The Pickup Men

At a rodeo, the stars of the show tend to be the bull and bronc riders, the ropers, steer wrestlers and barrel racers. The bullfighters, who dodge bucking bulls to help riders, also draw a lot of eyeballs. But it may be easy to overlook pickup men like Pete White and Jesse Johnston, who every year play a vital role in pulling off a safe and entertaining Lincoln Rodeo.

"If you don't notice us, we're doin' our job," said White, who has been picking up the Lincoln rodeo for 19 years. Johnston has been White's partner in the arena here for about eight years.

Outfitted in wide, padded full-length chaps, the pickup men are most noticeable when they spring into action, helping a bronc rider off his mount, wrangling a wayward bucking horse or chasing down (and sometimes be chased by) the occasional truculent bull.

"A pickup man really is a safety person," White said. "Our goal is to make sure the livestock is safe and that the cowboys are safe as well. We kind of keep the arena clear so other people can compete."

White and Johnston both worked their way up to become pickup men.

"I grew up in it," said White, of Arlee. His family owned Pistol Creek Rodeo which ran the Lincoln Rodeo for about 25 years, before stepping back to let Kittson Rodeo take it over in 2019. He started out in the back pens, sorting the bucking bulls, horses and steers for the events.

"I got into it just by default," said White, who picked up his first bucking horse at just 16. "I kind of had to. It was either that or working the back pens, and I didn't like working the back pens."

Johnston, from Polson, started by helping out in the practice pens from time to time, when someone needed a hand. Then he got the chance to pickup during a rodeo and has been a pickup man for about "10 or 15 years" now.

Johnston said it was White who invited him to work the Lincoln Rodeo one time a few years ago. He's been part of it ever since.

"It's word of mouth," he said. "People see you. You've got to have an in, but you've got to be ready to do the job and have the horses to do it."

"Pickup men, they've pretty much done it all," White said. "It's one of those things where everybody kind of wants to do it and, like Jesse says, you kind of have to be patient and have the right animals and the right horses and you get the call."

Both men agree that having the right horses, and knowing how to use them, is one of the biggest parts of the gig these days. Not every horse is cut out for getting up close alongside a bucking horse or dealing with a couple thousand pounds of disgruntled bull.

"You have to have good horses' underneath you," Johnston said. "They've got to be brave, very brave," he said. "They've got to be really broke."

"And gritty," White added. "They gotta be real gritty."

He said just 15 or 20 years ago it wasn't as big a deal for pickup men to have real good horses. "But today, we have horses that have real strong bloodlines; AQHA, horses off the track, cow cuttin' horses; performance horses, basically."

Excellent horsemanship, coupled with the ability for the pickup men to stay calm is equally important.

"You can't get rattled," Johnston said. "When there's a wreck out there, you've got to be pretty sound minded to go into it and think through it. You've got to think quick, too. You can't have delayed thinking. Just gotta be muscle memory."

He said having a good partner is also key.

But it's not just the pickup men who have to work well together. Once the bulls are in the chutes, the bullfighters take center stage among the rodeo crew.

"You want to stay out of their way and let them do their job," Johnston said. "Once they get the rider off the bull and away from him; we want to get a rope on the bull if the guy is down."

He said the good bullfighters also help the pickup men. "If you've got a bull that's spinning away from the out gate, they'll spin him around toward the out gate."

"Rodeo is a production," White said. "We're all here to make it fun and smooth for entertainment value. They understand that too. If they can get the bull to turn, to where we don't have to rope 'em, it's better for the overall rodeo."

White said open rodeos like Lincolns are among their favorites to pick up. "It's more family. Kids get to barrel race. Others have junior breakaway and stuff, so your family can actually come and compete, and you're not worried about all the stresses of the rodeo.

"That's big for us," Johnston agreed. "We both have families. Our families are all in it. We go to the rodeos our kids can go to."v