EVENTS
Champion Saddle-Bronc Rider, 1962
Canadian All-Around Champion Cowboy, 1967-1969
Steer Wrestler
Calf Roper
Team Roper
Of Native American and Canadian heritage, Kenny McLean was born at Okanagan Falls, British Columbia, in 1939. During the 1960s he became an outstanding rodeo competitor on both sides of the border and rewrote the record books for Canadian rodeo for the last half of the twentieth century.
McLean was the Rodeo Cowboys Association (RCA) Rookie of the Year in 1961, and the next year he captured the Saddle Bronc championship. He went on to win two RCA Linderman Awards as best all-around cowboy, and qualified eight times in bronc riding and once in calf-roping at the National Finals. In Canada he captured five Canadian Pro Rodeo Association Saddle Bronc Championships; one each as CPRA Calf Roper, Team Roper, and Steer Wrestler; and four as CPRA All Around Champion.
Kenny McLean continued to rodeo on the Canadian and American Senior Pro Rodeo tours into the twenty-first century, taking the World Championship titles in calf roping and ribbon roping, and the Reserve All Around Champion Cowboy title, all in 2001. He remains the only cowboy to receive the Order of Canada, and the only cowboy inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame. He died of heart failure while on horseback in the arena at the Tabor, Alberta, Canada, Senior Pro Rodeo in 2002.
