Donald Bruce Murray was born in Ipswich, South Dakota, to Don and Elaine Murray on May 19, 1952. Later two sisters were born. Bruce’s parents weren’t ranchers, but his grandparents and uncles were ranchers and farmers. He spent every summer with them, and this is where Bruce developed a love for the cowboy lifestyle.
Bruce’s family lived in Dumas, Texas, for most of his school years. There he had many friends who owned ranches and feedlots. Bruce spent lots of time helping his friends and furthering his interest in cowboying.
At age 16, Bruce started working for a feedlot in Strafford, Texas. He spent his days painting as they were building it, later doctoring cattle, and riding pens. Bruce learned how to ride from a friend, around 1969. He taught him how to ride bareback on broke saddle horses and mules. Eventually rode bareback horses and started rodeoing. In Dumas he and a friend entered a relay race each person rode three horses. Bruce and his partner each won their first buckle. Some of his friends that rode pens let him ride a black Percheron to learn how to rope, which totally lit a spark in him.
Bruce graduated from Dumas High School in 1970. He was drafted into the Army for the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, Bruce was a ranger and jumped from airplanes until he received an injury in combat. He was in the army from 1972 -197 4, one tour of duty. He left on a medical release as he blew out his knee while jumping out of an airplane.
Bruce returned home to South Dakota where he helped his family on their farms and ranches. Later, he went to school to become a vet tech and started helping a local veterinarian in Edgemont, South Dakota. Eventually, Bruce got a job at a feedlot (Black Hills Beef Palace in lgloo, South Dakota). He contracted with the branding crew, doctoring, and riding pens for the feedlot. While there he acquired some lifelong Wyoming friends that live close to him later in life. His horse’s name was Chief. Bruce and Chief were social, and they went to some local ranch sorting’s and parades. It rained at the Edgemont fair and some girls dared him his feedlot horse couldn’t run barrels, let alone in the mud. Bruce and Chief entered the competition and Bruce won the second buckle of his life.
When Bruce moved to Wyoming in 1975, he started helping the Burk family in Douglas, and spent time with the Gray family, in Orin. A friend set him up with Debbie Manning on a blind date. After dating for six months, they were married on November 27, 1976.
Bruce worked in the oil field from 1975-89, but he also worked at the Manning Ranch, owned by Debbie’s family Bob and Mae Ann Manning.
In 1979, Bruce quit the oilfield and started working at the ranch full time. The family worked together caring for 600 head of cattle in Converse & Niobrara Counties. They also owned 1,500 head of sheep, which were kept 80 miles from the main ranch.
The family ranch was split up in 1999, dropping the number of cattle Bruce helped with to about 500 head. Bruce’s father-in-law, mother-in-law, Debbie, and their daughter Ammie worked the ranch together. When his father in-law died, Bruce became even busier with the ranch being the only man “labor- worker.” In 2015 Bruce’s mother-in-law died. In 2019 when all the logistics were settled the ranch became Twenty Mile Creek Ranch LLC. Now running 400 head of Herford cattle and breeding a few of their good mares to raise great horses used on the ranch.
He has done every job on the ranch including fixing fence, roping and doctoring cattle in the pasture. One time he roped a pink eye calf, tied him down but had forgotten the medicine. There was a pickup close by, so he went home to get the medicine. His horse Top Gun, that he had raised and trained stood there the entire time. Once at a neighbor’s branding, there was an elk called Elton that lived with his cows. They gathered the cows and tied all the horses up to sort, Elton decided to run out of the pen and every horse pulled back except for Bruce’s colt Top Gun.
His most rewarding chore each year is to keep the bums, sick calves and lambs alive. He takes care of his animals and takes great pride in keeping them fat and healthy. He loves to rope and drag calves to the fire for branding.
One time they were gathering sheep far from the docking pen. To dock the sheep, they would put them in a smaller pasture so they could rest and finish bringing them in with horses. Everyone saw a lightning bolt hit the hill Bruce was on. He shook for the rest of the day and night of that docking. Later he even lost his fingernails.
In the wintertime, Bruce uses colts to gather the cattle. Bruce would use four head a day unless he was mad at one and then that horse got to work all day.
In 1997, he had chest pains all summer long. Bruce and Ammie were up at a coral a few miles away from the house and while he was flipping the calves after he roped them, he was having a hard time getting his air. They did get them all done but when they got back to the house, he was wiped out. Debbie knew something was wrong, even though he had told Ammie she couldn’t tell her. He has always been the hard-working muscle man around the ranch and they were thinking he was scared that the girls would have to do more. He ended up having a heart by-pass. Needless to say, he was the worst cook ever that summer, they ate a lot of box cakes
The ranch horses that he used on the ranch were: Chief, Big Red, Wiggy, Charge, Miracle, Rainbow, Hawkie, Dunne, Top Gun, Popcorn, Cowboy, Barmaid. Robin, Spumoni, Mouse, Bugger, Okie (a mustang), Shoshoni (a mustang), Sunday, CD, Chip, Sara, Hank, Teddy, Dream, Turtle, and Duke. Some were already broke and stared before he got them.
After age 65 he only does the colt groundwork, he got tired of the colt-breaking stuff. Friends now break the colts he raises and then he finishes them into what he wants.
Bruce loves to ride and work cattle. He has broken many horses for the area neighbors. Bruce’s favorite part about breaking colts is getting them to be your friend, lead, and have manners. Starting colts with groundwork has always been his favorite and of course riding them when ‘broncs’.
One time he was breaking the colt named Spumoni for his daughter, and was doing good on making a good horse. He got off one day to get the gate when Spumoni reared and struck him in the head and ran home. He had to walk home about two miles with a bleeding head. He didn’t want to go to town, so he and Debbie put butterfly stitches in his head.
He has done many fun events with his ranch horse over the years that makes them proven ranch horses both at home and in town performing fun events.
Team Roping would be his first fun event for the ranch horses. He won his first saddle on his horse Popcorn at the CCTRA (Converse County Team Roping Association). Popcorn also won him his first team roping buckle in 1988, from the CCTRA. On the last run, of the last day riding Barmaid, Bruce got his fingers caught in his dally. It took his 3 fingers, so he had to go to the hospital and get sewed up and was bandaged when he got his awards.
He roped for many years at practices and at competitions from the 1970s to the 2000s, until he hurt his shoulder.
T earn penning was also a sport he enjoyed with his ranch horses. He went to different towns and state team penning with a friend, Ike Walker. They won a few buckles, awards, and checks.
He also competed at ranch horse competitions. He participated in the Wyoming State Fair ranch horse competition and won it his first year.
He participated in Cowboy Mounted Shooting and won a number one buckle on Barmaid. Then he got Sara, from George and Debbie Harty. She was older and well experienced for the shootings. She helped him improve in the sport and had lots of fun. He had tried to shoot off Okie, a mustang he had purchased from the Wyoming State Fair Mustang Sale in 2008 as a two-year-old.
Bruce was a timing official at the chariot races in Douglas and picked up horses on the track on the back side of the finish line. They had a runaway one time on the back side when the guy got flung out of the chariot. Bruce and Jimmy Huxtable caught up to the horses and got them under control though it took them about 2 miles to get it handled.
From 1985 to 1999 the Murrays and Mannings started putting on gymkhanas for kids and adults. They had barrels, poles, goats, keyhole, flags, and other fun events. They were held in town until 1999 then a break was taken, and the gymkhanas were moved to the ranch from 2011 to 2021.
Bruce had judged and flagged local team ropings and rodeos. Around 1997 he decided to get certified to judge. He started judging high school rodeos. One time he was judging a rodeo in Douglas and the bucking horse and the pickup men ran over him. He judged rodeos for the all-girl Rodeo Association, Wyoming State Fair Ranch Rodeo, Wyoming High School Rodeos and Wyoming State Fair Cowboy Classic Team Roping.
Bruce has many non-horse activities as well. In the 1980s, the winters were terrible with deep snow and he didn’t have the equipment to get to the livestock. He left horses where he needed them to check cattle. He would ride a snowmobile to get to the livestock and the horses. One of his friends wrecked his snowmobile so Bruce rebuilt it for him with fiberglass and then painted a cross bones and skulls on it. He also enjoys woodworking. When Ammie was a kid, Bruce made her a stool out of wood and carved horses on it. He even carved out a carousel horse for her to ride outside. Area people heard about it and got him to make more. He also would carve out movable toys for local Converse County charities.
He painted on bull skulls and donated most of them to fund raisers in the Converse and Niobrara County areas. He learned to make iron metal signs by working with a friend, Chris Jensen of Cowboy Iron Works, who needed help building some for a business. He built a few for area ranchers and organizations but his favorite was the one he made for the Converse County Rural Fire Zone 3 Community fire hall. He hand carved a fire truck fighting a fire with a plasma cutter.
In the 1990s he saw a picture of people driving goats. He and Ammie raised goats to feed the ranch’s bum lambs and for rodeos. On New Years Eve, 1997 he decided to make a bet with friends, that also owned goats. Bruce wanted to train goats, and have them broke by spring. He immediately went home and started working on the two-year-old goats. He broke them to drive with a skid that he built. When they got used to that, they pulled grandma in the little red wagon. He built a replica of the Budweiser horse wagon, with tongues for four goats, one on each side per tongue. He eventually got an 8-goat hitch together, even though a 4-hitch was the best. He built a chariot wagon to drive the goats with.