From the Vault: Looking back at the past Sharon Shoulders award winners
Though Sharon Shoulders recently passed away at age 91, her legacy lives on with the other incredible women of the PBR.
By Justin Felisko
PUEBLO, Colo. – The legacy of Sharon Shoulders and her impact on the PBR and Western industry will forever remain constant, and the matriarch of the PBR left a lasting impression on everyone she encountered through the years.
During the PBR’s return to Cowtown Coliseum last weekend, the PBR caught up with a handful of PBR Heroes & Legends and others who have been inspired and impacted by the late Sharon Shoulders.
Today, PBR.com’s From the Vault series revisits the past 10 Sharon Shoulders Award recipients.
When two-time World Champion Chris Shivers stepped up to the podium at the South Point Hotel Casino & Spa to present the Sharon Shoulders Award to his wife, Kylie, at the PBR Heroes & Legends Celebration, he immediately overcame with emotion.
“Already,” he said of his tears to a round of applause. “We might have to watch that (tribute) video a little early.”
When it was Kylie’s turn to take the microphone and accept the award following said video, she didn’t fare much better.
“Growing up in a home where rodeo and bull riding was the No. 1 sport talked about, I never dreamed…” she began before tearing up. Turning to Chris, standing in the wings, she lamented, “I’m going to cry, too! We’re just a bunch of crybabies!”
She would know – when Chris was inducted into the PBR Ring of Honor in 2013, he shed quite a few tears through that induction speech as well.
It’s been a long road for the two PBR legends. They met in 1999, when Kylie was 16 and Chris was 19. That year, Kylie attended her first PBR World Finals, making her first trip to Las Vegas – and first trip ever on an airplane.
Twenty years later, it was her turn to take center stage.
When Sharon Shoulders stepped up to the podium to introduce her namesake award at the PBR’s Heroes and Legends Celebration in Las Vegas, she implored the room full of cowboys to appreciate the women standing beside them.
“If it weren’t for these beautiful wives, where would you guys be?” Shoulders asked.
Justin McBride, who followed her at the microphone and presented the award to his wife Jill, had the answer to that question.
“I can honestly tell you that without my wife Jill, there’s a pretty good shot I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you all right now.”
It was never hard to walk away from a conversation with Julie Carrillo and feel inspired, motivated, loved or welcomed.
The wife of PBR co-founder Gilbert Carrillo had a contagious fire in her for all realms of life and it left a lasting impression on those that ever crossed paths with the Stephenville, Texas, native.
Her passion for her family, husband, bucking bulls and the Western way of life defined her.
Sadly, Julie, 42, passed away in June 2017 following a battle with cancer that began shortly following the 2014 PBR World Finals when she was first diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.
“Most people would get frustrated with each other, we never did,” Gilbert said during a Heroes & Legends tribute video. “We were the opposite. When we didn’t see each other, and we weren’t around each other, we would be depressed. We were a team. A pretty damn good team.”
Nine-time World Champion and good friend Ty Murray remembered when Gilbert and Julie first began dating.
He could tell Gilbert knew he had found the woman of his dreams and the love of his life.
“She has always been great,” Murray said. “She was a great, loving wife and stood by him through thick and thin. They raised those kids. She was always a super partner. They got together and they were partners.
“Everything they have done, they have done together.”
Yes, she said the good “Lord knew what He was doing when he put us together.”
LeAnn, the 2016 recipient of the Sharon Shoulder’s Award, would be honored during the Heroes & Legends Celebration held at the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa, in Las Vegas.
That night, she knew everyone would expect her to share stories about how tough it is being married to a gritty, hardnosed former bull rider known as “The Iron Man.”
“I think everybody expects me to get up there and bash on J-Dub a little bit,” LeAnn said, “because it’s kind of rough being his wife sometimes.”
There’s no doubt he’s toughened her up over the years and conversely, she’s “knocked some of the edges” off him.
What most people – even those behind the scenes of the PBR – don’t see is how well she holds her own with him and, in truth, can make it just as tough on him. LeAnn can be pretty demanding when she wants to be.
In fact, when it comes to working their Oklahoma ranch together, she can put in just as many hours in the pasture feeding cattle and mending fences as he does.
More than 30 years later, Michael Gaffney vividly remembers the first time he saw his future wife.
She was 13 years old. He was 12.
They had never met until he saw her one night at a dance following a youth rodeo in the northwest corner of New Mexico — not far from the famous four corners, where New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona all meet.
“I thought what a beautiful person,” he recalled, “and I had only been around her for just a few minutes. She was wearing the tightest stinkin’ pants you’d ever seen in your life – just because it was the early ‘80s – tight pants and like a satin maroon shirt.”
She was six months older than him.
He was smitten. And still is.
It would be another six years before they started dating and eventually married – they celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in 2015 – and they are, perhaps, one of the most unique couples in the PBR.
Michael Gaffney is a World Champion bull rider, while Dr. Robyn Gaffney is a surgical pathologist, who specializes in diagnosing cancer.
There’s no better word than faith to associate with Stacey Custer.
She’s relied on faith for her entire adult life.
Faith gave her the clarity to so quickly realize when she had met the man who would become her husband. It was faith that helped her to compartmentalize the worry and dangers of being married to a professional bull rider. Faith helped to raise a house with three children and to move from Louisiana to Arizona and later from there to Oklahoma.
And, of course, she leaned heavily on faith three years ago when she and Cody lost their oldest son.
“Since I’ve come to a different place in my relationship spiritually,” she explained, “that’s the only thing I’ve known to do to get through life. It ties into every area of life. You have to trust something and I know there are some people who don’t believe like we believe and I’m good with that, but even with them, they need to have something or someone that they trust. That’s just life.
“We have to rely on trust.”
The story of Stacey Custer begins and ends with her family’s faith.
Brazilian native Adriano Moraes has earned a record three world titles on the Professional Bull Riders circuit. He's also among only three cowboys who stayed on all 10 bulls at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.
Throughout his illustrious career, he's persevered though many injuries and there have been those discouraging times when he's been thrown off a bull when thousands of dollars were at stake.
But through it all, his wife Flavia, has stood behind him, while also helping him become an international star.
Dunn was the third woman to receive the Sharon Shoulders Award. Dunn, who is the wife of former World Champion Troy Dunn, has been influential not only in terms of helping to grow the sport and the PBR's presence in Australia, where she used to be a vice president for PBR Australia, but she has also played a key role in helping riders make the transition from Down Under to competing in the United States.
2011: LeAnne Lambert
Leanne Lambert is the wife of PBR co-founder and Livestock Director Cody Lambert. Working quietly behind the scenes of Cody’s more publicly visible life, Leanne’s warmth and constancy have made her a great friend and role model for many of the PBR’s other wives and girlfriends.
2010: Tiffany Davis
Tiffany Davis, the wife of Ring of Honor member and 1995 World Champion Jerome Davis, was in the stands in Fort Worth, Texas, when Jerome was paralyzed in a fall in 1998. Friends since childhood, they married about seven months after his injury, despite attempts by Jerome to “run her off.” They have not spent a night apart since.
The two live in Archdale, N.C., where they breed and raise top-notch bucking bulls, host a variety of bull riding events at the Davis Rodeo Arena, a 5,000-seat venue they constructed just a short ride from their home, and run the Jerome Davis Bull Riding School.
