Gene Lyda

Gene Lyda was raised in the San Antonio, Texas area and gained regional fame as a professional bull rider. Lyda now manages the Fort Stockton Division of La Escalera Ranch, one of the largest working cattle ranches in Texas.

Gene Lyda was born in the South Texas brush country in Nixon, Texas on June 20, 1947. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Austin, Texas where his father Gerald Lyda worked as a carpenter while his mother Randa Jean Lyda was a stay-at-home mother with Gene and his brother, Gerald D. Lyda. The Lyda family traveled to Marlin, Texas, Shreveport, Louisiana, Dallas, Texas, Waco, Texas and eventually settled in San Antonio, Texas—wherever his father was transferred by the construction company that employed him.

In 1959, while his father started his own construction business in San Antonio, Texas Gene, his brother and mother moved to the family’s convert|150|acre|km2|sing=on farm near Marble Falls, Texas. While in junior high school, he learned to rope calves and steers and competed in local junior rodeos. Additionally, Gene entered the Marble Falls Open Rodeo in the bull riding event.

Within two years the family had moved back to San Antonio and Gene was entering open and youth rodeos within a convert|150|mi|km|sing=on radius of San Antonio. During this period, he competed in the bareback bronc riding, roping and bull riding. He was severely injured in a bull riding accident in 1965, but recovered and came back stronger than ever. In 1966, he won the State High School Bull Riding Championship in Hallettsville, Texas. Lyda led the Texas rodeo team to victory at the 1967 National High School Championship Rodeo in Wetumka, Oklahoma riding many top Jim Shoulders bucking bulls, including NFR bull "Exterminator". When the dust settled, he had won the 1966 National High School Bull Riding championship and the Levi's Award - Reserve All Around Cowboy Championship.

Shortly afterwards, he joined the Rodeo Cowboys Association (now the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) at the urging of multiple World Champion Bull Rider Jim Shoulders and veteran rodeo clown Jack Long of San Antonio, Texas. At his first pro rodeo San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, he won nearly $1,000 with a first place win in one of the go-rounds.

Lyda attended Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde, Texas on a rodeo scholorship and won the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association Reserve Champion Bull Riding title in 1967 in California.

He decided to become a full-time professional bull rider shortly afterwards and competed at such prestigious rodeos as National Western Stock Show Rodeo, Grand National Rodeo, Cheyenne Frontier Days,Pendleton Round-Up, American Royal Rodeo, Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, Calgary Stampede and most of the major professional rodeos. In 1967, he was ranked in the Top 15 Bull Riders and qualified for the 1967 National Finals Rodeo held in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Lyda rode 7 out of 8 bulls at the National Finals Rodeo, bucking off his last bull in the last go-round. Another bull riding injury in 1976 at a professional rodeo in East Texas, Lyda was sidelined for nearly a year, but he eventually returned to bull riding. Lyda managed his family’s convert|6000|acre|km2|sing=on cattle ranch located south of San Antonio for nearly 10 years, competing professionally on a part-time basis.

In 1976, he resigned from the Rodeo Cowboys Association and started entering open and semi-professional rodeos throughout Texas—winning more money in open rodeo competition than what he won in professional rodeo.

When his father acquired ranches in New Mexico, Lyda was made ranch manager for the ranches and eventually moved to the largest of the New Mexico ranches known as The Ladder Ranch. Headquartered near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico in Sierra County, the Lyda family raised commercial Angus-bred cattle.

After 8 years in New Mexico, the Ladder Ranch was traded to media mogul Ted Turner and his then-wife Jane Fonda. This necessitated the rounding up of 5,000 wild cattle and the relocation of these cattle to a new ranch in West Texas—located convert|20|mi|km south of Fort Stockton, Texas. Rather than re-branding the 5,000 Ladder Ranch cattle, Lyda registered the brand under the Spanish word for "ladder" and La Escalera Ranch was born. He and his family assumed management of La Escalera Ranch, where he serves as Ranch Manager of the Fort Stockton Division today.

La Escalera Ranch has since expanded its borders and now covers portions of Pecos County, Reeves County, Brewster County, Baylor County and Archer County. The ranch is currently owned and operated by La Escalera Limited Partnership, a family entity controlled by Lyda siblings, Gene Lyda, Gerald D. Lyda and Eunita Jo Lyda.

ee also

*La Escalera Ranch
*Pecos County, Texas
*Gerald Lyda
*Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association
*National Finals Rodeo
*Bull Riding
*Rodeo

External links

* [http://www.escalera.us/ La Escalera Ranch website]
* [http://prorodeo.org/ Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association]
* [http://nhsra.com/records/bull_riding.shtml/ National High School Rodeo Association - Past Champions]
* [http://www.texasyouthrodeo.com/ Texas Youth Rodeo Association]