WILLCOX Cowboy Hall of Fame inductees

Rick Snure (132)
1948 - 2009
2022 COWBOY HALL OF FAME POSTHUMOUS AWARD

Rick Snure was a wild one. Everyone that I talked with said basically the same thing. He was a good cowboy. He was fun to work with and things could get a little wild.

Rick was born Feb 26, 1948. He was born and raised in Skelton Canyon. He went to elementary school in the one room school house in Apache, AZ. He went on to high school in Douglas and graduated from the University of Arizona.

His parents were Ben and Florence Snure. He has one brother, Big Bill, and three sons Roland, Bill and Clay.

Rick was a cowman and a cowboy. Just because you are one doesn’t mean you are both. Yes, Rick got some formal education while at the University of Arizona. He got his ranch education while growing up on the ranch in Skelton Canyon. Rick knew cattle and he knew how to work cattle, albeit sometime things could get a little wild. He was a hard worker. If there was something that needed to be done, he just got it done and he, did it well.

He had a lot of grit and determination. He was the kind that could start work at 3:30 in the morning checking the pump jacks and waters, then gather some cattle, brand, sort and haul cattle out. They would be done around 9:30 that night and he would tell the crew, “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off.”

I want to go back to his ranch education. What is a ranch education? It is getting a phone call saying you have a bunch of sick yearlings. Rick had received 500 yearlings out of El Paso and had just turned them out when a huge snow storm hit. Rick got the call from his neighbor, Larry Moore, saying, “You got a problem.” Well, the cattle were three miles from the barn and too sick to walk out. You could get the gooseneck a little closer, but not close enough. The wives were sent looking for Combiotic, which was the medicine of choice back then and Rick built a sled out of roofing tin. He and Larry put two sick yearlings on the tin sled, dally up and head for the gooseneck. When they reached the gooseneck trailer, they loaded them and hauled them the rest of the way to the barn. Larry told me they had over 200 head in the barn being doctored. That is ranch education. Doing what needed to be done, with what you have to work with, to take care of your cattle. That is being a rancher, a cowboy and a survivor. Rick was a good athlete on the football field and in the rodeo arena. He always seemed to ride a good horse, probably because he raised and trained his own. He was good enough that he won the calf roping at the Prescott Rodeo. An interesting note is that his brother, Big Bill Snure, also won the calf roping at the Prescott Rodeo.

Rick was a member of the Cochise-Graham Cattle Growers Association, the Arizona Cattle Growers Association, and the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association. He was a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and he served on the board of trustees for the Apache School for 28 years.

Adventures of Rick Snure, also led him to flying helicopters. He had leased a copter and contracted with ranchers to gather their cattle. It was said that he flew that helicopter like he rode a horse. If you needed to make a move, you made a move.

It was this passion for flying that ended his life. At age 61, Rick died in a helicopter crash while herding cattle in the wilderness area of Lake Pleasant. But even the guy who leased Rick the helicopter knew Rick was a cowboy. The owner said, “He was a cowboy. He wasn’t a paperwork and city kind of a guy. He was a cowboy kind of person.”

From 1948 to 2009, Rick Snure lived life to the fullest.

Accepting on behalf of his brother is Big Bill Snure and presenting the plaque is long tome friend and Willcox Cowboy Hall of Fame member Larry Moore.

I have asked Big Bill to share one of the, “Rick could get a little wild”, stories with us.