A longtime rodeo announcer and two cowboy movie heroes — one living, one deceased — will be honored during the Western Heritage Awards at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
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The 47th annual event will be Friday and Saturday at the museum at 1700 NE 63.
Veteran rodeo announcer Clem McSpadden of Chelsea will be presented with the Chester A. Reynolds Memorial Award. Named for the museum's founder, the prestigious award honors those who have helped perpetuate the ideals, history and heritage of the American West.
Versatile actor Robert Fuller, who had starring roles in "Laramie” and "Wagon Train,” two classic western TV series from the 1960s, and the late cowboy actor Johnny Mack Brown will be inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers.
McSpadden, 82, was born on a ranch near Bushyhead in Rogers County. From age 2 to 18, he lived on his great-uncle Will Rogers' ranch in Oolagah. After high school and service in the Navy during World War II, he became a student at Oklahoma A&M, now Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, where he helped form the college rodeo team.
According to rodeo lore, McSpadden became a rodeo announcer by accident. A calf roper and steer wrestler at the time, McSpadden took over the microphone at a rained-out rodeo in 1947 when the announcer had to leave. That led to more rodeo announcing jobs and brought him at least one unexpected perk: "I get the best seat in the house,” McSpadden said in a 2004 interview.
He said he is "humbled, grateful and thankful” to be receiving the Chester Reynolds award. "I knew him,” McSpadden said. "He was a small man in stature and a seven-foot shot walker in dreams and ideas, and he had this idea for a National Cowboy Hall of Fame. He was the one who really put it all together.” In the early 1950s, Reynolds asked McSpadden and two other announcers to "talk up” the cowboy hall idea during lulls in their broadcasts.
"He was just a whale of a man,” McSpadden said. "He's in that handful of people that I'll remember for the rest of my life. He made the impression on me that if you believe in something, and work hard enough, you have a pretty good chance of making it happen.”
Fuller, who lives near Gainesville, Texas, said the awards ceremony will mark his first visit to the museum.
Induction into the Hall of Great Western Performers will place him "in awful good company,” the actor said. "It's kind of overwhelming. I don't think it has really hit me yet. I grew up watching all these guys at the movies.”
Ironically, Johnny Mack Brown, Fuller's co-inductee, was the only one of the celluloid cowboy heroes from his youth that Fuller never met.
"Don ‘Red' Barry, Bob Steele, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Joel McCrea. I met every one of my favorite cowboys from when I was a kid, and got to work with them all, but never, ever got to meet Johnny Mack Brown,” Fuller said.
Many fans remember Fuller as much for his eight years as Dr. Kelly Brackett on the 1970s TV medical drama, "Emergency!,” as for his work in TV westerns and movies. But westerns always remained his favorite vehicle, said Fuller, who fully retired from acting in 2001. "It was kind of fitting. I went out in a blaze of glory in one of the old west episodes of ‘Walker, Texas Ranger,'” he said.
Also being honored this year are two inductees into the Hall of Great Westerners, Nebraska cattleman and horse breeder Howard C. Haythorn and the late legendary Hawaiian rancher John Palmer Parker, founder of the 150,000-acre ranch that sprawled across Hawaii's "big island.” Criteria for induction require exceptional contribution to Western heritage and traditions and achievement of national significance and historic relevance. Candidates also must exemplify Western ideals of honesty, integrity and self-sufficiency.
Established in 1961, the Western Heritage Awards honor the creators of works in literature, music, television and film that best portray the history and culture of the American West. This year, principal creators in 14 categories and inductees to the Hall of Great Westerners and Hall of Great Western Performers will receive the Wrangler, a bronze sculpture of a cowboy on horseback.
Award winners and Hall of Fame inductees are scheduled to attend Friday evening's Jingle-Jangle Mingle, which will include live entertainment and a book-signing and CD/DVD autograph session.
A 5 p.m. cocktail reception for all award winners will precede Saturday's black-tie-optional awards banquet. Actor Brad Johnson will serve as emcee, and celebrity presenters will include actors Robert Carradine, Buck Taylor, Ryan Merriman and Denny Miller; movie stuntman Dean Smith; singer/musicians Michael Martin Murphey and Red Steagall; and cowboy poet Jeff Hildebrandt.
Anita La Cava Swift, John Wayne's granddaughter, and Wyatt McCrea, grandson of actor Joel McCrea, will help hand out awards.
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