Jim was born December 22, 1945, in Fairfax, MO. He began his rodeo competitions with the National Little Britches Rodeo Association (NLBRA) and on to high school competition in bareback, bull riding, and calf roping. He represented his state of Missouri at the National High School Rodeo Finals each year and was also elected to serve as National Student Vice-President his senior year. After high school, he headed to far west Texas to rodeo at Sul Ross State University, in Alpine, Texas. While there, he married his college sweetheart, K. C. Madrid and graduated in May 1968. During those college years, he qualified for the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) Finals in bull riding.
After college, he continued to rodeo but was sidelined with an injury. This led him to his first job as a teacher in Odessa, Texas. He continued to teach, break colts, braid bull ropes, judge rodeos, and ride bulls for the next 14 years with wins at major rodeos across the United States and Canada. In 1984, he began coaching the 1st Odessa College rodeo team in addition to his public teaching job. He did this for 14 years before resigning from public schools to go full time with the college program. He coached for another 11 years with students winning regional titles, national titles, and also a NIRA Men’s Team Championship. National titles were won by Jim Sharp (2), Ty Murray (3), Jerome Davis (1), Shawn McMullan (2), Ben Duggar (1), Cimmaron Gerke (1), and Ryan Gray (1). The champion team members in 1989 were Kevin Bennett, Linn Churchill, Bubba Flores, Shawn McMullan, Ty Murray, and Chad Ramirez.
2004 and 2009 were extra special to Jim as he was named Coach of the Year in the NIRA- Southwest Region. The highlight was being named NIRA Coach of the Year for 2009. In August of 2009, Jim announced his retirement from coaching and feels it was God’s plan for him to be in “this arena and has been abundantly blessed doing what he loved for over 40 years. He and K.C. have raised 3 wonderful children, Todd, Jamie, and Ty in their 45 years of marriage.
