MONTY A NO-SHOW IN HISTORY BOOK ABOUT HIS HOMETOWN RODEO EVENTS
by Marjorie Hansen
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Hi Citizens. You’ll love this. I just came across the book “California Rodeo Salinas: One Hundred Years of History”. It is a carefully compiled pictorial and written chronology of the Rodeo (actually from 1872 to the present day). Monty Robert’s parents are pictured in the section, 1940 to 49. “During the 1940’s & 50’s, Marguerite & Marvin Roberts taught many Salinas residents the art of riding horseback at the Rodeo grounds”. But, surprisingly (or not), the book had absolutely nothing to say about their child riding prodigy, you know the one.
Monty describes himself as winning hundreds of ribbons at a very early age in his own book while at the Rodeo grounds. The next section is 1950 to 59. And where is the “Boy Wonder”? Among the many written and pictured happenings at the rodeos through the years, there isn’t a whisper about his excruciating trip to Nevada when he was 14 years old and practically single-handedly supposedly secured the wild horses for the wild horse races during some of those years. Nothing. He even uses these alleged experiences as the main platform for the development of his “Joinup”. He certainly doesn’t have a “Favorite Son” status in the town of his birth. The track and arena Directors and the presidents are all listed for all those years; the names don’t jive with Monty’s story of his personally contracting for the securing of the wild horses either, nor do the Rodeo dates.
The book is a first edition and was just published by Park Place Publications, Pacific Grove, Ca. 93950. It is a history project by the California Rodeo Salinas. Text by Burton Andreson. Edited by Joelle Steele It was presented for the first time at the Rodeo room at the Salinas Sports Complex June 27th, 2002.
August 2002