EVENTS
All-Around Champion Cowboy, 1951, 1955
Saddle Bronc Rider, Champion, 1949, 1951-1954, 1959
Bareback Bronc Rider, Champion, 1951
Arguably the greatest bronc rider of all time, Casey Tibbs was born in 1929 near Pierre, South Dakota. He learned horsemanship on 20-mile, round-trip rides to school and entered professional rodeo competition in 1943.
Casey Tibbs remains the only rodeo contestant ever to win the saddle-bronc and bareback-bronc riding championships in the same year (1951). Slight of stature, he exhibited superb balance and rhythm rather than brute strength. His skill brought him an unequaled six saddle bronc titles, as well as two all-around championships, in eleven years.
Casey Tibbs retired from active competition during the 1960s (with some 30 broken bones), but he never left rodeo. He remained active with celebrity and benefit performances and old-timers’ reunions and rodeos until his death in 1990.
