EVENTS
Rough-stock Rider
Born in 1931 at Pickens, Oklahoma, Marvin Holmes had dreams of making it big in professional rodeo. In 1949 at 18 he took the bus to the Madison Square Garden rodeo and won $2,400 in bareback, saddle-bronc and bull riding. He was off and running.
Holmes regularly competed in all three rough-stock events and evolved into one of the top contenders of the mid-1950s. He won the bareback riding at Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1952 and became the first Oklahoman to win the saddle-bronc title there in 1960. That victory propelled him to his first and only appearance at the National Finals Rodeo, where he finished 12th in the world.
Holmes was often in the top 15 in ProRodeo standings for bareback riding, saddle bronc-riding and the all-around in the mid-1950s. In 1958, he finished 15th in the all-around and bareback riding and 12th in the saddle bronc riding. Marvin Holmes died in 1991.
