A TRUE TRAILBLAZER Alumnus leads others in the sport of rodeo
he rolling hills of Payne County, Oklahoma, are a far cry from the towering buildings in bustling Stamford, Connecticut, but if you ask Bud Bramwell, National Finals Rodeo first ever Forgotten Trailblazers Award winner, he will tell you these hills are his home. Growing up in Stamford, Bramwell led a typical life for a child in the city, he said. “We played football in the streets, we roller skated, nobody locked their doors,” Bramwell said. “Times were good back then.” Before Bramwell held reins in his hands he always wanted to be a cowboy, which was not normal for an inner-city kid in the northeast, he said. “When we were about 10 or 11 years old, I started horseback riding with my mother, dad and two sisters,” Bramwell said. “We took English riding lessons, and I was the only one in the family who kept it up.” Riding horses with his family 50 | COWBOY JOURNAL
ignited a passion, he said, and he became fascinated with cowboys he saw on TV. “There were a couple guys in Connecticut who went to Arizona and lived out there about a year,” Bramwell said. “They came back and bought a place in upstate Connecticut. We would go up there every week, and they would charge you 25 cents to run a calf. They started us and helped us learn how to rope.” The desire to lead the cowboy lifestyle was ultimately what drove Bramwell to leave his home state and venture south to the plains, he said. “I knew I wanted to come out here, to Oklahoma, and be a cowboy,” Bramwell said. Although he was accepted by the University of the Philippines and by Tuskegee University in Alabama, Bramwell chose to come to the plains on a rodeo scholarship to Oklahoma State University, Bramwell said. “School at OSU was good,” said
Bramwell. “Walt Garrison, an AllAmerican Cowboy football player, was in school then. He used to rope with us every day.” An animal science graduate of 1963 and a resident of Stillwater since then, Bramwell has seen many innovations and changes take place at OSU. “Stillwater has changed a lot,” Bramwell said. “None of the buildings had air conditioning in them when I went to school.” Even after Bramwell graduated from OSU, he continued to be involved with the rodeo program of his alma mater by practicing with the rodeo team members at his personal arena, said CR Bradley, a former OSU Rodeo Team member. “For two years, I roped with him almost every day of the week,” Bradley said. “I took all my classes in the morning, and then I would rope with him all afternoon almost every day.” Mentoring a younger generation is a reason Bramwell is so well respected
