California Shines: 2026 Rodeo Hall of Fame

2026 National Rodeo Hall of Fame Class

Salinas is one of the first two rodeos ever to receive the Rodeo Legacy Award, and Cotton Rosser’s granddaughter collects two honors in the same building in the same week. The 71st National Rodeo Hall of Fame Weekend runs November 13 and 14.

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum announced its 2026 National Rodeo Hall of Fame class on August 18, and California came out of it holding two of the biggest honors on the program. The 71st annual National Rodeo Hall of Fame Weekend follows November 13 and 14 in Oklahoma City.

The Rodeo Legacy Award

The Museum has created a new award. The Rodeo Legacy Award recognizes rodeos themselves, rather than the people who compete at them, for historical significance, lasting impact on the sport and commitment to preserving Western heritage. The National Rodeo Hall of Fame Advisory Board established it this year, and the first two recipients in its history are California Rodeo Salinas and the Pendleton Round-Up.

That is the company Salinas keeps now, and it is the right company. The only five-header left in professional rodeo, the longest scoreline in the sport, and nearly sixty thousand people through the gate over four days this July.

There is a practical footnote in this for anyone who runs a rodeo out here. Beginning with the next cycle, nominations for the Rodeo Legacy Award may be submitted by January 31, 2027, and they take up to 200 words explaining the rodeo’s significance and legacy. California has no shortage of rodeos that would read well in 200 words.

The Tad Lucas Memorial Award

The Tad Lucas Memorial Award goes to Linsay Rosser Sumpter, and the name will be familiar to anyone who has been around a rodeo arena in the West. She is the granddaughter of ProRodeo Hall of Famer Cotton Rosser, which means she comes out of Flying U, the outfit that has hauled stock across the country through the rodeo season for better than sixty years.

She has earned the award on her own account. She has qualified for the Mountain States Circuit Finals, the Women’s Rodeo World Championship, the WPRA World Finals and the College National Finals Rodeo, and she still competes as a breakaway roper. She spent seventeen years as head rodeo coach and agriculture business faculty at Otero College. She holds a bachelor of science from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and a master’s in business communication from Southern Utah University, and she works as a television analyst. She is married to National Finals Rodeo steer wrestler Wade Sumpter and they have two children.

Today she is Commissioner of the Premier Women’s Rodeo, which is the job that has put her in front of this whole conversation about where women’s rodeo goes next. The Tad Lucas is presented every year by the family of Tad Lucas herself, the most decorated cowgirl in American history across a career that ran seven decades, and it recognizes a living woman whose actions promote what Lucas stood for. It is hard to think of a better fit.

She will have been to the Museum already that week. On Wednesday, November 11, the Annie Oakley Society presents her its Trailblazer Award at its annual Luncheon and Awards, in the same building, two days before the Hall of Fame weekend opens. Courtenay DeHoff, the Fancy Lady Cowgirl and last year’s Trailblazer recipient, will emcee. The Society’s headline Annie Oakley Award that day goes to Audrey Franz, Cheryl McMullen and Hedy Carter, the South Texas sisters who started Double D Ranch in 1989 with a single blanket coat and built it into one of the defining brands in Western fashion, along with their mother, Margie McMullen.

There is one more layer to the Rosser thread, and it belongs in this story. The same Museum gave Cotton Rosser its Ben Johnson Memorial Award in 2006 and inducted him into its Hall of Great Westerners in 2015. His granddaughter now collects two of its honors in one week, and the Ben Johnson going to John Miller this year is the same award her grandfather took home twenty years ago.

Two Names for Team Ropers

Team ropers have two names to watch in this class. David Motes of Mesa, Arizona, goes in on twenty-two National Finals Rodeo qualifications. He won his first all-around saddle in 1965 heeling for his father, three-time NFR qualifier Glenn Motes, took the World Team Roping Championship in 1977 with his brother Dennis, and won the NFR average four times, in 1977, 1981, 1984 and 1991. He kept his PRCA card for more than five decades, and after a 2018 wreck that left him with eleven broken ribs he was back competing within months.

John Miller receives the Ben Johnson Memorial Award. He won back-to-back World Champion Team Roping titles in 1970 and 1971 and the National Finals team roping championship in 1973, and he was reserve world champion steer roper in 1972 and 1973. He spent a decade as resident trainer at the Lazy E in Guthrie and built a reputation as one of the finest teachers of team roping in the business. He is the grandson of Ben Johnson Sr. and the nephew of Ben Johnson Jr., who won the world team roping title in 1953, which makes this award something close to a family matter. Miller went into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame himself in 2009.

The Rest of the Class

The rest of the living class runs deep. Marvin Garrett of Belle Fourche, South Dakota, took four bareback world titles in 1988, 1989, 1994 and 1995 and NFR average titles in 1989 and 1995. Gary Ledford qualified for the NFR nine times in tie-down roping, won Cheyenne in 1971 and competed from 1969 through 2003. Marvin Paul Shoulders, son of Jim Shoulders, won RCA bareback, bull riding and all-around titles in 1969 and was the 1973 NFR champion bull rider. Jess Franks worked his way from loading roping calves at eleven to fighting bulls at fifteen to the NFR barrel, and later built a museum devoted to bullfighters, barrelmen and clowns. Gail Woerner has written eleven books and conducted better than five hundred interviews with rodeo legends, chaired the Rodeo Historical Society’s Oral History Project for twenty-one years and has worked the Gold Card Room at the NFR since 1982.

Two go in posthumously. Hoss Inman, who lived from 1929 to 1994, founded the Flying I Rodeo Company in 1954, supplied nine head of stock for the very first National Finals Rodeo and owned Jesse James, the 1961 PRCA Horse of the Year. Bobby Kerr, who was born in 1957 and passed in 2025, was named PRCA Specialty Act of the Year six times for his work with American Mustangs and co-founded the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1997.

Museum president and chief executive Pat Fitzgerald said the Hall exists to preserve the people and stories that built rodeo, and called this class a reflection of the breadth of that legacy, from arena champions to performers, historians and horsemen.

The Weekend

The weekend itself carries a milestone. The newly renovated National Rodeo Hall of Fame will be unveiled during the celebration, with the first two phases finished in time and a third tentatively set for spring 2027.

The 71st National Rodeo Hall of Fame Weekend runs November 13 and 14 at the Museum in Oklahoma City, presented by Bobby and JJ Norris and the Dellora A. and Lester J. Norris Foundation.

Friday opens with the Rope ‘N’ Ride Cocktail Reception from 4 to 6 p.m. in Prosperity Junction, western or business casual, with hors d’oeuvres and refreshments. Saturday brings the Champions’ Dinner, Induction Ceremony and Benefit Auction at the Sam Noble Special Events Center, doors at 5 p.m. for the silent auction and dinner service at 5:45, western black-tie optional, with a cash bar.

Two Saturday events are open to anybody with a museum admission ticket. The National Rodeo Hall of Fame Panel Discussion and Jacket Presentation runs at 11:30 a.m., and the Rodeo Membership Meeting follows at 1:30 p.m. If you are making the trip and the Champions’ Dinner is not in the budget, that is your chance to see this class up close.

Tickets are not mailed. Check in at registration with your first and last name, or the name of the registrant or organization you are attending under. Tickets and information are at nationalcowboymuseum.org.

2026 National Rodeo Hall of Fame Honorees

National Rodeo Hall of Fame Inductees: Jess Franks, Marvin Garrett, Hoss Inman (1929–1994), Bobby Kerr (1957–2025), Gary Ledford, David Motes, Marvin Shoulders, Gail Woerner

Ben Johnson Memorial Award: John Miller

Tad Lucas Memorial Award: Linsay Rosser Sumpter

Rodeo Legacy Award: California Rodeo Salinas, Pendleton Round-Up