Ballard Merrick
May
17, 1924 - July 7, 1992
A plaque hangs
on the wall in the bar room of Hummel's 7R ranch house that he and Elsie made from a slice of pine bearing this phrase, ‘If
you have something important to tell me, please start at the end'.
His life ended on July 7th in 1992 at the age of 68 when he got up in the early hours of the morning;
left his home without a good bye; then drove across the town of Elko; parked across the street from Burns Mortuary with the
rodeo grounds and the hospital in the Eastern horizon; got out of his pickup; sat on the ground in front of it; stuck his
357 magnum in his mouth, and pulled the trigger. He said in his later years, "If I would have known I was going to live
so damned long, I would have taken a lot better care of myself." His pain was becoming unbearable from chronic
back pain, both knees severely damaged, liver damage, emphysema, and a heart condition combined with the devastating news
at that time, ‘Hank Angus had passed away July 4th from a heart attack at the McDermitt Rodeo'. He
made it known for over twenty years to everyone who knew him ‘I hope I will have my faculties about me to load the gun
one last time.' We've taken from his philosophy that ‘it is our life to live just the way we choose to'; and live
his life to the fullest he did, so there may not have been very much he ever wished he would have done.
He started his last horse, Dude, a three year old he purchased from Van
Norman's, when he was 65 or 66. He gentled him in every way he could think of, so anyone could ride him, and was riding
him mostly in a hackamore. One day while the family went out for a gather, the horse was going pretty good, at the Rhinehart
and Circle Bar ranches something went wrong; Dude bucked, Ballard came down; Elsie galloped to his rescue by going to
catch his horse; her horse went one way and his went another, rope burning her hand and landing her on the ground; Ronda arrived
to help Grandpa, she fell off too, Ron showed up to wrangle all of the loose horses and his steed, Scotty, bucked him off
also. However many loose horses there were; all we knew when it was all over everyone was fine except Elsie's rope burned
hand from the hair mecate, and Laura was still mounted.
Appaloosa
Scotty was a free one Ballard received from Rich Scott, so he and son-in-law proceeded to break him after it became obvious
why he was free. Ballard got this bright idea about making a wooden Indian out of willow sticks to ride him so neither
one of them would have to. They didn't have willows, but they had cables so they tied them on with feed sacks on top;
they called their creation Coligia. With him still hobbled when they stepped back you should have seen the two bronc busters
getting out of his way while Scotty and Coligia went at it at times bucking sideways, but never bucking it off.
Whether he was teaching 4-H Horsemanship to 9 year olds or running mustangs
with LeRoy Horn, or driving a teams of horses pulling a wagon in the 1964 Centennial Celebration with Bobby Tallman riding
shotgun he gave it his all, and was very proud during and afterwards. He was gifted with talent, and he seemed to know
it, so when he entered a rodeo he expected to win, if he applied for a job he expected to get it, but if he didn't he would
quickly move to the next one, and not look back. When he had a job to do like gathering cattle or turning them out,
he wouldn't quit too soon; he'd work into the night from daylight if needed. He worked hard, and played hard too sometimes
mixing the two. His mission in life seemed to be having a good time; he loved to laugh, and make others laugh too with
his true to life stories, as he was not one to tell jokes. Socializing with his vast number of friends and acquaintances
throughout Nevada could occupy large amounts of his time. People would know him wherever he went, even when he didn't
think he knew them.
He tried other types of work a
few times, but he never got very far from a horse or a cow or both; the fact is he was a buckaroo first, then whatever else
he may have had to do to survive. As a father he had many memorable times for his girls, teaching them constantly all
that he himself knew. His favorite saying was, ‘there is no such word as can't, no', he'd say, ‘can't is
not in the dictionary'. He taught 4-H horsemanship under the direction of Kirk Day to his girls and a few others in
Orovada. At the first meeting he was stressing how important it is to keep your saddle snug so it doesn't end up under
a horse's belly instead of on top of it. One of the members, Mike Jackson, had ridden to the meeting, so when he went
to the barn after the meeting ended he found his horse standing there with the saddle under his belly.
He was game for anything; he would have likely tried everything
at least once. On a fall day he was out bird hunting with Earl Allred and their children, and going down the dirty,
dusty road from Bath Tub Springs, over Sand Pass, to Miller ‘n Lux well in Earl's pickup truck. The men were in
the front, the children in the bed of the truck when they came upon a buckskin mustang mare and her brown yearling colt running
down the narrow road in front of them, and would not stop or pull out to the side, so Ballard exited the front seat via the
passenger side window, and ended up in the bed of the truck with the children without saying a word about what he was planning;
Earl didn't slow down either. He passed the colt pulling up along side of him while Ballard leaped from the bed onto
his neck, ultimately bull dogging him down. The two of them tied him down; the mare ran off, and the bird hunting ended
because they needed to attend to their captive. He ended up in the corral at the well overnight, then onto Winnemucca
to the rodeo grounds, where Raley's is now. All did not end well because the colt failed to thrive in spite of the gallant
effort to sustain him with milk, medicine, therapy, feed, and whatever else Ballard could think of, including whiskey, but
he failed to save him, much to his dismay.
He needed
to purchase a horse for his girls, so he contacted his good friend, Marvin Myers; then went to Unionville, and came back with
two, one for himself and one for the Circle Bar Ranch. The one he kept was a cute little 3 year old, brown pinto mustang,
Marvin said was out of the bell mare; he named him Chismista due to the lightning stripe down his side. The other was
a tall-up thoroughbred type horse he named Ivan, one day all buckaroos rode out from the ranch when there appeared to be a
commotion. When they told the others what had happened they just said, "Ballard's horse bucked with him",
someone else said, "Did he ride him"? The answer must have been yes because no one else missed a step or looked
back. He did, in fact, get bucked off Chismista while working cows at Pete Pedrolli's ranch just East of town.
This particular time may have been one of the only times he ever came down, and it may have been because he was wearing a
full body cast as a result of a recent back surgery. When he hit the ground he looked a bit like ‘Humpty Dumpty wearing
bibbed overalls'.
Teasing his friends was great
fun even when they didn't agree perhaps he thought it was funnier if they didn't. At a Wells amateur rodeo when the
chute gate opened and Jack Peters began his Saddle Bronc ride, much to everyone's surprise including Jack, Ballard was on
behind. He really enjoyed competing at these small town shows, and when he wasn't competing in Saddle Bronc Riding,
Bareback Riding, Calf Roping or Team Roping he was picking up bucking horses on ‘Cowboy', a Morgan horse he had purchased
from the TS, who appeared to love it as well as he did. He entered the Bull Riding once or twice, but one Lamoille rodeo
he had to draw out because he had caught his thumb in his dallies during the Team Roping, and had to have it sewed back on.
His buckarooing career would take him throughout Nevada and part of California,
literally covering the entire Great Basin area. His relocation from Colorado to Nevada or Nevada to California appeared
to be with ease even though he always referred to Californians as ‘prune pickers', ‘til he became one. There
was a serious drought in Colorado when they left so he was also thrilled to leave and find a new home in Nevada at Disaster
Peak with his mother's side of the family. They were there for one or two years before they relocated to their own ranch
in the Pine Valley of Eureka County. He spent a lot of time in the Northern part of the state, but he seemed to like
the Gerlach area best. The terrain is so rocky there, but he didn't appear to be too bothered by the rocks. Les
Iveson loves to tell about the Appaloosa horse that Ballard refused to ride under any circumstances stating ‘I'll walk
or do anything, but ride that horse again'. Les eventually rode the horse, and discovered why as he was also leading
him down the rocky hill. When this story was relayed Ron, Ballard's son-in-law, remembered well the short cut they took
one time to get back to the Fisk Ranch before dark. It was almost straight up and down; something like you might see
in a Lonesome Dove movie, and you surely wanted to be mounted on a sane horse. When Ron got down leading his horse also
he vows to this day he wouldn't go back, but Ballard rode these areas for many years without complaint.
He buckaroo'd with Mervin Carter, Bill Davis, Claude
Bryson, Marvin Myers, Jerry Merrick, Walter Collier, Everett Jones, Bill Stewart, Ray Hunt, Dee Salisbury, Ed Chapin, Stub
Stanford, Raymond Gabica, Bill McKnight, Ron Hummel, Jiggs Goodwin, Twister Heller, Bryan Morris, Clark Morris, Les Iveson,
Dudley Hiibel, Harold Chapin, Hank Harrer, Earl Allred, Winn Hendricks, Martin Bidauretta, and Hank Angus, to name a few.
Some of them have made it to the Buckaroo Hall of Fame, some will in time. He was honored to have worked at the IL, Rhinehart,
Squaw Creek, Hackwood, TS, Cord, Spade, Cockrell, Circle Bar, Home (Elko & Humboldt), Buffalo, Paiute Meadows, Soldier
Meadows, Bear Ranches, and 'repped' at many other great ranches in the Great Basin. It is our belief that he has found
an arena in the sky without pain and continues to inspire and motivate those he has left behind with these wonderful memories.
