Russell "Red" Steagall (born December 22, 1938)[1] is an American actor, musician, poet, and stage performer, who focuses on American Western and country music genres.
He was born in Gainesville, Texas, United States.[2] He became a bull rider at rodeos while he was still a teenager, but at the age of 15, he was stricken with polio.[2] He took up the guitar and the mandolin as physical therapy to recover the strength and dexterity of his arms and hands.[2] Based out of Amarillo, he formed a dance band, Russell Don & The Premiers making his first recordings (which were unreleased) at Norman Petty Studios in Clovis, New Mexico, in April 1961. Steagall entered a career in agricultural chemistry after graduating from West Texas State University with a degree in animal science and agronomy.[2] After five years spent as a soil analyst for Sand Mark Oil,[2] Steagall then spent eight years as a music industry executive in Hollywood, and has spent the last 40 years as a recording artist, songwriter, and television and motion picture personality. He currently maintains offices outside of Fort Worth, Texas, where he is involved in the production of motion pictures and television shows.
On December 28, 1974, Hee Haw season six, episode 16, Steagall saluted his hometown of Sanford, Texas, population 181.
Television and radio personality
Steagall made numerous appearances on syndicated television shows such as Hee Haw and Nashville on the Road. He also spent four years as host of the nationally televised National Finals Rodeo, was host of the Winston Pro Tour on ESPN for the 1985 season, and co-hosted the College National Finals Rodeo for the Freedom Sports Network from 1988 through 1991. He was also the host of Western Theater on America One Television.
Steagall currently hosts a one-hour syndicated radio show, Cowboy Corner, on 170 stations in 43 states. Cowboy Corner celebrates the lifestyle of the American West through the poems, songs, and stories of the American cowboy. In 2010, In the Bunkhouse with Red Steagall began airing on the RFD-TV network; as of 2017, Steagall now hosts Red Steagall is Somewhere West of Wall Street for the same channel. His down-home, friendly manner and considerable musical talents make him a favorite of rural America.
Steagall is a trustee of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Champions, honorary member of the Cowboy Artists of America, and former board chairman of the Academy of Country Music.
In 1974, he discovered a then-unknown Reba McEntire and signed her to Mercury Records the following year.[2] He discovered her while she was performing the national anthem at the National Rodeo Finals competition in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.[2] Two years later, in October 1977, McEntire released her first album on Mercury Records, and though most of her Mercury albums were commercial failures, in 1984, she picked up with her big album, My Kind of Country.
In September 2003, Texas Tech University Press published Born to This Land, a joint effort between Steagall and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Skeeter Hagler. The book contains Hagler's black-and-white studies of modern ranching, accompanied by Steagall's award-winning poetry. The Academy of Western Artists named Born to This Land' as recipient of the Will Rogers Award for best book of 2003.
Steagall has won the Wrangler Award for original music five times: 1993 (for his Warner Western album, Born to This Land), 1995 (for the Warner Western album, Faith and Values), 1997 (for his Warner Western album, Dear Mama, I'm a Cowboy), 1999 (for Love of the West). In fall 2002, Steagall released his 20th album, Wagon Tracks, which also won the Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
In May 2011, Bunkhouse Press released Steagall's CD Dreamin' of......When the Grass Was Still Deep, featuring eight songs and two poems.
Honors and awards
The Texas Legislature named Red Steagall the Official Cowboy Poet of Texas in April 1991. Steagall was an early participant in the American Cowboy Culture Association, which holds the annual National Cowboy Symposium and Celebration each September in Lubbock.[3]
Since 1991, Steagall has hosted the annual Red Steagall Cowboy Gathering in the Stockyards National Historic District of Fort Worth. The event features a ranch rodeo, chuckwagon cookoff, children's poetry contest, Western swing dances, cowboy music and poetry, a trappings show, and horsemanship clinics.
Red Steagall was named "2006 Poet Laureate of the State of Texas" at the Capital in Austin in the spring of 2005. Steagall is the first "cowboy" poet to be named the poet laureate of Texas.
Willie M. Pickett was an African American cowboy, rodeo performer, and actor. In 1989, Pickett was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.
Western lifestyle or cowboy culture is the lifestyle, or behaviorisms, of, and resulting from the influence of, the attitudes, ethics and history of the American western cowboy. In the present day these influences affect this sector of the population's choice of recreation, western wear, partaking of western cuisine and Southwestern cuisine, and enjoyment of the western genre and western music.
Larry Mahan was an American professional rodeo cowboy. He won six all-around world championships and two bull riding world championships in the Rodeo Cowboys Association circuit at the National Finals Rodeo.
James A. Shoulders, also known as Jim Shoulders, was an American professional rodeo cowboy and rancher. He is commemorated at the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. At the time of his death, he was one of the most successful contestants in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), having won 16 World Championships, which was the most of any performer at that time. He was known as the 'Babe Ruth of rodeo'.
Cody Lambert is an American former professional rodeo cowboy. He specialized in saddle bronc riding and bull riding. He was also a co-founder and vice president of the Professional Bull Riders (PBR). He created the protective vest that professional bull riders have been required to wear for many years, after witnessing the death of his friend, Lane Frost at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on July 30, 1989. Since 2022, Lambert has been the head coach of the Texas Rattlers during the PBR Teams Series season.
The National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum, formerly the National Cowboys of Color Museum and Hall of Fame, is a museum and hall of fame in Fort Worth, Texas.
R. W. Hampton is an American western music singer-songwriter, actor and playwright. Hampton has achieved both critical and commercial success, winning multiple awards from the Western Music Association and the Academy of Western Artists and four separate Wrangler Awards from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
The Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame is a museum and hall of fame in Fort Worth, Texas, dedicated to the sport of rodeo.
Myrtis Dightman is an American former professional rodeo cowboy who specialized in bull riding. He is a ProRodeo Hall of Fame inductee. Known as the "Jackie Robinson of Rodeo", Dightman was the first African-American to compete at the National Finals Rodeo.
Warren Granger "Freckles" Brown was a hall of fame American rodeo cowboy from Wheatland, Wyoming. His career spanned from 1937 to 1974, competing in bull riding, saddle bronc riding, bareback bronc riding, team roping, and steer wrestling. He was the World Bull Riding Champion in 1962. Brown was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for bull riding in 1979. He was also inducted into the inaugural class of the Bull Riding Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2015. Brown was most famous for riding Tornado, who had an undefeated record of 220 riders. Brown was also a close friend and mentor of Lane Frost.
The Academy of Western Artists, based in Gene Autry, Oklahoma, is an organization that honors individuals who have preserved and perpetuated the heritage of the American cowboy, through rodeo, music, poetry, campfire and chuckwagon cooking, and western and ranch clothing and gear.
The Bull Riding Hall of Fame, located at Cowtown Coliseum in the Fort Worth Stockyards in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, is a hall of fame for the sport of bull riding. It is incorporated as a non-profit organization in the State of Texas, and created to "recognize, memorialize, and applaud the bull riders, bullfighters, bulls, stock contractors, events, and individuals who have made a historic contribution and attained stellar performance in the sport." Membership is open to fans worldwide.
Fern Sawyer was an American cowgirl, rodeo champion, politician and inductee into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame and the Rodeo Hall of Fame of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. She was the first woman to win the cutting horse competition at the 1945 Fort Worth Fat Stock Show and Rodeo. Sawyer was also the first woman appointed to the New Mexico State Fair Board. She was well known for her "flashy attire," according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. She lived in Crossroads, Lovington, and Nogal, New Mexico. She was also a charter member of the National Cutting Horse Association and the first director of the Girls Rodeo Association.
Guy Allen is an American ProRodeo Hall of Fame cowboy and an 18-time steer roping world champion. He competes in rodeos sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA). He won the world title for the steer roping event 18 times when competing at the National Finals Steer Roping (NFSR) and also won the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) Average title five times. He had won the title 11 times in a row when Buster Record broke his streak. Allen is also inducted into eight rodeo halls of fame.
Mildred Farris is a ProRodeo Hall of Fame inductee, who was inducted with her husband John.
Rose Bascom also known as Texas Rose Bascom is a 1981 National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame trick rider inductee.
Nancy Sheppard is a ProRodeo Hall of Fame trick rider and trick roper who was inducted in 2003.
Sherry Combs Johnson was an American ProRodeo Hall of Fame barrel racer. In 1962, she won the World Barrel Racing Championship at the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Fort Worth, Texas.
Pam Minick was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 2000.
Bob Tallman born Robert Matthew Tallman is a ProRodeo Hall of Fame American rodeo announcer. He is known as "the voice of professional rodeo".
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