It’s quite a rare occurrence for someone born in Ohio to be honored for “keeping Texas Texan,” but trick-roper Kevin Fitzpatrick had an advantage over most Ohioans. His parents were from Texas, and his dad, a former employee of the Dixie Dude Ranch in Bandera, was a horse-shoer by trade who just happened to be working at a race track in Ohio when Kevin was born. “When I was a kid,” he recalls, “my favorite toy was an old, worn-out rope.” It was a sign of good things to come.

The family moved to Arizona (“I grew up in Arizona,” Fitzpatrick says.) and later to California, where Kevin began working as a groom at a Sacramento race track when he was just 16. After graduating from high school, he took jobs shoeing horses in southern California. His parents moved back to Bandera.

History was made in 1980, when Kevin came to Bandera to visit his folks and decided to stay. He got a job at the same Dixie Dude Ranch where his father had worked, and took up trick-roping to entertain the guests. And although he worked at construction and other jobs through the next several years, he kept on practicing his roping. By 1988, he was good enough to be invited to go to Kuwait with Lance Livingston Productions, a Houston company which has produced hundreds of Wild West programs throughout the United States, Canada, South America and the Middle East.

The group performed one day for American workers (employees of companies such as Apple Computers, 7-Up and Honda) and two days for guests of the Kuwait Regency Palace Hotel. One of Fitzpatrick’s fellow-performers was trick-shooter Joe Bowman of Houston, also an intended honoree at the “Keeping Texas Texan” event this coming July 25.

Fitzpatrick decided to “go professional” in 1990, His partner in crime was a twelve-year-old horse named “Wet,” who would allow his master to stand on the saddle and perform roping tricks without doing anything to disrupt the process. “I’d had him since he was two,” Fitzpatrick recalls. “I told Wet one time that if he could put up with me standing and jumping on his back, I had no excuse for not completing the trick. We learned together.”

In the summer of 1993, he met Trenna Hill, who was visiting Bandera with friends from Waco. They were married July 16, 1994. His unique career still amazes her. “I couldn’t believe that people would pay him money to rope,” she says.

By then, Fitzpatrick was appearing regularly at schools, hospitals, guest ranches, rodeos, fairs and business conventions, where he would rope spectators, do rope tricks, crack whips and make the audience laugh. He has traveled the world (at least to England and Switzerland) doing promotions for the state of Texas. He even went to Germany twice in 1999 for a Guinness Book of World Records show in Munich, where he and the world-record-holder staged a Texas-rope-skip contest to see how many times they could jump the spinning loop inside of one minute. The champion jumped 79 times in 60 seconds. Fitzpatrick jumped 79 times in 56 seconds, but “on the 80th skip,” he reports, “I stepped on the rope.” His record didn’t count, since he had not gone the full 60 seconds, but for 56 seconds, he was the world’s best!

Faithful old Wet (now 31) retired in 2002, and Chief, now 14, took his place. “He’s a great horse,” Fitzpatrick brags. “It only took two years to train him.” Fitzpatrick has also trained a good backup horse (named Dollar, 15 years old). “Dollar is good for indoor jobs,” he explains. “He’s white, which really makes him stand out; he’s smaller, and he’s not afraid of small spaces. He’ll go anywhere; I’ve even taken him on an elevator.” A Houston hotel once refused to let Dollar come inside; the very next year, the rule was relaxed and Dollar performed in the hotel’s ballroom.

“I regard myself as an all-around cowboy,” Fitzpatrick says. “riding and roping, with the high-top boots, big hat and fancy horse. I try to take audiences back a few steps in time, to images of cowboy heroes such as Tom Mix, Roy Rogers and Will Rogers.” Some of his rope tricks include the Butterfly, Rollovers, the Wedding Ring, the Cowboy Hopscotch, Jump-Throughs and Fitzpatrick’s specialty, the Texas Skip (for an clear understanding of what those tricks involve, come to one of his shows. Or better yet, call 830-796-7272 to book him for your next group event!)

Fitzpatrick’s older daughter, Morgan, has decided on a career in teaching (“She really likes kids,” he explains), but his younger daughter, Kati (14) and his son, Will (10) are following in their father’s footsteps, and often help in his shows. “They’ve both got that stage presence,” Fitzpatrick says proudly. “They enjoy performing in front of a crowd.”

Last September, Fitzpatrick entered a competition at the National Cowboy Symposium & Celebration in Lubbock and won the title of “World Champion Trick Roper.” It was a formalization of what many around Bandera had thought all along. This July, Fitzpatrick and five others will be honored as “Living Legends” at the “Keeping Texas Texan” event sponsored by the Frontier Times Museum. It’s a remarkable achievement for this Ohio-born cowboy.