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Sam Shepard
The award is given each year to a cutting horse trainer in memory of Zane Schulte, son of Tom and Barbra Schulte, Brenham, Texas, who passed away at age 16 on June 18, 2000, after losing a battle with cancer. Barbra Schulte is a leading cutting trainer and clinician, while Tom Schulte is a non-professional rider.
“This is quite an honor,” Shepard said. “Tom and Barbra are two of my favorite people and their son meant a lot to me. He was a real good young man and I got to know him well. We played a lot of golf together and that’s what makes it so special.”
The selection is determined by a NCHA committee.
“We think that again, the committee has come up with a very, very fine selection," Tom Schulte said. "It was extremely difficult this year because we had 40 people nominated. It’s not our award. It’s the NCHA’s award.”
Prior to the announcement of 2008 recipient Allen Crouch, the names of the person selected and the names of the other nominees were not announced until the semifinals of the NCHA World Championship Futurity in December. However, the committee decided that by announcing the award selection earlier, it would give the recipient the amount of recognition that person deserves.
“When Tom and I conceived the award, we based it on a model of how the Pacific Coast [CHA] gave their award,” Barbra Schulte said. “They give it at a party with other awards. We liked the surprise element. However, with time, Tom and I were thinking, 'Was there any way we could improve the award?' Because the award is presented during the Futurity semifinals, the atmosphere is not the same as a party. People now will know about it during the process, plus it will be on the big screen, so the recipient will get more recognition that they deserve.”
Other winners were: 2007–Chris Benedict; 2006–Mike McCarty; 2005–Jim Reno; 2004–Buster Welch; 2003–Al Dunning; 2002–Bill Riddle; and 2001–Dale Wilkinson.
Recipients are presented a Jan Mapes bronze depicting a trainer on a turnback horse, leaning over the cantle of his saddle and pointing out a cow selection to the person he is helping at a cutting horse show.
Shepard, who served as NCHA president in 1992-93, said, “Perhaps the only thing I’ve done to deserve it is outlast a lot of people. Most of what I’ve done has been self-serving, to make a living. The other thing that means a lot to me is people like Dale Wilkinson, Buster [Welch] and Bill Riddle. As a son of a peanut farmer from Alabama, it means a lot to be in that group.”
He then laughed and said, “Tom reassured me that I didn’t win the award because Austin is my son.”
Austin Shepard, who won the NCHA Futurity and NCHA Super Stakes, is only 32, but his mounts already have earned more than $3.6 million. Sam Shepard has another son, Harris, 15, who is a highly competitive cutting horse rider, and a daughter, Emma, who will be 13 in November. He has a daughter, Stephanie, from a previous marriage. Sam and his wife, Pam, are in the process of moving into a new home on their place in Verbena.
Sam Shepard, who has been a member of the NCHA since 1972, was a non-professional until 1982.
As director of a vocational training program for the state of Alabama, he was responsible for administering a budget of $2 million annually which was audited by state and federal regulators.
Shepard trained cutting horses on the side before retiring from his fulltime job.
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