NCHA Members Hall of Fame

Phil Rapp

Rapp Ranch has been the home of NCHA leaders for decades - and not just in the record books.

BY JENNIFER HORTON

While statistics document Phil Rapp’s success in the arena, they don’t tell the whole story. A conversation about his life quickly reveals his dedication and commitment to leadership roles as a father and a trainer and within the National Cutting Horse Association.

“The NCHA is all about the cutting horse, but it’s the relationships we build with people in and out of the arena that we enjoy,” Rapp said. “Teaching and sharing experiences to help people learn and mature in the sport gives me a lot of gratification.”

Rapp grew up showing horses in Napa, California, where his parents, Jerry and Nancy Rapp, raised him with a strong work ethic and a heart for service. He was president of the Junior Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Association, an officer of the American Junior Quarter Horse Association (now known as the American Quarter Horse Youth Association), and an active member of the Pacific Coast Cutting Horse Association. After making the move to Texas, he served as an NCHA director and a member of the limited aged event committee, which included two stints as chairman. He also served four years on the NCHA executive committee.

Phil pulled back the volunteer reins as his children, Ryan and Emma Grace grew. Then, after some encouragement from people he respected and admired, he ran for and was elected as NCHA vice president in 2016.

“If you want to make a difference you have to step up,” Phil said. “Being raised in the NCHA, I had some ideas I thought would enhance the association. We had financial challenges and staff turnover to deal with, including the executive director. We worked to get stability back.”

Phil considers the experience he gained as the biggest reward from serving in his various leadership roles.

“When I completed the presidency, I told my mother I had achieved the master’s degree she had always encouraged,” Phil said. “I learned so much - from human resources and promotion to management and finances. It was a once-in-alifetime opportunity.”

For many, the amount of time Phil spent dedicating his service to the NCHA would have constituted a full-time job, but it wasn’t enough to keep the competitive cutter out of the arena.

“It was a special Futurity when I was president,” Phil said. “Lewis Wray was our interim executive director. Much to his chagrin, he had to insist I go meet every world finalist, in every division, each day they walked the red carpet. I was very proud to present their awards and congratulate them for their years’ worth of work and success. Then, [I was] reserve world champion with [our stallion] Dont Stopp Believin and made the Open Futurity finals myself. [It] was quite a year.”

Phil entered the Non-Pro Riders Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Open Riders Hall of Fame just four years later. Beyond his many accomplishments in the arena, he takes great pride in the family breeding program, which began with a mare gifted to him by his father and has allowed the family to continuously top the lifetime cutting horse owner and breeder charts. So, which honor would make his father, who passed away in 1994, the proudest?

“There’s no doubt,” Phil said, with a laugh. “The Members. Easy. Dad was a big part of the Pacific Coast Cutting Horse Association in the 1980s, until his health got away from him. He’s in their Hall of Fame. He would be so proud of this for me.”

The Members Hall of Fame is the highest accolade within the NCHA. It’s awarded to people who, in Phil’s words, have truly helped the association over their lifetime.

“It’s an honor that I hold very dear and respect very highly,” Phil said.

Phil has a deep appreciation and gratitude for many people in his life, beginning with his mother.

“I see God’s hand over me from my adoption as an infant, which allowed me to be raised by my parents,” Phil said. “They put me into the horse business and made sure good people influenced me as I grew up.”

He named several he considers responsible for his success: Liz Lowe, Jeoff Clarke, Jeff Oswood, Todd Bimat, Pat Cassady, Rock and Landy Hedlund, Scott McClurg, Mike and Michelle Mowery, Lindy Burch, Clarence Tye, Curly and Missy Tully, the Baldwin family, and the Gale family. Phil insisted that he would not be the person he is today without them.

“This Members Hall of Fame award is not so much about me,” Phil said. “It’s about the people who helped me through life and are still close friends. I’m so proud of that.”

Phil is a known family man. He enjoys the time spent sharing this passion with his wife and children.

“My wife, Mary Ann, and I will be married 28 years, this year,” Phil said. “The impact she’s had on my life is immeasurable. The time hauling with the kids and my customers, who become really dear friends, makes the victories and experiences with them mean a lot.”

Phil and his son have the unique honor of sharing Hall of Fame inductions this year, as Ryan is being inducted into both the Youth and Non-Pro Riders Hall of Fame. Phil could not be prouder.

Lewis Wray

A colonel, coach, and cutter: Lewis Wray dedicated his life to service and enjoyed the journey.

BY JENNIFER HORTON

As the NCHA President in 2017 and Interim Executive Director in 2018, Russellville, Arkansasnative, Lewis Wray, brought unique experience to the office. The retired Army colonel served 38 years in active duty and reserves. With two master’s degrees under his belt, he was a teacher and a high school football coach before retiring and joining the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry office. There, he represented the governor’s office in a public affairs capacity at all the equine events in Arkansas.

“As a boy in northwest Arkansas, I was lucky to be able to ride my bike from home over to Kenneth Galyean’s farm, and [I would] watch him work horses,” Wray said. “I was fascinated.”

Playing football in high school took Wray away from horses for a time but led him to a 40-year career as a coach and teacher. However, his love for horses and cutting remained.

“I look at it as a journey,” Wray said. “I’ve made many friends I would have never met without my involvement with NCHA. I’ve enjoyed it, and I would do it all again.”

Wray and his wife, Kay, raised two sons. Horses were a great family activity and they showed at local open horse shows before the allure of cutting horses won out. One of his sons competed as a Youth rider, and the other grew up to become a trainer.

“We got our first good horse from Sam Walton when Hunter was 12,” Wray said. “We were in his pasture looking at the horses and a yellow filly caught [my son’s] eye. [Walton] and Willard Walker showed up and we visited. By the end of the conversation, I had bought her.” That palomino filly was Wray’s Cutter Tari (Doc Tari x Miss Cutter Billie x Cutter Bill), bred by Walker. The young mare earned $11,323 in NCHA earnings and four high school rodeo state championships in cutting.

Wray became involved with the NCHA at his local level. He was convinced to run for a director position within NCHA to represent Arkansas.

“I represented Region 6 on the executive committee, and that got me more involved,” Wray said. “Jo Ellard asked me to consider running for vice president.”

As a coach, Wray dealt with problems or concerns [from a player or parent] immediately. That is also how he approached his work in NCHA.

“I didn’t want them to fester overnight - let’s sit and talk about it,” Wray said. “I don’t like the word ‘problem;’ I prefer ‘challenge.’ I wanted to hear what they had to say, and deal with it as quickly as we could.”

Wray believes his biggest accomplishment happened before his term as NCHA President. While serving as the chair of the Amateur committee, he attended the Breeder’s Invitational in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Jody Galyean approached him with a format idea for what would become the Unlimited Amateur.

After hearing both support and doubt of the concept, Wray prepared a presentation for the NCHA Convention.

“We had some real pushback,” Wray said. “But it passed and went to the executive committee, where they approved it unanimously. It’s not perfect. I know there’s still some controversy with it, but there was a need. It has allowed people who left to get back into cutting, because they can show in the Unlimited [Amateur].”

An Amateur cutter with modest lifetime earnings, Wray hopes for the opportunity to show again. He has three mares raising foals by popular, proven stallions.

“There’s not a better feeling than putting your hand down with that horse in automatic control,” Wray said.

Following his term as NCHA President, Wray became Interim Executive Director for one year. His years of experience from the army, academics, athletics, and government gave Wray the political savvy that helped him serve NCHA.

“I invited Betsy Price, the Mayor of Fort Worth, to come out to the Futurity,” Wray said. “It was the first time she had been asked. We presented her with a Jim Reno trophy, and it sat on her desk until she left office.”

Wray handled executive committee meetings like his former staff meetings with lieutenants or coaches.

“I always made sure that everyone understood my objectives,” Wray said. “In the mornings, when I came into the office, I would stop at every desk for a visit. I wanted them to know I’d support them, and where they could support me.

“I’m quite humbled, and extremely proud, to be [inducted to] the Members Hall of Fame. I don’t think it gets any higher [than] to join the people in it, like Leon Harrel, Tom Lyons, and Kenneth Galyean. It’s not how much you won; it’s what you’ve given. I’d like to thank Ron Pietrafeso for nominating me.

“I wanted [NCHA] to be a little bit better when I left it than it was when I got there.” ★

H. L. AKIN

MEMBERS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE

H. L. Akin of Davidson, Oklahoma, served as president of the National Cutting Horse Association from 1961 to 1962. During his tenure, the NCHA Futurity was created and the Non-Pro class was established. Akin believed that, “There has to be a place for every person, even if he’s just a prospective cutter.”

Akin recalled the first time he was introduced to the sport of cutting saying, “The first cutting horse I ever saw was Matlock Rose on Jesse James [at the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show, in Fort Worth, Texas]. I never saw anything that looked so beautiful in my life, seeing that horse cutting with Matlock on him.”

Akin passed away on August 15, 2006, at his home in Oklahoma. As a member of the 2022 class of inductees into the NCHA Members Hall of Fame, Akin is posthumously inducted in remembrance of his dedication to the NCHA and the sport of cutting. ★

GAY COPELAND

MEMBERS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE

Gay Copeland was born in San Angelo, Texas, on December 31, 1912. Copeland spent the majority of his childhood on his grandparent’s ranch, where he was educated by a governess. Additionally, he spent time in Fort Stockton public schools, at the San Marcos Baptist Academy, and at the Schreiner Institute in Kerrville, Texas. He married Esther Lou “Este” Hines, of Bronte, Texas, in 1935, and they were rarely apart until her passing in November of 2006.

Copeland helped organize the National Cutting Horse Association and served as president of the association in 1952. Copeland had a deep appreciation for the sport of cutting and the specialized athleticism of cutting horses.

“He has to be light on his feet, like a dancer. He has to be easy to turn, and a quick thinker. He has to know which way a calf intends to move, then outsmart him,” Copeland stated to Time Magazine in 1953, when asked about the characteristics that make a good cutting horse.

Copeland passed away on August 28, 2007, at his home in San Antonio, Texas. He is posthumously inducted into the NCHA Members Hall of Fame in tribute to the immeasurable effort he dedicated to the creation and building of the NCHA. ★

CHARLES E. KING

MEMBERS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE

Charles E. King of Wichita Falls, Texas, served as president of the National Cutting Horse Association in 1954. In 1955, King continued to serve the association as the chairman of the Executive Committee.

King was the owner of Jodie Earl, a cutting horse featured in Sports Illustrated in 1955 and filmed by Disney as part of their “Frontierland” series. Jodie Earl was famous for her ability to cut out a calf from the herd without a rider. King is remembered by friends as a great man who had many interests and a passion for cutting horses.

King passed away on April 18, 1984. He is posthumously inducted into the NCHA Members Hall of Fame in honor of the effort he dedicated to advocating for the NCHA and the cutting horse. ★

LOYD JINKENS

MEMBERS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE

Loyd Jinkens of Fort Worth, Texas, was a founding member of the National Cutting Horse Association and served as president in 1953. Jinkens was born in 1900 in Nolan County, Texas. He later moved to Fort Worth and began trading horses. Eventually, he purchased his uncle’s ranch, and he and his wife, Lena, stocked it with more than 100 broodmares and lots of cattle.

After the American Quarter Horse Association was founded in 1940, Jinkens developed an interest in the breed, especially in cutting horses. In 1944, he traveled to the King Ranch in south Texas to purchase a weanling colt of Peppy, aptly named Peppy’s Pepper. Jinkens showed him 32 times and won numerous grand champion awards. He sold Peppy’s Pepper for $26,500, which was the highest price paid for a Quarter Horse at that time.

Jinkens passed away on September 7, 1980. He is posthumously inducted into the NCHA Members Hall of Fame in honor of the time and effort he spent laying the foundation of the NCHA.★