Dr. Mitchel Roth – Convict Cowboys

Finally ended as there were fewer and fewer inmates with farm and ranch experience to participate in the rodeo and the grandstands got older and more dangerous, this event at which convict cowboys risked life and limb to entertain the public drew observers from up and down the I-45 corridor. There was even a prison rodeo band, conducted by the ubiquitous Harley Rex.

Roth’s book is “Convict Cowboys: The Untold History of the Texas Prison Rodeo, The Wildest Show on Earth.”