A lifetime in the Stock Show

DENVER -- Lee Sheard said he was bitten by the National Western Stock Show bug as a youngster.

That was in 1934 and he hasn't missed a show since.

Sheard, who turned 91 last Saturday, has lived in Johnstown near his daughter for the past five years, but he was just 17 years old when he first came to the National Western from the eastern plains of Colorado 74 years ago.

"I had a shorthorn steer that I showed for 4-H. Sold him for 6 1/2 cents a pound and made a profit. I don't remember how much it was, but I made a profit," Sheard said Tuesday during a break from his volunteer duties at the Events Center in Denver. He's been an official volunteer with the stock show for the past 10 years, but he has a long and varied career with the show.

And with life.

Sheard said in 1934 the National Western consisted of the stockyards and the old Stadium Arena, which is now surrounded by the Hall of Education Building. He can remember when the Coliseum was added in the 1950s, then the expansion of the stadium and Hall of Education in the early 1980s and finally, the Events Center in the early 1990s.

"We had our steers in a circus tent, right north of the old stadium," he said.

Sheard came to Denver from Joes, where his parents had moved in 1916. He said his mother returned to Kansas, where he was born, but returned to Colorado when he was about 2 weeks old.

"My dad built a concrete block house out there and it's still standing today," 32 miles south of Yuma on Colo. 59 just north of U.S. 36, Sheard said.

Soon after that first stock show, Sheard joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, a work relief program for young men started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Dust Bowl and Depression days of the 1930s. He worked at camps in Estes Park and Red Feather Lakes. In 1936, he moved to Breckenridge, where he worked for a grocery store. He married in 1939 and lost his first wife in 1966, then remarried in 1967. She died in 1999.

By the early 1940s, Sheard was working as a railroad telegraph operator, a job that would eventually bring him back to the National Western in an official capacity.

After working for three years in Kremmling, the railroad transferred Sheard to Greeley and La Salle. He was to start the Shamrock 4-H Club of Greeley and spend the next several years taking 4-H kids to the National Western, including his son and daughter, Jim and Janice. Jim won the Denver Post Rodeo Costume Contest in 1948 and Janice was a second-place finisher in the same contest a year later. The contest required youngsters to dress in authentic cowboy attire.

"Jim got a spotted pony when he won and Janice got a gabardine western suit for her second place," Sheard said.

<strong>IF YOU GO</strong> The National Western Stock Show runs through January 27 at the National Western Complex, 4655 Humboldt St., Denver. For details and reservations, call (888) 551-5004 or go to www.nationalwestern.com

In the 1970s, when Sheard was working as the livestock agent for six railroads hauling cattle out of the National Western stockyards, he began riding with a palomino horse group at Shriners Night at the stock show. Following his railroad retirement in 1977, he moved to Cañon City, where he was to go to work for a horse supply company.

"I was the last livestock agent for the railroad down here," Sheard said. "They never replaced me when I retired."

But he was to work for the horse supply company for nearly 20 more years, and at the same time fell in love with mules. He joined a Shrine precision mule riding organization, then became a part of the Colorado Mules Riders about 30 years ago that has won several national competitions. He continues to go on trail rides with that group every year in the Colorado mountains.

Sheard even organized a trail ride in North Park for couples more than 10 years ago, and he plans to ride again this May.

He attributes his longevity to the mules -- and one other thing.

"Life has been good to me. I go to church on occasion, about every Sunday. I blame my good luck on the mules and the fact that I say thanks to the old boy upstairs every chance I get," Sheard said.