Top Brass Come Out For Houston Rodeo’s University Of Texas Night

By randyramirez in Blog on March 10, 2010 at 1:20 pm | 1 Comment

To honor and celebrate a longstanding educational partnership between the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and The University of Texas, the rodeo saluted UT in Reliant Stadium Tuesday night with an entourage of UT administrators taking center stage. 

The Houston rodeo is one of the largest volunteer events in the country and it annually awards more than $8 million in scholarships to more than 500 Texas high schoolers who plan to attend a university in-state. The students receive $15,000 per year for four years.

There are currently 1,884 Texas students earning a higher education thanks to the rodeo’s scholarships — 403 of them are Longhorns.

And droves of the rodeo’s 22,000-plus volunteers are UT alumni.

Many of them gathered Tuesday, along with some Houston-area Exes and a few special guests from Austin, at a reception prior to the rodeo.

There President Bill Powers thanked the supporters for investing in the future leaders of the University and the state. He then presented show chairman of the board Butch Robinson with a longhorn statue and a custom-made pair of black boots featuring a longhorn, the HLSR logo, and the words “partners in education,” compliments of Louis Pearce Jr., a Distinguished Alumnus, past show president, and all around rodeo fixture.

But then, the fun had just begun — the salute to the Horns went public in the rodeo’s grand entry.

Some of the University’s finest, including President Powers (bottom left), university provost Steve Leslie, McCombs School of Business dean Tom Gilligan, College of Natural Sciences associate dean David Laude, and Texas Exes executive director and CEO Jim Boon (bottom right, and dressed almost identical to Powers), processed in on horseback and in wagons. 

Cowboys, bucking broncos and bulls, and some eager high school FFA students scrambling for calves provided the entertainment from there on out.