Jump to full article: AP, 2005-09-19
Author: RUKMINI CALLIMACHI / Associated Press
Intro: By then, he’d already been chewing tobacco for four years, starting when he was 9.
The two habits — chewing and riding bulls — have long been partners on the professional rodeo circuit, as entangled as hippies and marijuana or football and beer.
But this past week, one of the nation’s oldest rodeos took its best shot at that marriage. Tobacco companies were prevented from giving out free samples of snuff at the Pendleton Round-Up, where for 95 years cowboys have come to test their mettle on bulls with names like “Shock-n-Awe,” “Tsunami,” and “Poison.”
Now 24, Richardson goes through one tin of Copenhagen a day, relying on its familiar rush to get through each violent ride, as he did this weekend when he mounted Poison and rode the snorting brahma bull to first place. . . .
“At $10 a can, that’s $10 bucks a day and $70 bucks a week. You do the math. It’s expensive,” said Richardson of Dallas, Texas. “It’s just about so expensive I was thinkin’ of quittin’ this week, now that they’re not giving us any for free.”
“It should be free,” lamented Zack Oakes, a 22-year-old bull rider from Meade, Wash., who said he, too, started chewing when he was 9. “It’s dang sure nice for them to help us out.”
. . . .
In Pendleton, a town built around the yearly rodeo, city officials said they took the stance against the free snuff after hearing stories of children getting their hands on the tobacco.
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Quotes from this article:
At $10 a can, that’s $10 bucks a day and $70 bucks a week. You do the math. It’s expensive. It’s just about so expensive I was thinkin’ of quittin’ this week, now that they’re not giving us any for free.
Rodeo rider Bryan Richardson, on the Pendleton Round-Up's ban on free samples.
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