The Could 21, 1969, version of The Sheridan Press celebrated the weekly Sheridan School Pupil of the Month. He was a rodeo star, learning bodily training, biology and artwork.
“Along with his schoolwork, he…performs guitar,” the article mentioned of the scholar.
In a couple of quick a long time, that rodeo-star-turned-guitar-player can be numbered amongst “American Cowboy” journal’s cowboy music legends, alongside Johnny Money, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. His identify was Chris LeDoux.
Born the son of an Air Power officer, LeDoux spent his childhood shifting from state to state, a 1994 compilation of tales, discography and lyrics by LeDoux printed by his file label states. The household settled in Austin, Texas, lengthy sufficient for LeDoux’s grandfather to purchase the boy his first horse. Quickly after, LeDoux participated in his very first rodeo, successful 4 of the six occasions during which he competed.
“[LeDoux] received the belt buckle that day, and the rodeo received Chris,” the pamphlet mentioned.
Throughout his highschool years, the LeDoux household moved to Cheyenne. At Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1965, LeDoux celebrated one more rodeo milestone: seeing world champion rodeo cowboys compete, the pamphlet mentioned. LeDoux vowed then to hitch their ranks.
He did. After attending faculty on a rodeo scholarship and ultimately becoming a member of the skilled rodeo circuit, LeDoux taught himself harmonica and guitar, devices available amongst rodeo riders.
LeDoux’s fellow cowboys loved his songs a lot that LeDoux lower collectively a file of 11 songs in a basement studio in Sheridan within the early Seventies. It grew to become LeDoux’s first album, “Songs of Rodeo Life.”
In the meantime, LeDoux’s household life and rodeo profession blossomed. LeDoux married Peggy Rhoads, the daughter of a Kaycee rancher, and the 2 had 5 kids. Your entire LeDoux household would typically accompany the patriarch as he traveled from competitors to competitors, the rider and singer instructed journalist Bob Paxman in 1990. In 1976, LeDoux grew to become the World Champion Bareback Rider, an “American Cowboy” retrospective on the artist mentioned.
Though LeDoux retired from the rodeo circuit in 1980, his musical profession continued. By 1982, LeDoux had bought greater than 250,000 copies of his information, “American Cowboy” reported, with little to no advertising. From his first recording in a Sheridan basement studio to his ultimate few albums within the early 2000s, LeDoux recorded 36 albums in his storied profession, lots of which stay well-liked amongst fashionable American cowboys.
LeDoux handed away of issues from liver most cancers in March 2005 as “one of many best-known entertainers in Wyoming’s historical past,” the cowboy singer’s obituary within the Casper Star-Tribune acknowledged.
Earlier than — and after — his loss of life, LeDoux was deeply tied to his house in northeast Wyoming. He was typically the primary to disclaim rumors that he and his household deliberate to depart their Kaycee ranch for greener pastures in Casper or Nashville.
“That is house,” LeDoux mentioned to music journalist David G. Brown in 1994. “We’ve received deep roots right here and that is the place we’re going to remain. If I ever left right here, I suppose it might change who I’m. And I hope that by no means occurs.”
A monument to LeDoux — with the singer’s likeness on a bucking horse, all atop an acoustic guitar — now stands the place the singer made his house, in Kaycee.