Nationality American Name Warren Brown | Fields Bull Rider | |
Died March 20, 1987Oklahoma Known for A legend of Bull Riding Notable awards World Champion Bull Rider1962 | ||
Warren G. "Freckles" Brown was a rodeo performer from Wheatland, Wyoming from 1937 to 1974. He was the youngest of 10 brothers and sisters. Brown had a wife named Edith, and a daughter named Donna Harrison, and two grandchildren. In 1937 Brown started in the rodeo at Willcox, Arizona at age 16. In 1941 he rode his horse to Cody, Wyoming—a long distance—where he had won his first bull trophy, then rode back again.
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1962 World Championship
Brown was injured badly in October 1962 at the rodeo in Portland, Oregon. While riding a bull name "Black Smoke" for 8 seconds, the bull flipped Brown, who fell on his head, paralyzing him. The doctor pulled on his head and it made the feeling come back to his right side and left foot. He was operated on and put in traction for 34 days, followed by a plaster cast from the top of the waist to the top of the brow for more than 2 months. He had saved enough money to win the Championship. His earnings in the 1962 were $18,675. During that year he won the award "World Champion Bull Rider" at the National Finals Rodeo while he was on the sidelines watching.
Tornado
On a cold December night Brown had ridden a bull named "Tornado" owned by Jim Shoulders. Tornado was the ultimate challenge on the bull-riding circuit, but Brown stayed on for the 8 seconds required. He had ridden Tornado before 6,000 people. Tornado died in 1972 as unridden by 220 professional riders, and was buried near to the Cowboy Hall of Fame.
World War II
Brown enlisted to join the U.S. army, and undertook basic training in Fort Sill. He attended horseshoeing school while stationed at Fort Riley. He was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which acted behind enemy lines; Brown was helping paratroopers. The war ended in the spring of 1946, and Brown returned to China to finish a Red Cross-sponsored event in which U.S. pack mules that had replaced saddle-broncs and barebacks and native cattle that was rounded up for the bull ride. Brown left China with the all-around title .
Awards and recognition
Personal life
Brown had retired at age 53, and he returned home to the 600-acre ranch that he owns in Soper, Oklahoma. He had settled down from bull riding to work with the animals on the ranch and teach the young ones his techniques.
Brown was found to have cancer in November. He was advised to go to Houston for six weeks' radiation treatment, but was determined to go to the December finals beforehand. A man named Clem had announced at the December 1983 Finals that Brown had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. His friends gave him a fund raiser dance at the end of the Finals that would help with cost of the medical supplies he needed. By March 1983 he had returned home to give interviews.
His cancer returned in 1987, after being in remission for four years. By March 1987 he was back in hospital in Houston at the age of 66. Clem, who had announced Brown's cancer, came back at the Finals, so they had pulled together a fund raiser auction to help to pay for the medical bills again. It was going to take place on March 22, 1987. However, Brown died two days before at his ranch in Oklahoma. That Sunday the fund raiser still went on at the Holidome in McAlester, Oklahoma. US$41,000 was raised to help with Brown's medical bills.