ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 9, 1997 TAG: 9703100057
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BOONSBORO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM THE ROANOKE TIMES
A 2,000-pound, one-horned bull named "Switchblade" brought his back feet down on the 29-year-old Moneta man's chest, but Phillipe got to his feet, tipped his hat to the crowd and trotted out of the ring. He refused treatment from the rescue squad that was on hand at the regular Friday night Jerk Down Rodeo competition; 20 minutes later, he collapsed and died from internal injuries.
Friday night, a minister and some friends paid tribute to Phillipe with flowers and a prayer in the ring where he was killed.
And then 34 cowboys, including a smooth-faced 15-year-old in his first grown-up competition, climbed into the same ring and strapped themselves onto ornery bulls to do it all again.
They are confessed adrenaline junkies, hooked on the thrill of being at the mercy of unpredictable nature, if only for the eight seconds a good bull ride lasts.
"It ain't no feeling like being in that box, that last second before you nod your head." said David Thompson, a 30-year-old bull rider who took Phillipe to his first rodeo and gave him his nickname. "It's a passionate, obsessive love."
Not even the death of one of their own dampened that passion.
"It just makes you a little more cautious, makes you a little more grateful for every time you ride and walk away unscathed," said Durward "Dude" Vosler Jr., 26.
The same number of riders showed up this week as last, but the crowd was a few hundred spectators larger than usual, by most accounts.
"We would never try to make money off of Ronnie's death," said Judy Stahlman, one of the rodeo operators. "But it's like auto racing. You have a wreck one weekend, and see how many people come out the next."
They cheered when a bull bucked more than the one before it, and when a bull named "Hedgehog" tossed Jimmy Henley onto the ground and swiped at him with long horns, they screamed. A rodeo clown, or bull fighter, slapped at Hedgehog's head and distracted him so Henley could escape.
Rhonda Campbell of Evington covers her eyes during those moments. But she comes every Friday at 7:30 p.m. because she loves the excitement. "I think they're all crazy," she said with laugh.
But the riders are no weekend yokels. Most are serious farm people. Their boots are muddy, their spurs worn.
Vosler shoes horses and practices equine dentistry most of the time. He saves money on haircuts by getting his girlfriend to use animal clippers on him.
As a group, the riders look like an army of Marlboro men, with black cowboy hats broad as their shoulders and polished belt buckles big as saucers.
For six months out of the year, they come each Friday night to the Northwind Stables to compete in Darrell and Judy Stahlman's Jerk Down Rodeo - some from as far as New Jersey.
They plunk down an entry fee of $40, sign a paper releasing the stable and the rodeo company from responsibility, and wait to see which bull they draw. Only the top three or four riders win money. The pot usually pays about $500.
Only riders who have been through a bull-riding school and have chaps and a protective vest can compete. Those are new rules in the arena since the Stahlmans took over the rodeo. The man who was killed there last year, when the rodeo was under different ownership, had never been on a real bull before.
"You know after your first ride whether you ever want to do it again," Vosler said. "Either you love it and want to ride, or you're a spectator."
"It's a natural high," Darrell Stahlman said. "That's why after a good ride, they walk out of the ring on tippy toes, because they're walking on air."
For two years, Phillipe was hooked on that feeling, according to his friends. Always jovial, he was happiest on the back of a bull.
"Life to him was great, and bull riding was his main ambition in life," Judy Stahlman said. He went through a bull-riding school in Bedford County and had been competing in Virginia and North Carolina.
"Hillbilly would walk to a rodeo," his friend David Thompson said.
He was a natural, according to Darrell Stahlman, himself a bull rider and bull fighter until a truck wreck paralyzed his right arm.
A good bull rider gets in sync with the animal, Stahlman said. If you're not keeping up with the bull's moves, you're falling off the back. Anticipating his moves is just as dangerous. It's called "over-riding." That's the mistake Phillipe made on his last ride.
Switchblade made a hard turn to the left, and Phillipe saw it coming. He leaned to the left and beat the bull to the turn. He found himself halfway off the bull's back. When the bull cut again, he got "jerked down" underneath the animal.
It happens all the time in rodeo, the riders said. It's just part of the equation every time you get in the chute, straddle a bull, bind one hand to his back and nod your head to open the gate.
"You can't guarantee it," Thompson said. "It's every time you open that gate, you're taking a chance."
And that's really the thrill of it.
Some people understand it.
James Dixon, a 15-year-old Campbell County High School student, understands. So do his parents. They gave him permission to compete in his first adult bull ride Friday. "My Buddy" flicked Dixon off like he wasn't even tied on, but the boy landed on his feet. "I tried," he said with a grin as wide as the brim of his hat.
Thompson is beyond trying to explain his need to be on the back of a bull to his family, though.
"The ones that ain't never been in that box, they just don't understand."
LENGTH: Long : 111 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JANEL RHODA/THE ROANOKE TIMES. 1. Avalanche bucks out ofby CNBthe pin as 26-year-old Durward "Dude" Vosler Jr. holds onto the
gate. 2. Friday night's crowd honored Ronnie "Hillbilly" Phillipe
with a tribute of flowers and a prayer. His father, Donald, his
brother, Barry, and his sister, Debbie, stood in the ring where
Ronnie was killed just a week earlier. color. 3. Bull rider Ben
McGee rode Speckled Bird for eight seconds. Riders who don't stay on
for eight seconds don't receive a score.