Back to all
National Rodeo Hall of Fame
Inducted in 1962
Tom Nesmith
1935-1972
Oklahoma
All Around Champion: 1962
EVENTS
All-Around Champion Cowboy, 1962
Steer Wrestler, Champion, 1962
One of the few timed-event cowboys ever to win an all-around championship, Tom Nesmith was born in 1935 at Scipio, Oklahoma. As a youth he practiced on his father’s stock and was taken on the circuit by famed roper Everett Shaw.
Tom Nesmith competed in his first big professional rodeo in 1953 at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and won the calf-roping event the same year at Omaha, Nebraska. Often compared with Homer Pettigrew in stature and skill, Nesmith won the 1962 all-around championship through calf roping and bulldogging, a feat not accomplished since Pettigrew’s similar victory in 1941.
After setting up a cattle ranch at Sulphur, Louisiana, in the mid-1960s, Tom Nesmith rodeoed only occasionally. He died in 1972 of a heart ailment. Of his roping skill a friend observed, “Tom burns loops around calves’ necks. He doesn’t fish. . . .”
EVENTS
All-Around Champion Cowboy, 1962
Steer Wrestler, Champion, 1962
One of the few timed-event cowboys ever to win an all-around championship, Tom Nesmith was born in 1935 at Scipio, Oklahoma. As a youth he practiced on his father’s stock and was taken on the circuit by famed roper Everett Shaw.
Tom Nesmith competed in his first big professional rodeo in 1953 at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and won the calf-roping event the same year at Omaha, Nebraska. Often compared with Homer Pettigrew in stature and skill, Nesmith won the 1962 all-around championship through calf roping and bulldogging, a feat not accomplished since Pettigrew’s similar victory in 1941.
After setting up a cattle ranch at Sulphur, Louisiana, in the mid-1960s, Tom Nesmith rodeoed only occasionally. He died in 1972 of a heart ailment. Of his roping skill a friend observed, “Tom burns loops around calves’ necks. He doesn’t fish. . . .”
