Saturday, October 04, 2008
By Terri Jo Ryan
Tribune-Herald staff writer
One part fool and one part daredevil, the rodeo clown is the baggy-pants hero of the arena, distracting an angry bull from its toppled rider so the cowboy can scramble to safety.
For 10 years, Walter L. “Bubbo” Athey of Lorena was one of those comedic matadors. Athey, 77, said the annual Heart O’ Texas Fair always brings back memories of his stint in the sandy circles of Central Texas.
> Clowning around at the HOT Fair & Rodeo
“Back in them days, every town had a parade just before the rodeo,” he recalled. “And they loved the clowns.”
He started performing in rodeos in 1955, in a comedy bullfighting act with Bob Turner of Burleson. Athey performed for a decade, until he had a serious run-in with a bull in 1965. The resulting leg and ankle fractures from a collision with 4,000 pounds of beef on the hoof meant a yearlong recovery, he said.
Athey was familiar with hard times, even before his career-ending mishap. He parents divorced when he was a child. He and an older brother enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1946 to support their three younger siblings. Because Athey was only 15 at the time, he lied about his age, claiming to be 17.
After he got back from serving in American-occupied Germany in 1947, he found work in the corrective therapy department of what is now the Waco Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
But on Thursdays through Saturdays, he took on the persona of Bubbo in the semipro rodeo circuit. The name originally was spelled with one “b” in the middle, but he added the second “b” after people kept mispronouncing it “Byoo-bo.”
“Earning $100 per show was doing good,” he said, “but after paying all your expenses on the road, it didn’t leave much.” He also shoed horses on the side.
After his recovery in 1966, he launched his own business, Bubbo’s Starter and Generator at 2021 Franklin Ave. When he retired in 1992, his son, Bubba Athey, now 55, took it over and renamed it Bubba’s Starter and Generator.
Bubbo’s wife, Flora Lee Athey, 76, said that both of their children grew up in the rodeo culture. Their daughter, Judy (Athey) Lanier, 58, of Waco, was a barrel racer in her youth, and Bubba rode bulls as a kid.
tjryan@wacotrib.com
757-5746
Comments
By Bobbie Cox
Oct 5, 2008 11:34 AM | Link to this
I remember Bubbo very well. My dad Robert Barron (he had a hook on his left hand and only three fingers on his right) was a rodeo pickup man. We traveled the rodeo's with stock producers such as Roland Reid, James Morris, Tommy Steiner,and Logan Huffman and others. Bubbo was a favorite of all the kids, young and old. Glad to see the article which brings back memories.
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