Legendary roper wasn't one to brag; he could have

Back in 1953, at a roping pen on a ranch in Snyder, in far West Texas, Lanham Riley met up with the legendary Toots Mansfield for a 10-head, tie-down match roping contest. Mansfield was a world champion; Riley was an up-and-comer. Bets were heavy that day as the two men started roping their calves.
One after another, they roped, flanked and tied in a flurry of dust. Neither roper missed a single calf, and at the end of the match, officials took more than an hour to tally the times. They checked and double- checked.
"They kept double-checking the times," Riley once told me, "because those guys were betting all of West Texas."
The official results: Riley tied his string of calves in 144.1 seconds; Mansfield took 144.2 seconds.
Ropers still talk about it today.
Lanham Riley of Aledo died Saturday, but memories of his match ropings, his climb up the professional ranks, the great horses he trained and his friendly, personable demeanor will never be forgotten. In his 86 years, he crafted a remarkable life as a horseman, a husband and a father.
His friends will gather this morning at Greenwood Chapel to remember -- and to celebrate -- Riley's life.
To visit with Riley was a treat. He had a remarkable memory and some truly colorful expressions. The only thing that slowed him down when recounting an experience was his reluctance to brag. You just couldn't get him to do it.
Riley was born July 5, 1919, in Snyder. Living about five miles out of town, he rode his horse to school and back each day. At home, he worked stock on his father's ranch. There were seven children: Lanham was the oldest boy; Harold, Doyle and James were younger. He also had three sisters: Geraldine, Carolyn and Dorothy.
Riley was breaking colts by the time he was 12. At 14, he landed his first ranch job. Three years later, he made his first rodeo at the Double Heart Ranch in Sweetwater.
He went to work for the Four Sixes Ranch in 1939. He left the ranch to work horses at the Army's Fort Royal in Virginia. The $200 a month he made there overshadowed the $45 a month he was getting at the Sixes. But by 1942 he was back in Texas in the Army Air Forces.
While in the service, Riley teamed up with football great Sammy Baugh in 1945 to rope in a match roping at Kelly Field in San Antonio. Riley and Baugh, who was a cowboy long before he was a football player, lost.
Riley was discharged at Kelly Field the next year.
Before nightfall, he had hitchhiked to San Angelo to pick up his few belongings. The next morning, he caught a ride to Fort Worth and by the end of the day, he was standing on the city's north side with a barracks bag and a saddle to his name.
He got on with Everett Colborn and his Madison Square Garden Rodeo. After Madison Square Garden came the rodeo at Boston Garden, then finally, he was able to return home.
Along the way, Riley met and fell in love with Mitzi Lucas, the daughter of world champion trick rider Tad Lucas. "She was the prettiest girl in rodeo," Riley told me of his wife. "You can quote me and no one will argue, I'll promise you that."
That was no brag, by the way, just fact.
Riley rodeoed throughout the '50s, and in 1965, he put away his ropes.
"When I quit, that was it," Riley said in one interview. "I sold my horse and walked away." He had already accumulated a lifetime of memories.
"I know I'm a very lucky man," he said in 1993, after being inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. "There are a lot of guys out there who are better cowboys and have won more. I was never a world champion. I'm just lucky."
We know better. He was a world champion, in a lot of ways.
His friend Red Steagall, who will handle today's eulogy, knew Riley well. "Whoever invented the word cowboy had Lanham Riley in mind," Steagall said Tuesday by phone from his ranch in Azle. "The world has never had a better horseman, nor a finer gentleman."