Cathya Langemo News Today

North Dakota rodeo and Wild West Show performer Scott Gore was born on this date in 1880 in Deadwood, South Dakota. His family moved to North Dakota in the 1890s where his parents worked for the Pierre Wibaux W Bar Ranch.

12/25/2013: A cowboy’s cowboy, Jack Chase died on December 26, 2001. He was a four-time state champion steer wrestler during the 1960s and traveled the rodeo circuit as often as his work allowed from the late 1940s until 1980, when he retired from active competition. Jack was a top rodeo cowboy and a person who did a great deal during his lifetime to promote and keep the cowboy way of life and our western heritage alive.

12/27/2013: North Dakota rodeo star John “Buzz” Fredericks Jr. died on this date in 2006. He was a lifetime rancher and a well-known rodeo cowboy, winning titles in bareback, saddle bronc and steer wrestling.

12/2/2013: Pete Pelissier, known as the “Buffalo Bill of the Missouri Slopes,” created a Wild West Show in the 1890s that performed around North Dakota. The show also traveled along the route of the Northern Pacific Railroad, appearing as far east as Boston, Massachusetts.

12/4/2013: Melvin Griffin was born into ranching life at Stacey, Montana on this date in 1908 to Rose Anna and Lewis Griffin. Melvin only attended school through the eighth grade, but he started trailing cattle with his dad when he was only ten, and after trailing cattle into North Dakota in June 1926, 18-year-old Melvin saw there was ranch work available. He began breaking horses at Alex LaSotta’s Triple V Ranch, where he became known for having a good eye for telling if a horse was sound or ...

6/21/2013: Today and tomorrow, the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame will celebrate its 16th induction ceremony in Medora. Eight inductees will be honored, including well-known North Dakotans like former rancher Leroy “Bud” Perry of Mountrail County, cowboy poet Bill Lowman of Sentinel Butte, rodeo stars Tom Solberg and Lynn Linseth, and Harold Schafer, founder of the Gold Seal Company, a key player in the development of Medora as an historic tourist site.

7/3/2013: On this date in 1908, Joseph and Estelle Cordner were busy celebrating the birth of their daughter Marie just two days before. Born on the family farm near Moffit, Marie later moved to Bismarck, graduating from Bismarck High School in 1926. In 1938, she married James Tyler in Poplar, Montana.

9/19/2007: Prolific North Dakota poet Thomas McGrath died on this date in 1990. Born near Sheldon in 1916, he was called “our Homer and Sophocles” by Everett Albers, former director of the North Dakota Humanities Council.

10/31/2006: German naturalist and scientist Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied, long dreamed of discovering new species of plants and animals in the New World. His companion was a young Swiss artist, Karl Bodmer, who died on October 30, 1893.

6/5/2006: On June 5, 1843, John James Audubon first entered what is now North Dakota.