Frost, Lane

Lane Frost

1963-1989

American bull rider

Lane Frost was a rising star in bull riding who won championships at rodeos across the West during the 1980s. He was the sixteenth ranked cowboy in the nation in his first year as a professional bull rider, at age nineteen, and in the top fifteen every year after that. He became the world champion of bull riding at the age of twenty-four, but his promising career was cut short two years later when he was gored by a bull at one of the most famous rodeos of all, the Cheyenne Frontier Days, in 1989.

Early Years

Bull riding was in Frost's blood. His father, Clyde, was a bull rider, and was, in fact, away on the rodeo circuit when Frost was born. Frost's mother, Elsie, recalls that even as a baby, Frost was fascinated by bull riding. As the story is told on the Lane Frost home page, starting when Frost was about five months old he would wake up just as the bull riding competition, always the last event of a rodeo, was beginning. If the Frosts tried to leave early to beat the crowds, Frost would start to fuss, but as soon as they sat down and let him watch the bull riding he would be happy.

The Frosts owned a dairy farm in Utah, and it was here that Lane got his first riding experience, on the family's calves. At the age of ten he competed in his first rodeo, placing first in the bareback riding competition on a Shetland pony, second in calf roping, and third in calf riding. At the age of fifteen, Frost graduated to riding bulls instead of calves, and he started taking lessons from the famous bull rider Freckles Brown. In a very short period of time, Frost had become a major figure on the rodeo circuit in Oklahoma, where his family had moved when he was fourteen. He was the bull riding champion of the Oklahoma Youth Rodeo Association from his sophomore year in high school, 1980, until he graduated in 1982. By his senior year he was also the bull riding champion of the American Junior Rodeo Association.

Professional Career

Frost became a professional cowboy in 1983. He placed sixteenth in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association standings that year, only one place short of qualifying for the National Rodeo Finals. This would be the only year of his professional career that he did not qualify. Still, he had some consolations: he was the PRCA's Prairie Circuit bull riding champion, and he was runner-up for Rookie of the Year.

In 1985 Frost married Kellie Kyle, a Texan whom he had met while competing in National High School Rodeo finals in 1980. Their marriage was sometimes strained, since Frost spent so much time on the road. The couple moved from Frost's town of Lane, Oklahoma, to Kellie's hometown of Quanah, Texas, in 1987, but by 1988 they had decided to separate for a time. They reconciled a few months later, shortly after Frost became a born-again Christian, and started making plans to build a ranch in Oklahoma, midway between Lane and Quanah. Frost was planning to spend less time on the rodeo circuit and more time at home raising his own bulls, helping his parents with their ranch, running a bull-riding school, and starting a family. Frost left for a time to compete at the Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1989, but he and Kellie already had a project lined up for when he returned: they had been hired to work together as stunt doubles in the movie My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, which was being filmed in Oklahoma. They were also awaiting approval of their loan to buy the land where they planned to build their ranch.

Last Ride

The Cheyenne Frontier Days, a nine-day-long event attended by tens of thousands of rodeo fans, is one of the biggest, best-known, oldest (begun in 1897), and most prestigious rodeos in the country. The bull riding championships are held on the last day of the rodeo, which was Sunday, July 30, in 1989. Frost had already completed two rides earlier in the week, and he was in second place coming into the last day. He completed his ride on a tough bull, Takin' Care of Business, on which he had failed to complete a ride at another rodeo about a month prior. At the end of the eight seconds, Frost did his trademark dismount, rolling off of the animal's left hindquarters. Normally, when this was done with the bull was charging forward, it gave Frost plenty of time to get up and away before the bull could change directions and threaten him. However, on this day the bull turned and charged almost immediately. It had rained a great deal that week, and Frost, still on his knees, could get no traction in the thick mud. The bull struck him twice. The first blow knocked him flat on the ground; the second, with one of the bull's horns, fractured several ribs and severed a major artery, although the horn did not break his skin. Frost managed to get up and run for the gate, but he collapsed and died before he reached it.

Chronology

1956	Born July 13, 1956, in LaJunta, Colorado, to Clyde and Elsie Frost
1974	Wins first rodeo awards, at the Little Buckaroos Rodeo in Uintah Basin, Utah
1977	Frost family moves to Lane, Oklahoma
1982	Graduates from Atoka High School
1983	Becomes a full member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association
1984	Qualifies for the National Rodeo Finals for the first time
1985	Marries Kellie in Quanah, Texas, January 5
1985	Teaches his first bull-riding class
1988	Competes in the only rodeo exhibition ever held as part of the Winter Olympics
1988	Briefly separates from Kellie
1988	Becomes a born-again Christian, March 8
1989	Dies after being gored by a bull at the Cheyenne Frontier Days, July 30
1994	8 Seconds is released

Awards and Accomplishments

1978	Small Fry Rodeo
1980-82	Oklahoma Youth Rodeo
1980	Runner-up, National High School Rodeo
1981	National High School Rodeo
1982	American Junior Rodeo
1982	First Annual Youth Nationals
1983	Prairie Circuit Bull Riding Champion
1983	Received "Tough Luck" award at the Super Bull
1983	Named runner-up for Bull Rider Rookie of the Year
1985	Super Bull
1986	National Bull Riding Finals, Average Winner
1986	Runner-up, Winston Tour
1987	Pendleton Round-Up
1987	Texas Circuit Bull Riding Champion
1987	National Bull Riding Finals
1988	Olympic gold (team) and bronze (individual)
1988	Dodge National Circuit Finals
1989	Received Coors Favorite Cowboy award (posthumously)
1990	Inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame
1990	Became first recipient of the Lane Frost Memorial Award

Frost's Legacy

Lane's tragic death sparked a plethora of tributes, including the creation of a Cowboy Crisis Fund that provides assistance to the families of cowboys and cowgirls who are injured or killed in competitions. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys was dedicated to Frost, and several years after his death the movie 8 Seconds, based on Frost's life and starring Luke Perry (of Beverly Hills 90210 fame), was released in 1994. Promoted with the tag line, "The sport made him a Legend. His heart made him a Hero," 8 Seconds focused primarily on Frost's familial and romantic relationships. As with most dramatic adaptations, the facts of Frost's life were altered somewhat to create a better story. Frost's family protested some of these changes, particularly the film's assertions that Frost cheated on Kellie during their 1988 separation and that Frost was driven to succeed in bull riding in an attempt to satisfy his hard-to-please father. The family was also disappointed that the film made no mention of Frost's embrace of Christianity.

His family's home church, the Lane Baptist Church, distributes cowboy Bibles, created in Frost's honor, which include his picture on the front and his story inside the front cover. Also, a fifteen-foot-tall statue of Frost riding a bucking bull was erected in front of the Frontier Days Park in Cheyenne. A more practical tribute was the invention of protective vests which cowboys now wear in competitions to help prevent the sort of injury which killed Frost.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Other

"Lane Frost: Gone But Not Forgotten." About.com. http://rodeo.about.com/library/weekly/aa092899.htm (October 7, 2002).

Lane Frost Home Page. http://www.lanefrost.com/ (October 7, 2002).

Savlov, Marc. Review of 8 Seconds. Austin Chronicle. http://www.austinchronicle.com/film/pages/movies/1610.html (February 25, 1994).

Summary of 8 Seconds. Internet Movie Database. http://www.imbd.com/Title?0109021 (October 21, 2002).

Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame. http://www.texascowboyhalloffame.com/ (October 7, 2002).

Weisfeld, Robert. Review of 8 Seconds. TV Guide. http://www.tvguide.com/movies/database/ShowMovie.asp?MI=36043 (October 21, 2002).

Sketch by Julia Bauder