Wimberley’s Cowboy to be honored at VFW Rodeo

Wimberley’s Cowboy, Glenn Keith, has been called that for a long time, and his picture of riding a bull can be seen throughout town hidden in places like the menus at the Wimberley Café. If you are interested in small town local color, he’s near, if not at the top of the list.

Keith has a long list of accolades from his years in the rodeo world including being listed in state or regional Hall of Fames and Ring of Honors. He will add one more notch to his belt, as he will be honored at the Wimberley VFW Rodeo this year for not only his rodeo prowess but also his help during the construction of the Wimberley VFW Hall.

But the life of Glenn Keith can’t be summed up with a simple list of recognitions.

You can see Keith around town driving his welding truck as part of his metal works business, but he has played a part in the history of Wimberley and not just as a cowboy. He was raised with his sister in the historic Winters-Wimberley house with his mother and grandmother, Suzy Wimberley is one historic fact.

He was born just down from the road from the Shamrock in 1942, his mother’s family being from here and his father originally from Gonzales. His father’s side of the family moved here later. His paternal grandmother bought property and lived on the Square, dusty and dry with no grass able to grow on her property. In the rain, walking on the cement was required and walking in the mud was not a good thing.

“I got a thrashing if I left the sidewalk. She’d strip a peach tree limb, in one motion. She would warm me up…you’d think you were on fire.” Living with his other grandmother he started to pick up some of Suzy Wimberley’s habits, not all of them good for a kid.

“Suzy had the bad habit of cursing and when I got old enough to be friends with her, I took up the cursing part. My mother and sister were religious, and I would get my mouth washed out with lye soap. In those days you made your own soap using lye. I saw the skull and crossbones on the package of lye and thought ‘you’re trying to kill me, you’re history, bub.’ I was fast on foot so they never caught me. I learned to not curse in front of women, especially my mother and sister,” Keith said.

“The Winters-Wimberley House, I believe, we were the last ones to live there,” Keith said.

His father was a rodeo man. That’s how he met Keith’s mother. “He was in the rodeo at Rio Bonito. There was no pen. Cars would form a circle and that was the original arena.”

He went to school here and in the seventh grade got a job at the El Rancho grocery where Ace is now located. He sacked bags and stocked groceries. At the time there were only a couple of hundred people living around the valley.

Then it was ninth grade and he had to travel to San Marcos for high school. When he graduated from high school, he attended Southwest Texas, now Texas State University, for a short time.

“I got so involved in the rodeo, I did not go back. Bulls, barebacks, broncos, I loved it.” It’s a family trait. “Younger brother Will Keith still ropes calves. He’s good at it, he keeps good horses.”

Following in his dad’s rodeo footsteps wasn’t his first job though. He was working construction and was run over by a truck. “The doctor said it was good having dual tires, because one would have cut me in half.” He took a long time recuperating. But after a few years he hit the rodeo trail.

He was a partner in a rock business in town located where Brookshire brothers is located now, “only closer to the road. It was building rock, quarried from the hills here as a business. My partner was a dentist in town.”

But the rodeo beckoned.

He has appeared in many rodeos including in Monterrey Mexico, Madison Square Garden and up into Canada. He’s hit the highs and lows throughout his career. One of the highs was his biggest paying win in Las Vegas. He previously learned the hard way and didn’t blow it on the slots and cards this time.

Keith came in second overall, in 1972 in the Texas Rodeo Year End Finals where he won the Bull Riding competition. “I won a saddle, buckle and money. It was a good win.” His adversaries, the bulls, were mean and ugly.

“If you’re down, they’ll hook you bad. Once in Pasadena one almost hooked my clothes off. If they are very mean, they’ll want to stay (on you) and kill you… I’m pretty lucky, some of them (other contestants) were unlucky.”

One memorable rodeo night was in Stonewall where the Peach Queen contestants were in the spotlight, with the rest of the arena in the dark. He accidently knocked over a performer on his butt. Keith apologized and expressed that he was nervous because President Lyndon Johnson was in the audience. The performer also expressed being nervous as it was his first rodeo performance. That’s when Charley Pride introduced himself. “Pride came back after the performance and I met his wife,” Keith said.

He’s had a lot of honors including into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2003 and in 2018 was inducted into South Central Texas Rodeo Cowboy Reunion’s Ring of Honor.

After retiring from the arena in the early 90s, he went back to a skill he learned in high school, welding. “I got into welding metal and working with the public…I worked for big ranches doing metal work, gates, stairs…keeps me busy making gates. It’s been a good business to be in for lots of years.” For a while he also raised bucking broncos.

Being a professional cowboy in retirement does have its advantages. The movie, “Lonesome Dove,” need a few authentic looking cowboys for the cattle drive to be filmed. Keith was there. Hanging out with Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duval brought a smile to Keith’s face. “Those boys sure could cut up,” he said.

Hanging out with George Strait was also another one of his acting jobs, having been hired to be in a Chevy commercial. It has been a pretty exciting life for one born in the small town of Wimberley. Most mornings the now Great Grandfather can be found hanging out at the Wimberley Café both on the menu, that’s him riding the bull Yellow Fever back in 1972, and with his welding truck hanging out at the Square still living life as Wimberley’s Cowboy.