Lifetime Leaders of Rodeo & Ranching Rodeo Ranching Great Westerner Western Entertaiment & Arts Rodeo Producers & Livestock Special Achievement Cowboy Long Rider Legacy Award

Special Achievement

Dickinson Match of Champions Rodeo
1999 Hall of Fame Special Achievement Inductee

  The Dickinson Match of Champions Rodeo featured only the best livestock and riders, leading to performances that rodeo fans can recall 50 years later. Dickinson civic leader Ray Schnell Sr., with sons Howard, Willard and Raymond, organized an invitational calf roping in the summer of 1946.

  Saddle bronc riding was added at the southside Schnell arena in 1948. The first match featured Jim, Tom, and Alvin Tescher of North Dakota. Word spread fast and soon the world’s best were clamoring to face-off against the best North Dakota riders.

 In the 1950s, Casey Tibbs and Emanuel and Joe Chase joined the Teschers and other notables like Alvin Nelson, Dean Armstrong, Jack Buschbom, Guy Weeks and Deb Copenhaver. Only the world’s best cowboys and livestock were invited to participate and ride the best at the Match of Champions.

  The Match of Champions was considered the World Series of Saddle Bronc, and Willard Schnell gives the credit to his father, Ray, who insisted on getting the best bucking stock from across the country. “That’s why the cowboys came, to climb on some of the best broncs around. He wanted his sons to help him find the toughest, rankest, most impossible saddle bronc horses, whatever the cost,” says Willard.
The last Match of Champions was held in 1958, and the famous arena was dismantled.