El Pasoan: Sometimes it hurts to be a rodeo clown

Photo Caption: Rodeo Clowns Quail Dobbs, center, and former El Pasoan Roach Hedeman, right, entertain the crowd with piglets in between events during the 69th Annual Southwestern International Livestock Show and Rodeo Sunday. At left is guest Rodeo Clown Cat Country radio station disc jockey Henry Flores.




July 20, 1986

By Bill Knight
Times staff writer

Gary "Roach" Hedeman speaks calmly, most matter-of-factly about the hazards of his chosen occupation:

“A bull got me against the boards once, back in 1980, and broke a bunch of my ribs, punctured a lung. I was out for four months.

“In June of last year, I had a small explosive charge for a trick that blows up a hat. It had a short in it and blew up. I lost a thumb; broke my leg. I was out for 11 months.”

Hedeman, a 25-year-old graduate of El Paso’s Cathedral High school, is not a bronc rider, not a bull rider. Not a Hollywood stunt man. He is a bull fighter, rodeo cowboy style. He is a professional rodeo clown.

Hedeman is working the eighth annual El Paso Junior rodeo that begins its final session at 1:30 p.m. today in the County Coliseum. This is the only junior rodeo he works all year.

“I wanted to work here because I want to take care of the people who took care of me,” he said. “This is where I got my start.”

Hedeman is working with children ranging in age from 5 to 19. He is also working with a first-time clown, Wayne Roy Bickel, 15. And it brings back a few memories of those beginning days for Hedeman.

“I’d been rodeoing, riding bulls and broncs, roping. There’s an indoor arena in the Upper Valley and no one to fight the bulls. I got in there and gave it a try. Found out I liked it better than riding.”

Hedeman then had to go through the stages of becoming a professional. He worked amateur, high school and junior rodeos. He had to get a letter of recommendation from two licensed bull fighters, one stock owner and get approved by a professional rodeo association committee. That made him an apprentice.

“You have to work five rodeos your first year as an apprentice,” he said. “Then if you pass your apprenticeship, you’re in.”

Hedeman has been “in” for almost four years and will leave El Paso for rodeos in Kansas, Nebraska and other parts of Texas in coming months. Glaring down angry bulls, racing into harm’s way, catches the eye of the rodeo fan. It is a dangerous occupation. Hedeman has had the aches and pains to prove it. But it is something else about the job that bothers Hedeman.

“The hardest thing for me to do is comedy,” he said. “You can get a bull out there, run around him, get pretty close and everybody thinks that’s great. But if you do a halfway job with the comedy, they know it right away.”

In the world of the rodeo clown, there is no room for those slow of foot, slow of reflex. Hedeman wears a good pair of cleats. Underneath his makeup, he tapes his ankles, wears elbow pads, knee pads and occasionally hip pads “if something is sore.”

Hedeman, though is realistic enough to know” “ain’t much gonna stop one of those bulls anyway.”

Except quick feet. Young feet.

“I’m looking a this as a long-term career,” Hedeman said. “I’ve got to learn more about comedy, but that will come with experience. When you get 35 or 40, you’re getting close to the end. You’re pushing it.

“But you can be a comedy clown (the guy who entertains, jumps into the barrel, but keeps a bit more distance from the bulls). There’s still a certain amount of risks, but you can do it.”

What is the real secret of doing it, of being a bull fighting rodeo clown? Hedeman narrows it down to one thing:

“Just get wild and crazy; that’s the main thing.”