Learning the Ropes

A STORIED GROUP OF COWBOYS IS KEEPING THE OLD WEST ALIVE FOR A NEW GENERATION OF TRICK ROPERS, WHIP CRACKERS AND KNIFE THROWERS.

IN HIS WORKADAY LIFE, 63-year-old Mike Wooldridge manages a Naples, FL, condominium building. But every chance he gets, he becomes “Cowboy Mike,’’ a traveling trick roper who cracks whips and jumps through loops for corporate parties, fundraisers and Wild West celebrations while wearing a tasseled costume of red and white. For one stunt, he even twirls a lariat from atop a moving stagecoach. “It’s doable as long as I hold onto a tethered line,’’ he says. “I used to do it without a tethered line, and I fell every five seconds.’’

Like a number of men and women his age, the Illinois native grew up in awe of the cowboys who rode the celluloid range in old B-Western movies, where good always triumphed over evil and evil usually just got the gun shot out of its hand. “I’d watch Roy Rogers and Gene Autry on TV and go out and play cowboys with the neighborhood kids,” says Wooldridge, whose father Dean taught him rope-spinning basics when he was 5. Dean grew up idolizing Will Rogers, the Depression-era cowboy comedian, and learned rope tricks from a next-door neighbor who hailed from Texas. As an adult, he organized the Will Rogers Rope Spinning Club for kids, which Wooldridge joined at age 9.

Wooldridge is among a group of entertainers and accomplished competitors that converges on events like Gordie Peer’s annual Ropers’ Gathering, a series of whip-cracking, knife-throwing and rope-spinning contests held on Peer’s 20-acre spread in cattle country outside Okeechobee, FL (about 60 miles northwest of West Palm Beach). Along with the many cowboy film festivals and reenactments across the country, competitions such as the Ropers’ Gathering (taking place Feb. 11-14) keep the Wild West alive for fans year-round.

Wooldridge and other Western arts performers carry on a tradition that took root in the 1880s with the showmanship of buffalo hunter William Frederick Cody. For nearly 40 years, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show dazzled starry-eyed spectators in the US and abroad with mock cowboy-and-Indian battles and target shooting by deadeye wonders such as Annie Oakley.

Now his successors—whip artists, trick ropers, gun spinners, knife throwers, re-enactors, impersonators, cowboy poets and yodeling balladeers—travel from festival to festival to entertain graying dreamers and a growing number of younger fans. A few make a living at it, but many are just realizing a long-held fantasy. Retired firefighter and quick-draw competitor “Buffalo Bill’’ Leighton explains it with Willie Nelson’s famous line: “My heroes have always been cowboys.’’

PEER, A WHIP CRACKER, trick roper and member of the World Cowboy Gun Spinning Hall of Fame, spent more than half a century showing off his impressive skills at fairs, carnivals and rodeos. He even performed on the road with The Lone Ranger (actor Clayton Moore) throughout the big star’s career, on and off from the 1950s to the ’80s. Peer recalls one particular instance where he gave Moore twirling tips so he wouldn’t drop his twin pistols in front of a live audience.

The old cowboy wears a bushy white mustache and matching sideburns that poke out from under his hat. He looks around 80 (though he flatly declines to give his age) and lived with several guardians— including an old Mohawk Indian man—in a number of different states while growing up during the Depression. On a lark in his early teens, Peer and a buddy hopped a train near Syracuse and didn’t realize until they were caught the next morning that they had stowed away on Col. Jim Eskew’s traveling Western show and rodeo, one of the most popular events of its kind in the 1930s and ’40s. The boys had to pitch hay to work off their “fare” and were soon sent home. But Peer had caught the fever.

A year or so later, he went to work for Eskew, doing menial tasks while closely observing how the entertainers worked the ropes and whips and twirled their guns. Peer says these pros wouldn’t teach anybody for fear they’d be training a replacement, so he practiced alone until he mastered the skills he had seen.

Today, Peer focuses on the Ropers’ Gathering, which debuted in 2002 and offers a number of workshops for greenhorns interested in learning the art of the cowboy. Unlike Eskew’s entertainers, the experts at Peer’s event are happy to teach a little Cowboy 101, and beginners are encouraged to try out their newfound skills in the contests.

Attendees can also take yodeling lessons from Western singer Karen Gogolick, the KG of KG & The Ranger, and then display their new talents at Saturday night’s pig roast, held in the Cowboy School House. As Wooldridge says, “You always go away from an event like this having learned something new, no matter how long you’ve been in this game.”

Of the 100 or so people who attend the Ropers’ Gathering—a cozy campfire circle compared to big celebrations like the National Festival of the West in Scottsdale, AZ, and the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival near Los Angeles—less than a dozen are performers and talented competitors, more than 20 are beginners picking up the basics, and the rest show up to watch the contests and soak up the atmosphere.

One year, Vince Bruce, an Englishman considered to be one of the world’s greatest trick ropers, stood on the back of his horse and twirled a 75-foot lariat. Another time, Adam Winrich, who holds seven whip-cracking Guinness World Records, took a whip in each hand and snapped out the rhythm to the rock song, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”

Last February, Angelo Iodice, a roping virtuoso and former trick rider known as AJ Silver, accompanied his trick-riding mentor, Helen Panzella, to the Ropers’ Gathering. The Bronx-born cowpoke, who has appeared on Today, Good Morning America and the Late Show with David Letterman, can make a lariat do magic.

He bounces a spinning loop up and down and out and back in a blur. He dances with a partner while circling them both with a lariat. He’s equally at ease jumping through a giant vertical loop or hopping in and out of two horizontal loops, one for each leg.

Unlike many others who are drawn to cowboy culture, Iodice didn’t grow up watching B-Westerns. Rather, he fell in love with the West at age 11 after attending a rodeo at Madison Square Garden. “I saw trick riding and knew that’s what I wanted to do,” he says. “[But] I wasn’t a natural.” It took a decade before Iodice could do the ultimate trick: passing under the belly of a horse at full gallop.

Over a career that began when he was a teenager, Iodice has traveled the world, even realizing his dream of performing at the New York City arena where he discovered his calling. These days, he performs on stages and in circuses in Europe as a trick roper—after years of sprains, bruises and concussions from trick riding, he needed something that was easier on the body—for crowds that are truly fascinated by the Old West.

DURING THE CONTESTS at the Ropers’ Gathering, competitors vie for nothing more than a certificate signed by Peer declaring them the best at ringing a cowbell with a whip, tossing knives at a revolving target or some other cowboy challenge. Peer is the undisputed trail boss, drawling out instructions, lecturing on basics, and telling showbiz stories about Clayton Moore, Lash LaRue and other old Western stars whose inscribed photos are part of the massive collection on display for the crowd.

Beginner greenhorns are accepted with open arms, and those who apply themselves tend to get better each year. When he came to his first Ropers’ Gathering in 2004, retired Orlando lawyer Jim Manuel had the roping skills of, well, a lawyer. By 2009, he had become proficient enough to take part in the team competition, where members pass a spinning loop down the line and then, reversing the spin, pass it back.

The experienced ones—the standard-bearers of the Wild West preservation movement—also draw in the crowds. Alvin Davis wins at least one bullwhip accuracy contest each year. A retired steel fabricator, he cracked a bullwhip to herd cattle as a boy growing up near Tampa, snapping insects off branches to pass the idle moments.

Char Hoogheem sometimes shows up as “Cow Patty,” a cowgirl version of George “Gabby” Hayes (famous for playing the colorful sidekick in many Westerns). And then there’s John Bailey, a knife-thrower and whip-lasher who sports a shaved head and handlebar mustache. When he’s not competing at such events as the Ropers’ Gathering, Bailey travels the church circuit as an independent Baptist evangelist, using his skills to draw kids to revivals.

The cheers are no louder than the ones for the long-locked and mustachioed Buffalo Bill Leighton, who hands out cards that declare, “Cowboy Quickdraw World Champion 2006.”

“I do bullwhips, knives, tomahawks and fast draw, plus I tell tall stories,” says Leighton, who also performs for church, scout and senior groups. “The seniors’ home is the only place where I had somebody fall asleep during my whip act.”

Round Up

Step into your boots and dust off your ten-gallon hat in time for these cowboy festivals.

FEB. 11-14
ROPERS’ GATHERING

SCOTTSDALE, AZ The 20th annual festival promises trick riding, cowboy poetry, Western music, chuck-wagon food and cooking competitions, an “extreme” cowboy race, a film festival and appearances by cowboy movie and TV stars Robert Fuller, Tommy Kirk, Peter Brown, Robert Horton and Clint Walker. Daily admission is $14; weekend passes are $45. 602-996-4387; www.festivalofthewest.com

MARCH 18-21
NATIONAL FESTIVAL OF THE WEST

OKEECHOBEE, FL Visitors can learn the art of knife throwing, whip cracking and rope spinning, and enter contests, including a fast-draw target competition, where, instead of bullets, contestants fire crushed walnut shells at balloons. Admission is $20 on Thursday and Friday; $25 on Saturday; and free on Sunday and for guests under 12. about 60 miles northwest of West Palm Beach; 863-763-3773; www.gordiepeer.sstowers.com

APRIL 22-25
SANTA CLARITA COWBOY FESTIVAL

ANTA CLARITA, CA This event features authentic cowboy music, gear and food; Western movie screenings; and tours of Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio, once owned by Singing Cowboy Gene Autry and the setting of Gunsmoke, Deadwood and countless other Westerns. Daily admission is $20 for adults and $10 for kids. 35 miles north of Los Angeles; 661-286-4021; www.cowboyfestival.org

APRIL 30-MAY 1
HOPALONG CASSIDY FESTIVAL

CAMBRIDGE, OH Born near the town of Cambridge, actor William Boyd is best known for portraying Hopalong Cassidy. This annual event pays tribute to him with a horse parade, carriage rides, cookout, look-alike contest, mock shoot-out and flea market stocked with cowboy costumes, movie posters and other collectibles. Daily admission is $5; cookout is $25. 80 miles east of Columbus; 740-432-3364

PHOTOS BY SANTA CLARITA COWBOY FESTIVAL, FESTIVAL OF THE WEST. CORBIS (HOPALONG)