Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association
A lifetime of commitment to the rodeo industry earned Bronc Rumford the 2022 PRCA Donita Barnes Contract Personnel Lifetime Achievement Award.
Rumford, who lives in Abbyville, Kan., has been involved in the rodeo business his entire life.
"It hasn't sunk in yet," said Rumford, 71. "It is such a personal award for me. Bob and Donita were close, close friends with my folks. When I turned pro in the early 1970s, I went to what became the Great Lakes Circuit and we rodeoed up there with Bob and Donita. We would leave home and go to Cherokee, Iowa, in May and we would stay up there all summer. I still remember my folks calling Bob and Donita before I went to Cherokee that year, I got my card. My dad said the kids are going to come up there and rodeo with you and you make sure that you work them and if you need anything from them, they do it. My mom told Donita to take care of us and watch after us.
"Donita pretty much baby sat me and taught me so much about how to enter and even how to rodeo. The Barnes family has always been special to us and Donita, extremely special. To get an award named after her is really an honor for me. She was such a great lady. I'm just extremely proud to get this award."
The Donita Barnes Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Rumford at the PRCA Awards Banquet on Nov. 30 at the South Point in Las Vegas.
Other nominees for the 2022 Donita Barnes Lifetime Achievement Award were Edie Longfellow; Grant and Betsy Harris; Jerry Wayne and Judy Olson; and Kay Bleakly.
"All the nominees are personal friends of mine and every one of them should win this award," Rumford said. "It is very special to be nominated with those other nominees."
Nominees must have been a PRCA member for a minimum of 15 years and cannot have won a yearly contract personnel award within 15 years of the date of nomination.
All nominations were reviewed and selected by an external panel. The top five nominees were voted on by any contract personnel members who have participated in at least one rodeo within that rodeo year.
"In the rodeo business we have done about everything there is to do," Rumford said. "If I had it to do over, I would probably do the same thing. I wouldn't change the lifestyle. The greatest thing about the rodeo world is the people. There are no better people on Earth than rodeo cowboys in my opinion."
Rumford is the father of award-winning clown/barrelman Justin and award-winning secretary Haley Bridwell.
Other winners of the Donita Barnes Lifetime Achievement Award are Donita Barnes (2011); Art and Linda Alsbaugh (2012); Fred and Norma Dorenkamp (2013); Quail Dobbs (2014); Cotton Rosser (2015); Karen Vold (2016), Jim and Julie Sutton (2017), Hadley Barrett (2018); Roy and Virginia Honeycutt (2019); Cindy Rosser (2020) and Kay Gay (2021).