ST. GEORGE —In addition to celebrating Utah’s pioneers, July 24 is the National Day of the Cowboy, a day set aside to honor the cowboys and cowgirls of America.
Southern Utah has its share of cowboys and cowgirls worthy of honor. One of the area’s most famous cowboys was Weldon Bascom, a rodeo champion who was one of the top bull riders of the 1930’s. Perhaps Southern Utah’s most famous cowgirl was his wife, Texas Rose Bascom, according to a new release issued about the pair.
While Weldon Bascom was born in Vernal, Utah, in 1912, he was raised in Canada. In 1935, he went to Mississippi where he produced the first rodeo in the town of Columbia. He became known as the “Father of Rodeo Brahma Bull Riding” for introducing that rodeo event. While 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 performing as a rodeo trick rider, but she became internationally known as a fancy trick roper.
The pair left Mississippi, moving to Texas and then Wyoming before settling in California.
They both continued in the rodeo business before entering the Hollywood scene where she starred in movies and he was a movie producer as well as an actor and stuntman.
Texas Rose Bascom also toured the world, performing with Bob Hope and Johnny Grant, and was billed as the “World’s Greatest Female Trick Roper.”
After retirement, the Bascoms moved back to Utah, living in Enoch, Parowan, Bloomington and St. George.
Texas Rose Bascom has been inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, and Weldon Bascom has been honored by the ProRodeo Hall of Fame as a “rodeo pioneer.”
Both of them have also been inducted posthumously into both the Mississippi Rodeo Hall of Fame and the Utah Rodeo Hall of Fame.
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