State Bird, Flower...State Saddle?
We have state flowers and birds … but a state saddle? Well that's a new idea being proposed by the Utah State Legislature. I’m Susan Allen and this Open Range, stay tuned for the report.Cowboy culture is awash in history and heritage and despite new technology and synthetic fibers prized saddles bridles and cowboy gear haven’t changed all that much. Take the case of Earl Bascom. In 1922 Earl, the son of a rancher developed a better way to ride bucking broncs with his hornless bronc saddle ( he also came up with the first one handed bareback rigging but that’s another story). Anyway, a century latter The Bascom hornless bronc saddle remains a rodeo staple. Bascom was a western renaissance man, not only a rodeo champion, cattle rancher and dude wrangler in his latter years Earl became a Hollywood actor plusan esteemed western artist who claimed both Frederic S. Remington and Charles M. Russell as relations. Each year our National High School Rodeo Association gives the Earl W. Bascom Award for the saddle bronc and bareback events at the High School Finals. So it is Bascom’s contribution to the sport of rodeo that has the Utah State Legislature contemplating an official “State Rodeo Saddle” that would honor Bascom’s hornless design while paying tribute to the man who gave rodeo the one-hand bareback rigging, modern rodeo chaps and the side-delivery bucking chute.
