John Harrison takes over for Leon Espresso as rodeo barrelman this 12 months.
John Harrison was within the drive-through line at a McDonald’s in Indianapolis, grabbing a fast chunk between reveals on the Nationwide FFA Conference, when his cellphone lit up with a reputation he by no means anticipated to see. Leon Espresso—probably the most beloved barrelmen in Houston Livestock Present and Rodeo historical past—was calling. Harrison forgot his order, pulled out of line, and answered. Espresso, who was retiring as Houston rodeo barrelman, a place he held for 31 years, obtained straight to the purpose: He needed John to take his place. The second left Harrison tearful, honored, and a bit bit in shock.
To grasp how Harrison arrived at this defining second, you need to hint his story again to a ranch in Soper, Oklahoma, the place he grew up steeped within the rodeo world. Whereas born in Paris, Texas, he has lived on that ranch in Soper for 46 years. His grandfather, Warren G. Brown, generally known as Freckles Brown, was a world champion bull rider, and the ranch was greater than only a house—it was a coaching floor the place rodeo traditions had been handed down via generations. At 6 years outdated, he had an expertise that might form his future within the discipline.
“I noticed Leon as a specialty act,” Harrison says. “Leon was Roman driving on high of two bulls and his spouse was trick driving the wrong way up on one other horse. It was loopy! I noticed them after the rodeo, and it simply appeared like enjoyable. I used to be like, ‘He’s been on high of two bulls. He’s hanging the wrong way up on these horses.’ And I believed, ‘Man, that’s what I wish to do.’ So I really set my coronary heart into it.”
His early immersion in rodeo wasn’t restricted to simply watching performances. He started his coaching at a younger age, beginning with Roman driving (the place a rider stands on two horses) and different actions demanding ability and showmanship. He began rodeo driving and leaping via hearth in highschool. “All that enjoyable stuff,” he calls it. Harrison additionally participated in trick roping, which he discovered from his father, who, regardless of being a proficient trick roper himself, was too shy to carry out in entrance of crowds. By the point Harrison was 21, he was touring to carry out, however had by no means thought of clowning.
That modified one fateful day at a rodeo in Dubuque, Iowa, when the scheduled clown failed to point out up. The inventory contractor, shortly trying to fill that void, requested Harrison to step in.
“It was nerve-wracking,” Harrison says, recounting the second he needed to slip right into a clown’s footwear for the very first time. “I used to be prepared for the present to be over earlier than it ever began.” Happily, the announcer that evening, Roger Mooney, stepped in to information him via each joke. Harrison quickly realized that crafting comedy for a rodeo crowd was not so simple as delivering a punchline: Timing, native tradition, and viewers engagement all performed essential roles.
After 31 years entertaining Houstonians, Leon Espresso palms the barrelman mantle to John Harrison.
Throughout this era of trial and error, Harrison steadily honed his comedic instincts. He had already constructed up a strong basis of efficiency expertise—Roman driving, trick roping, and trick driving—and it dawned on him that the extra versatile he grew to become, the extra he may keep booked. And he is created a number of award-winning comedic acts. One in every of them, a playful satire of rodeo queens, includes driving a convertible into the sector after which leaping onto a horse educated to leap over the automobile. One other is a comedy trick-riding routine throughout which Harrison deliberately botches strikes and exaggerates errors, to the delight of the gang.
He ultimately added a brand new star to his lineup: an American Paint Horse named Snoopy. Purchased as a colt with hopes of constructing him a trick-riding mount, Snoopy turned out to have a very totally different character—laid-back, mischievous, extra just like the canine he’s named after than a efficiency horse. Relatively than hand over on him, Harrison tailored his coaching, instructing Snoopy to sit down, lie down, and even stroll on his hind legs.
“It took me three years to construct his again muscle tissues as much as the purpose that he may maintain himself within the air to have the ability to stroll 30 toes with out coming down,” Harrison says. Now, the pair performs a wildly standard bit through which Snoopy fees into the sector like a bucking bronc, chases Harrison out of the ring, after which flops to the bottom when informed to play lifeless.
Other than the cackles, Harrison is particularly centered on staying grounded in his function’s deeper duties. As a barrelman, he’s additionally tasked with defending the bull riders—a job that’s particularly essential in an area as massive as Houston’s. “The barrelman has an actual job and it’s not simply entertaining,” he says. “If a cowboy will get bucked off to the middle of the sector, I would like to choose my barrel up, take that towards that cowboy, and provides [them] the chance to get behind my barrel for bulls chasing.”
As Harrison steps into probably the most iconic roles on the Houston Livestock Present and Rodeo, he’s aware of the immense legacy he’s inheriting from Leon Espresso and able to convey his personal mix of power, ability, and humor to the sector. And if many years from now, folks keep in mind him not just for his antics but in addition as a real man who honored a cherished rodeo custom, he says he’ll think about his mission completed.
“My grandfather was among the finest bull riders on this planet, for as outdated as he was,” Harrison says. “However folks [who] knew my grandpa,] discuss how good of a man was. I feel if I retire, and folks know me as a very good, Christian man [who] was sincere then I’ve finished my job.”
