MY COWBOY HAT STILL FITS By Abe Morris
Glen McIlvain Glen McIlvain was born in August 1960 in Dallas, Texas. He was exposed and raised in a rodeo family and naturally became attracted to the sport. His father Frank McIlvain, Sr was a professional rodeo clown and bullfighter for several years. His mother’s name is Wanda. His younger brother Chris was a bullfighter who sadly passed away in 1995. Another younger brother Terry has appeared in major motion pictures such as “Platoon” and “Pure Country” with famous country and western singer George Strait. Older brother Frank McIlvain, Jr at the age of 16 was the youngest person to ever get a PRCA card to fight bulls. Frank, Jr. still works the barrel and does acts on the Senior Pro Rodeo circuit. The McIlvain family lived in Mesquite, Texas which was the home of the world renowned Mesquite Championship Rodeo that was owned by Neal Gay and Jim Shoulders. When Glen was about eight years old the family attended a rodeo performance at Mesquite and he tried on a grizzly felt cowboy hat from a traveling vendor. Larry Mahan was one of Glen’s heroes
and his family said he looked exactly like Mahan sporting that brand new hat. Not to disappoint his young son, his father Frank purchased the new hat and it became Glen’s new pride and joy. Over the years, he took very good care of that cowboy hat and literally wore it out. Glen’s first taste of success was when he won the steer riding contest in a local rodeo. After that, riding bulls in professional rodeos became a lifelong dream. The Mesquite Championship rodeo arena was practically in McIlvain’s back yard. That plus the fact that he was surrounded by world class rodeo icons and talent. Pete and Don Gay, Monty “Hawkeye” Henson and Ricky Bolin all lived and grew up in Mesquite, Texas. Glen also got to watch a few of his heroes such as Larry Mahan and Myrtis Dightman on a regular basis. It wasn’t just the rodeo cowboys that intrigued the young McIlvain. He also got to watch some really good bucking bulls such as Sandy Jo who was selected to perform at the National Finals Rodeo. Jim Shoulders had a rank little bounty bareback horse named Ho Chi Minh. When Glen was nine years old, he became the first to make a qualified ride and collect the $25.00 prize money. The rodeo crowd rewarded Glen by singing “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” When Glen was 15 years old he attended a five day Jim Shoulders rodeo school in Henryetta, Oklahoma. Learning from one of his childhood heroes did a lot to mold his entire future rodeo career. Rodeo stock contractor Neal Gay periodically would venture to Van Horn, Texas and haul a couple of trailer loads of green bulls to Mesquite. These bulls were real man eaters and not even chute broken. Neal Gay would reach out to “Glenny” as he was called way back in the day and tell him to call all of his buddies to come to the Mesquite rodeo arena and get on some try out bulls. Just like most of the younger kids, Glen was a little nervous about getting on these mean acting bulls, but deep down inside he was more afraid of disappointing his heroes such as Neal Gay and Jim Shoulders. No matter what the outcome, Glen would gather up his bull rope and go back to the bucking chutes for another ‘crash test dummy’ scenario. A few of the future wanna be bull riders had endured enough and headed to the bleachers to lick their wounds and call it quits for the evening. But young Glen got on bucking bull after bucking bull because he was determined to become a world class professional bull rider. At the Fort Worth PRCA rodeo in the late 70’s, Neal Gay had asked Glen to mount out a bucking bull that he’d been on a few times in the past. The bull was branded G60 and his name was Killer. The bull was so mean that even rodeo clown Frank Rhoades was a little nervous whenever the bull was in the rodeo arena. Miles Hare was the bullfighter and knew all about the bull because
Humps-Horns.com · 12 · November 2021
