PHILLIPSBURG – The longtime announcer at Kansas Biggest Rodeo will be recognized in August for his contributions to the rodeo world.
Randy Corley, Silverdale, Wash., is an inductee into the 2017 Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame.
Corley never thought he’d make a living as a rodeo announcer, and there was a teacher at Niobrara County High School in Lusk, Wyo., who concurred.
He was a high school kid, taking a speech class because it was an easy credit, and when he was asked to give a speech, it was always rodeo-related, about world champions like Larry Mahan or Jim Shoulders. The teacher did not approve. “She had threatened me a couple of times that I needed to talk about something different,” Corley recalled. “I’d always come back to rodeo.” One time, she couldn’t take it anymore. When he started yet another speech on rodeo, she “came running up and ripped the speech off the podium, and said, ‘you’ve got to think about your future. You’re not going to talk rodeo your whole life.’” Little did she know, Corley would make his living “talking rodeo.”
He was born in 1951 in Miles City, Mont., spending his school years mostly in Lusk and Lance Creek Wyo., and his summers with his granddad, Waldo Parsons, a cowboy who he idolized. “I spent every summer at his ranch, and when I got older, I’d go out in the winters and help feed cattle. He was everything to me.”
In 1977-78, he attended the Ron Bailey School of Broadcast in Seattle, then worked as a dj in Broken Bow, Neb. before moving to North Platte, Neb. where he was on air at two stations there.
He was hired to announce a nightly rodeo series in North Platte, where he met legendary rodeo announcer Hadley Barrett. Barrett signed for him to get his PRCA card in 1980, and four years later, Corley won the PRCA’s Announcer of the Year award, an honor he would win eleven more times throughout his career, the most of any other announcer, in 1990-1996, 1998, 2003, 2011 and 2015.
Throughout Corley’s career, he has announced rodeos across the nation: the big ones, and the little ones alike: Phillipsburg; Puyallup, Wash.; Caldwell, Ida.; the RAM National Circuit Finals; Tucson, Ariz.; San Antonio, Texas; North Platte, Neb., Pretty Prairie, Kan., and dozens more. He was selected to announce the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo sixteen times.
Barrett was inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1999, and now eighteen years later, Corley follows him. The ceremony is the first weekend of August. It was a team effort, he insists, throughout his career. “I need about 500 or 600 people to come up to the podium with me,” he joked. “There are a lot of people to thank, more than I can pinpoint. It’s stock contractors, great committees, really good entertainers and rodeo clowns and bullfighters and sound people that I’ve gotten to work with. It’s all the people that make those rodeos happen, and have given me a place to shine. All of them exemplify what the announcer does.”
Because the Hall of Fame induction is the same weekend as the Phillipsburg rodeo, Corley will be in Colorado Springs for the ceremony and will not announce the rodeo. Wayne Brooks, also an NFR announcer, will be behind the microphone in Phillipsburg. Corley regrets that he has to miss the rodeo. “I hate that,” he said. “This will be the first time I’ve missed a performance in Phillipsburg.”
Corley married Hadley Barrett’s daughter, Michelle, in 1984, and the couple lived in North Platte till 2001, when they moved to Silverdale, Washington. Michelle is on the road with her husband each year, and works as a timer at many of his rodeos, including Phillipsburg. He has two daughters: Kassi and Amanda, and together the couple has a son, Cole, a daughter, Brittany, and three granddaughters.
He is honored to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and thankful for his life. “I realize more and more every day, how we don’t have the control we think we do. You can place it all in God’s hands, and it’s how God planned it.”
The other inductees into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame are the late Buck Rutherford (all-around champion, 1954), Enoch Walker (saddle bronc riding champion, 1960), Tommy Puryear (steer wrestling champion, 1974), Mike Beers (team roping champion, 1984), Cody Custer (bull riding champion, 1992), Bob Ragsdale (22-time National Finals Rodeo qualifier), Christensen Bros.’ Smith & Velvet, (four-time bareback horse of the year), and the committee for the Ogden (Utah) Pioneer Days.
The Phillipsburg rodeo takes place nightly at 8 pm, August 3-4-5, at the rodeo grounds north of Phillipsburg. Tickets are on sale at Heritage Insurance in Phillipsburg (credit cards are accepted by phone – 785.543.2448) and at the gate. Tickets are $18 for reserved adult seating and $14 for reserved child seating. General admission tickets for Thursday night are $15 for adults and $11 for children. General admission tickets for Fri. and Sat. nights are $16 for adults and $12 for children. For more information, visit the website at KansasBiggestRodeo.com.