Stillwater Stables

05/22/2023

💙

Dear Flint:
Today’s the day. Last day of the 2023 PBR World Finals in Fort Worth. Last day of your legendary makeup-faced career of cutting up and dancing down there on that dirt.

You’ve dedicated your life and sacrificed your body as the official entertainer of the PBR since 2006. Today is your final curtain call, and I know that you are laughing and crying inside right now, as I reminisce with salty-sweet tears and a smile myself.

I want to thank you for never getting lazy in your line of work. How many times I’ve been criticized in my career for efficiency infractions by my own peers, who lovingly suggested that I did not need to talk to that cowboy for two hours to get that one quick quote I needed for the story. Oh, but I made a friend.

As for you, well, you always kept it fresh. You came off the cuff with unrehearsed quips, and never leaned on the same old tired lines. You took the time to get to know everything from the people to the politics of every place you went, and had the wit to poke the bear in such a way that even the dignitaries and politicians in the front row laughed when the crowd erupted with support over just how long the local road-construction closures had taken.

I consider myself a tough laugh, but you…you got belly laughs out of me. Our orthopedic surgeon friend Tandy Freeman used to walk me out of events or give me a lift to the host hotel a lot, and we often talked out performances out there in those dark parking lots, him sipping on a Styrofoam cup of coffee, me chugging on a bottle of water. He’d bring me up to speed on who was really hurt and who just needed a couple weeks off to heal up that strained groin, because trying to ride through it was risking further injury and he wasn’t going to win anything riding hurt like that anyway. How often did one of us ask the other in those parking-lot convos, “Did Flint really say that out loud?!”

You were given a green light to take Western world humor to another level. And you ran with it with hair-on-fire glee. I can on occasion read minds with crystal-clear accuracy, and there were years—before your body started screaming for mercy—that I just know the lifelong class clown in you was like, “Wait, you’re going to PAY me to have a blast?”

I’d love to look at the job description on your last 17 contracts. Like any legal document, there were likely 12 pages of detail and fine print. But all it really needed was three words: Make People Laugh.

No sweat. That was your calling, and why God grabbed you from your original career track as a school teacher. While there is no more noble profession than educating the next generation of this great country, the stage given you was huge and important. Little kids love to laugh, and their weary parents who worked all week and are stressing over important decisions and how they’re going to pay this month’s mortgage need to laugh.

No one knew what the role of “official entertainer” even meant when you took the wheel as the PBR’s main man. But there have been no dead spaces in a PBR production since you agreed to be mic’d up with no holds barred.

You are an icon to generations of PBR fans. Your rodeo family loves you, too. A mini history lesson for those who were late to this party, you swept PRCA Clown of the Year honors eight straight years, from 1998-2005, and took the coveted Coors Man in the Can award seven of those eight years while also making it eight straight as an NFR Barrelman between 1998-05.

How many times when I was the PBR’s first Editor in Chief and down there on that dirt with you right on the other side of the fence did you say something that stopped me from my note-taking. I’d look up and there you’d be—huffing and puffing, and shooting me an inside joke so scathing that it was borderline scandalous. But it was safe, because other standers-by didn’t have the context to set off the dynamite keg that would have gotten us both fired or sent us on a drive to the desert in a trunk.

You’ve joked, danced and sang your way into the hearts of thousands, including mine. You’ve given this game your all, including most of your hair and both of your knees. Your devotion to your daughters, Shelby and Paige, has made me even more proud of you as dad.

I see that you, like me, can’t get enough of this Western way of life we love and share, and that you’ll be serving as a commentator for the PBR Team Series telecasts this summer and fall. So while I know you’re not technically calling it a career, this is definitely the day the curtain closes on an unmatched chapter of Western world entertainment history.

Now go get that red-and-white greasepaint groove on one last time. I can’t imagine what you have left to leave on the field, but know that you’ll leave that arena today with an empty tank. And when you’re alone in that locker room taking it off one last time a little later today, walk out of that building looking more cowboy than clown with great gratitude from us all.

Thank you, Flint. For the laughs. For being my friend. All of it. There will never be another you.

Love,
Kendra
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Thanks for the wild, hilarious ride, Flint. If there’s a 🤡🐐 hashtag, it’s all you.
PBR Photo by Bull Stock Media/Andy Watson

10/26/2022

Congratulations to Kelsey Love Thomas on her success at the recent NRCHA event in Fort Worth, Texas! Kelsey and Kit Kat Jerrie scored a 449.5 to win the Cowboy Class!

10/26/2022

This horse knows its job, and knows its rider.