OKLAHOMA CITY – It’s safe to say that bull riding and the Western sports industry wouldn’t be what it is today without Jim Shoulders.

The winningest cowboy in PRCA history, he won 16 World Championships, including the world all-around rodeo cowboy championship five times (1949, 1956-1959), world champion bareback rider title four times (1950, 1956-1958) and world champion bull rider title seven times (1951, 1954-1959).

Those accomplishments alone are good enough to earn him any accolade imaginable, and they pretty much have. He was in the inaugural class inducted into the PBR Ring of Honor in 1996 and has one of PBR’s most prestigious awards named after him – the Jim Shoulders Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes those who, throughout their life and professional career, have contributed to the advancement of the sport of bull riding and rodeo.

At the 2023 PBR Heroes and Legends celebration at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Shoulders was enshrined one more time, as he received the Ty Murray Top Hand Award.

Created in 2018, it is given annually to individuals who have made significant and lasting contributions to enhance the sport of rodeo. It is based on traditional American values and fundamental ideals such as courage, pride, respect, and hard work. Their contributions align with the original goals of the PBR founders and serve to protect and advance rodeo’s heritage for generations to come.

“It takes a lot to be a World Champion,” PBR co-founder and former Director of Livestock Cody Lambert said as he presented the award. “It’s really, really, really hard to be a World Champion. Coming from a guy that was around a lot of World Champions and didn’t get that accomplished, it’s really hard to win a World Championship.

“The Top Hand Award is going this year to Jim Shoulders, who won 16 World Championships. That’s unthought of. That’s unbelievable. In the roughstock, on top of that. To be able to have a career that even lasts long enough to win a few World Championships in the roughstock events means you’re extremely tough. Jim Shoulders – he’s the hero and legend of toughness.”

But that’s not all Shoulders did for Western sports. Not by a long shot.

When injuries ended Shoulders’ career in 1970, he became a stock contractor and ran a rodeo school. He quickly became a celebrity outside of the Western world while doing promotional work for brands like Wrangler, who had signed him in 1948, and Justin Boots, in addition to appearing on television for Miller Lite beer alongside baseball legend Billy Martin.

He also co-founded the Mesquite Championship Rodeo in Texas and helped bring the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo to Oklahoma City in 1965, where it remained until 1984.

“We would hear them talk about having to spend so much time in cars, planes, trains, trying to get people to come,” Shoulders’ daughter Jana said as she accepted the award on her father’s behalf. “He said those first years, you could’ve shot a shotgun and not hit anyone. It’s amazing to think the NFR is where it is today.

“And the Mesquite Rodeo. He and Neal Gay had a great vision that they were going to make rodeo one of the prime interests for the DFW area. I have to say, our family thought it would’ve been nice if that was NASCAR, maybe more money, but it sure was a great shot in the arm for rodeo.”

Jana said that her father was all about the fans. He wanted to have a production that people wanted to come see and were excited about, and he never tired of signing autographs. Even as his health failed – Shoulders passed away in 2007 at 79 – he remained rodeo’s biggest fan.

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“He traveled to far-flung places – Hawaii on a cargo plane in a folding chair, to Argentina, and to Turkey, to be a goodwill ambassador and an advocate for rodeo,” Jana said. “And those rodeo riding schools were truly a labor of love. Certainly, his passion was teaching people how to ride bulls.

“No one was more excited to see his records broken. He was absolutely gleeful. And until his last days, there was no one who was a better advocate or a bigger goodwill ambassador than Jim Shoulders, and no one would be more thrilled to see all of the support and all the action that the PBR has brought to the sport of rodeo.”

Indeed, Shoulders was a staunch supporter of the PBR during his lifetime, wearing his Ring of Honor ring and sitting in the first few rows at PBR events.

Lambert points out that all bull riders today have learned from Jim Shoulders or from somebody who learned from Jim Shoulders.

“He taught more guys about rodeo and being tough and what it takes to be a champion and to be a cowboy every day – he taught more guys than we’ll ever know,” Lambert said. “It all goes back to him. The Heroes and Legends is really mostly about Jim Shoulders and his impact on this sport. We wouldn’t be here without that kind of impact. He took rodeo, which was a great sport before he got there, and he took it and elevated it to a great professional sport. And he took it to a level that we hopefully make him proud.

“But the Top Hand Award is a great thing that we get to remember that Jim Shoulders – first, before it all, and before all the rest of them, was a top hand.”

Photo courtesy of Andy Watson/Bull Stock Media