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APRIL 28, 2025: FOGHORN CLANCY
Howdy folks, it’s the fourth of April 2025 and welcome to This Week in The West.
I’m Seth Spillman, broadcasting from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
On this podcast, we share stories of the people and events that shaped the history, art and culture of the American West—and those still shaping it today.
In 1898, a 16-year-old cowboy wandered around Mineral Wells, Texas, searching for work. The Army rejected him, deeming him too young and skinny to enlist and fight in the Spanish-American War.
But the editor of the Mineral Wells newspaper noticed the kid’s booming voice and hired him to stand outside the publication’s office and announce the headlines. In 19th Century Texas, town crier was still a real job.
The boy’s voice was so loud that he got the nickname “Foghorn,” and it stuck.
For decades to come, Foghorn Clancy’s announcing at rodeo arenas around the country helped raise the sport’s profile.
Today, we remember Clancy, a member of the National Rodeo Hall of Fame, on the week of his death, April 28, 1857.
Frederick Melton Clancy was born April 4, 1882, in Phoenix City, Alabama.
His father died when he was just over a year old, and his mother remarried a Texas rancher a few years later. The family moved to the Lone Star State.
Clancy started working on the ranch as soon as he could ride, and by age 14, he thought himself enough of a cowboy to strike out on his own. In a couple of years, he had made it as far as Mineral Springs and took that crier job. He needed another path in life.
He thought that path was as a rodeo champion, but at his first competition in San Angelo, Texas, Clancy’s attempt at riding broncs lasted only a few seconds. Watching the teen get up from the dirt, the event promoter figured there was no room for the young cowboy in the sport.
But that voice – the Foghorn – changed Clancy’s life.
The promoter asked Clancy to be his announcer, and a six-decade career was born.
Clancy quickly became the preeminent voice of rodeo, announcing at major events such as the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Cheyenne Frontier Days and Madison Square Garden’s annual rodeo. Before the invention of public address systems, Clancy’s powerful voice carried across vast arenas, ensuring every spectator could hear the action.
An Associated Press sports writer spent time with Foghorn at a 1941 Madison Square Garden.
“The 200-pound Foghorn is a ‘sort of chief statistician’ and publicity drumbeater for the rodeo …,” wrote the AP’s Ferd (stet) Browning. Clancy pointed out the bucking broncos to the writer, saying. “Yuh know they’re descendants of Coronado’s horses. They were big, bred to carry a man wearin’ full armor. He turned ‘em loose, ‘stead of takin’ ‘em back, and they roamed the prairies, wild, for centuries.”
According to the writer, Foghorn spent his time at the rodeos, boot up against the railing, tamping tobacco into a pipe and telling wild tales about the origin of every animal and cowboy.
Foghorn worked alongside legendary rodeo producers such as Jim Eskew, Tex Austin and Guy Weadick.
He would arrive in a town weeks ahead of a rodeo, building anticipation through newspaper articles and personal appearances, guaranteeing packed audiences for each performance.
In 1911, while announcing at the Kansas State Fair, Clancy introduced President William Howard Taft to a crowd of sixty thousand.
The President, impressed by Clancy’s vocal prowess, quipped, “If I possessed the voice of your announcer, you might all hear me as clearly as you heard him.”
Beyond his role in rodeo promotion and announcing, Clancy became the sport’s first historian.
He was a prolific writer, contributing articles to numerous publications and documenting the evolution of the sport.
In 1921, he published “Foghorn Clancy’s Round-Up, Stampede, and Cowboy Sports Guide,” a comprehensive book of rodeo statistics. He later edited “Rodeo Romances,” a magazine that captured the excitement of the rodeo world.
His most notable work, “My Fifty Years in Rodeo: Living with Cowboys, Horses, and Danger,” was published in 1952 and remains an invaluable resource for historians studying the early days of rodeo. Three copies of the first edition of Foghorn’s work are in the Dickinson Research Center here at The Cowboy. We are also home to the Rodeo Historical Society.
Over the years, Clancy formed close friendships with many legendary figures, including Will Rogers and Gene Autry. Rogers, known for his wit and charm, often joined Clancy in the announcer’s booth, sharing laughs and cowboy camaraderie.
Despite his many successes, Clancy faced hardships, particularly during the Great Depression. His attempt to produce his own Wild West show, The Bar C Wild West Show, ended in financial ruin.
As rodeos transitioned to using public address systems, the demand for his signature voice declined. However, Clancy adapted by focusing on writing and documenting the sport’s history, ensuring that rodeo’s early days would not be forgotten.
In his later years, Clancy worked primarily in the eastern United States. He and his wife, Alice, affectionately known as “Mother Clancy” within the rodeo community, raised five children—often while traveling from one event to the next.
Frederick Melton “Foghorn” Clancy died April 28, 1957.
In 1991, he was posthumously inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame here at The Cowboy.
And with that, we’ll make the final announcement on another episode of “This Week in The West.”
Our show is produced and written by Mike Koehler.
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We leave you today with the words of Foghorn Clancy, describing a rodeo in an article for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1945: After Sunday night, the nearly 200 contestants will scatter to different parts of the country, some back to their war jobs, some back to their ranches, others on to other rodeos, some squandering the prize money they have won, others using theirs to stock their own little ranches, while others who failed to collect any prize money, but collected a big share of bumps and bruises will in a manner be licking their wonders and getting ready for another try at the prize money of some other rodeo.”
Much obliged for listening, and remember, come Find Your West at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
