Mike Hastings

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=20298341

Hall of Fame Rodeo Star. He ran away from home when he was 11 years old and went to work busting wild broncs. Eight years later he entered his first rodeo. He was willing to try any and all events, but his specialty was steer wresting, or as it was known at the time, bulldogging. He became a World Champion in the event and performed at rodeos around the world and before members of the Royal Family of England. The Duke of Windsor once presented him with a thoroughbred horse in appreciation for allowing him to ride a western horse seven years earlier. He met and married Eloise Fox who he taught all the tricks of the rodeo world. The two of them went on to become a world renowned husband and wife steer wrestling team and both elected to the Rodeo Hall of Fame, he in 1974 and she in 1987. After the rodeo life, he went to work on a dude ranch in New York and remained there for the rest of his life. The only exceptions being that Gene Autry asked for and received his assistance on two separate occasions. He requested that upon his death that he be cremated and his ashes scattered on the ranch in Texas where he had worked as a bronc buster. (bio by: Tom Todd)