07/14/2026
One of our New Mexico neighbors! Winners win!
He beat his own cousin Roy Cooper by just $47.60 to win the All-Around World Championship. Then he walked away from professional rodeo in the prime of his career to raise his kids.
Born in 1956 in Monument New Mexico — the same small town that produced his famous cousin Roy Cooper — Jimmie Cooper came from a rodeo family where rope work and cattle were simply the way life worked. His father Jimmie Tom was a world class calf roper and bulldogger in the 1950s. His cousin Roy was already a multiple World Champion tie down roper. The Cooper name carried weight in professional rodeo long before Jimmie ever pulled on his first pair of competition boots.
He attended New Mexico State University — earning his college degree while competing in rodeo — and developed under the coaching eye of six time All-Around World Champion Tom Ferguson. The combination of education discipline and Ferguson's mentorship produced something the rodeo world hadn't quite seen before. A cowboy who approached the business of competing with the precision of a chess player — carefully planning his entry schedule, averaging $95,000 a year in his first three seasons and never once wasting a trip.
In 1980 he won PRCA Rookie of the Year — finishing third in the nation in calf roping, tenth in steer wrestling and fifth in the All-Around all in the same season. Then in 1981 he won everything. The All-Around World Championship. A single season earnings record. NFR titles across multiple events. He edged out Roy Cooper for the All-Around crown by the slimmest margin in championship history — forty seven dollars and sixty cents. One of the most decorated roping families in the sport had just gone head to head at the very top of professional rodeo. The Cooper family had produced the two best cowboys in the world in the same year.
He is one of only twelve cowboys in history to ever qualify for the National Finals Rodeo in three completely different events — calf roping, steer wrestling and team roping. He roped calves at seven consecutive NFRs from 1980 to 1986. He bulldogged at four straight Finals. He team roped with four time World Champion Allen Bach at three consecutive Finals. He won the NFR steer wrestling average in 1983. He was ranked in the top five All-Around cowboys in the world from 1980 through 1986 without interruption.
Then he made the decision that surprised everyone. At the peak of his career — still competing at the highest level with years of prime competition ahead of him — Jimmie Cooper walked away from professional rodeo. He said he wanted to go home to Monument New Mexico and raise his three children with his wife Shryl. No partial retirement. No slowing down gradually. He pulled the plug completely.
His twin sons Jake and Jim Ross grew up and became the first set of twins in history to compete together in team roping at the NFR. His daughter followed the family into the western lifestyle. Everything he sacrificed his career to build — he built it completely.
Tom Ferguson said it simply — "Jimmie went as hard as he went. He was all in. Then he was all out."
Inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2005. The National Rodeo Hall of Fame. The Ellensburg Rodeo Hall of Fame. A college educated cowboy who beat the greatest roper in his own family by less than fifty dollars — then gave it all up for something he decided mattered more.
That is Jimmie Cooper. 🤠🪢🏆
