Living up to his nickname "Cowboy"

GREENOUGH – With the nickname "cowboy" coined by his mother at age two, Louis Woodrow "Louie" Vero of Greenough had a lot to live up to. Throughout his childhood, Vero learned to rope and ride. His love affair with horses continued when he worked at the E Bar L Ranch in Greenough, Mont. while attending college at Cal-Poly. After a short stint in Idaho and Oregon, he returned to Montana and has spent most of his adult life fostering the western lifestyle and traditions.

Vero was inducted into the 2018 Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame for District 11 Feb. 9. While Vero received the award with much humility, he said he was honored to be in such good company with the other inductees.

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Vero was born July 4, 1939 in Isleton, Calif. He was the youngest of six siblings in his immediate family. He lived on the American River on a fruit and nut orchard with his grandparents.

With the emergence of the western films, Vero said cowboys were held in high regard within his Filipino family and they thought the cowboy-way was special. That is the only explanation he could give for his mother Dale Balbutin nicknaming him 'cowboy.'

Vero started roping when he was eight or nine using a cotton, clothes line rope. His target - anyone willing to run by.

"We would get roped around our feet and dumped on our faces," said Vero smiling at the memory.

Vero's first horse was a mustang. His second oldest brother Gary Franco purchased the unbroken, two-year-old mare with the help of their grandfather for $35.

"We didn't know anything about horses. We didn't know anything about riding," said Vero. "All we knew was what a halter was."

They had a McClellan army saddle that the siblings rode on at one time. They would take her out to the river, tie her up to a snag in the middle and then fish off of her, dive off her and swim between her legs.

"She would just stand there," said Vero. "She was wonderful, just wonderful."

Not only did Vero and his siblings not know anything about how to ride a horse, their husbandry skills were also lacking. Vero said they would tie her to a tree with a 50 foot, one inch link chain. She would eat the 50-foot circle to bare dirt and then eat the bark off the tree. Vero remembered there was an old khaki shirt in the crotch of the tree and she ate that too.

"During the time we had her, she was only sick for one day," said Vero. "Unbelievable the care we did not give her and she survived and she gave us what she had."

Vero's love for horses and horsemanship continued to grow throughout high school.

"Being on top of a horse gave me a status lift, probably in my own mind," said Vero. "It was kind of nice. Get my feet off the ground, I didn't have to walk to get somewhere."

After graduating in 1957 he attended Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo to study animal science. However after three years Vero flunked out. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. At his basic training physical, the inspector noticed that his right leg was shorter than the left.

"It is absolutely easy to spot, complete with a flat foot, no heel, atrophied leg up to the knee," said Vero who had polio at age two that went undiagnosed until age 13. "He just tapped me on the calf and said 'Go on, you'll be fine.' I was surprised but I was glad I was going somewhere that I didn't have to provide for myself."

Vero served from 1961-1965 and was in England for three years. He worked as a surgical technician.

"I saw my first dead man and gave mouth-to-mouth to a dying man," said Vero. "It was a real growing up situation."

After his service, he returned to Cal-Poly where Bill Gibford was the head of the horse department at the time. He was training hackamore and spade bit horses. Horsemen like Les Vogt, Roger Hunt and Emmitt Mundy boarded their horses at the college, so Vero was exposed to some of the greatest hands in the country.

Vero would ride and rope nearly every day soaking up everything he could between classes. Gibford taught him the basics of roping: throw a flat loop, hit the target and then jerk your slack.

"If you don't build your momentum, it doesn't give you the power to hit your target. To catch whatever you are roping you have to hit it. Then if you don't jerk the slack, the animal can run through the loop," said Vero making the hand motions as he spoke.

Gibford's son Dick was pretty well mounted and knew a thing or two about horses. One day he and Vero decided to ride north of the Cal-Poly campus to Santa Margarita where a herd of wild horses lived to see if they could rope one.

Vero told the story of them riding the road where they soon spotted a little group of them.

"Off they went and off we went," said Vero with a smile.

However the mare Vero was riding was really powerful. When she took off, it put him off balance. As they crashed through the brush, Vero fell off.

"I'm laying on the ground watching that rope sing around the saddle horn on that departing mare and there was a coil around my foot. I thought hmmm...this is not going to end anything but badly," said Vero. "Thank God, when it came to the end of the rope, it came loose."

Vero earned his Bachelor's Degree in Animal Science and Agriculture. During the summers of his college years he took a job in Montana with the E Bar L Ranch, one of the oldest guest ranches in Montana.

"I was just smitten with Montana," said Vero. "That is how it started."

Vero's roping adventures continued on the ranch. He roped a porcupine one afternoon when riding along the Blackfoot River. He and the head wrangler also roped a bear one of his first years on the ranch.

Vero told the story that he and the head wrangler were out at the dump looking for black bears. They scared a yearling bear up a tree and it climbed out on a limb.

After returning with their ropes, Vero said the head wrangler put a loop around the bear's head with the first cast. When he cinched it, the bear fell off the limb.

"So there they are, doing the pulley effect [over the branch]," said Vero doing a seesaw with his fingers.

Vero got a second rope on the bear and brought it down. They decided to bring it back to the ranch and use it in the roping the next night. They loaded it into the enclosed trailer and left it for the night.

Land Lindbergh was roping with them the next evening and was the first one in the arena. Lindbergh was on his horse named Custer. Vero said as they entered the box, they rode by the chute and Custer let out a big snort.

"Land knew something was up because the fences were lined with people," said Vero smiling.

When they opened the gate and gave the bear a poke, it took off through the arena. Vero said Lindbergh lined up on it but didn't get the rope on it. Instead the bear headed right into a pen of goats.

"These little white goats come popping out of the pen like popcorn," said Vero laughing hysterically. "The bear kept right on going."

Next week: Vero marries the boss's daughter and continues life as a cowboy in Idaho and Oregon. The couple returns to the E Bar L and started roping competitively. At age 79, Vero was inducted into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame thanks to the nomination from fellow roping teammate Steve Love.