Family bootmaking business has roots in Lubbock, Texas, and Juárez, Mexico.    

By Lynn Ascrizzi 

“It’s difficult to find bootmakers, or ‘zappateros,’ as we call them. They are disappearing.”  — Iram Cobos 

Since his early teenage years, Ruben Cobos Read more

By Nick Pernokas 

The bronc rider heard the whistle and stopped spurring. He waited for the pickup men to catch up with him and handed the rein off to one of them. As he grabbed the pickup man’s waist Read more

By Edward Loya 

Growing up during the Urban Cowboy movie craze in the early 1980s, Mike Vaughn wore cowboy boots and, when he turned 14, he started bull riding at local rodeos. As Mike explained it, “Everybody wore boots Read more

By Nick Pernokas

Tim Bishop was raised in the small, eastern New Mexico town of Logan. Tim’s high school had only 13 in his graduating class. In this rural ranching community, there were only a few choices in lifestyle Read more

A Skater’s Dream 

by Gene Fowler 

Figure skating legend Brian Boitano, who won a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics, still has the first pair of skates he got at the age of nine. Why hang on to Read more