Story by Ruth Nicolaus
North Platte, Ne - North Platte is a special place for PRCA rodeo clown Justin Rumford.
It’s where his life changed and he followed a totally different path, to stardom as a rodeo clown instead of a cowboy.
The Kansas native, who now lives in Ponca City, Okla., grew up in rodeo and competed in high school and college, with big plans to be a professional steer wrestler and qualify for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, the pinnacle of pro rodeo.
But in North Platte, he had what he calls his “mental breakdown.”
It was 2008 and he was steer wrestling full time, nationwide, with the plans to be one of the top fifteen steer wrestlers in the nation at the end of the season so he could compete for a world title at the National Finals.
But it wasn’t to be.
In North Platte, he broke the barrier to add a ten second penalty to his time, which would have won him first place.
He was out of money - $36 to his name, a wife at home, and his dreams were dashed.
“I was sitting on the bucking chutes at noon, after slack, all by myself,” he said. He told his traveling partners Shane Henderson and Dru Melvin to go on to the next rodeo without him. He was done.
“I had no ride home, nowhere to go, and I was about to cry.”
That’s when his destiny began to change.
Stock contractor Bennie Beutler walked up and said, “what the hell’s wrong with you?” Rumford told him, “I didn’t make it. I’m going to go home and get a job.”
Beutler, who provides the bucking horses and bulls for the Buffalo Bill Rodeo, offered him a job, driving truck and livestock to rodeos, with the chance to continue to steer wrestle at the rodeos he worked.
So he worked fulltime for Beutler, steer wrestling on the side.
He worked for Beutler three years, hauling livestock to Beutler rodeos across the nation: not only North Platte, but Burwell, Phillipsburg, Kan., Tucson, Ariz., Austin, Texas, Greeley, Colo., and more.
In 2010, he worked as clown at a bull riding in Pretty Prairie, Kan., and it began to dawn on him: he could make a living as a clown. Rumford has always had a quick wit and sense of humor, but he never wanted to clown.
He had made connections with rodeo committees and other stock contractors as he worked for Bennie Beutler, and he asked them for jobs.
Rumford fit the clown jobs in between working for Beutler at their rodeos, until one day somebody said, “you’re going to have to decide if you want to do this rodeo clown deal, or work for Bennie, because we’re all finding you jobs and you’re turning them down.”
So Rumford told Beutler he was quitting.
“He did not take it well,” Rumford said. “He told me, if you’re going to tell jokes, get in the truck and tell jokes on the CB, because you’re not quitting.”
But Rumford did, and he’s never looked back.
“I knew these committee members, and they knew I was hilarious, because I was always cracking jokes. When I called and told them I was going to switch to clowning, I had more of an advantage, because they knew who I was.”
Rumford quickly moved into fulltime work as a rodeo clown, and he’s won two of the PRCA’s most prestigious awards for his category: the Clown of the Year ten times, and the Coors Man in the Can (for barrelmen) three times.
It all comes back to the Buffalo Bill Rodeo.
“North Platte is where I thought the end of the road was,” he said. It was “God’s timing,” he said.
“It’s a wild story.”
Rumford will entertain during each night of the Buffalo Bill Rodeo June 12-15. Shows begin at 8 pm nightly and are held at the Wild West Arena in North Platte.
Tickets range in price from $11-$24 and can be purchased online at NebraskalandDays.com, at the NebraskalandDays office, and at the gate.
For more information and a complete schedule of NebraskalandDays events, visit the website or call the office at 308.532.7939.