7/23/2013:
Long-time North Dakota rodeo producer Walter Piehl Sr. was born on this date in 1915 in Marion to John and Fern Piehl. He was educated in Marion and grew up farming with horses.
Walter married Hattie DeVries in 1939 near Marion. They purchased land and farmed for a time and lived in the Marion community for 66 years. The couple had three children.
In addition to farming, Walter tried other income sources, including jobs as cream station operator, roller skating concessionaire, building mover, gravel hauler, basketball referee auctioneer and livestock trucker. Through his love of horses and trading, Walter became a country horse buyer in the 1940s when tractors were replacing horse-drawn machinery. He expanded his livestock business by importing and selling dairy cows and raising registered Angus cattle.
Walter was a lifelong rodeo enthusiast, and in the early 1950s started buying horses for saddle and rodeo prospects in Miles City, Montana. He eventually partnered with Olaf Berg of Kathryn and began holding local rodeos in the early 1960s.
Walter incorporated as Dakota Rodeo and bought out the Utke rodeo bulls of Fargo. He produced North Dakota Rodeo Association rodeos and for 30 years supplied stock for other producers for both NDRA and open rodeos in North and South Dakota and Minnesota.
He helped Delton Schultz design and set up the arena for the first of many Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association rodeos in the Bismarck Civic Center. Walter was a pick-up man and partnered with a string of other pick-up men, included his son, Steve, and Jim Mosbrucker.
Walter’s wife, his daughter Fern and daughter-in-law Becky worked as rodeo secretaries and timers. His son Walter Jr. was the announcer, and son-in-law Allen Olson fought bulls.
He continued to buy and sell horses well into his late ‘80s. The last of his horses were tried at the Ruthville Rodeo in 2005 and sold at the bucking horse sale in Williston that year.
Walter was generous with his time and financial support to neighbors, friends and rodeo. He died in Minot on April 27, 2006, and was inducted into the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in June 2012.
Dakota Datebook written by Cathy A. Langemo, WritePlus Inc.
Sources:
ND Cowboy Hall of Fame Cowboy Chronicle – June 2012
Minot Daily News – April 29, 2006 – obituary