Rick Young

2012 Wall of Fame Honoree

Rick Young, nicknamed the “Ragin Cajun” of Tickfaw, Louisiana was an all-state football, basketball, and baseball player and got his start in Rodeo as a member of the Block & Bridle Rodeo Club while attending LSU. He competed in bareback riding, steer wrestling, tie down roping and bull riding before transferring to Southeastern Louisiana University where he graduated in 1959. From there he started his rodeo career as a clown and bullfighter. His natural humor, speed and agility into a successful career as a clown and bullfighter and to the very top of his profession. Comedy being Rick’s strong suit, has kept him in the business longer than any other clown today. He does not know a stranger, and he’s quick to make a friend.

Rick has won many accolades over his fifty year career. In 1991, 1994, and 1996-97 he was named Coors Man in the Can and named PRCA Clown of the Year in 1980. In 2004, he was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. Along with performing in such international prestigious events as the Calgary Stampede, Dodge National Finals, National Rodeo Finals, The Coors Shootout Showdown among many others, Rick has appeared in several movies including Alvarez Kelly, The Great American Cowboy, The Stunt-O-Rama, Everybody’s All American, and In the Heat of the Night. Over a long career, he has worked many major rodeos throughout the US and Canada and in 2009 the Sikeston Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo in Missouri honored him with a customized trailer complete with “Rick Young — Rodeo Clown” emblazoned on it to celebrate the 50th year anniversary of him working the rodeo.

When not working the Rodeo Circuit, Young, along with this wife Bernie Lee, carry on a family business of breeding and marketing top quality Appaloosa horses.