Mervel Hall

Modern-era Rodeo

Inducted 2008

Mervel Raymond Hall was born on the family ranch near Elbowoods in 1928 and grew up on horseback. He served overseas in the U.S. Navy and has ranched and farmed near Mandaree since 1948. Ed Hall Sr. was his grandfather. He reared a family of six children.

The NDRA named him champion bareback and saddle bronc rider in 1958 and 1964 and all around Cowboy in 1964. Hall participated in saddle bronc, bareback and bull riding in rodeos from Fort Worth to Denver to Tucson. In 1961, he won the world famous Miles City Bucking Horse Sale bareback event.

Hall also participated in dozens of rodeos around North Dakota, including Garrison, Fort Yates, New Salem, New Town, White Earth and Killdeer, earning championships in saddle bronc and bareback many times during 1951 1966. In 1976, Hall was the bareback winner at the North Dakota Cowboys Reunion rodeo.

He was known by many as having one of the strongest arms in the bare-back riding event. He liked to win saddles at rodeos around home, but also found time for the All American Indian Activities Association (now the Great Plains Indian Rodeo Association) events, where he was the saddle bronc champion in 1967 and the bareback champion in 1969.

Hall is a humble man and when once asked about his rodeo achievements, he commented, “Well, I went to quite a few of them.” Not one to brag about himself, his nomination packet shows that he is entitled to toot his own horn. Events from Amidon to Wing and from Fort Worth to Tucson over 16 years outline his long and illustrious rodeo career.

Merval Hall died in November 2015.