The real cowboy way. The photo takes me straight back to a Freedom bull ride… Rowdy in his element, managing the show, watching every gate, every rider, every bull like a hawk. What most folks don’t see in moments like this is the years of work behind it. Training a bucking bull isn’t about “making” one mean. It’s about developing natural athletic instinct. You start young, teaching them to load calmly, stand in the chute without blowing up, break clean, buck hard, and most importantly… turn...

A Short Story By: Anita Waggoner When Rowdy read the first draft of Freedom, he was thrilled. He recognized our ranch, our struggles, our laughter, and pieces of himself on every page. What meant the most to me was that he understood I wasn’t simply writing a Western. I was preserving the life we had built together, with all its grit, heartbreak, humor, and love. Rowdy didn’t live to see how far Freedom would travel, from the original book to award-winning screenplays and completed television...

There is a difference between researching a world and remembering one. When I write about ranches, rodeos, bucking bulls, cowboys, small towns, long drives, financial risks, unpredictable animals, and people whose word can still mean something, I don’t have to imagine what that world feels like. I lived it. My connection to the Western way of life began long before I ever thought about writing a screenplay. I was raised with rodeo in my blood. My grandfather, Leo Moomaw, was one of the...