Neal Gay was a city boy who grew up liking the rodeo. He grew up in the Pleasant Grove area of Dallas, Texas and rode calves for fun at a relative's farm. When he turned 17, Neal volunteered for the Coast Guard.
After WWII he got involved in organized rodeo in 1945. Neal recalls: "My dad had a garage in Pleasant Grove, and Tex Lewis would come around. He was a bronc rider who always talked about rodeos. One day Tex said, ‘Neal, let's go to Garland [a suburb of Dallas] and ride in the rodeo.’ I didn't have anything else better to do, so I went. I got thrown at the whistle. That was a Friday night and the next night I entered the Pleasant Mound Rodeo. I won first place. It was the second bucking horse I'd ever gotten on, and I won $35. That was big stuff."
After those nights Neal was hooked on the rodeo. He entered and competed in virtually every event at any rodeo. He broke into the top ten in Saddle Bronc Riding.
But something kept tugging at him. He made himself a promise that if he ever married and had a family, he would stop competing to be a full-time husband and father. "I'm not knocking the others for staying on the circuit. That's just the way I felt."
After Neal's wife died in 1957 his idea of a stationary rodeo flourished again. He shared his idea with buddies that he knew and Jim Shoulders, a 16-time all-around rodeo champion. When Neal remembers the good old days, he recalls that he and Jim met during WWII. “We'd buy cigarettes in Dallas and sell them to other cowboys, for a little profit," he adds with a wink.
After a long conversation they decided to build a rodeo that stayed in one spot. Besides Neal and Jim, the other partners included D.J. "Kajun Kidd" Gaudin, Harry Tompkins, Ira Akers and Bob Grant. They bought the Pleasant Mound Rodeo, relocated it and renamed it “the Mesquite Championship Rodeo”. Since something like this had never been tried before most people didn't give them much of a chance for success.
Neal and his family continue to produce the weekly rodeo, but most of his time is spent at his 1,000 acre ranch near Terrell, Texas, where he, Kay, Jim and wife Brenda live. Neal keeps more than $1 million in rodeo livestock on his ranch for the annual Fort Worth Rodeo and Livestock Show.
Located just off Neal Gay Drive in Mesquite, Texas, the cache is a small container with a log only so BYO 
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