No signs of stopping: Sutton Rodeo looking to the future as it celebrates 100-year anniversary
Rodeo has changed drastically over the last 100 years. But in many ways, the sport doesn’t look too dissimilar to its humble beginnings.
This year, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association celebrates 90 years as the largest and oldest sanctioning body of professional rodeo. The PRCA started as the Cowboy Turtles Association during the Boston Garden Rodeo in 1936, when cowboys banded together to ensure fair prize money, equality in judging and honest advertising of the sport.
But before the formation of the CTA, rodeo was already a way of life in the American West.
In Sully County, S.D., at the Sutton Ranch, rodeo was a family tradition. On Sundays, Edwin and James Sutton welcomed friends from the surrounding area to their rodeos, which started in 1926.
A century later, the fourth, fifth and sixth generations of his family are still producing world-class events as the Sutton Rodeo Company.
“What’s most special is that the family was all involved and all interested,” ProRodeo Hall of Famer Jim Sutton said. “It makes it pretty easy when what’s turning out is happening the way you wanted it to.”
The first rodeo on the Sutton ranch in the river hills of Sully County in 1926 sought to see which local ranch had the best cowboys.
But by the following year, entertainment for spectators became central to the operation. Those early rodeos featured specialty acts such as a cowboy riding a bison, a horse jumping a car and even people jumping out of airplanes.
Edwin’s wife, Jesse, also made teacups to give away as souvenirs to attendees.
“In 1927, we had specialty acts and swag,” said Kim Sutton, Jim Sutton’s daughter-in-law and wife of Sutton Rodeo President Steve Sutton. “That’s just like today. So yes, it’s been 100 years but that was already happening in the 1920s.”
Edwin Sutton, Jim Sutton’s grandfather, saw potential in the rodeo business and sought to grow the company from a family pastime to a profit center.
He quickly partnered with George Fairbank and began a successful touring rodeo before the Great Depression slowed operations until the 1940s.
Jim’s father, James H. Sutton Sr., launched the next iteration of the firm in the 1950s by partnering with fellow South Dakotan Erv Korkow to form Sutton-Korkow stock. Sutton-Korkow was one of the first contractors to join the Rodeo Cowboys Association – predecessor to the PRCA – and in 1959 hauled bucking stock to the inaugural National Finals Rodeo in Dallas, Texas.
“I still run into people, and the most popular comment about grandpa is that he was a good person, but he was always positive,” Steve Sutton said of James Sutton Sr. “He never ran anybody down. I never
heard him raise his voice, never. He’s just one of those people who comes to your mind who was a good ol’ boy.”
James H. Sutton Sr.’s son, affectionately known as Jim, was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2020. The 90-year-old South Dakotan was raised in the stock contracting business, but it wasn’t his only option.
The Minneapolis Lakers – now the Los Angeles Lakers – selected Sutton, a South Dakota State University graduate, with the 65th overall pick in the 1957 NBA Draft. He attended the team’s preseason camp but ultimately decided to return home to work on the family ranch with his father, James Sutton Sr., and grandfather, Edwin Sutton.
“It just gave you something to think about,” Jim Sutton said of knowing his calling from a young age. “You didn’t have to worry about anything to do. It was all right there.”
Going All In
James and Jim formally partnered in 1968 and launched Sutton Rodeo Company, transforming the contractor into one of the top firms in the PRCA.
“They went out first and bought some horses and tried to increase the bloodlines,” Steve Sutton said. “The cowboys loved (James Sutton Sr.), too. And back in the early days, the contractors weren’t loved by contestants. They weren’t enemies, but they were dueling each other. Now, as the world’s changed, we’re trying to help them make a good living.”
James Sutton set the moral fiber of Sutton Rodeo, which continues to this day. In 1982, he was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, and he also received an award of merit from the RCA in 1970 for his contributions to the sport.
“Whether it was a committeeman or the waitress at the table when we were in town, he just had something about him that everybody was attracted to him and had a good impression of him,” Steve Sutton said. “But the cowboys really backed him.”
James Sutton eventually passed management responsibilities to his son, Jim. But he remained intimately involved in PRORODEO until his death on Feb. 1, 1991.
Jim’s wife, Julie, also took on a lot of responsibility in Sutton Rodeo. In addition to helping support operations, she served as an NFR timer in 1970 and passed the skill on to her daughter-in-law, Kim Sutton.
Jim and Julie received the Donita Barnes Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. Julie Sutton died at 85 years old on July 21, 2021 – four days after Jim was inducted into the Hall of Fame – after a prolonged battle with cancer.
Jim Sutton still hits the road for Sutton Rodeo’s biggest productions, including Rodeo Rapid City, which he started in 1978 as the Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo. The rodeo has been nominated 25 times as the PRCA Large Indoor Rodeo of the Year, winning the title seven times (2002-03, 2020-21, 2023-25).
“I wish I had a few more years,” Jim Sutton said. “This show in Rapid City, there are no better rodeos anywhere. We always get the top cowboys and try to bring the best stock we can. That’s just the way it is.
“All my life, we’ve tried to get rodeos like this and keep them going. Rapid City is (the result) of what we’ve been trying to do for years. It’s all kind of fallen into place.”
Sutton Rodeo Today
Steve Sutton, Jim’s son, joined the PRCA in 1976 and became a stock contractor in 1982.
Today, Steve serves as the president of Sutton Rodeo Company with his wife, Kim, and their children, Brent, Brice and Amy, are intimately involved in the day-to-day operations of the family business.
“We all wear a hat,” Steve Sutton said. “And at the end of that hat, you do everything.”
Steve Sutton grew up in the family business. He can’t remember the first rodeo he went to, but he picked up a lot of wisdom from his father and grandfather on the rodeo road, and he always loved rodeo and the livestock business.
“The reason I enjoy it so much is because I have had good coaches,” Steve Sutton said. “Grandpa and dad, they taught us how to do it the right way. The right way is usually to do what you think the person you’re doing the job for wants it to be done.”
Steve Sutton got his PRCA card between his eighth grade and freshman year of high school, and went on to be a pickup man at the National High School Finals Rodeo the same summer.
Steve became one of the top pickup men in the PRCA. He was selected to the National Finals Rodeo twice in Oklahoma City, Okla. (1978, 1981) and three times after the event moved to Las Vegas (1986, 1993, 1995).
“I enjoy the PRCA. It’s a great world to be involved in, the rodeo world,” Steve Sutton said. “If I had to start all over again, I would do the same thing. I started picking up at a very early age, and I was lucky that I lasted a long time and I had the best seat in the house.”
Steve and Kim started dating in 1978, the first year of Rodeo Rapid City and the same year that Steve picked up at the NFR. Kim had been involved in the rodeo world as a high schooler in 4H, but saw a whole other side of the rodeo business that year.
“It was a whole different world on the backside of rodeo contracting and production,” Kim Sutton recalled. “All of a sudden, I was rooting for the horse and not the cowboy.
“I learned as I went under Jim and Julie, and Steve and James Sr., Steve’s grandpa. They were really close, and he (James Sr.) was a wonderful man who encouraged us both a lot.”
Steve and Kim got married in 1983, and in the following years, they became more and more essential to the operation of Sutton Rodeo Company.
Today, the couple oversees the operation with their kids. Kim handles timing and marketing with her daughter, Amy Mueller, while Steve runs the livestock program and rodeo production with his two sons, Brice and Brent, and his son-in-law, Steven Mueller.
Kim said she would almost describe herself more accurately as the Sutton Rodeo gopher, because a title can’t really describe what any of the family members do to produce rodeos and raise some of the best bucking stock in PRORODEO.
“We don’t have offices in our organization,” Steve Sutton said. “We all wear a hat that we might be a little better at than another. But we all pitch in and do every job that needs to be done.”
The Future of Sutton Rodeo
The fifth generation, Steve and Kim Sutton’s children, of the Sutton Rodeo Company is already on the job.
Recently, Steve Sutton had the family over for dinner and asked whether they still wanted to stay in the rodeo business.
“I did ask the question about a month ago, when we were all sitting around the table,” Steve Sutton said. “I said, ‘You know, we’re at the top, but the world’s changing. Would you like to get out of this business?’ And I got three Nos so fast. That made me feel good.”
Brent and Brice Sutton spend most of their time tending to the family’s bucking horses on the pasture and on the road. They also assist in rodeo production.
“I don’t remember what age (I started) but there were always odd jobs,” Brent Sutton said. “At the rodeos, I loaded calves and steers and picked up flanks in the arena. At home, you do a little bit of everything, but I fixed fence and fed. I don’t remember how old I was but I’m sure there were probably
jobs that I got that I was maybe too young for, like driving the pickup while dad threw square bales on when I could barely see over the dash.”
Brent made the NFR as a pickup man in 2020 and at the National Circuit Finals Rodeo (now the NFR Open) in 2014 and 2017. He retired as a pickup man recently and focused his attention more on production and being a flankman when he’s on the road.
Brice also works with the livestock and rodeo production and joined the PRCA as a contestant, pickup man and flankman in 2010.
Amy Mueller has followed in her mom’s footsteps as a timer and office manager who also helps with the marketing efforts, while her husband Steven spends his time with the livestock and assisting with rodeo production.
“We all do have our own little department, and we all try to take that lead and that responsibility,” Amy Mueller said. “Part of it is that we’re a really small family in relation to people with cousins, second cousins and more extended family involved day to day. There are five of us running the ranch and running the rodeos, so you have to divide and conquer to get it done. So maybe you have to do 12 jobs instead of one.”
Amy served as a timer at the NFR three-straight times from 2015-17. Her mom, Kim Sutton, held that position six times (1988, 2011-12, 2017-19).
“Every one of our offspring has done something at the NFR,” Steve Sutton said. “We take this business seriously. We appreciate the PRCA. And (our kids) have all worked their different categories and they’ve all excelled enough to get the No. 1 job at the Finals. I blame that all on Kim, not me, but we have three really good kids.”
Sutton Rodeo Company doesn’t plan to shut the doors anytime soon. The sixth generation of the contracting firm, Brent, Brice and Amy’s children, are already getting plenty of experience in the Western way of life.
“You’re not going to get rich in this game. You have to love it. You have to not be afraid of hard work and take risks,” Brent Sutton said. “As far as us moving forward from here, once you get involved it’s kind of hard to walk away. So I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere.”
Kim Sutton said she and Steve didn’t force their children to get involved in the family business, they picked it up on their own. She hopes the same will be true for their six – soon to be seven – grandchildren. She wants them to fall in love with Sutton Rodeo Company, raising livestock and producing rodeos on their own.
As for Steve Sutton, he hopes this is just the beginning for the family business.
“I’m thinking that I can’t wait for the next 100,” he said.
-PRCA
