2023-10-12 05:50:58
Phil Baird
The founding of the statewide North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame has ties to Minot.
Rodeo historian, educator and former rodeo competitor Phil Baird, along with western icon Evelyn Neuens, and her sister, Goldie Nutter, were on their way home on U.S. Highway 83, south of Minot, following attending the 40th anniversary of the Minot Y’s Men’s Rodeo in Minot when Baird brought up his idea to start an organization to honor North Dakota rodeo competitors.
When he told his idea to Neuens, she thought it was a great idea and Baird, in an interview with The Minot Daily News in 2020, said he knew right then that they were on their way.
Co-founder Baird died Sept. 25 in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Following that night when Baird and Neuens agreed to start a rodeo hall of fame, meetings were held across the state and the idea continued to develop.
Besides honoring rodeo competitors, North Dakota ranching and Native Americans were added, with the horse as the key thread to tie them together, according to Baird in the 2020 interview.
The organization was formally organized and incorporated in 1995. Medora was selected as the site for the Hall, and Baird and Neuens brought on Darrell Dorgan of Bismarck as the organization’s first executive director.
Following extensive fundraising, the ribbon was cut on the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame – Center of Western Heritage & Cultures: Native American, Ranching and Rodeo in Medora in 2005. Neuens died in 2008.
Today, the N.D. Cowboy Hall of Fame has grown to more than 1,000 members along with more than 300 trustees representing the entire state in 12 districts plus a district for out-of-state people. Ward County/Minot is represented in District 5. About 250 individuals, ranches and rodeo livestock have been inducted in the Hall of Honorees since the first induction ceremony in 1998.
Baird also served as president, vice president and interim executive director of the N.D. Cowboy Hall of Fame. He was the sixth recipient of the N.D. Cowboy Hall of Fame’s Legacy Award.
Baird also helped produce North Dakota’s State Centennial Rodeo during the 1989 North Dakota State Fair in Minot.
“I organized the last reunion with nine-times world rodeo champion Casey Tibbs and some of North Dakota’s pro rodeo champions of his generation. Some didn’t think I might pull that off but Casey’s purple angels were riding with me,” said Baird in the 2020 interview with The Minot Daily News. He said Tibbs passed away six months later in January 1990.
Baird returned to the 1990 State Fair and produced the last North Dakota Association Finals held at the All Seasons Arena.
Baird was named grand marshal of the 2020 North Dakota State Parade in Minot. However, the parade was canceled that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, the N.D. Cowboy Hall of Fame was selected as the 2022 grand marshal.
Services for Baird will be held Friday in Mission, South Dakota, and Saturday in Bismarck.
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