Weldon Bascom rides a rodeo bull, place and date unknown | Photo courtesy John Bascom, St. George News
NS. GEORGE In addition to celebrating Utah’s pioneers, July 24th is National Day of the Cowboy, a day honoring the cowboys and cowgirls of America.
Brahma Bullenreiter Weldon Bascom, place and date unknown | Photo courtesy John Bascom, St. George News
South Utah has its fair share of honorable cowboys and cowgirls. One of the most famous cowboys in the area was Weldon Bascom, a rodeo champion and one of the best bull riders of the 1930s. Perhaps the most famous cowgirl in southern Utah was his wife, Texas Rose Bascom, according to a new press release on the couple.
While Weldon Bascom was born in Vernal, Utah in 1912, he grew up in Canada. In 1935 he went to Mississippi, where he held the first rodeo in the city of Columbia. He became known as the “Father of Rodeo Brahma Bull Riding” for initiating this rodeo event. There he met and married his wife, Texas Rose, who was one of the rodeo performers.
Texas Rose Bascom was born in Mississippi in 1922. She started her cowgirl career as a rodeo trick driver, but became known internationally as a quirky trick roper.
The couple left Mississippi, moved to Texas and then Wyoming before settling in California.
Rodeo Trick Roper Texas Rose Bascom, Place and Date Unknown | Photo courtesy John Bascom, St. George News
They both continued in the rodeo business before entering the Hollywood scene where she starred in films and he was both a film producer and an actor and stunt performer.
Texas Rose Bascom also toured the world, performing with Bob Hope and Johnny Grant, and has been dubbed “World’s Greatest Female Trick Roper”.
After retirement, the Bascoms moved back to Utah and lived in Enoch, Parowan, Bloomington, and St. George.
Texas Rose Bascom was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Weldon Bascom was named a “Rodeo Pioneer” by the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.
Both were also posthumously inducted into the Mississippi Rodeo Hall of Fame and the Utah Rodeo Hall of Fame.
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