February 17th, 2014 Last Updated on: February 17th, 2014
Buck Lunak is a proud member of the Blackfoot Nation and a descendant of a Blackfoot leader named Mountain Chief, he said. He's also one of the few American Indians competing in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.
He noted that team roper Dustin Bird, who's competing in San Antonio too, was the first Blackfoot to make it into the National Rodeo Finals.
“I grew up on horseback, working calves,” Lunak said.
His family ran a cow-calf operation in Browning and Cut Bank, Mont. His father was a bareback rider. Several uncles were bronc riders.
“I'm very proud of my heritage,” Lunak said of the Blackfoot, who live in Montana and in southern Alberta. Horses have been inextricably tied to his tribe.
“We were warriors and horsemen. The horse came to us and changed our lives,” he said, telling the story of how Mountain Chief's black horse was shot out from under him in battle, only to return two years later. “Black horse is regarded as a spirit,” he said.
Lunak was a winner at the Tsuu T'ina Nation Rodeo in Canada, and wore the silver buckle in San Antonio. Competing is his livelihood.
“You get by,” he said. “You do it because you love it through thick and thin.”
Read more on the story at San Antonio Express-News.
Photo By San Antonio Express-News
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