CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

Sutton Rodeo Co. Celebrates 100 Years in the Rodeo Business

By Ruth Nicolaus, originally printed in Tri-State Livestock News

Deep in the heart of South Dakota lives one of rodeo’s premier families.

The Suttons: Jim and his son Steve, Steve’s wife Kim, and their children Amy, Brent and Brice, along with their spouses, are following in the footsteps of Edwin Sutton, who started the rodeo company in 1926.

A century ago, Edwin DeLos Sutton and his sons James, John and Raymond, hosted a ranch rodeo on the Sutton Ranch, near Agar, S.D.  

At the time, it was a three-day event, put on for the entertainment of local neighbors.

Today the Sutton influence has spread across the rodeo industry, and its bucking horses and bulls, and family members, have worked rodeos from coast to coast.

In 1883, Edwin and his sister Kate moved from Iowa to Dakota Territory, homesteading in southwestern Potter County. Eventually, he ended up 18 miles west of Agar, on the Missouri River east shore.

He married Jessie and the couple had eight children, including the three sons.

In 1926, Edwin and the boys began producing rodeos on the home ranch in Sully County. They were casual get-togethers, with neighbors and local cowboys daring each other that one could stay on a bronc longer than the next.

Those early-day rodeos included plenty of entertainment:  the Aberdeen Airways provided airplane sightseeing rides and the WNAX (a Yankton radio station) musicians performed. In 1931, barnstorming pilot Clyde Ice entertained, as did Lawrence Welk, who made the 100-mile trip from Strasburg, N.D.

There was even more entertainment: a buffalo team hitched to a chariot; riding 2-year-old buffalo steers; racing wild horses, and Raymond jumping a horse over five steers, lined up side to side.

Edwin saw a possibility for profit and joined forces with George Fairbank Sr. to begin a touring rodeo.

One of the stories from the early days was when Edwin and the boys went to St. Paul, Minn. to put on a rodeo. At the last minute, the location changed. But the contract wasn’t changed, so when it was time to pay, the men said they didn’t owe the Suttons anything: the rodeo didn’t take place where the contract stated it would. To get home, the men sold the steers and two half-breed buffaloes to get money enough to get out of town.

Hard times in the 1930s put a crimp in the rodeo business, and they ceased. But the thought never left the Suttons’ minds.

In the 40s, James, Sr., started back up, using bucking horses from the ranch that were supposed to be ranch horses.

In the prior decade, the family had purchased a quarter horse stallion in Texas, an unregistered son of Plaudit named Sun Up, as a ranch horse. But his colts bucked more than they worked. When the family began putting on rodeos again, Sun Up’s progeny was part of the bucking horse herd.

It was in 1958, when the Suttons entered the Rodeo Cowboys Association (predecessor to the PRCA), with a bang, partnering with Erv Korkow, Blunt, S.D. At the time, horses were usually trailed to rodeos, but Erv had a trucking business, so the company had the advantage of hauling livestock to rodeos.

The company took livestock to the first National Finals Rodeo, held in Dallas in 1959, and Sutton Rodeo has had livestock at every National Finals since then.

In 1968, James Sr.’s son James, Jr. “Jim,” joined his dad, to form the Sutton Rodeo Co. Jim and his wife Julie grew the business and focused on innovative production.

Jim was a master of rodeo production, realizing that even though the sport was competition, the fans wanted to be entertained.

He was among the first to bring chuckwagon races to rodeos, and he introduced the poker game, with a bull being turned out in the arena while players sat at a poker table, and the last one to leave the arena determined the winner. He invited the NFL Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders to the National Finals Rodeo, and he devised the “Bailey Bail-Out,” giving a Bailey hat certificate to the bareback rider or saddle bronc rider who was best at “bailing off” his bucking horse.  

But the Wrangler Bullfights were one of the greatest rodeo entertainment Jim dreamed up.

He held the first freestyle bullfights, with bullfighters scored on their skills, at Rodeo Rapid City in 1980. Greg Tuza of Wrangler Jeans Co. was in attendance, loved it, and agreed to sponsor them. The Bullfights, which ran from 1981 to 2000, were so well received that they became a nationwide tour and were featured at the National Finals Rodeo for several years.

The family produced the opening ceremony for the National Finals Rodeo from 1995-97 and provided 20 matching sorrels for the queens and flag girls.

The Suttons have never been scared of taking chances; Edwin proved that in 1909 when he brought a “new” breed of cattle to the ranch, Herefords, and when he tried to cross buffalo with cattle.

So when Jim stepped out to create a rodeo alongside the Black Hills Stock Show, he followed in his granddad’s footsteps. The PRCA rodeo, now called Rodeo Rapid City, was begun in 1978 and has won the PRCA Rodeo of the Year six times.

The innovations didn’t end with the rodeo entertainment, either. Stock contractors had always swapped stud bucking horses to breed to their mares, but Steve took it to another level. He asked nine stock contractors to each provide one stud who had been to the National Finals Rodeo, to breed for the other herds. It was a way to improve genetics with proven bloodlines.

And their breeding program showed it. Sutton Rodeo Co. horses have won numerous awards. In 1962, their horse Snake River was PRCA Reserve Champion horse, and Yellow Jacket followed suit two years later. More horse of the year awards came, with Deep Water in 1979, Big Bud in 1985, and Chuckulator in 2012. Chuckulator is the one of only three horses to win the PRCA Saddle Bronc of the Year and PRCA Bucking Horse of the Year, in the same year.

They raise 100 percent of their bucking horses; they haven’t bought a bucking horse for years, Steve said.

The family is involved in the rodeo company. Steve’s wife Kim and daughter Amy Muller manage the books, marketing and event details and both have been selected to time the Wrangler National Finals Breakaway Roping; Steve, Brent and Brice take care of ranch, cattle and horse duties. When it’s rodeo time, they hit the road as a family, and that’s something Steve appreciates.

“When we’re off rodeoing, the whole family is with us,” he said. The travel involved in rodeo can be tough on family life, and he likes having them on the road.

The sixth generation of Suttons is getting their start. Amy and her husband Steve Muller have a son, Shaden James, and a daughter, Shally Rayne; Brent and his wife Roz have a son, Sid James, and are expecting another child in April, and Brice and his wife Alyssa have two daughters, Stella Joy and Ruby Belle, and a son, Waylon Clyde.

Steve is reminded of his grandkids when he walks across his living room floor.

“My whole living room is set up as a little rodeo arena,” he said. “The kids come and play it every day. They live it.”

It’s gratifying to him, to continue the legacy and have it pass on to the next generation.

“I’m happy to have my family involved in the business. It’s a good family-run business. It was when I started, and it still is. We’re known to be family entertainment and family people and I don’t want that to go away,” he said.

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