Rodeo champion and clown Wilbur Plaugher never considered himself retired. A month ago, the 95-year-old cowboy was still riding horseback on his large cattle ranch in the foothills outside Sanger.
“The secret to a long life is to stay busy,” Plaugher told the Bee in 2012. “I have no intention of retiring. If I ever can’t get on a horse, I’ll get on a step ladder. Once I’m on a horse, I’m at home.” Mr. Plaugher died Tuesday from surgery complications while recovering in a Clovis nursing home.
His long list of awards includes being inducted into around a dozen rodeo halls of fame throughout a career that started in the 1940s, along with the Fresno County Athletic Hall of Fame. “I just feel like he’s the last of his kind – a true legend of this Valley,” daughter Shelly Cotter says. “He walked taller than other men. He was compared to John Wayne all his life. He was in every sense a true cowboy, rancher.”
Like Wayne, Plaugher was also an actor. He starred in the Disney film “Run, Appaloosa, Run,” along with regularly appearing in the television show, “Daniel Boone.”
As a rodeo cowboy, he competed in bull riding, steer wrestling, and saddle and bareback riding. He was the all-around champion of the month-long Madison Square Garden rodeo in 1946. As a bullfighter and rodeo clown, his performances were fun and action-packed. Towering at 6-foot-4, he could leap over charging bulls, and his skits included animals such as monkeys and ducks.
“He worked just as hard at entertaining people as he did out on his ranch,” Thompson says, “and really loved people and loved to make people laugh.” ...
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