This November, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum will proudly unveil the all-new National Rodeo Hall of Fame. This new space will honor the individuals enshrined in the original, most celebrated rodeo hall of fame over the past 71 years.
Beyond celebrating rodeo’s champions, the new National Rodeo Hall of Fame will tell the complete story of the West’s indigenous sport, from its multicultural influences and early roots in 19th-century cowboy culture to its organizational foundations and evolution throughout the 20th century, and its global explosion as a 21st-century sports juggernaut.
The National Rodeo Hall of Fame is paired with the recently renovated PBR Heroes & Legends Hall of Fame, which honors recipients of the five prestigious awards Professional Bull Riders (PBR) gives each year to individuals who have made substantial contributions to bull riding. PBR Heroes & Legends also showcases the rich history of the world’s premier bull-riding organization. With the all-new National Rodeo Hall of Fame and the reimagined PBR Heroes & Legends Hall of Fame, The Cowboy reaffirms its position as the mecca of rodeo champions.
From the start, rodeo has remained one of the most important aspects of Western culture celebrated by the National Cowboy Museum.
Since its founding in 1955, the National Cowboy Museum has recognized rodeo as a quintessential expression of Western heritage in pursuit of its mission to preserve and interpret the evolving history and cultures of the American West. Equally important to fulfilling this mission has been The Cowboy’s celebration of individuals integral to the sport’s continued growth.
Before the end of 1955—and still a full decade before the National Cowboy Museum’s home atop Persimmon Hill was completed—an inaugural class of inductees was enshrined in the National Rodeo Hall of Fame.
Consisting of 19 roughstock, timed-event and all-around cowboys from rodeo’s formative years to what was then present-day, the National Rodeo Hall of Fame Class of 1955 was a who’s who of rodeo greats from the first half of the 20th century — Everett Bowman, John Bowman, Louis Brooks, Clay Carr, Joe Chase Jr., Jake McClure, Burel Mulkey, Don Nesbitt, Homer Pettigrew, Gene Rambo, Gerald Roberts, Buck Rutherford, Johnie Schneider, Jim Shoulders, Earl Thode, Casey Tibbs, Harry Tompkins, Leonard Ward and Todd Whatley.
With such an elite crop of rodeo athletes in the first group of inductees honored in the National Rodeo Hall of Fame, The Cowboy immediately established its bona fides as the original shrine to rodeo by ensuring the sport’s greatest up to that time were recognized.
Since its establishment more than 70 years ago, the National Rodeo Hall of Fame has inducted an annual slate of worthy individuals—both living and deceased—into “the Hall.” To date, 450 individuals have been inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame, with the Class of 2026 joining them this fall.
In addition to the National Rodeo Hall of Fame inductees, the National Cowboy Museum also recognizes the Tad Lucas Memorial Award and the Ben Johnson Memorial Award honorees each year during National Rodeo Hall of Fame Weekend, as well as the Directors’ Choice Award recipient in those years when the National Rodeo Hall of Fame Advisory Board deems it appropriate to bestow this honor on a deserving individual.
Beginning this year, the National Rodeo Hall of Fame Advisory Board will also present the Rodeo Legacy Award annually during National Rodeo Hall of Fame Weekend. The Rodeo Legacy Award recognizes rodeos for their historical significance and lasting impact on the sport, celebrating rodeos that honor and preserve Western heritage and strengthen the rodeo in their local communities and beyond.
When ground was broken atop Persimmon Hill to begin construction of the National Cowboy Museum in 1958, Jim Shoulders — member of the inaugural National Rodeo Hall of Fame Class of 1955 — was there with his wife, Sharon, to help turn over the first shovel-full of soil. For decades to come, Jim and Sharon Shoulders would remain committed to The Cowboy because The Cowboy remained committed to rodeo. In 2017, Sharon’s final term as president of the then-Rodeo Historical Society (now known as the National Rodeo Hall of Fame Advisory Board) ended, and during her tenure she referenced how important Jim’s participation in the Museum groundbreaking was to the Shoulders family and to rodeo in her Ketchpen magazine President’s Letter.
In the early 1990s, when major renovations added 140,000 square feet to the Museum, the Museum unveiled an entire gallery devoted solely to rodeo. Within that space, the single greatest collection of rodeo-related artifacts and historical memorabilia was housed, telling myriad stories from throughout rodeo’s rich and colorful history. While the fascinating stories of rodeo’s history were told, most of the individuals who lived these stories — those whose grit, determination and drive made the sport’s incredible growth possible and who have been immortalized in the National Rodeo Hall of Fame — had no actual space of honor, no true “hall,” in which they could be celebrated in perpetuity.
Come November, however, that will change with the unveiling of the all-new National Rodeo Hall of Fame. No longer simply a roster of rodeo’s preeminent athletes and contract personnel, the National Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City — just like the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio — will be the singular shrine to rodeo, where the stories of the sport’s past and present will be told, and where fans and future champions will come to learn about the sport they love and pay homage to the champions who came before.
