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NewsJanuary 21, 2006

Dressed in silver cowboy suit and white clown face makeup, Tim "Wild Thang" Lepard directed his three small cowboys into herding the four sheep bounding about on the Show Me Center arena floor. But these were no ordinary cowboys: They were monkeys riding atop border collies...

The Ghost Riders performed during Friday's rodeo at the Show Me Center. The team is made up of three monkeys atop three border collies that herd sheep into a small corral. (Don Frazier)
The Ghost Riders performed during Friday's rodeo at the Show Me Center. The team is made up of three monkeys atop three border collies that herd sheep into a small corral. (Don Frazier)

~ A chance encounter led to a man's rodeo act of monkeys riding border collies.

Dressed in silver cowboy suit and white clown face makeup, Tim "Wild Thang" Lepard directed his three small cowboys into herding the four sheep bounding about on the Show Me Center arena floor.

But these were no ordinary cowboys: They were monkeys riding atop border collies.

Throughout the arena during the 18th annual Show Me Center Championship Rodeo, some spectators cheered while others could barely believe their eyes. Two 8-year-old boys sat in the third row with astonished looks on their faces, hardly blinking as the monkeys rode the dogs back and forth on the rodeo floor, chasing after the sheep.

The monkeys, wearing tiny hats and matching cowboy outfits, bobbed back and forth in their doggie saddles as their mounts galloped about the arena and forced the sheep into the pen.

After the show, though, Lepard, 44, said the most remarkable part of the act was not the monkeys or the dogs, but the sheep.

Friday night was the first night Lepard and his cowboys were able to get the sheep to jump over the fence into the pen.

"Anybody can lead them into the pen. I made them jump in," Lepard said with a smile.

Inside the cramped quarters of his trailer, Tim "Wild Thang" Lepard applied makeup prior to his performance in Friday's rodeo at the Show Me Center.
Inside the cramped quarters of his trailer, Tim "Wild Thang" Lepard applied makeup prior to his performance in Friday's rodeo at the Show Me Center.

The inspiration for the monkey and dog act came from a man who once crossed paths with Lepard as he was walking to a rodeo. When the man found out where Lepard was heading, he began talking about a rodeo act he had once seen as a child that involved a monkey riding a dog.

"He said, 'I laughed so hard, it hurt. I'm 76 years old, and today I still think about it'," Lepard said. "I said, 'That's what I want to do.'"

The act began with one dog and one monkey but slowly grew to three of each, something Lepard said he did not expect.

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"I wasn't sure it was going to do good," he said when the act first started out.

Lepard has been touring his show across the country since 1991. After one show in Las Vegas, Lepard said, he had 48 rodeos booked, enough to keep him busy for the year.

"Nobody can do this," he said of his act. "No one can touch this."

But the rodeo life isn't just about monkeying around.

In his 28 years at the rodeo, Lepard has had nine major surgeries from his days as a bullrider, gone through three divorces and rarely has a weekend off.

"It's a hard life," he said of the rodeo circuit. "You're either in or you're out."

Even more painful than the wounds that won't heal or the long road trips, however, is missing his 1-year-old daughter, Lakelynn.

"It's hard to be away from a girl like that, " he said while staring at a picture hanging in his trailer of the two.

Despite the hardships, Lepard said this is not a business he enjoys -- he loves it.

And retirement? Not for this clown.

"I don't think that'll ever come along," he said.

kmorrison@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127

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