Gary Williams, longtime GM of Tucson Rodeo and sport’s ‘encyclopedia,’ dies at 73

Williams became the first general manager of the Tucson Rodeo in 1995 and distinguished himself until his retirement in December 2020.

A 1967 graduate of Rincon High School, Williams earned a business degree from the University of Arizona, but his love of being a cowboy and the rodeo kept him in Tucson. He started attending rodeo as a child because his father, Gene, played in a Western band that performed during the rodeo. He got his first horse at age 4, and ultimately became a bull rider.

Williams rode bulls for 16 years and was a rodeo clown for three. In 1985. he became a member of the Tucson Rodeo Committee, a volunteer organization for which he worked as chairman of the publicity and promotion committee. He eventually became vice chairman of the committee and then chairman of the Tucson Rodeo Committee in 1995.

During the time he was volunteering with the Rodeo Committee, he was director of human resources at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

Before he retired, Williams was one of the most recognizable faces on the PRCA calendar. He was chosen to be part of the executive committee of the National Finals Rodeo every December in Las Vegas, where his ever-present cowboy hat and western-style mustache made him one of the most identifiable figures in the rodeo industry.

He described his long tenure on the Tucson Rodeo Committee as “a wonderful life.” Williams was inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 2006.

“He’s got such a presence,” Dr. Eddie Taylor, a UA grad who was the 2019 RCA Veterinarian of the Year, told the Star in 2020. “He’s known and respected around the country not only by the stock contractors and announcers but by the bull riders and cowboys.

“If you see Gary at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, everybody knows him.”

In 1996, after 71 years, the Tucson Rodeo Committee hired Williams as its first paid employee and its first general manager. As GM, he was responsible for the overall everyday operations that included securing sponsors, enlisting cowboy athletes to participate and putting on the biggest sporting event in all of Southern Arizona.

“He was like an encyclopedia around here,” Tucson Rodeo committee chairman Mark Baird told the Star in February. “Every day I want to ask a question and I turn to him and he’s not here. It was tough to replace him. It was like, ‘Where do I go now?'”