Branson to Cherokee – The Longest Night I Ever Spent

March 6, 2015January 23, 2022 / Andy R Taylor / 13 Comments

The year was 1979. The rodeo season was in full swing. Denny Flynn and I were traveling together and we were both having a successful season so far. We were to ride in Branson, Missouri and leave immediately to head for Cherokee, Iowa where we’d ride the next afternoon.

As soon as we arrived in Branson I saw my good friend Roy Carter. The first thing out of his mouth was the devastating news that our friend Mick Whitely from Halfway, Oregon had been killed the night before in Inglewood, California. A bull had stepped in his chest with both feet and he died before he got to the hospital. Mick was a close friend; just a few weeks earlier he, Wacey Cathey and myself had spent nearly a week in the same hotel room in Edmonton, Alberta. How was I to know it would be the last time I’d see Mick?

But that wasn’t the end of the bad news in Branson that night. Brian Claypool, Gary ‘Moon’ Logan, Calvin Bunney and Lee Coleman, all Canadians, had left Cloverdale, BC in Brian’s private plane on their way to Las Vegas. After clearing customs in Salem, Oregon they were never heard from again. After an all-out intensive search no evidence of the guys or the plane was found. In fact, it was later in the year during hunting season that hunters happened on to the wreckage.

I didn’t know Bunney or Coleman; they were young and just starting their professional rodeo careers. But Brian Claypool was a great friend. We’d become friends soon after I cracked out in ’72. He was a great bull and bronc rider…one of the best, and the ‘fittest’ guy I ever knew. Gary Logan, or ‘Moon’ as we all called him, was also a good friend and great bareback rider. Just two weeks before there were two carloads of us staying at our ranch in Allison, Texas. The last day before we all left and went different ways Gary and I were working on a new pair of spurs of mine. Looking back it was a great day, always lots of laughs with Moon. It would be the last time I’d ever see him.

There’s an incredible camaraderie in the rodeo world, more like a brotherhood! It wasn’t just that we’d lost some friends, we’d lost family! Denny and I headed out for Cherokee. I’m not ashamed to say I shed a lot of tears that night. We stopped at a truck stop somewhere and I called Julie…just to hear her voice. I called my dad hoping that he’d say something to make me feel better. I didn’t want to go to Cherokee, I didn’t care anything about riding bulls. I just wanted to go home…but we were already committed. I guess in a lot of ways I grew up some that night.

My traveling partner and best friend Denny Flynn and I talked a lot about the guys, and a lot about life that night. We both had our turn at driving but I don’t think either one of us slept a wink. We rolled into Cherokee, not very fresh and not thinking much about bull riding. It was the longest night I ever spent.

Click this link to hear a song written about this by one of our rodeo friends, Ivan Daines:

Are You God’s Servant??

February 26, 2015April 7, 2015 / Andy R Taylor / 1 Comment

It’s kind of a trick question; and I know what most people around the church today would say. Without a doubt, nearly everyone would say, “Yes, of course I’m a servant”, to that question. But if we’re talking identity, then the answer is not just a little wrong…..it’s a lot wrong! And I think it’s one of the big problems with Christianity today.

Growing up we lived on a 10,000 acre ranch in the Texas Panhandle. My dad leased the ranch; we didn’t own it but we had to run it like we did own it. Over the course of the 25 years we lived there we had a number of hired-hands, some of them good, some not so good. But my mom and dad, Cliff and Charlene Taylor, and my brother, Monty and I…..always worked harder than the hired-hands. We did the things that the hired-hands didn’t want to do, or had left undone. We went the ‘extra mile’, so to speak, in seeing that the work was done around the ranch that needed to be done. We all worked longer hours and constantly carried the weight of knowing that the ranch had to make money or we wouldn’t. It didn’t matter to the hired-hands.

In the story of the ‘prodigal son’, the boy comes home and tries to tell his dad (God) that he’s willing to be a hired-hand. But the Father would have none of it! There are hired-hands in the story….but this boy isn’t one of them….he’s a ‘son’!

In our Christian lives we’re going to do a lot of serving, …..but the Father never intended for us to have the identity of a hired-hand! He’s hand-picked us as His own sons and daughters……we should start acting like it!

VIP #1 Booger Bryant

February 6, 2015October 20, 2020 / Andy R Taylor / 14 Comments

Well, for starters, just the name “Booger” gets your attention, right!? Booger Bryant could be described in a lot of ways; Cowboy, Bull Rider, Bull Rope Maker, Believer…..A Man’s-Man! Booger lived in Hagerman, New Mexico, not far from Roswell. He was probably 8-10 years older than me when I started my professional rodeo career at 18. Back in those days when you were a ‘rookie’ and just starting out most of the older, seasoned cowboys wouldn’t talk to you until you had ‘paid your dues’ and proven yourself. But Booger wasn’t that way at all, at least with me.There’s no telling how tough Booger really was but he didn’t try at all to push that persona. But you could obviously tell that he wouldn’t get pushed around by anyone.

In the mid to late ’70’s there was a surge of Christianity through professional rodeo. And as it often happens with people who first experience salvation, there was a lot more zeal than common sense displayed by a lot of these rodeo people. Many of them were in-your-face with it; they meant well but to be honest it turned me off and I avoided most of them the best I could. I’d gotten saved in a countywide crusade in Wheeler, Texas in 1974, but I pretty much kept it to myself and wasn’t doing a very good job of living it out.

But, Booger Bryant was different than the others. I knew he was a Christian, but it was different, I wanted to be around him. We had quite a few visits about the Lord. He hardly ever initiated them, it was mostly me. I knew he’d be ‘straight-up’ with me; I knew he wouldn’t be pushy about it; he didn’t have some subtle agenda like the rest of them. I knew I could trust him. He knew I wasn’t doing a good job of walking it out but he never, ever mentioned it. He stood his ground between the over-zealous believers and the hard-ass, old-school cowboys who didn’t want any of it, and would dang sure tell you about it if they needed to!

He got cancer but never complained about it; he’d just say he was trusting the Lord with it. He fought the good fight for sure but finally went to his reward. He left behind his wife, Bonnie and a little boy, Blu. He made my bull ropes for several years, he was always a trusted friend, kinda like a big brother I didn’t have. But most of all he showed me what a ‘real’ Christian ought to be like and his impact on my life was deep, even though I didn’t know it at the time.

I never got the chance to talk to Booger after my life had really ‘made the turn’ in ’84, he was already gone. But I did get the chance in the mid-’90’s to tell his son, Blu, who was leading the world bull riding standings at the time, how much I admired him and how much of an impact his dad had on my life. It felt pretty good!

I’ll forever be grateful to Booger Bryant for helping to show me the Way!