Here’s How the Words of the Legendary Lewis Feild Inspire World Bareback Champion Each Day

Via the Gold Buckle Buzz series, writer Brian Hurlburt takes us into the hearts and minds of the PRCA World Champions who clinched titles during the 2024 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo®.

Unfortunately, 1985 PRCA Bareback World Champion Lewis Feild isn’t alive to witness the Dean Thompson experience. Feild passed away at age 59 from pancreatic cancer, but his legacy lives on through the 2024 world champion who is a fan favorite on and off the dirt. Thompson’s success is partly due to Feild’s inspirational words.

“Lewis Feild was a legend in every sense of the word,” the charismatic Thompson said while sitting in a room at the legendary South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa during a 2025 NFR promotional event. “You can’t find a person who can say a bad thing about him. There is a reason for that. Lewis was the kind of guy who made everybody feel like they were his best friend. He probably had a thousand best friends going down the rodeo road. He also never put his family second.

“During his ProRodeo Hall of Fame induction speech, he said, ‘I wanted to be known as a kind gentleman outside the arena and a fierce competitor inside the arena.’ He also said at the end of it, ‘I guess I just want to be known as a cowboy.’ I have those words on a card on my fridge and I read it each morning. When I wake up, the kind of cowboy I want to be is the kind of cowboy Lewis Feild was.”

Thompson won his first career PRCA Bareback Riding World Championship in 2024 with $412,121 in earnings. He placed in a total of eight NFR rounds, highlighted by his split for first in Round 5 and his walk-away win in Round 8. He also won the NFR average race with 854.5 points on 10 head, earning $239,924. 

Feild earned his first PRCA All-around World Championship in 1985, and was the first roughstock cowboy to do so since Larry Mahan in 1973. He went on to win three straight world all-around titles, as well as two world bareback riding crowns. In 1990, he became the first roughstock contestant to earn $1 million in career earnings. Because of his prowess in both the roughstock and timed events, he won the distinguished Linderman Award three times, 1981, 1988 and 1991.

The unofficial kickoff at South Point for the 40^th Las Vegas NFR included bringing back each of the living 1985 world champions to mingle with the 2024 champions and Miss Rodeo America. The first Las Vegas champions will also be featured throughout the Wrangler NFR Dec. 4-13, 2025.

“These couple days have been amazing … I’m hanging out with some of the greatest ever in rodeo,” Thompson said with a grin as wide as the Thomas & Mack Center. “They were rodeoing back when the chutes were made of wood and the men were made of steel. We hear the stories about how these guys went down the road to get to Vegas each year. It means so much to be here with them because these guys gave everything for almost nothing. Over the years, Vegas has turned the NFR into a big-time, celebrity event and we have a blast doing it. But those guys were the ones who laid the foundation. Without them, none of this is even close to possible.”

Thompson now reaps the rewards of the lucrative NFR. The feeling of winning a Gold Buckle in the Thomas & Mack Center is hard to describe, even for a guy who is always quick with a quote.

“It difficult to put it into words,” Thompson said. “There is a quote that says something like, ‘The best thing you can do is to come back to where you started and see it from a different light.’ I wanted this from day one, and now to finally get there and see it from the light, it doesn’t look like how I pictured it when I was a young kid. But with each of the experiences I have had, it looks so much more beautiful. It is like Euphoria.”

Like the rest of us, Thompson is anticipating what Las Vegas Events and PRCA will reveal during the 40^th NFR in Las Vegas.

“It is going to be insane and it will be grander than ever,” Thompson said. “Every year it’s gotten so much better. The NFR is growing faster than ever, and the sport of rodeo is, as well. Honestly, Cowboys are cool again.”