing a good job of promoting cattle production and promoting agriculture. Unfortunately, after the 1936 show, or I guess I should say fortunately, after the 1936 show, fire damaged the Sam Houston Hall or the Democratic Convention Hall, probably because it was built in 64 days. the Sam Houston Hall or the Democratic Convention Hall, probably because it was built in 64 days. But that actually gave the organizers basically two years off to plan the 1938 show. And instead of just doing what they had done before, they thought, you know, to promote something, we need to draw people and also to be more financially viable. And so while they were waiting for Sam Houston Coliseum to be built in that very same spot, they came up with a lot of ideas on how to improve upon the events when they moved into this wonderful new facility. And they came up with things that we know today.

The downtown parade was added. They added the horse show. They added the carnival and the midway. They added the souvenir program, which we still do today. And probably the best thing they did that year is they added formal volunteer committees to sell tickets and exhibits. And that early start with these formal volunteer committees has grown into the over 34,000 volunteers that we know today. Yeah, I was going to say, so a lot of that stuff traces back to almost the very beginning. It was kind of the revitalized or reorganized, reconstituted 1938 show that really, where we started seeing the volunteers and the committees and the carnival, the midway, a lot of the things. And I didn't mention the rodeo, the first organized rodeo in 1938 as well in this beautiful new 9,000-seat air-conditioned Coliseum, which was the first of

its kind in the Southwest. So it provided a great venue to host the show. I will tell you that there was an article in the Houston Chronicle the day after the 1938 show that commented that, boy, that's a beautiful new facility, but it's not large enough for the Houston Fat Stock Show and Livestock Exposition. So we have a history going back that early of outgrowing facilities as soon as they are completed. I was about to say, so the second it was done right after the first show, they're like, nope, we need to do it. We outgrew it. And it's amazing how quickly, as we talk along, how quickly we filled future buildings and needed more space. So 1938 was the pivotal year, but 1942 was also another pivotal year. Can you tell us why

that was? Yeah, so in 1942, we featured our first star entertainer, Gene Autry. And no question, a lot of your listeners will know who Gene Autry is or was, but he was incredible because he's the only person in history to earn all five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. So they give stars for radio, recording, live theater, motion picture, and television. He has all five. So he was an incredible star at the time, but not only was he an incredible star that had a lot of power to draw people, he was also a rodeo producer and a rodeo stock contractor. And he gave the show a really good deal on the rodeo stock. And he was the main headliner, and he sold out all of his performances. And that's when the idea came about to pair a rodeo with a star entertainer. We have a lot of our old bound financials here, and I was looking in our chief financial officer's office

here a couple of years ago, and I compared 1941 to 1942. 1942 gross revenue of the Houston Fat Stock Show and Livestock Exposition jumped 40%, and much of that can be tied to Gene Autry. So we were on to really a formula for success for the future. And they continued to do better financially, such that in 1957, we awarded our first scholarship in the amount of $2,000 to a gentleman here, Ben Dickerson, from Bel Air, Texas, just down the road from where the show is held. And he was our very first scholarship recipient. And do you have any rough numbers as to how many have been handed out in the interim? It's right out, I think 17,000 scholarships have been handed out since that time. But he was a great first scholarship recipient,

went on to get his PhD and become a professor at Baylor and was just, they couldn't have picked a better first scholarship. They set the bar pretty high with that first one. Yeah, yeah. So the show did enough financially by that time that they awarded that scholarship and it's grown from there. But as I mentioned, following the 1938 show, we were struggling for space over all this time.

And there were show supporters who actually purchased land up where the Northwest Mall is, and they were considering donating that so the show could build its own facility. We actually own land not far from where we are now on South Main that we were thinking about building. And that's where the idea of the Harris County Dome Stadium, or when the idea of the Harris County Dome Stadium, or when the idea of the Harris County Dome Stadium came about, Judge Roy Hoff Heinz, who had been the county judge in Harris County in the late 30s and early 40s, had the idea to build this wonderful dome stadium in which we could play baseball. And actually dug the hole and realized he didn't have enough money.

and realized he didn't have enough money. And so he approached his old friends at Harris County, and they knew that the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo at that time, or name changed in 1961, was looking for a different venue. And so through a partnership, the rodeo and the entertainment moved into the Astrodome here on our present site. And the show actually built and paid for the Astro Hall, which was on the south side of the dome. And that's where the livestock show was. And that building was not only important because it provided a venue for our livestock show,

but it also really kind of put Houston on the map as a convention destination, because we didn't have a George R. Brown at that time. And so auto shows and boat shows and the Offshore Technology Conference and things like that could be held in that building. And the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo donated it to the citizens of Harris County as well. So next up, you mentioned it already, the name change came in 1961. Can you tell us a little bit about that? It was really driven by two primary factors. One, the rodeo was receiving great acclaim, and so they wanted to get rodeo in the name. But that was also the point in time where consumers started to become concerned about the amount of fat in their diet. And so Fat Stock Show was not very appealing. And so the name to get rodeo in and take fat out was changed to Houston Livestock

Show and Rodeo. Ah, that makes perfect sense. All right, we're getting healthier eating every year, so I can understand why they might want to change it up. Let's focus maybe a little bit on the rodeo side of things for the moment. How, obviously, that grew once they added that component to it. How has the evolution of that been from your perspective from those early days to now? So the rodeo was added in 1938, and today it is the richest rodeo outside of the National Finals rodeo. Total purse, about $2.1 million. And it's unique because it's a tournament-style format, and there are a few rodeos that are like that. But it runs over 20 total days.

It's 19 days for our Super Series, and then we have one day, which is a Super Shootout, which is actually a team competition where teams representing different rodeos in North America compete against each other. So there is a Team Rodeo Houston, which, as you might imagine, receives great support from the audience, especially when they go up against San Antonio or Fort Worth in particular. But it's a tournament style format and it's created that way so that the fans can hopefully follow athletes as they

progress through the tournament. So they compete in three performances, the top four money earners in each of those performances advance to a semi-final. And then ultimately, hopefully, they get to the final, the top 10 out of the 40 who originally started get to the final. And on that final Saturday, we award the winner of each event $50,000 in addition to the money they've already won up to that point. And so it's not uncommon for these rodeo athletes to earn $60,000 if they become our champion in each one of these events. How have you seen the audience participation grow? Clearly it has. The event expands every year. We've just walked through some of the history of how popular it's gone, but it must be going in leaps and bounds, especially in those early few decades. Yes, so it's become truly a

community event. And it's an event that really, to me, draws the fourth largest city in America together as a true community for three weeks every year. And I don't know how you place a value on that. But Houston takes great pride in this event. It really is a point of civic pride for the people who support the rodeo year in and year out. The primary reason that people come is the entertainer. We know that from surveys. And when we mix it up and we have non-country nights, we know we draw people that are younger, probably more diverse, that most likely haven't been to our event before. And though they come for the rodeo, we also know from our surveys,

once they get here, they love all those rodeo events. They walk around the grounds. They like the livestock show. They like the horse show. They like the shopping and the food and the carnival and the wine garden and everything that we offer. And hopefully we've made lifelong fans out of them as a result of that experience. Yeah, the name is accurate, the name of the event, Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, but it also doesn't even encompass everything that is here. You just mentioned the wine garden that's here, the shopping. I'm sitting here looking at a massive map of the sprawl, as get questions on that all the time. Wine and rodeo, that makes no sense. And I have to explain to him, no, it makes perfect sense. Our core mission is agriculture. Viticulture is agriculture. And then I usually follow it up with something like, you know, next to a dry-aged prime New York strip steak, a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon is my favorite

agricultural product. So it makes perfect sense. And the timing of it was great with this burgeoning Texas wine industry that we have now at this time as well. Yeah, absolutely. And can you talk about other – I mean, Texas also has a growing distillation side of things. The beer market has always been good down here. Do you bring in any of those kinds of things, the breweries and distilleries and those kinds of things? Those are things that we're looking at. Our wine competition committee has really proposed that we do maybe a craft beer competition and have a beer garden in addition to the wine garden. And so don't be surprised in the future if we should see that. But really,

it ties to agriculture. And I go out and I speak to civic and corporate groups about the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and go through the history of the show and how it started and the early agricultural roots. And then at the end, I try and come back and reinforce that this agricultural mission is still very meaningful. And I had to start doing that because about two years ago, I went and spoke to the Houston office-wide meeting of Accenture. So there were about 800 consultants in the room. I went through the history and the contributions of the show, and I had a young man come up to me afterwards, and he said, you know, that's very fascinating, but why do you dedicate

all this space to the livestock show? Wouldn't you make more money if you put commercial exhibits in there or attractions? And I thought, yeah, he's right, we would, but that wouldn't be true to our agricultural roots. And so I added some slides to my presentation. And those slides basically convey that our agricultural mission, I believe, is even more relevant today than it was in 1932 when we were trying to promote a growing cattle industry. And the reason for that is that, unfortunately, Americans take agriculture for granted. We spend less than 10% of our disposable income on food. That's the lowest

percentage of any nation on the planet. And because food is so affordable and so available to the average American, certainly not all Americans, but the average American, we just take for granted it's always going to be affordable and available. And that may not be the case. There are roughly 7.4 billion people on the planet today. Most estimates have it at 9.5 billion by the year 2050. That means we're going to have to produce more food with most likely less land. And we're not doing a great job of feeding the entire planet right now. And so we really promote agriculture

and fulfill our mission, I would say, in three primary ways. One, we put on the world's largest livestock show, which also involves about 19,000 4-H and FFA entries from young people. Young people already have an interest in agriculture. We need young people involved in agriculture because the average age of the U.S. farmer

has increased from 50 years of age to 58 years of age in the last 30 years. So we need young people who are interested in agriculture to pursue that vocation. We also award scholarships. And when we started our scholarship program in 1957, it was required that you obtain an agricultural degree. That is no longer the case. As long as these young people go to a Texas college or university, they can major in anything that they want to major in. Roughly 20% major in agriculture of all of our scholarship recipients, but there's about 40% that major in science. And whether they realize it or not,

they may become involved in agriculture because to feed more people with the same or less amount of land, it's going to take technology. And so they may become involved in agriculture. And then the final way we really promote agriculture is educating the general public on the importance of agriculture because they are the current and future consumers that are either going to accept or reject the technology it's going to take to feed our planet in a wholesome and sustainable manner. They're also the current and future voters who will vote for the legislators who will hopefully support agriculture with the legislation that they pass. So building off of the education side of things, you just talked a little bit about it with the scholarships. Continue to tell us a little bit more about the education side of

things. It's probably, again, something that people just on the surface might overlook when they think about this event. So tell me about that. So on Grounds, we take great pride in creating really engaging, interactive, fun educational exhibits that really speak to the importance of agriculture and agricultural production. We started this back in the mid-90s with AgVenture is what we called it at the time. And though I wasn't here at that time, I'm told that the idea was to create this for young people, but the folks who created it soon realized their parents hadn't seen these things as well. And so most Houstonians are probably three or four generations removed from any agrarian background. So if we can expose them to agriculture and the importance of agriculture in their daily lives in a fun and interactive way,

hopefully they leave here with a greater appreciation for agriculture, they're proponents of agriculture. When legislation comes about regarding agriculture and agricultural production, hopefully they're supportive of that, and they let their legislators know that they're supportive of that. It's really fun to see young people, in particular, looking through these exhibits, where they can watch a live calf or a lamb be born, or a chicken hatch, or a baby pig be born, or learn about honeybees, or soil, or a number of other agricultural products, because really it involves science. And so if their teachers come with them, and we host over 60,000 young people every year on school tours,

they can hopefully build that into the curriculum. And we actually have a committee now called Agriculture Education that's going to take a certified curriculum into these schools to teach about agriculture, but do so on the basis of science. And so we take our mission of promoting agriculture and educating the general public very, very seriously. Again, as I just referenced earlier, there's a big map on the wall of the entire setup. Right next to that map is a much larger map of the barbecue contest. And I would be very remiss if I did not finally get to it. I've been waiting patiently to ask you about the barbecue contest. This contest takes over a huge parking lot. And I don't know how many tents for vendors there would be or competitors.

I believe it's over 300 different teams that come and compete at the World's Championship Barbecue. And I love it because it celebrates the consumption side of agriculture with these teams coming in and competing for best ribs or best chicken or best brisket. And it really is an incredible social event to have people come here. It started back in 1974 with just a handful of folks, and it's grown into what it is today. And so we start off before the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo begins, we have the barbecue competition for three days. And only in Texas can you throw a barbecue and over 200,000 people show up. And so as we wrap up, just in general, what does the future hold for the event? You know, as you look at our future, we have to overcome our greatest constraint, which is space. Still.

Still space. It was that way when that brand new building was built downtown in 1938. It remains our biggest challenge. And on an average day, we're fine. We can host people. But when we have a huge day, like a weekend, it does get crowded. There's no question. And so accommodating a larger crowd. And if you look at Houston and the population projections for Houston over the next decade or two decades, if we just maintain

our market share, the percentage of people interested in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, we need more space. And part of the answer to that is the Astrodome, which is really set vacant since 2008. And the county commissioners have approved a plan to basically turn it into exhibit space, which, you know, over 300,000 square feet, which will certainly help us as we expand into that. It's also no secret that the rodeo owns 102 acres across from 610, which is the old Astroworld property. And in the near term, we're using that for parking. Long term, we're looking at ways we might be able to utilize that to enhance our event so that we can host more people, comfortably host more people, expose them to agriculture, entertain them, and make this an even greater community event that does even more for youth and education from the standpoint of our scholarships

and our grants and what we're paying out to our junior exhibitors. That was Rodeo President and CEO Joel Cowley. And now we'll hear from the man at the top of the volunteer side of the organization, the chairman of the board, Jim Winnie. I was in the junior bull riding at a rodeo at Cypress, Texas, where I grew up on Friday night and decided I was going to try my hand as a professional bull rider. And my parents kind of thought, oh, he'll get bucked off and it'll be over with. And so I won $24, won the bull riding, and after that I was kind of thought, oh, he'll get bucked off and it'll be over with. And so I won $24, won the bull riding. And after that, I was kind of hooked. I was about to say, so is it fair to say the $24 changed your life? Changed my life. Made me decide I was going to be a bull rider.

And so how did you- As a teenager. Of course. How did your first experience with the Houston Rodeo come about? I started on the cast scramble committee probably close to 40 years ago. And, you know, my father was a veterinarian. I grew up in Cypress, Texas, so it was fairly rural. So I've been around horses and cattle all my life. And so I'd like to cast scramble. And so that's where I started as a committeeman on cast scramble. Dan, we know volunteering is one of your passions. That's going to be the big topic we want to talk about today in this segment of the episode. How has the Houston Livestock Rodeo been able to achieve such success? How much of that is due to this massive pool of volunteers that you have here? Well, it is a volunteer organization. I mean,

it's pure and simple. And if you look at the history of the Houston Livestock Show and show and rodeo it was actually called the houston fat stock show when it started and it started with some gentlemen that wanted to promote the cattle industry in texas and it was volunteers and so volunteers have driven the growth of this show for the last 87 years and it's uh there's nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer i mean their passion for our mission statement the there's nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer. I mean, their passion for our mission statement, the camaraderie, the sense of community continues to prosper every day here at the show. What do you think draws them to this? What inspires them to want to be a part of this? You know, for the kids. I mean, if you ask most of the volunteers, why do you do it? They do it for the kids. I think, you know, to have a sense of community, it brings people together that share

a passion for something they truly care about. And they care about the youth of Texas. They care about agriculture. They care about our city. They care about our state. And they're very passionate about that. Roughly how many volunteers does it take to run this event? Right now we have over 34,000.

Yeah, that's the number I'd heard. I wanted to make sure the audience heard it too. Roughly 34,000. And let's talk a little bit about the diversity of the talent pool that you have with the volunteers. What kinds of walks of life do they come from? What kind of backgrounds do they have? You know, that's an interesting question. Obviously, there's 109 committees, and there's something for everyone depending on your skill set. We have committees that are experts in moving heavy equipment. So maybe you're

in the heavy industry, heavy equipment industry, or you're in the construction industry. So you may gravitate to one of those committees where you can use your skill set. If you're in the food and beverage industry, you may be on the wine committee, or you may be on one of the service committees or the hospitality committees. If you like horses, you may be on the horse show committees. If you're in sales, you may be on one of the sales committees. So there is a committee which you can use your skill set on at the rodeo. And you'll gravitate towards those committees that have a culture that adapts to your personality and your skill set. With 109 committees, there almost has to be something for everyone.

There has to be. How many volunteers do you think have an agricultural background that come in? You know, that's a hard question to answer. If you have an agriculture background, you may be on the All Breed, you may be on the Horse Show. It just would kind of depend on, you may be on the Ag Mechanics Committee if you're an ag. So it would just kind of depend on which committee you want to be on. You may be in an agriculture background and have a business background, and you may end up in the leadership position on one of the committees because of your business background.

Sure. So it doesn't absolutely have to be like a one-to-one kind of crossover. No. I mean, my background, I've been in agriculture, but I've also been in the oil and gas business. And so I have a variety of skill sets and just kind of depends on where you want to use your talents. With that amount, though, that's such a diverse background and such a huge number of volunteers. How do they mold? How have they molded the Houston Rodeo into what we think of it as today? A common mission statement.

Which is? Promote agriculture and support the youth of Texas. They're very, very passionate about our educational programs. And if you ask a lot of the volunteers, you know, why do you do it? And so we do it for the kids. And I can't tell you how many parents come up to me and thank me and how grateful they are for what the show does, whether they were going to college or whether they showed their animals here,

just what a big difference it makes in their life. And you see it on their faces. You see it in the parents' faces, and it's very rewarding. It's a direct connection. I mean, you're not just writing a check and sending it in. You actually see the impact of your effort on the faces of the people that you're impacting. I think there's something like 61,000 or 62,000 school kids that come through here on our tours,

and maybe the first time they've had any exposure to agriculture if they come from an urban area. Wow. And so there's a lot of programs here at the show, unless you came out here and really spent a lot of time on the grounds, not necessarily in the stadium, which everybody kind of knows the rodeo and stadium, but you could spend a few days out here on the grounds looking at all our programs, and it would probably take you two or three days to go through all of them.

I can imagine all the different setups here. Do you get to interact with any of the children as you walk through? Can you actually see the kind of awe-inspiring looks on their faces as you go through? Yeah, almost a stage of wonderment like they've never, you know, they've never seen that before. And there's so much for the kids to see, you know, whether it's the rabbit exhibit, it's the birthing center, it's breed row, it's the agriculture exhibits, it's fun on the farm. There's a lot in terms of our educational programs that are displayed here at the show on the grounds. So as we stick with the themes of youth and education, how do youth and education play a role in inspiring people to volunteer, knowing that they're helping with those sides of things? They're helping to make an impact on education.

Well, I would say there are several things. One is we have 2,307 students enrolled in 84 colleges with 212 majors. And we've committed right at $475 million to youth and education programs. But the other thing I will tell you in terms of seeing the impact and why people show up, we had one of our sponsors was out at the show. And he came up to me and he said, you know, these kids look you in the eye. They shake your hand. They're articulate.

They're grateful. They're smart. And he said, you know, it really gives me a lot of hope for the next generation. And when you see that and people can actually feel the impact of what we're doing on our community and the youth of Texas. I mean, it's real, and it's on their faces. And the parents and the kids that show up and benefit from our programs couldn't be more grateful. And that's very rewarding. It's that real good feeling that, you know, I'm actually making a difference.

real good feeling that you know i'm actually making a difference and uh i tell our volunteers all the time don't for one minute discount the impact that your efforts have on our community and the youth of texas and you know i'm a native texan i'm proud to be a native texan my native houston and so i love my state i love my city and uh i love the houston livestock show and rodeo and educational programs and and i like the fact that i can actually see the benefit of our programs and and and the joy it brings to them and and feathers education you know we're this is the next generation of leadership i mean we're basically helping educate the next you know generation of leaders in our state and in our country and i mean i'm proud to be a part of that is there a special bond that brings people together to want to volunteer for Rodeo Houston? You know, that is a very good question. And I have tried as chairman

for a year and a half to describe that bond. There is a bond between these volunteers that I have a hard time finding words to describe it. I would say it's a strong sense of community where people come together for something they believe in and that makes a difference in people's lives, and they're very proud to be a part of it. And I've had volunteers say, you know, I'm not so sure I don't get more out of it by showing up with the friendships and the difference it makes in people's lives and how rewarding it is to them. And I think that also helps strengthen the bond because it's a common goal and a common cause that they show up for. And I think we show up for each other as much

as we do for the youth. You know, if someone needs something, if you're in need, there's a volunteer that's around here that's going to help. And you've been involved for more than 40 years now. What are some of your personal favorite memories as a volunteer we knock i start on calf scrambling calf scramble committee is responsible for what we call roll call so when the the kids are selected to participate in the calf scramble event there's an orientation so they bring them into one of the rooms here in the center and they have to get their their shirt on their number one of the things they do is teach them how to put a halter on the calf well that's a rope halter it doesn't have a buckle it's

you have to know how to do that because if you put it on upside down or wrong it'll come off so there's an orientation so they're always doing some kind of a prank in there that would get catch you off guard i've been sprayed with silly string they paraded animals through there just anything that's kind of throw you off and the kids really enjoyed kind of the kind of lightening up that mood in there a little bit as they were getting orientated to go over to the to the cast scramble so I had a lot of fun in the cast scramble room early days with those guys and so they always made it fun. Thank you to Jim and Joel for the mountain of information about this one-of-a-kind event. As you heard, it really does take a small army of dedicated people to bring the rodeo to life. And thank you all for listening to the first episode of our three-part series about the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo here on the Legends of the Old West podcast.

We'll be back next week with two great guests. be back next week with two great guests. First up, we'll be Katherine Schultz, Managing Director of Sports and Events Presentations, which basically means she's in charge of the rodeo. And then, five-time world champion steer wrestler, Luke Branquino. And now, as promised, we'll finish up with Mr. Leroy Schaefer and the story of George Strait's legendary 1983 performance at Rodeo Houston. Buckle up. You're going to love it. Well, in 1983, quite often, and we did for many years before and after that, we had two entertainers on each performance. And that particular year, we did have a Saturday matinee and a Saturday evening billed with Eddie Rabbit and Roseanne

Cash. And our security detail that worked with the entertainers called in early in the morning before soundcheck for the matinee performance and said, we got a real problem. Eddie Rabbit is ill. Can you send one of the doctors over? And we did have a cadre of doctors on call at that time. Most of them were volunteers with the rodeo. And we sent one of them over, and he called back in a few minutes and said, he's not going to be able to perform. I can't even understand him.

He cannot talk. He's totally lost his voice. He's got a cold and complications. We went on that matinee, and I may need to point out that Eddie Rabbit was at his peak at that point, and Roseanne Cash had the number one hit in America, and we went on with just Roseanne Cash for that performance, but we felt we had to come up with a replacement entertainer for that evening. We were very fortunate in that there was an association of entertainment managers that were having their convention in Houston, and we sent a call over

to the Astroworld Hotel and said we need help, and within probably 30 or 40 minutes, in the middle of that Mountain High high rodeo performance we had 10 or 15 managers and agents in our offices and they were on the phone and they were calling and uh well we got this no he can't get here no we got this one's no we had a young young manager with one of the nashville agencies uh they came and said, I have an entertainer. He's not the level you guys are looking for at this point, but his name is George Strait. He's not touring right now.

He's over at his ranch in Sagin. If we can get a hold of him, see if we can get him over here. Our general manager at the time, Dick Weakley, said, never heard of him. I asked Mr. Weakley, he has the number one country song in America right now, Marina Del Rey. He said, oh yeah, I've heard that. Well, we decided that's the best we can do.

Let's see if we can get them over here. We started calling Tony Conway, the agent manager, got in touch with George Strait's wife. She said, well, he's out on the ranch right now on a horse with the dogs. I'll see if I can get a hold of him. Tony said, see if you can get a hold of the band. And she said, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Well, it was 1 o'clock when they finally got back to us. And she said, we're getting everybody rounded up.

But what time is the show and do we have time to drive there one of our executive committee members uh lewis pierce uh who's now deceased but he was the owner president of texas ironworks and walkershaw pierce industries had a private learjet and he said let me see if I can get my pilot. He said, no, wait a minute. I've loaned my plane to Darryl Royal. He's on a recruiting trip with the University of Texas. He said, but let me see if I can patch through to him, talk to him. They talked to him, and the pilot said, I can land in Seguin. I can land Darryl Royal in Austin. I can be in Se Sagin by 5 p.m. If they can meet me there, he said, I think we can pull this off. We had them in the air, but we knew that by the time we landed them,

got them over here, that the rodeo would already have started. So these guys came out without a sound check. While they were en route, we got in touch with the manager and agent for Roseanne Cash and said, because of what's going on here now, we need for you to go ahead and take the first position because it'll give us more time for us to get George Strait and his band in here, get them ready. And her personal manager, who happened to be her husband a man named rodney crowell uh came over met with us and he said no i'm not going to allow that uh he said you have to understand my wife is the bigger star here uh so we we uh we need for him to go on first and we

said okay you know we'll do that um they came in. They were not shaved. They had three days' worth of growth, which would be common today, but it wasn't in 1983. They were wearing baseball gimme hats. We borrowed hats from our officers that night. We had all of our officers come over, and they were trying on hats. We got them on stage. We were just in the infancy of our big screen broadcast at that time. We had this big projection screen system called Idafore light valve projection. And we were showing George Strait live on that big screen. And his charisma just came through and he absolutely stole that audience i mean it was a phenomenal performance um in the and then we had a at that time we had this jeep that had chase lights all over it and when we had two entertainers when the first entertainer was

over this jeep would come out and get them and it would just immediately take them back to the dressing room then the second entertainer would perform and after that this jeep would come out and get them and it would just immediately take them back to the dressing room then the second entertainer would perform and after that this jeep would come back out it would have the first entertainer and the second entertainer would get in there with it and then they would drive around the arena so the crowd could see them uh roseanne did a great performance but it just was a it was a dead performance after that George Strait thing. And in the middle of that performance, the agent for Roseanne Cash came up to our production stand and said, Shave, I really hate to tell you this, he said, but Roseanne's husband doesn't want Mr. Strait to be in the car when he comes back out. Mr. Straight to be in the car when he comes back out.

He's a replacement star. His wife is a bigger star. So he needs to come out some other way. So we went down and started talking about this and Tony Conway said, well, let him ride a horse. And Mr. Weekly said, do we have a horse? And I looked down, I said, Mr. Weekly, the rodeo producer's horse, Mike Servi's horse mike servey's horse is still down there at saddle um and he said but that's a very spirited horse he said i don't know and i'll never forget tony conway said mr weakly george straight is a cowboy and mr weakly looked at him and said yeah everybody is a cowboy he's no seriously he really is a cowboy and so mr

weakly said well get him down, get him on the horse, let him ride around behind the chutes. Let's see if he can really do this. Roseanne Cash's performance is ending. I saw the agent coming back up the ladder to the production stand. He said, Shea, he doesn't want them in the arena at the same time. to the production stand. He said, Shea, he doesn't want them in the arena at the same time. He said, so she needs to do her ride off, and then George Strait needs to come in. So I went back and told our general manager, and I went down and found Tony Conway, and we got with George Strait.

He said, I understand, I understand. So Roseanne Cash did her ride around. The announcer at that time, a man named Chuck Parkinson, who was a Hollywood announcer, quite a famous announcer, had that very deep voice. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. George Strait. And the spotlights hit the gate, and there's no George Strait there. And you can't see anything but those spotlights. And we're looking in the dark trying to figure out where George Strait is.

He had backed that horse all the way up the east ramp of the Astrodome, and he had it coming at full gallop. And it came through the gates, and he set that horse down on its butt and reared it up in a Gene Autry-type pose and waved his hat. The crowd went bananas. We couldn't get him out of the arena. The crowd wouldn't let him leave. I think he did six or seven ride-arounds. And that was the start of the arena. The crowd wouldn't let him leave. I think he did six or seven right arounds and that was a start for the George Strait legend at the Houston Livestock Show in Roeville.