Willis “Bill” Roy Stanton, much loved father, grandfather, brother, and uncle, passed away in Scottsdale, Arizona, on October 14, 2021 due to heart failure. He was 81 years of age.
Bill was born in 1940 to Roy and Lillian Stanton in The Dalles, Oregon. He was raised in the areas around Sisters and Redmond, Oregon, with his two older sisters, Pat and Jean, and younger brother, Kenny.
The Stanton kids learned to work hard and be tough as they helped their parents with ranch work. It wasn’t long before the young brothers were getting into trouble for sneaking rides on their dad’s milk cows.
Thus began their love of rodeo. Bill was an exceptional athlete and he excelled at wrestling and bull riding. He graduated from Redmond High School (Oregon) in 1958 and later got his horseshoeing certification from Cal Poly.
He joined the Rodeo Cowboys Association in 1960, but his riding career was interrupted when he served a tour of duty with the United States Army in 1963-65.
While there, he found that the Army had a wrestling team. He made the team, wrestling in the #137 weight class, and represented the Army branch of the military in competitions, along with his other duties.
He was undefeated during his time wrestling for the Army and earned an invitation to the 1964 Olympic Trials. Unfortunately, his rodeo earnings made him ineligible to compete.
In 1965 he transitioned to coaching for the team. When his military service ended, he renewed his rodeo pursuits.
Bill got his pilot’s license and bought a plane to help him commute to the various rodeos.
Competing in bull riding, he won numerous accolades including the Columbia River Circuit season champion and the Houston Rodeo bull riding champion.
He qualified for the National Finals Rodeo five times. His highest NFR finish was in 1967 when he got second place, losing by a hair to Larry Mahan.
Rodeo connections introduced Bill to Polly Ivory. They married in 1969 and went on to have eight children. In addition to his career as a professional rodeo cowboy, Bill worked in real estate, on various ranches, as a long-haul truck driver, and as a truck driver at the Echo Bay Gold Mine in Battle Mountain, Nevada, where he retired.
He later lived for many years in Weiser, Idaho, before moving to Phoenix, Arizona, to be nearer to family.
While he was a man of few words, if you spent time around Bill, you had a pretty good idea of where you stood with him as he was incapable of being disingenuous.
By his way of thinking, the highest compliment he could give was to consider someone a good, hard worker. He could stop bad behavior with just a look from his piercing blue eyes, peering out from beneath his infamous eyebrows.
He loved causing a good jump scare, and passed this obsession on to his children, to the great dismay of their spouses and kids. We will greatly miss his mischievous laugh and the joy it brought him to pull one over on others.
If you attended a gathering of his big and loving family, you would likely find Bill standing somewhere along the perimeter, his thumbs hooked in his Wranglers, wearing a lopsided grin on his face as he quietly observed the rowdy antics of his crew. While he may not be the one to initiate conversation, he had the habit of placing his arm around loved ones while they spoke, letting them know he was listening.
He used any news reports of inclement weather as an excuse to call and check in on family wherever they might be living.
As he aged, he was often unintentionally hilarious as he shared his opinions on politics and the hot topics of the day, but he also showed a willingness to learn and shift his way of thinking.
To the hospital staff in Phoenix, he will be remembered as “Wild Bill,” the feisty escape artist with surprising strength and the iron grip of an old bull rider. He was loved and he will be missed.
He was preceded in death by parents, Roy and Lillian Stanton, his younger brother Kenny Stanton, and his grandson Kyle Stanton.
He is survived by his eight children and twenty-two of his grandchildren Brooke Bolli (Tyler): Sayge, Chayce, Layne, and Sawyer; Vince Stanton (Dawne): Ashley, Tara, Brett, Ella, Jake, and Luke; Wade Stanton (Wendy): CJ, Colton, Collby, and Charlee; Misty Quintana (Joe): Chenae, Brooklyn, Joelle, and Carter; Mackenzie Rentschler (Jon); Miles Stanton; Ivory Mack (Chris): Campbell, Emerson, Nolan, and Porter; Cole Stanton.
