Larry Mahan, the Elvis of rodeo from Salem, dies at age 79

Larry Mahan, who went from a wrestler at North Salem High School to one of the greatest rodeo cowboys in history, died at his home in Texas on Sunday. He was 79.

The Salem-born Mahan was a six-time All-Around world champion in the Rodeo Cowboys Association, forerunner to the Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association.

He won five All-Around championships by being the most successful in multiple events between 1966 and 1970 and won the title again in 1973. He was the RCA champion in bull riding in 1965 and 1967. He competed in the National Finals Rodeo 26 times in bareback riding, saddle bronc riding and bull riding.

“I guess I owe everything over the years to the game of rodeo,” Mahan said in 1982.

Born in 1943, Mahan became interested in rodeo at age 6. He won his first trophy at age 8 in the parade for the St. Paul Rodeo.

He grew up on a ranch in Brooks and at age 10 moved to Redmond, where he participated in his first junior rodeo at age 12. He also won a district wrestling championship at Redmond High School.

Mahan returned to Brooks at age 16 and attended North Salem High School. He competed in wrestling at North Salem and won District 8 A-1 championships in wrestling at 141 pounds at North Salem in 1961 and 1962.

Mahan once referred to himself as “a little rednecked kid from Salem, Oregon, who used to go around tearing up the place.”

After graduating from North Salem in 1962, he attended Arizona State on a rodeo scholarship and competed in amateur rodeos in California and Arizona. It was in those rodeos that he got enough points to join the Rodeo Cowboys Association, which later became the Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association.

He made the RCA finals for the first time in 1964.

When Mahan won his first All-Around world championship in 1966, he was the first person in the eight-year history of the NFR to finish in the top 15 of money winnings in all three events and was the first to win more than $40,000 since 1956.

“I like all three riding events if I’m winning,” Mahan said in 1966.

A documentary that featured his comeback at the 1973 world championship, The Great American Cowboy, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 1974.

“He was Elvis before Elvis knew who he was,” announcer Bob Tallman said. “Larry had an aura about him and a following. People moved to him like a magnet. He never lost his thrill of what he was doing, but he also could go and compete. He was a little bit of Jim Shoulders, he was a little bit of Casey Tibbs and he was all Larry Mahan. He just had so much raw talent.”

After retiring from competition in 1977, Mahan started a clothing company, had ranches in Phoenix and Texas, acted in movies, recorded an album of music and was a television announcer for rodeos.

“The ground got too hard. It used to be much softer,” he said in 1982.

During his rodeo career, he broke a leg, a foot, his jaw and several vertebrae.

“And my heart has been broken 17 times,” he said in 1975.

Mahan was inducted in multiple halls of fame, including the PRCA hall of fame's inaugural class in 1979. He was inducted into the St. Paul Rodeo’s hall of fame in its first class in 1998 (he won the bareback riding at the event in 1971). He was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 2018.

Bill Poehler covers Marion County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Larry Mahan, legendary rodeo cowboy from Oregon, dies at 79