About Me, Tim Kelly

The Early Days

When I was boy my father and mother took me to a lot of rodeos. Among many others, they took me to Cheyenne Frontier Days and the Camdenton MO rodeo in 1964. I still have the program - during that summer several stars were there, including Clint Eastwood and Sheb Wooley (they played Rowdy Yates and Pete Nolan on the television series "Rawhide"), and Lassie.

Chute Hand

I was always at the rodeo in my hometown of Caldwell KS. Heck, I grew up there. Carpenter Rodeo Company provided the stock for this rodeo almost as long as I can remember, and it was Norman Carpenter who first started calling me "Tiny" back in 1978. Norman and his wife Pat had started Carpenter Rodeo Company in 1956 and I worked for them starting in the early 1980’s up until they retired in 1999. I traveled with Carpenter Rodeo all through Kansas and Oklahoma doing everything a chute hand needed to do. I have flanked and unflanked more broncs and bulls I will ever be able to remember, loaded calves and steers, set up and tore down barriers and sound systems, and anything else they needed someone to do. I loved it, hardly thought of it as work, and learned from a lot of great teachers.

For A Little Variety

In 1983, for a little variety, I also started helping a rodeo clown and bullfighter named Jeff Koblitz. I was his barrel man on and off for a couple of seasons and also fought a few bulls. When I figured being a clown wasn't my calling I started taking rodeo pictures and from 1985 through 1987 I was the rodeo photographer for Carpenter Rodeo. Some of my photos are on this page.

Today

In 2003 I started unflanking bulls and doing a little judging for Phil Sumner of Sumner Rodeo Company from Goltry, OK. In 2005 I was at a rodeo in Edmond, OK rodeo when I sat down and visited with a man named Junior Butler. Junior was a great rodeo judge and made flanks, gate ropes and roping barriers for a lot of years, and it was Junior that taught me how to make flanks. Junior was diagnosed with Leukemia in the fall of 2005 and passed away in March of 2006. He is missed by a lot of people that admired and respected him, including me. I am grateful he taught me his craft and I now am making a lot of flanks, gate ropes and roping barriers. I'm a chute hand at heart and take pride in making good quality equipment that's just right for the job.

I have been married to my lovely wife Diane for 20 years and we have 2 children, our son Anthony and daughter Awayla. Anthony usually goes with me to the rodeos and we often work together helping unflank and whatever else we need to do.

Look us up at the next rodeo or bull buckout you happen to be at - our rig is a red Dodge truck with a teardrop camper that I made. I'd like to say hello and show you what I can make for you.

Update:::::: I have made over 400 flanks this year and sold many of them to PBR and ABBI stock contractors, I have sold a few to PRCA and Open rodeo contractors also.  I have now purchased a different Truck and Trailer shown on another page. I think I make good flanks but I do not think that I make the best but I damm sure do not make the worst flanks out there and I am not one to brag on being the best. One flank is pretty much like any other flank it is just the material used and the service given to the customers. I want to know if you are not happey with the flanks that I have made for you.  If  you ar not happy with them please let me know.  If you use the flanks for what they are to be used for they should last you sometime.  But if you use them so much that they where out quick maybe a different material may need to be used instead of cotton rope. I do not think that they should be used for gate ropes or to tye a trailer closed or to use one to tye the leg of a bull up, but if they need to be use for that then use them but I do not think that they will hold up to much for that use. Some people may sell there flanks cheaper than me but that is there perogative.  If I wanted to do this for the fun of it and did not need the money doing it I would not be making them. 

Tim Kelly