The Ranger (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 53, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, February 16, 1979 Page: 3 of 8
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its
25th
saw
from barn to barn.
It’s apparent almost everyone
connected with the rodeo knows
and loves Littrell, including the
people who work for him.
He lights another of his filterless
cigarettes before returning to the
interview.
“I ain’t gotta work. I just watch
’em boys. I spend. half my time
hunting the help,” he says, limping
through the barns. “Like right now,
I’m looking for them two nigger
boys.
“Where’d you say you’re from,
San Antonio College?” Littrell asks,
changing the subject. “I remember
in 1929 the old street car barn used
which recently
birthday.
had enough money to leave home
before then,” he said.
A dull yellow dump truck pulls up
and stops in the middle of the road
with two high school boys. Littrell
pauses a moment before yelling to
them, “I’ll report you to the queen if
you don’t get busy.”
“Go ahead,” one of the boys
yells.
“Them damn Polock boys never
do nothin’ but sit there,” Littrell
says with almost a smile on his
face.
He sternly, yet somehow
good-humoredly, yells at the two
boys. He pauses from time to time
to say ‘hello’ to friends walking
“I help see the show is carried
on,” Littrell says as he peers
through his thick glasses, adjusting
•his blue and white cap.
“A lot of people moan and groan
and complain. I just see that they’re
all happy,” he said.
Littrell props his foot on Old
Faithful’s bumper, sticks his
tongue through the hole where his
two bottom front teeth used to be
and talks about the days when he
was a calf roper.
“I did it for a hobby mostly. I gave
that up back in the ’50s. I came
down here when I was 17, never
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to be there where that school is
now.”
Littrell walks off, making his way
through the entertainment center,
pausing only to talk to friends and
once to see the rodeo queen doing
the weather report with a local
newcaster.
As he walks outside the center,
he pauses momentarily to use the
restroom inside one of the
auctioning barns. He was coaxed
into sweeping the floor because the
photographer needed pictures of
him actually working.
“Hey boss, you better hurry up
with that there camera. I’ve done
too much work already,” he joked
after about three minutes of
sweeping the same bench.
“Oh, I enjoy it here. I bitch like
hell, but I enjoy it,” he says,
smiling as the veins in his face
contour his rosy red cheeks.
Littrell slowly made his way back
toward Old Faithful, pausing from
time to time, saying “hello” to more
friends. “I gotta use the horse
trough,” he said and walked into a
restroom.
“I gotta go help them boys in that
pickup,” he said later even though
he never did leave is truck.
When asked if he kept the truck
because he likes antiques, he
replied, “Antique hell! I’m just a
poor boy. She’s got over 300,000
miles on her and never been
overhauled,” he bragged, lighting
another cigarette.
“If she don’t start tomorrow, she
still treated me good. I’ve owned
that there bottle holder before I had
the truck, and I’ve owned this truck
since she was brand new,” he said,
pointing to the antique wire soft
drink bottle holder.
Another friend of Littrell’s joined
him in Old Faithful as he signaled
the end of our visit.
“See you later, hoss. Y’all come
back now, hear?”
scoopers to make the show which
ends Sunday successful.
Between barns which house all
sorts of entertainment, Preston
Littrell sits on the running boards of
Old Faithful, his dingy red pickup
Although bull riders, calf ropers
and dozens of other cowboys make
the rodeo during the 30th annual
San Antonio Stock Show and
Rodeo, it takes groundskeepers,
maintenance men and even pooper
Four-year-old George Light V (top) seems enchanted by the
action in the bull chutes below him Sunday at the 30th
Annual San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo. Jim
Watkins, veteran bull rider, (above) quells pre-ride nervous-
ness by checking his equipment one last time. A spirited
mount (left) gives his rider all he can handle during the saddle
bronc riding competition also Sunday.
v
Preston Littrell, groundskeeper, (above) parks his weary frame
after a few minutes work. Littrell is known to rodeo regulars
as a man of many words and little work. Littrell (right)
a break from the day’s activities to sit in solitude on
the running board of his pick-up, “Old Faithful.”
rodeo
ride.
Another
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Odessa, Texas, coming out of Gate
3,” the speakers echo throughout
the still coliseum.
The peanut vendor stops hawking
his wares and stares into the arena.
Dad drops the empty beer cup to
the floor. Little Joey lets his dead
balloon fall to the floor, and
Grandma forgets her fatigue and
awaits the breath-taking perfor-
mance she is about to witness.
Watkins clinches the rope in his
hands. He knows it won’t go any
tighter, yet he grips it as if it would.
He grinds his teeth and for the first
time displays emotion. His teeth
bare through the lips of his grim,
roughened face, the adrenalin
almost popping him open.
Two cowboys inside the arena
stand on the outside of No. 13’s
gate.
“That rope won’t go no tighter,”
one of them shouts to Watkins.
He nods his head and tightens
his grip. Two cowboys unlatch the
gate. It slowly swings open, and the
bull explodes through it. He
launches his enormous body into
the air, bounces off the rails and
another cowboy bounces in the dirt,
dirt.
Another bull.
Another chance.
awaits another chance to win the
bull riding competition like he did
in 1970.
Waiting. Another chance for a
4,000-pound bull to ram its horn
through Watkins’ mouth like one
did last June. That kept him off
bulls and out of the rodeo for three
months.
Waiting for another damn ride.
“A majority of it is in your mind.
You’ve got to know you can do it,”
Watkins says with his Texas
cowboy accent. “You try to get on
with a positive attitude, and you try
not to get down on yourself.”
Since Watkins began entering
rodeos in 1964, he’s mounted the
bull — the biggest, meanest, most
dangerous animal in the rodeo.
He rides bucking machines five
days a week. Watkins averages
65,000 miles each six months,
traveling from rodeo to
across the United States.
“You have to have a desire to be a
cowboy to join the rodeo and a
desire to win to stay with it,”
Watkins said.
He gets up, straps his chaps over
his bluejeans, stretches his hands
into the worn, tattered leather
gloves and gets his bull. The bull,
No. 13, awaits cooped up in an
RODEO: the magic of a Wild West show
By Jeff Stiet
Photos by Scott Sanders
almost car-sized cage.
The bull waits for the moment
when the eight-foot tall, metal
piped gate will open, and he’ll get
his chance for freedom.
Watkins walks through a gate
leading into the arena. He looks for
the chute he’ll come out of, and he
tries to locate the bull he’ll ride.
The animals are numbered. No
one knows which bull he’ll mount
until it’s time to ride.
Watkins walks over to the
cowboys lining the fence behind
the gates.
Perhaps someone else has ridden
No. 13 before. Naturally, Watkins
will ask, and hopefully he can learn
something about the animal.
He climbs to the top of the gate,
staring down at the bull below him.
The animal holds his destiny. No.
13 could put him closer to the
championship or bring his wife
closer to becoming a widow.
He mounts his rope around the
animal which stands as if he
doesn’t really care. In a few more
minutes the bull will jump, buck
and kick as if the rider were poking
him with hot branding irons.
Watkins jumps inside the chute
with the mass of fat and muscle.
“And now Jim Watkins from
Another bull. Another ride.
Another chance. These are three
ingredients of the rodeo, one of
America’s oldest sports.
Beginning in the back of corrals
and spreading to coliseums,
today’s rodeo features beer
wagons, rides for the kids, dances
for the young at heart and exhibits
of everything from stage coaches to
four wheelers.
But past the asphalt and through
the smell of popcorn and cotton .
candy, the arena is filled with hay
and dirt. Only the aroma of sweat
and manure lingers in the stale
hallways. Some things never
change.
The glittering cowboys on their
meticulously groomed horses have
paraded and gone, and peanut
shells and empty beer containers
are collecting on the floor. Little
Joey’s Mickey Mouse balloon has
popped, and Grandma is ready to
go home and — thank God — bull
riding is about to begin.
On the cement basement
dressing room floor, Jim Watkins
sits waiting for another ride. He
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with a little spit and shine from unsung heroes
FRIDAY, FEB. 16, 1979 ■ THE RANGER 3
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San Antonio College. The Ranger (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 53, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, February 16, 1979, newspaper, February 16, 1979; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1350458/m1/3/: accessed July 11, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting San Antonio College.