Bio
Bill Stearns is a 3rd-generation Wyoming horseman, reared on a ranch in the edge of the Black Hills near the Wyoming/South Dakota border. He has spent more than six decades in the livestock industry and covered more country horseback than most men still living.
His paternal grandfather came to Wyoming with 300 head of Percheron mares around the turn of the 20th Century, and shipped draft horses to St. Louis and other major markets for years. When the draft horse business subsided due to motorized vehicles, Mr. Stearns crossed his draft mares with Thoroughbred stallions and produced a lot of horses for the U.S. Army through the Remount program.
Bill Stearns grew up riding a 75-100-mile radius with his father, covering the territory where they had holdings and ranches and cattle and horses; and he was horseback alongside his father from a very early age, often riding horses that weren’t at all gentle. He learned to ride broncs in the hills, timber, rocks, and any kind of country there was.
He has continued to work as an outside cowboy throughout his life and is still active in that occupation. He’s ridden thousands of miles in several states and is known as one of the best in handling cattle, horses and country – or managing any kind of ranch work.
He’s also played polo in the US and Canada, trained polo ponies and trained race horses; spending time in the employ of well-known Quarter Horse breeders C.O. Sage and Leo Winters. He worked for rodeo producer Dale Small for some time and flanked broncs and bulls, so he knows the backside of the chutes as well as the inside.
He was the South Dakota State Champion All Around Cowboy, Saddle Bronc Rider, and Bulldogger in 1958, and competed at the National High School Rodeo in Sulphur, Louisiana. The SD High School Rodeo Association honored him at their 2008 State Finals for the 50th Anniversary of those championships.
He did some college rodeoing from SDSU in Brookings, SD and Sheridan Junior College in WY, but work took precedence over school and rodeo.
In the large 5-state rodeo association, Northwest Ranch Cowboys Association, he was bronc riding champion and bronc riding director and helped re-vamp the rule book.
Later he was active in the Kansas State Rodeo Association and won the KSRA Bronc Riding Finals in 1983. He competed in the NARC Finals in Texas that year.
Bill Stearns won the Saddle Bronc Riding Average at the Old Timer’s National Finals in Amarillo, Texas, in 1985. He hardly stepped on a bronc for the next 9 years, but did ride enough in 1994 to qualify for the Senior Pro National Finals in Reno, and won the Bronc Riding Average there again in 1994; at the age of 54.
Everyone knows the importance of being a good enough hand to win the Finals average in your event. To do it back-to-back after a 9-year hiatus speaks strongly of ability and talent.
He was the 50+ NSPRA World Champion Bronc Rider in 1995, and the Canadian Senior Pro Rodeo Association 50+ Bronc Riding Champion that same year. At one time during the year he was leading the All Around standings. The all-around points came from occasionally entering the team roping. At Del Mar, California, Anson Thurman asked him to rope with him. He hadn’t chased a steer for years, but he borrowed the pickup man’s horse, saddle, and rope, and they placed in every round.
Bill Stearns made the high-marked saddle bronc ride of the entire 1995 NSPRA Finals (all ages), in the last go-‘round. He made the high-point ride of the entire NSPRA ’95 year at East Helena, as well.
Bill Stearns repeated the Canadian championship in 1996, at the age of 56; and was Runner-Up to the NSPRA World Champion Bronc Rider that year.
He continued to ride some in 1997, but broke his wrist at Longmont, Colorado and it didn’t heal up very well. He competed at the ’97 National Finals but his first bronc smashed him into the arena’s cement wall and almost broke his leg; and the pickup man dropped him the next night, so he did not finish. At the age of 57 he decided to retire from competitive bronc riding.
More than six decades spent working with cattle and horses gives Bill Stearns rare authenticity in the telling of cowboy stories or reading of cowboy poems. He’s done that on many stages from Montana to Texas; but always enjoys visiting with the “real people” at cowboy gatherin’s more than he does performing.