Stars Behind Bars

In Texas, from sophisticated Houston to the heart of the brush country, rodeos are supplanting baseball as a favorite Sunday pastime: big-time professional shows, semi-pro affairs put on by peewee promoters, local amateur meets, two-chute matches (popular with gamblers), all-Negro rodeos, kid rodeos, rodeos under floodlights.

Last week, at rural Huntsville, near Houston, 25,000 rodeo fans saw a roundup unique even in Texas. Started ten years ago to give the inmates of the old, grey prison more recreation, the Texas Prison Rodeo brings out such crowds that it has to be held on four successive Sundays. Two to three thousand spectators are often turned away.

For the inmates, it is a great outing. In big, red cattle trucks, sandwiched between armed cars, those quartered at the Prison System's ten farms are taken to the '"Walls" (main prison) at Huntsville. More than 75% of the 6,500 inmates get to see the show. Those who think they can manage a wild bull or a horse "with a bellyful of bedsprings" take part. Each contestant gets $3 and a chance to win an additional $15 to $25 (first prize), $10 (second) or $7.50 (third) in the afternoon's eleven events. They also get a chance to wear ten-gallon hats, high-heeled boots and chaps over their white ducks (only those who have broken prison rules wear stripes).

For outsiders too, Huntsville's Prison roundup is worth riding miles to see. Rodeo fans cram into the Prison Stadium, not because their 50-c- admission fees go to the Prison System's education fund, but because the convicts put on a rip-roaring show. Besides routine rodeo events--bronc riding, calf roping, bull riding and wild-cow milking--there are entr'actes such as a 50-piece Prison Band, the Cotton Pickers' Glee Club and Bill ("Snuffy") Garrett, a "knobknocker" (safecracker) with 263 years to serve, whose clown act, in top hat and stripes, makes even the old prison walls shake.

Only big-time professional among the 200 contestants last week was 25-year-old Frank Ellis, serving three years for a little shooting scrape. He had ridden broncs at Cheyenne, Pendleton and the great Broadway roundup in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, had entered the Walls fortnight ago, just four days before the Rodeo opener. The con section cheered Newcomer Ellis wildly, but he was a mortified spectacle. The horse he drew calmly sidled over to a corner of the arena, refused to budge despite frantic gigging and ear cuffing.

But old favorites did not disappoint the fans. The big, coal-black Hodge Brothers, Will & Sim, who operated a juke joint until one night they murdered a bothersome customer, ran away--as usual--with the calf-roping event. In the four years they have competed in the Prison Rodeo, the Hodges have set several unofficial world's records at calf roping, have won some $400 in prizes. Last October, Will was top money winner with $76, Sim runner-up with $68.

Biggest money winner at last week's opener was plucky little Paul Guyton, in for 20 years for shooting a big fellow who picked on him in a saloon. Guyton, whose 125 pounds had never been astride anything but a motorcycle until last year, won $25 for riding a Brahma steer the length of the arena. In five appearances, Bull-rider Guyton has never been thrown.

Most exciting event of the prison roundup is the Mad Scramble, a free-for-all barred from most rodeos as too dangerous. In this race, riders mounted on wild bulls, cows and broncs (some saddled, some bareback) are let loose simultaneously, bucking and bumping into one another in their crazy dash to the finish line. Winner last week was Ernest Myers, a Beaumont robber.

But the rider who got the biggest hand was Bill Moore of Dallas, who competed with his broken arm in a cast, gracefully hit the dust with his cast held high in air.

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