Brooks, Louis

His entire rodeo career spanned only eight years, but Louis Brooks was known as one of the best all-around cowboys ever. When he started, he entered all three roughstock events and won. Later, Brooks began to specialize, giving up bull riding. “When I quit the bulls, my bareback riding and saddle bronc riding improved 40 percent in 30 days,” he said. Some of the tough broncs he covered were Amos (Beutler Brothers), T-Joe (McCarty & Elliott), Hell’s Angel (Colborn) and Hootchie Kootchie (Cremer). He retired in 1944 without sustaining a rodeo injury, which in itself is probably a rodeo record. By that time, he had claimed six world titles – all-around and saddle bronc riding in 1943-44 and bareback riding in 1942 and 1944. He served as vice president of the Rodeo Cowboys Association (RCA) in 1945. After rodeo, Brooks operated his Sweetwater, Texas, ranch, raising brangus cattle, Quarter Horses and thoroughbreds. His horses won the Land of Enchantment Futurity in New Mexico and the Berkeley Handicap in California. Born Dec. 9, 1916, in Fletcher, Okla., Brooks died in 1983. He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1991.