b'By Bob Roloff,The Arizona DuuudeB ull riding ain\'t for the faint of heart. Just askRecently I met up with Frank and his son Hunter who is Frank Kelly, a genuine Cowboy from his hat to hisnow beginning his professional bull riding career. Don\'t champion belt buckle. Frank has won awards for bullbe fooled by the word beginning." Hunter has riding in professional rodeos for five consecutive decades.been riding bulls for five years and has won about He is the only man to do so. The first was in 1957 andevery bull riding award that Arizona has to offer, the last in 1991, thats thirty-four years. To win the mostincluding the junior rodeo champion, the high points at the end of the year you have to enter a lot ofschool rodeo champion, and the Grand Canyon rodeos. It\'s tough work and it doesn\'t always go your way.Association Rodeo champion. Hunter placed in the top ten for money won in the Turquoise Circuit In the 70s Frank was the recipient of the hard-luckstandings in 2018. Hunter also won $5000.00 in cowboy" award one year because his bull wiped him off ata Taylor rodeo because no one had won it the the chute gate. Frank suffered a serious ear injury whenprevious year, so it rolled over until Hunter came the bull stepped on him. When the Payson ambulancealong and won it. arrived, Frank decided to accept a re-ride so they got the bull back in the chute and Frank got back on. He got aFrank talks about some of his winnings over the standing ovation as he bounded along past the grandstandyears. He won a go-round in Payson in 1958 and with his bloody ear flapping in the breeze. He was onegot paid $51.00, and then in 1959 Frank won tough cowboy. the bull riding for $300.00. In the 1970s, Frank won the bareback bronc, and the bull riding, for Frank Kelly was born in Oklahoma in 1939, and cameanother five or six hundred dollars. Hunter in to Arizona with his family when he was about a yearPayson won $1800.00 on one go. Frank won it old. Frank says, I grew up in the Mesa-Gilbert area andfive times, and it didn\'t add up to any $1800.00. sometimes Payson. I started riding bulls when I was aHunter said his goal is to be a world champion teenager. People would tell me that I must be crazy to ridefor his little girl Dallas. I\'m really proud, that bulls but I had this confidence. I knew I could do anythingboy\'s got so much talent, and hes got a real good I wanted to do. I\'m a cowboy and I might cuss a little bit,attitude. I\'ll tell you what, he just totally amazes but I say quite a few prayers every time. me," says Frank. Frank was one of the Steve McQueen stunt doublesRodeo prize money didn\'t pay much back wearing a McQueen look-alike wig, riding a black bullwhen Frank was doing his best back in the 50s, named Sunshine," in the movie Junior Bonner in 1971.60s, and 70s. It wasn\'t a steady income. Frank It was filmed in Prescott and directed by Sam Peckinpah.worked different jobs at different times to have Peckinpah growing impatient with the pace of thea regular paycheck. Frank showed me a photo of filming directed his profanities at the cowboys workinghim standing in front of those huge ore hauling the chutes. Soon after, one of the bulls inexplicably madetrucks when he was working for a copper mining an unscheduled appearance out of the chute, head down,company. His most interesting jobs, I think, were charging the length of the arena, crashing against thethe bit parts in movies, mostly stunt work, riding fence, and destroying an expensive Panavision camera ashorses, and once riding camels. They needed its crew scrambled for safety. Peckinpah glared towardus cowboys to ride these camels in scenes for the the cowboys at the chutes. Frank Kelly, one of the stuntmovie The Greatest Story Ever Told. They could kick atdrought, these animals will come down into the populated doubles in the scene, was there. He remembers theany angle, bite, spit, and when they would buck it wasn\'tareas looking for water. Frank showed me a bear skin incident saying, You don\'t cuss a cowboy." (This is alike a horse bucked. Oh man, those damned camels. Ihanging on his wall of one he came upon unexpectedly quote taken from Arizona Highways Magazine, Junewas scared of them, Frank recalled.Then in Cimarron,while out on a trail. He had no choice but to shoot it when 2001, pgs. 10 & 11).about the Oklahoma land rush, Frank was out in frontthe bear stood up to attack. It ran off and died later down riding as fast as he couldthe trail.trying to not get run over by the horses and wagonsFrank is known to his friends as Machine Gun Kelly." He coming towards him at married Tammy Sanders of Payson who herself is a six-full speed. That was filmedtime world champion bull rider. Frank and Tammy have near Benson and wasa home in San Tan Valley. After many years of teaching extremely dangerous others how to stay on a bull, Frank\'s only student now is for those involved.his son Hunter. COVID-19 hit Frank\'s bull riding school, after the cancellation of over two hundred rodeos in 2020. Listening to Frank, I thinkNo rodeos, no students - no students, no school. his favorite past times are hunting and running a trapHunter and others not willing to give up on their dream line. Years ago there was aof becoming rodeo champions are now trying hard to lot of wild game in the Tontomake a comeback after a year off. Hunter is lucky to have Basin area.Bear, cougar,a supportive mom and dad that can teach him the trick coyotes, and smaller gameof staying on two thousand pounds of volcanic thunder were abundant.Its roughfor eight seconds. You can follow hunter.kelly.522 on open mountain countryFacebook where he posts photos of himself and others and there are still bear andon the rodeo circuit. Never lose your grip, always follow cougar in that area. During ayour dream. ArizonaRealCountry.com July 2021 17'