09/01/2026
A true Legend
He's still getting on a horse every day, in his nineties, on a ranch he first joined 75 years after he started cowboying. He never owned a ranch. He never managed one. He was simply a working cowboy his entire life — and it made him one of the most honored men in the history of the American West.
Born in 1932 in Clarendon, Texas, during the Great Depression, Boots O'Neal grew up in a large family without modern conveniences, developing a work ethic shaped entirely by rural life in the Texas Panhandle. He left formal schooling after the ninth grade, drawn more to horses than to a classroom. In 1947, at fifteen, he started breaking horses for small outfits. He and his brother Wes broke twenty broncs for the RO Ranch at $20 a head — the wage that launched everything.
Then he built a career spanning some of the most legendary ranches in Texas history. He worked the JA Ranch, living on the chuck wagon and sleeping in a bedroll for weeks at a stretch. Then a quarter-century stay at the historic Waggoner Ranch. Then the Matador. Along the way, he served in the Army during the Korean War, then came home and kept right on cowboying like he'd never left.
Then, in 1990, the legendary Four Sixes Ranch came calling, needing a seasoned hand who could also help with security involving missing cattle. Given his background as a field inspector, Boots was the perfect fit — the ranch's owner, Cowgirl Hall of Famer Anne Marion, personally helped recruit him. His wife, Nelda, wasn't so sure about leaving her life in Vernon behind. He pleaded for just two years. She agreed to go, on the condition they kept their house in Vernon so she could visit anytime. He's been at the Sixes ever since.
Then he just kept showing up, decade after decade, through broncy horses, snorty cows, merciless droughts, and brutal winter storms. Two years ago, he was bucked off and broke a leg along with twelve ribs. He still gets horseback every single day. Ranch cook Susie Hurt put it best — "He's still getting up every day and doing what he's been doing for his whole life... putting a saddle on his horse, putting his leggings on, putting his boots on and spurs and going out and checking bulls."
Inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in 2013. Received the inaugural Working Cowboy Award from the National Ranching Heritage Association in 2018 — an honor created specifically to recognize exceptional skill, honesty, humility, and determination in ranch work. Inducted into the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2023. He and Nelda were married 44 years before she passed away.
A boy who left school to break broncs for $20 a head. Seven decades spent working some of the most storied ranches in Texas. A cowboy's cowboy, still saddling up in his nineties, exactly the way he always has.
That is Boots O'Neal. 🤠🐴🏆
