BERLIN, Germany — The recent rodeo at the German-American Folkfest held in Berlin was named for the late Mormon cowboy, Earl W. Bascom. The Earl Bascom Memorial Rodeo, sanctioned by the European Rodeo Cowboys Association, had a series of 18 performances over a three-week period from the end of July into the first part of August with contestants from Germany, France and America performing before an international crowd. "Earl Bascom was one of the great pioneers of rodeo," explained Steve Witt, vice president of the ERCA. "His influence on the sport reaches here into Europe. And with his German ancestry tied to the royal family of Germany, it was only befitting to honor him in his ancestral homeland."
Brother Bascom is known in rodeo history for designing and making rodeo's hornless bronc saddle and the one-hand bareback rigging, both of which are standard equipment in rodeo today. Brother Bascom, who died in 1995 at the age of 89, had served as bishop and then patriarch in Victorville, Calif.
