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Late cowboy legend to be honoured

Cowboy Kenny McLean is back in the saddle again.
McLean is being honoured posthumously in his hometown for his achievement inside the rodeo ring, and for his generosity towards budding bronco busters outside of it.

Paula Jo, Kenny‘s widow, was joined by Okanagan-Coquihalla MP Stockwell Day, rural area director for OK Falls Bill Schwarz and former senator for the Okanagan-Similkameen Ross Fitzpatrick at the OK Falls fire department Tuesday for a ceremony to unveil a miniature statue of McLean.

The unveiling was also the launch of the fundraising campaign for the life-sized bronze sculpture which will be erected at Centennial Park next summer.
McLean made his foray onto the rodeo circuit at the age of 17, and spent a lifetime competing and dedicating his time to sponsoring and operating rodeo schools for youngsters, some of whom went on to become rodeo champs.

In 1962 he was the World Saddle Bronc Champion, and amassed a total of 14 Canadian championships.
McLean became the first cowboy to be inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 1974 and in 1976 he received the Order of Canada. In 1993, he was inducted into the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association‘s Hall of Fame, and eight years later in 2001, McLean was inducted into the B.C. Cowboy Hall of Fame.

McLean passed away in 2002 at the age of 63 while competing in a senior professional rodeo in Taber, Alta., when he suffered a fatal heart attack.
“He was a very humble man and he would really be very honoured,” said Paul Jo. “But at the same time I‘m so grateful because he did deserve it . . . He worked so hard at it and he devoted his life and his love of rodeo, and he wanted to continue that and that‘s why he helped so many young people.”

When it came to rodeo, Paula Jo referred to her late husband as “a scientist” who knew all the “ins and outs of it.”
He was committed and accomplished to the point that he was able to continue his winning ways into his 60s, besting competitors about 20 years younger than himself.
Around Paula Jo‘s waist rests a belt buckle from her world championship victory in barrel racing in 2005.

“Kenny was my coach as well,” she said. “And he had worked very hard. After he trained the horse, then he‘d train me and I was much harder (to train) than the horses.”
She also won the all around rodeo title at the world championships in 2002 after his death.

“He wanted me to go on, so I did,” she said. “I won the barrel racing and the ribbon runner and the all around that year but it wasn‘t that hard because he was with me.”
To raise money for the statue the Kenny McLean project committee is selling 100, limited edition bronze replicas measured at 45 centimetres.
Cost for the replica sculptures is $2,500.

Read more at the www.pentictonherald.ca