Picked Up in the Rodeo Arena
Bob Barmby of nearby Perkins was contracted to supply the stock. Dean and Borello themselves, to cut down on expenses, built the stands, the chutes, the holding pens, and the fences. They also wrote ads and publicity pieces for the local newspaper and traveled about the countryside distributing and putting up posters advertising their rodeo.
In those years, bull riding at most rodeos was the regular opening, not the closing, event on the agenda. And it was slated to be that way, too, at Ione where bull riding was to be a mount-money event, not a contest event.
The starting time for the opening performance rolled around, the weather was fair, and there was a good number of cowboys on hand. But alas, only a few paying spectators were in the spanking new stands. The concerned producers, Dean and Borello, assuming that they were going to lose their shirts on the deal, decided to cut down on their impending loss. So they took over the bull riding. Being a mount-money event, no entry fees were involved.
Dean would come out on a bull, and then it would be Borello’s turn. No one else was allowed to get on a bull. The many cowboys in Ion to ride bulls were regulated to the sidelines. They hung around the chutes watching Dean and Borello ride, or buck off, bull after bull. They were more amused than riled over the situation, for they had never before seen anything like it at a rodeo: two non-bull riders trying to ride all those rank Barmby bulls. They wondered how long Dean and Borello could keep it up, and which would cave in, or be wrecked by a bull first. Dean was big and strong, and ten years younger than Borello; but Borello was tough and wiry, and possessed the agility of a whirling dervish.
But after a while one of the determined pair happened to glance up at the stands. He saw late-arriving ticket buyers all over the place. So waiting riders carried on and finished out the event, and it is likely that Dean and Borello never got on another bull.
Frank Dean in action. When you can do this one, you are a trick roper!
Frank Dean and Marco Borello were so close for so many years that it was difficult to write of one without bringing in the other. Dean was born in San Francisco, and Borello, who was born in Italy, grew up in San Francisco. Marco left the city and the Borello family household to make a hand with one of the old Miller and Lux outfits. In later years, he was a good stock horse trainer and a spectacular trick rider.
Along with rodeoing, Marco and partner Frank Dean were sometimes featured performers with various circuses. In 1932, they were in the wild west concert of the Al G. Barnes Circus. That year the Butte, Mont., rodeo committee elected to have a championship trick riding contest at their rodeo.
The Al G. Barnes outfit, at the time, was touring through Montana, and Marco couldn’t resist the challenge. He quit the circus to enter the championship trick riding event at the Butte rodeo.
Marco figured that he was going to win the contest. There was no doubt about that in his mind. But the competition was terrific, there were many great trick riders around then, and one of the other talented acrobatic horsemen won the contest.
Marco was in for some of the purse money, but under the circumstances, it didn’t look like much to him. He and his trick riding mare, Lassie, had no transportation and were a long way from home. The enterprising Marco shopped around and finally bought a big old touring car (what would be called a convertible today). He took off the top and made room in the back seat section for Lassie. In that manner — with Marco at the wheel and Lassie riding in the rear compartment of the open-top car — they made it from Butte to Madrone, California.
Some 70 years ago Frank Dean’s father homesteaded a ranch along the banks of the Eel River in rugged Humboldt County, California. Later he sold the ranch, married, and worked as a teamster and carpenter in San Francisco. Shortly after Frank was born on February 22, 1908, the family moved to San Jose. Frank learned the fundamentals of trick roping from a San Jose neighbor who was an old cowboy. He went on from there on his own. His father once told him that he would never know the value of money until he worked for it. So Frank “worked for it,” 10 hours a day at 25¢ an hour. Then, on a Saturday night, he got in an amateur talent contest at a local theater. He won the contest and $25 with less than 10 minutes of rope spinning. So his mind was made up, I suppose ol’ Dad understood.
Young Dean roped at his first rodeo on May 17, 1926, at Madrone, California. He knew that a trick roper who can also trick ride has a decided advantage over a single-event specialist. At the time he had a horse, and so he started practicing trick riding runs. His horse, however, wouldn’t cooperate. Of that experience, Frank has the following to narrate: “That sorrel horse of mine bucked me off regularly. I would try cuppers, he’d buck, and I’d go flying high. I would attempt a shoulder stand, the horse would buck, and I would land in front of him and there, on my back, watch him jump over me.
“I had to get rid of that sorrel. A horse trader came around an offered me $25 for him. I took it. The way I was feeling, that horse trader could have had the sorrel for $10.”
In 1927, Dean, a recent graduate of the San Jose high school, placed second in the trick roping contest at the California Rodeo in Salinas. Gene Hall was the winner, with Frank Gusky third. That same summer, Dean won a trick roping contest at Hayward. He still remembers the event and the other competing ropers, especially Bill Sinnett. Of Sinnett, Frank says: “That was the only trick roping contest Bill ever entered. In fact, as far as I know, that was the only trick roper I ever saw, or ever heard of, who could go through a mageuy loop twice on only one jump. Most trick ropers won’t believe that it could be done; but I knew Bill and saw him do it many times.”
Ramon Gonzales departs gracefully from Chief Crazy Horse (owned by Rodeos, Inc.) at the 18th annual Kankakee, Ill., rodeo this past summer.
Dean, the trick roper and trick rider, branched out and in time became handy with guns, knives, and bullwhips. The Guinness Book of World Records credited “Salt Bush Bill” Mills, an Australian, with being the manipulator of the world’s longest whip, a 50-footer. Now the Guinness book editor has belatedly learned that Dean has been handling an 83-foot whip for years.
In 1935 Frank was to be an advance man and performer for a wild west show to be held in connection with an exposition in Yokohama, Japan. Prior to leaving San Jose, he took time to teach the aspiring young Chet Howell how to make horse catches, and to teach Bernice Hoppe (Frank’s girlfriend) how to trick ride and Roman ride. After that, he got them jobs with the show.
In Japan, Frank and Bernice Hoppe were married, and today, 38 years later, they are still married and working together. In those earlier years of their marriage, the Deans were mainly rodeo contract performers … members of the old Cowboys Turtle Association. But then an ever-growing number of rodeo committeemen and producers decided that they could get along without trick ropers, trick riders, and other contract act performers.
The Deans continued working rodeos; but in order to keep busy and to keep going, also performed at more and more fairs, theaters, night clubs, conventions, and banquets; and, in between times, trouped with numerous circuses and wild west shows.
During World War II, Frank was in the army and over in Germany for two years. Then later, for seven years, the Deans had their “Old Town,” a replica of a western cowtown of the 1870’s, at New Almaden, California. Frank says that this project had been a long-time dream, and that he and Bernice worked and saved for 20 years to make that dream come true. “But when we got it,” he adds, “we found it possessed us.”
They sold “Old Town” in 1968, and the following year bought a place in Palmdale, California. But they are rarely home. At this writing, Frank and Bernice are on the road fulfilling booked fair dates. Last winter, they spent in Mexico. In 1972 they were with the touring Royal Ranch Wild West Circus, and in 1970-71 were playing night club dates in far-off East Asia.
Frank and his horse Jerry performing at a rodeo in Twin Falls, Idaho.
This article was originally published in the November 1973 issue of Western Horseman written by Jerry Armstrong.
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