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 The foundation of Frontier Rodeo Company was laid in 1991 over a meeting between two friends. Was their goal to make a million dollars? No. Achieve Fame? Hardly. The short answer is that Jerry Nelson and Johnny Ackles loved bull riding and rodeo, and both thought that they could make the sport better than it was. “In 1991, Johnny Ackles was one of the largest producers of amateur rodeo in the country, and I started tagging along doing whatever I could to help out, “ Nelson recalls. “I was hauling bulls, setting up panels, moving dirt, etc.. anything that needed to get done.”
After traveling to Ackles’ rodeos, Nelson was hooked – in 1992 he bought his first bull. In 1993 he bought 50 acres of land in Hamshire, Texas and built a rodeo arena that same year. “The Double J Rodeo Palace events were some of the purest bull riding I’ve ever seen , “ Nelson says, “Guys got on bulls no matter how rank, just because they wanted to ride bulls. The Professional Bull Riders Association was just getting started, so it wasn’t hard to find good riders, It was just plain fun.”
In 1995 Nelson decided to venture into producing professional events. Santa Fe Productions was established and Nelson produced his first Professional Bull Riders event in Thibodeaux, Louisiana. Around the same time, Nelson was contracted to set up the chutes for a Professional Bull Riders event at the Houston Summit. Nelson convinced the producer to let him send five or six bulls to the event. “ I brought those bulls to the Summit, they bucked their hearts out and the PBR started calling me on a regular basis ever since to provide livestock.”
Nelson has been relentless in his pursuit for the world’s best bucking bulls. He’s not giving up any of his secrets, but he will leave no stone unturned to find world champion bulls. “ A lot of my champion bulls were never bred to be bucking bulls, be we had a feel for what some of these castoff could do in the arena – Clayton’s Pet, Tuff Enuff and many of my other champion bulls were picked out of herds of very ordinary cattle….
In 1996 Nelson ventured into the bull breeding business. He spent extensive time and research to find cutting edge technology to bring his company to the forefront of the breeding industry.
 Horses were added to the operation in 1997 when he met Dan Mundorf of the CPRA. “Dan was starting to raise some horses and I wanted to branch out into the rodeo business so eventually we started partnering on horses. “Harry Vold decided after being in the business for 50 years that he was going to sell everything, I went to his sale to buy some old blood line mares and ended up leaving with 9 young mars and many dollars lighter”. Nelson currently has approximately 500 head of horses that are also used at various rodeo events around the country.
In 2000, Nelson met Jimmy Crowther from Roxbury, Kansas. Jimmy was producing more rodeos than anybody in Kansas, and wanted to bring rodeos to other parts of the country. They hit if off, which resulted in Nelson getting a PRCA card with Crowther, and the beginning of Frontier Rodeo. Taking notice of the quality events and quality livestock that Frontier Rodeo produces, eight-time Bull Riding World Champion Don Gay, signed on to become the General Manager of Frontier Rodeo. Don explains what made him join Frontier Rodeo – “Frontier Rodeo is the only one that I’d put my name on, because they’re not in it for anything but to make the sport the best it can be – you just don’t see that anymore today.” Nelson has equal respect for Mr. Gay, “Donnie Gay is the best bull rider that has ever been – he has eight buckles to prove it.”
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