Kyle Charley found himself where no cowboy wants to be – thrown over the side of a bucking horse with one hand stuck in the rigging.
The bareback bronc rider went into the arena Jan. 22 feeling good about the 81.5 points he scored in the previous round, but his luck changed for the worse toward the end of his second ride.
“I felt myself go over … it just all happened so fast. And once the horse jerked and pulled away from me, I felt my wrist completely snap,” he recalled. “I did everything in my power to really try to stay on my feet, and at the same time, I told the pickup men, ‘Hey, guys, my hand is broken. I can’t feel it right now.’ They threw the rope on the horse to try to slow him down as much as possible.”
The situation was bad — Charley suffered multiple broken bones, torn tendons and ligaments and an arterial injury — but he said it could have been worse.
He expressed his deep gratitude to the Justin Sportsmedicine Team, his surgeon, the fans who kept him in their prayers and God for watching over him. And he thanked the pickup men, who he said are some of the best cowboys around.
“They’re like our big guardian angels. They’re like our superheroes out there when we’re getting into troubling times like this,” he said. “My hat’s off to them for keeping everything calm and managing to really help me get out of a much worse scenario.”
Pickup men are some of the most important people in any rodeo arena. It is their job to ride up to a bucking bronc or bull and help the rider get onto the ground safely as well as guide animals out of the arena. Doing this well requires excellent horsemanship and roping skills as well as a deep understanding of animal behavior.
Fortunately for Charley, he had one of the best guardian angels in the business — Joshua Edwards, the 2023 Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Pickup Man of the Year. The bronc rider is among the last whom Edwards will reach out a helping hand to, as the pickup man is due to retire when the rodeo ends.
In the remaining days of the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo, Dickies Arena ticket holders will have the chance to see Edwards put a wrap on his career. By the time this rodeo ends, he’ll have another 30 performances under his belt, adding up to thousands throughout his 25-year career.
But while he’s earned recognition on the sport’s greatest stage, Edwards didn’t always see himself in this role.
Growing up on a small horse and cattle ranch in Waco, Edwards spent most of his time roping and riding. He competed in rodeos throughout high school, college and eventually at the professional level.
Helping riders like Charley is something he fell into rather than sought out, Edwards said.
Back when he was competing in calf roping, he traveled to Mesquite every weekend for the rodeo and to visit his girlfriend, Kristi, who worked at the rodeo and would eventually become his wife.
Short a pickup man at one event, the rodeo organizer asked Edwards to fill in.
“Once I did it, I was like, ‘Man, this is what I want to do. I love this.’ And so I kind of transitioned,” he said. “I didn’t intentionally do that, but I started picking up more and competing less. The next thing you know, I haven’t competed in 15 years. And, that’s all I’ve done for the last 25 (years), I guess, is picking up bucking horses (and bulls).”
The job includes more than what the audience sees. The pickup men prepare the stock before the show. They are given a list of the animals competing that night, retrieve them from the holding pens and take them around the arena before the show so that they have some familiarity with where the exits are located.
Edwards also trains colts.
“I love working with the animals,” he said. “So for me, it was just a culmination of all of those, all of those lifetime of skills that, that … I get to use all at one time. It wasn’t just, you know, I get to rope a calf and compete.”
The rush of adrenaline and energy is another perk of the job.
“When you’re picking up, you’ve got the best seat in the house. You’re 20 feet away from this incredible bucking horse that you’re riding up next to,” he explained. “When the contestant has a great ride, you feel that. They jump off on you and you catch the horse. There’s just no way to re-create that experience.”
At this point in his career, Edwards has whittled his rodeo circuit down to about 15 venues per year, which means about 120 performances.
An entrepreneurial spirit
Edwards’ professional endeavors go beyond the rodeo. He owns multiple businesses, ranging from excavation and auto lube and repair to property management and local hair salons.
“I had an idea. When you start talking about franchising, for instance you want to own the same business in multiple locations,” he explained. “My idea was to own multiple businesses in the same location. That way I can cross-market them with each other.”
When he’s not in the arena, the pickup man and entrepreneur is also a licensed pilot and stuntman for film and TV.
“I always wanted to be a stuntman ever since I saw ‘The Fall Guy’ with Lee Majors when I was 5 years old,” he said. “But nobody brought a stuntman to career day.”
His involvement in the rodeo world helped him achieve that dream. Through rodeo he was able to build relationships with others who had connections to the industry or who had worked within it themselves.
He performed stunt work in “Free State of Jones,” starring Matthew McConaughey, and had the chance to spend quality time with Robert Duvall following his time on set filming “Seven Days in Utopia.”
Edwards attributes the success of his multifaceted career to the skills he learned growing up on that small ranch in Waco and the support of his wife and two sons who have made sacrifices on his behalf.
“All the time I spent developing those skills and being gone and accomplishing those goals, you know, there were people in the background that took care of the house and fed the horses and missed time with me,” he said. “I’ve only been able to be successful at all these things because of the support I had at home.”
After retirement, he plans to spend more time helping his sons pursue their interests — the oldest wants to be a pilot and the youngest loves competing in rodeos. He also plans to continue riding and was accepted to compete in the Mongol Derby, which is described as the longest and toughest horse race in the world and stretches across the Mongolian countryside for 10 days each August.
Leaving on a high note is the right decision but bittersweet, he said. He’s worked the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo for 24 of his 25 years as a pickup man.
“This was the first big rodeo that I ever got to work. And … it’s probably the closest rodeo I have, so it feels like my hometown rodeo,” he said. “I picked up the National Finals Rodeo a month ago, and I was selected as the Pickup Man of the Year. After winning that award and getting to work the Super Bowl of our sport, I decided that Fort Worth was where I wanted to finish.”
Marcheta Fornoff covers the arts for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marcheta.fornoff@fortworthreport.org.At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.