The rodeo world is mourning the death of Hall of Fame bronc riding legend “Cody” Bill Smith at age 83. He loved Cody, Wyoming, so much he adopted it as his hometown and nickname.
Smith, a three-time Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association (PRCA) saddle bronc riding champion, died June 1. He was 83.
His wife Carole said she’s grateful for an outpouring of love and memories from the rodeo community and others.
She said that Bill would have been pleased to see that his legacy was about his rodeo days and not about the horse sales the couple had hosted for more than two decades in Thermopolis, Wyoming.
“He told me that everybody now remembered him as the horse sale guy,” she said. “But he would much rather be known as the bronc rider that he was.”
His younger brother Rick Smith remembers Bill as a man of great integrity and honesty.
“He was probably one of the most respected rodeo contestants in the history of rodeo,” Rick said. “The outpouring that I've gotten and Carole's gotten from the rodeo world is unbelievable.”
Bill loved the rodeo life and kept active, visiting friends behind the chutes and signing autographs.
“It’s the best life,” Carole said. “And it's full of lots and lots of good friends.”
Bill was a bronc rider in the 1960s and ’70s when nicknames were a big deal. As he won championships across the country, it was known that he was from Cody, Wyoming, so the name “Cody” Bill was given to him.
He actually was born and raised in Red Lodge, Montana, but moved to Cody as a youth and adopted it as his hometown.
“It’s just cowboy vernacular,” fellow rodeo contestant Donnie Gray said. “He picked it up somewhere along the trail and it sounded a little bit like Wild Bill.”
It was that Wild Bill mentality that drew him to rodeo, Bill Smith said in a 2015 interview with the ational Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
“I rodeoed because I loved to ride bucking horses,” he said. “These guys (today) ride to make a living.”
The rodeo world is mourning the death of Hall of Fame bronc riding legend “Cody” Bill Smith at age 83. He loved Cody, Wyoming, so much he adopted it as his hometown and nickname. (National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum) 
The rodeo world is mourning the death of Hall of Fame bronc riding legend “Cody” Bill Smith at age 83. He loved Cody, Wyoming, so much he adopted it as his hometown and nickname. (National Rodeo Hall of Fame) 
The rodeo world is mourning the death of Hall of Fame bronc riding legend “Cody” Bill Smith at age 83. He loved Cody, Wyoming, so much he adopted it as his hometown and nickname. (National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum) 
The rodeo world is mourning the death of Hall of Fame bronc riding legend “Cody” Bill Smith at age 83. He loved Cody, Wyoming, so much he adopted it as his hometown and nickname. (National Rodeo Hall of Fame)
Early Years
Bill spent his young childhood in Montana in the Red Lodge-Bear Creek area, where he developed his passion for all things horses.
By the time his little brother Rick came along and was able to toddle after his much older brother, the family had moved to Cody, where Bill spent his high school years.
“Bill was the first one in our family to pursue professional rodeo,” Rick said. “It was something he kind of did it on his own. I think a lot of it came from the love of horses and part of it was because we were a very poor family.”
Rick said his older brother wanted a better life and that he saw rodeo as his ticket out of poverty. The Cody Nite Rodeo gave him the opportunity to pursue his dream.
“Moving to Cody was a big thing, because in the ’50s, Red Lodge and Cody were a long way apart,” Rick said. “Living in Cody gave a lot of those young people an opportunity to pursue rodeo. They were right there, and you could ride rodeo every night and stay in your own bed that night.”
Rodeo Accolades
Donnie Gay met Bill Smith when the latter was already known as Cody Bill. The two would often cross paths in the rodeo arena even though Gay was a bull rider and Bill rode broncs.
“Bill was already one of the top bronc riders and a world champion already,” Gay said. “He was the first real phenomenon in my mind since Casey Tibbs.”
Gay was from Texas and knew many good bronc riders, but said that Bill was a real straight professional.
“He had long, skinny legs,” Gay said. “Bill Smith was a consistent winner for over 15 years on the pro rodeo circuit. When you talked about saddle bronc riding, invariably the name Cody Bill would surface. He was odds on favorite at every rodeo.”
“He was just focused on rodeo,” Carole added. “What he liked best about rodeo was horses that bucked.”
Bill also had a reputation for never drinking, smoking or swearing.
“He was real determined,” Carole said. “He didn't mess around and just wanted to rodeo. It was all he ever wanted to know and do.”
Between 1965 and 1978, Bill qualified for the National Finals Rodeo 13 times in 14 years. He won the PRCA World Saddle Bronc Riding Championship three times, in 1969, 1971 and 1973.
In 1979, he was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame and into the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum's Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2012, he was honored with the Ben Johnson Memorial Award.
Bill won 17 saddle bronc riding rodeo championships over his 15-year career.
He won the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo three times, the Snake River Stampede three times, the Greeley Stampede twice, the Guymon Pioneer Days Rodeo twice, the La Fiesta de los Vaqueros Rodeo twice and the Cheyenne Frontier Days, Cody Stampede, Red Bluff Round-Up, National Western Stock Show & Rodeo, and World's Oldest Rodeo/Prescott Rodeo once.
Over all that time and all the broncs he rode, Cody Bill said legendary six-time bucking horse of the year Descent was by far the toughest — and the horse he held the most respect for.
Descent “was the greatest bucking horse I ever saw by a large margin,” he said in a 2015 interview with the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. “The last time I rode him was in ’76 or ’77 in Nampa, Idaho. He was true and honest rank, but he wasn’t unrideable.”
Cody Bill said he rode Descent nine times and finished with a career record of 5-4. However, he said the last time he rode the horse it was getting older, so he really considers them even.
“My hat’s off to him,” he said.
After retiring in 1979, Smith stayed active in the rodeo community, operating a nightly PRCA-sanctioned rodeo
It was during this period in Bill’s life when Carole met her future husband.
“I got married in ’79,” she said. “I met him in ’73, and I was rodeoing professionally, and he was, too. And that's how we met with rodeo. … I was a barrel racer.”
But after her horse became lame, she quit the circuit and went back to teaching school.
“I didn't get to do it very long,” she said. “But they were the best years, especially with the friends we met and made along the way.”
The rodeo world is mourning the death of Hall of Fame bronc riding legend “Cody” Bill Smith at age 83. He loved Cody, Wyoming, so much he adopted it as his hometown and nickname. (National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum) 
The rodeo world is mourning the death of Hall of Fame bronc riding legend “Cody” Bill Smith at age 83. He loved Cody, Wyoming, so much he adopted it as his hometown and nickname. (National Rodeo Hall of Fame)
Next Chapter After Pro-Rodeo
In 1979, when Bill was 37, he retired from bronc riding and married Carole, who was then 34.
Bill taught clinics across the county. At home, the couple began to raise horses and sell them around Wyoming at various sales.
They were living in a trailer house in Cody when a friend of Carole’s offered to lease them a ranch in Thermopolis. The couple wanted to expand their horse operation and were excited for the opportunity of more land.
Eventually, they bought the property then known as the Wyoming Quarter Horse Ranch. It became the base for their next business venture, which was their own horse sale.
The Smith family would go on to sell, on average, about 100 horses at each sale beginning in 1983.
“It was a big part of our life, and it set us up,” Carole said. “There was a lot of ups and downs in it, but it was what we loved to do. And in the end, we came out okay with it.”
Carole said that they had 39 sales in just over two decades, hosting a spring and fall sale for many years. Rick and their nephew, Reid, helped with all the sales over the years and the family strove to have a reputation as a fair sale.
“I rode most of the horses through the ring at the sale,” Rick said. “My wife and I were always involved in the sale since its inception.”
The family was one of the first to guarantee their horses and would strive to make sure that the horses were the best fit possible to their new owners.
“It was in our best interest to have the horse fit the buyer,” Rick said. “When they left there, we wanted them to be satisfied and the horse to get along with the people.”
“We were real careful about not putting anything in there that we knew wouldn't work because we always wanted the best ones in there,” Carole said.
Potential horse buyers agreed that you could expect quality horses each year at the Thoroughbred Horse Sale.
“All the livestock were really just all picture horses,” George Spoonhunter said. He had been at the sale before they ended, hoping to buy a horse and was amazed at the quality he saw. “They were just really something. Bill put together quite a string of them.”
“That's all a testament to Bill's character and honesty and hard work,” Rick said. “Horse sales are tough business.”
Bill would try to talk to the people beforehand and find out what they needed in a horse. In that way, he could feel confident in what he tried to point them toward.
“In 2022, we hung it up,” Carole said. “It was getting to be too much work, but I still have two mares and their foals and one riding gelding. I have to have some horses around here. That's my life, too.”
Remembered
A memorial is being planned at the Cody Nite Rodeo to honor Bill Smith and his rodeo legacy.
Before Bill passed away, he had learned that a bucking horse sale and a matched bronc riding at the Stampede Grounds on July 28 was going to be named in his honor
“Bill was very excited about that and honored to have his name attached to it,” Rick said. “Well, we have decided now since Bill passed, that we will have a memorial that day at 1 p.m. at the Cody Arena as a celebration of life for Bill. That'll be our tribute from the rodeo world.”
As plans are underway for the memorial, Bill is remembered most as a man of great character.
“He was honest and very giving,” Carole said. “We always did things together.”
For Rick, he said that Bill was more than just a brother, he was his best friend.
“I’m so proud of everything he accomplished and so proud to be his brother,” Rick said.
“He was very quiet, almost reticent in comparison with a lot of cowboys that would have a lot of swagger and stuff,” Gay said. “He just went about his business nonchalantly and was always at the pay window. He was the ultimate professional.”
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
