EVENTS
World Champion Bareback Bronc Rider (1964, 1965)
Steer Wrestler
Rodeo Producer
Born in 1940 at Nebraska City, Nebraska, Jim Houston became enamored with rodeo sport after attending the Cheyenne Frontier Days at age ten. Once out of high school, he began honing his riding skills at the Cody, Wyoming, Night Rodeo in the summers of 1958 and 1959.
Houston joined the Rodeo Cowboys Association (RCA) in late 1961, and the following year he qualified for the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) and was proclaimed the RCA Rookie of the Year. He competed and won at all the major western venues over the following years, and captured the World Champion Bareback Bronc Rider title in 1964 and 1965. (In the latter year he made winning rides on the notorious broncs, Come Apart and Yellow Jacket.) Houston also designed and marketed his special bareback-bronc rigging with a metal handhold–a pattern that changed the style of bareback riding.
In 1968 Houston was the runner-up All Around Champion Cowboy, finishing second and fifth, respectively, in bareback riding and steer wrestling. Following his competitive career, he managed the Cody Night Rodeo and the Jackson Hole weekly rodeo for a number of years. Jim Houston was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1979.
