Ruwe Rides The Range
There are two sides to Ohio Cowboy Bobby Ruwe. On the one hand, he’s a top competitor, a Senior Men’s 6 who rides as hard as anyone. On the other, his behind the scenes work has been crucial to the growth of the sport, especially in the Midwest.
And he’s made a lot of friends and admirers in both areas. Maybe that’s the best tribute to Bobby Ruwe and his efforts.
The Cowboy
Bobby’s lived his entire life in southwest Ohio, not far from the Indiana border. He’s got about 23 acres and five head of horses. He’s been a road construction superintendent for the same outfit for 32 years. Needless to say, Mr. Ruwe is a man who appreciates stability and continuity.
The horses have always been there. He got his first when he was in fifth grade and almost immediately started barrel racing. When he was old enough to drive, he bought a truck and trailer and headed off to competitions on his own.
And he won. At 19, he took top honors in Youth Barrels at the AQHA All American Youth Congress. The next year, riding the same horse, he won the Open Barrels class.
It must be in the genes. His son won the Youth Worlds back in ’92. His daughter was in the Top 10 in the country for three straight years. For years, Bobby and wife Barb hauled the kids around the country. It was a tradeoff—the parents loved being with their children, sharing in their accomplishments. But it also meant that Bobby had to stop competing.
But by 1999, the kids were on their own—and Bobby heard about Cowboy Mounted Shooting. He liked what he heard. So in January 2000, on a freezing cold day in the southern Indiana town of Madison, Bobby Ruwe gave it a try.
“I went there and I thought, ‘Boy, I got this horse broke. I been shooting cap guns and some blanks off him.’ And oh my gosh, I shot a balloon off him and all those pieces scattered—and he scattered, too. But it went good that day. And by the third stage, I was walking through all the busted balloons on the ground, and shooting, and it just went on from there. I came home that night and I told my wife and kids, ‘I’m through with barrel racing.’”
Over the next decade, Bobby Ruwe became one of the top shooters in CMSA. And speaking of continuity, Bobby still rides that barrel horse, Bingham’s Rhett Butler.
But he’s much more than just a great shooter.
The Contributor
Bobby is a man who believes you have to give back. And when it came to mounted shooting, he began doing so early on.
CMSA Vice President Brady Carr thinks back to 2000, when he was just getting into the sport. “We decided to put on our own event here in Tennessee—being more motivated than reasonable at that moment,” he says. “And before I did that, I visited a match put on by the 1st Ohio, which Bobby was president of. Then he came to our first event, and he helped make it a success. He bailed us out of what could have been a train wreck.”
Ruwe helped out a lot of folks in those days—whether he was competing or not. In 2004, Bobby was injured and couldn’t ride at the Worlds. But he grabbed a plane to Scottsdale anyway, to see what he could do. “I’m a believer that if you’re going to be part of something, somebody’s got to step up and help. And I was raised to help out.”
That attitude—and his behind the scenes work—along with his shooting led to the ultimate honor, election to the CMSA Hall of Fame.
But if you know Bobby, that achievement didn’t cap his career. Instead, the Hall of Fame just brought him a greater sense of responsibility to the sport.
So in 2008, CMSA President Dan Plaster asked Ruwe to head up the organization’s National Advisory Board, the panel which oversees rules and has input on policy. It’s a job he really enjoys: “We like to try to think ahead and to get everybody on board. So that if you go and ride in Wyoming, Florida, Ohio, Texas, the patterns are all set up the same. The same calls are made.”
There’s that continuity again.
Plus, Bobby is putting in yeoman work at some of the biggest shoots. Brady Carr explains, “He serves as the match director at many of our major events—helping out with set-up, ammo placement, supervising balloon setters. There’s hundreds of jobs at a match that have to be done. And Bobby does them all extremely well.”
That’s because the two sides of Bobby Ruwe—the cowboy and the contributor—mesh so well. And the sport of Cowboy Mounted Shooting is the ultimate winner.
Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved by Western Shooting Horse Magazine.
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