A Cup of Cappuccino for the Entrepreneur’s Spirit - Volume I

Entrepreneurs’ Stories to Inspire and Energize Your Entrepreneurial Spirit

by Jeretta Horn Nord

Ropin’ the Dream

by Ruth Lance Wester and June Proctor

    Who would have dreamed a girl who had no brothers would spend her life in a man’s world, producing rodeos with her cowboy-roper husband, and live to write the story?  After high school, I joined the U.S. Air Force to see the world.  As a flight attendant, I saw enough of the Mediterranean Sea from points in North Africa and Italy that coming home to Oklahoma looked mighty good to me.

    In November 1961, after a brief courtship, Oklahoma calf roper Ken Lance and I were married in Chicago, where I rode into the arena at the National Cowboy Finals as the Rodeo Princess and rode out as Ken’s bride and soon-to-be business partner.

    Rodeo was in Ken’s blood.  “Ruthie,” he said, “we could turn this watermelon patch into a rodeo arena in our own backyard.”  In the summer of 1964, with seed money from my dad, L.L. Whitlock, and the support of Ken’s roping partner’s dad, Dea Lance, we realized our dream.  Hollywood Western star Tim Holt was featured every night in our five-thousand-seat all-steel arena hosting the annual Ada rodeo.  Cowboy champions competed with local bull riders and calf ropers.  Loretta Lynn sang at the dance in the open-air pavilion nearby.

    Ken was roping his dream, and I was riding mine.  I quickly learned barrel riding and calf roping were not my winning talents.  However, partnering with Ken to produce and promote an affordable family-oriented annual rodeo uncovered other strengths I didn’t know I had.  While women were burning their bras in the 1960s for equal pay with  men, I was burning up the telephone wires, coordinating details with workers, celebrities, and advertising teams - men and women alike.

    Being a woman was not an issue.  In fact, we awarded cowgirls the same prize money as cowboys at the annual rodeo.  All-girl rodeos were held in the fall and spring.  The winner took away a Miley horse trailer and the popular Ken Lance shoulder-strap leather purse, which Ken and I made in our saddle shop.  Ken sold our last one right off my shoulder.

    We roofed the dance pavilion.  Throughout the year, we booked local bands for weekly Saturday night dances, and rising stars such as Dottie West for holiday celebrations.  Our goal was a bigger and better rodeo every year, featuring such stars as Willie Nelson, Red Steagall, Reba McEntire, and Barbara Mandrell.  Sixteen-time world-champion cowboy Jim Shoulders provided livestock.  Afraican American cowboy champion Chalres Sampson, three-time world-champion barrel racer Martha Josey, and other champions rode out of the chutes.

    Sooner or later, bad luck would fall.  Sure enough, one year, we had to cancel the rodeo due to the Equine Encephalitis epidemic in Texas.  Livestock were quarantined.  Country-and-western musicians performed anyway, but to a much smaller crowd.

    Another time, Ken roped a coyote he saw heading for a neighbor’s chickens.  The coyote bit him when he hog-tied it.  The veterinarian packaged the animal’s head to send to Oklahoma City to be tested for rabies.  However, the package inadvertently was left behind.  Rabies vaccine was rushed to Ken, and he had to take the series of shots.  But the show must go on.  Despite the pain, Ken rode into the arena carrying the American flag, as he always did in opening ceremonies.

    The worst was yet to come.  A decade later, on Christmas Eve 1981, a drunk driver crashed into the car my sister, June Proctor, was driving in Maryland and killed two of her sons and all three grandbabies.  I flew to Maryland for the funeral.  The rodeo was never the same for us without our nephews in the grandstand.

    Our marriage was already suffering from the year-found stress of producing a rodeo, as the originally dirt-poor cowboy champions climbed to million-dollar prize money and the country-and-western stars hit the multimillionaire top.  We could no longer afford to hire them. 

    In 1986, Ken and I divorced.  I moved to Durant, home of Southeastern Oklahoma State University, where I worked as the sales representative for Quality Inn and met my future husband, Dr. John T. Krattiger, retired math professor.  In 1993, Ken produced his last rodeo.  In 1994, my niece and I attended the Ken Lance Tribute in Ada and bid a tearful farewell to decades of memories.

    Later my sister, June, said, “Ruth, this is a part of Oklahoma’s cowboy culture history.  Someone needs to write a book about it.  Why not us?  You lived it, and we can write it.  Get Ken on the phone.”  With Ken’s help roping in interviews, and with the cowboys and cowgirls, country-and-western singers, and local people who helped to make it all happen, the book came together. 

    In the meantime, Dr. Krattiger died, and I married his lifelong friend Dr. Truman Wester, president emeritus of Grayson County College, Denison, Texas.  The Ken Lance Sports Arena had been a family project from the beginning, and so it continued with Truman, who coined the phrase “husband-in-law” to describe his relationship with Ken.  Even Ken’s wife, Malinda LaVey Clifton, helped me collect the printed materials we needed for research.

    In January 2006, the Rodeo Historical Society in Oklahoma City published a bird’s-eye view of the book in the Ketchpen, Winter Issue.  On the twenty-first of September that same year, Ken died unexpectedly at his home.  The book, dedicated to the memory of Ken and our fathers, was published in 2007 and was awarded first place by the Press Women of Texas.

    People are amazed that while my marriage to Ken did not endure, our friendship outlived death.  Truman and I are on the board of directors as founding members of the 3-Crosses/Ken Lance Arena, where youth rodeos and Bible camps are held each summer.  We endowed the Ken Lance and Ruth Lance Wester scholarship endowed the Ken Lance and Ruth Lance Wester scholarship fund at SOSU, where Truman taught math for several  years. 

    The key to my success was family.  Our families believed in our dream and were there for us in good times and bad.  The men I married after our divorce were educators who agreed this part of Oklahoma’s cowboy history was significant enough to be recorded for posterity.  To young entrepreneurs today, I would say, “Pursue your dreams and outrun your fears.”  It never occurred to me that I couldn’t do something new.  I just did it.