JEROME ROBINSON a hall of famer who knows his way around the arena By Kelly B. Robbins
Jerome Robinson has quite a “notable” history in the rodeo game. He is the arena director for the PBR and has been since its beginning 25 years ago. He has been a bull rider, a stock contractor, and a rodeo producer. He has served as a member of the PRCA Board of Directors and owned a bull riding school. In fact, his involvement is so “notable”, he is being inducted as a “notable” into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs on August 3, 2019. The dictionary defines “notable” as: worthy of attention or notice; remarkable. A famous or important person. As for the PBR and the “toughest sport on dirt”, Jerome is a very remarkable, very important person. “I feel pretty humbled by this honor,” Jerome disclosed. “I wasn’t expecting it. It is very gratifying, very unexpected. I am looking forward to it. As for my role in the PBR, I’m sort of the arena
director. I do a lot of stuff behind the scenes. At each event, I figure out how to build the arena and find a place for the bulls, and then help to keep the bulls in the proper order. I have a crew of 10 to 15 who build the arena. We set it up and then we tear it down. I’m more like a logistics coordinator.” Jerome’s bull riding career is “notable” as well. He spent 16 years riding bulls professionally in the PRCA and made 11 trips to the PRCA National Finals Rodeo. In 1975 and 1976, Jerome finished fourth in the national finals in Oklahoma City. He was leading in the PRCA when he was involved in a car accident in West Texas in 1982 and had to have the middle and index fingers of his right hand amputated. He left the hospital to go ride bulls that weekend but injured his leg and had to have surgery. After a lengthy recovery period, he came back to ride later that season. “When I came back,” Jerome said, “I rode just real average, and I didn’t qualify for the Finals. I decided to retire.” He owns Western Trails Rodeo, a rodeo production company. He has produced rodeos in Costa Rica, Japan, Finland, France, Italy, Venezuela, Oman, Canada and Mexico. “I still own Western Trails Rodeo, but the PBR keeps me real busy. 2018 was the first year since 1987 that I didn’t underwrite an event. I’d say taking the rodeos to foreign countries ranks in my top ten life experiences,” Jerome admitted. “The challenges faced and overcome were tremendous. I am one of the luckiest individuals in the world. Even when things went bad, they always seemed to turn out to my advantage.” Jerome grew up on a wheat farm in the small western Nebraska town of Brandon. His dad, Grady, was a livestock auctioneer, and Jerome developed a love of animals at an early age. “When I was a kid of five years old, I used to play with a little panel truck. I would load the back of the truck with little plastic animals and haul them from room to room, setting them up for a sale. Then my grandmother took me to a stock show in Denver. I came away telling everyone I wanted to grow up to be a bull rider.”
Humps-Horns.com · 20 · August 2019
