Saturday 15 March 2008

Rodeo roundup

TSF rarely gets the opportunity to talk about rodeo writers, but a tip of the cowboy hat to Dwayne Erickson, a former Edmonton and Calgary Suns vet.

Erickson, 70, still covering the rodeo beat for the Calgary Herald, became a 2008 Alberta Sports Hall of Fame inductee this week.

As Herald reporter John Down wrote the other day, Erickson was reluctant when "Edmonton Journal sports editor Hal Pawson asked him to cover a rodeo in 1958."

"I didn't know the back end of a horse from the front end," Erickson told Down. "I really didn't want to do it, but Hal told me I either covered it or should look for another job."

A half century later, The Cowboy is still in the saddle.

His rodeo columns have been in the Edmonton and Calgary Suns along the way. The former Edmonton Sun sports editor was at the Calgary Sun when he covered his first Calgary Stampede in 1982.

Down's story says Erickson was inducted into the Canadian Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2003.

Well done, pardner.

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