"When I was just a very young lad,
I walked up and I told my Dad,
A bareback rider's what I wanna be,
 I want the whole world to know about me."

Those are just a few of the many recognizable lyrics Chris LeDoux sang throughout the years. LeDoux was a cowboy through and through and grew up competing in the sport of rodeo before he became a western tunesmith, singing about the cowboy way of life and traveling on the rodeo road.

The fact that LeDoux sang about the life he lived and loved is what makes his music resonate with so many. It's crazy to think that it has been 40 years since he became a PRCA world champion bareback rider in 1976 and first known as the singing bareback rider.

As a young Chris Ledoux fan, I never had the honor of meeting LeDoux or seeing him live in concert before his untimely death in March 2005 from liver cancer. But I can say his music and legacy of being a cowboy left an impact on me as a person, as a cowgirl, and as someone who loves the sport of rodeo and the western way of life.

From a young age, I became infatuated with LeDoux, his music, and his story. I have read every book there is on the life of LeDoux. I am certain I own a copy of every CD he ever released. When I had the opportunity to hear his son, Ned, play live, I jumped on it, even though it was a six-and-a-half hour drive from where I was living at the time. During that trip, I had the opportunity to visit with not only Ned, but also Will LeDoux and the entire Western Underground band and create memories that I will cherish for a lifetime.

Chris LeDoux is known to most as the pioneer of cowboy music in the mainstream country music world. But to a true fan, LeDoux was much more. He was a PRCA world champion bareback rider, a rancher, a sculptor, and an artist.

LeDoux was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, on October 2, 1948, on Keesler Air Force Base, where his dad was stationed at the time. After moving around during his early years, his family finally landed in Wyoming, where LeDoux met and married the love of his life, Peggy.

LeDoux and his wife created a life on Haywire Ranch just outside of Kaycee, Wyoming, near the Powder River, where they raised their family of four boys and one girl -- Clay, Ned, Will, Cindi, and Beau -- all beneath the Western skies that LeDoux fondly sang about.

Each of their five children have found his or her own way in the western world while continuing LeDoux's legacy. Beau works for the Wyoming Department of Transportation; Ned has followed in his dad's footsteps as a musician; Will travels with his brother Ned as his merchandise salesman; Cindi is a wife and a mother; and Beau, well, he's the cowboy of the bunch as he helps his mom run the ranch, and he rodeos from time to time.

The Cheyenne Frontier Days in their home state marks a special time every year for the LeDouxs. It's one of the many rodeos where LeDoux sold his music under the grandstands when he wasn't bucking horses, and he even came back to headline the night shows. Ned played drums for Western Underground in Cheyenne many times with his dad and returned this year to open for Billy Currington.

Beau also honored his father's legacy at the Cheyenne Frontier Days in 2007 by competing in bareback riding with some of his dad's ashes in his pocket during his outs. After his second horse, Beau scattered Chris' ashes in the arena that holds so many memories for the LeDoux family.

Though he was one of the best bareback riders in the world, LeDoux was the original underdog when it came to the music industry. He recorded and self-promoted over 20 albums before signing a major label record deal.

LeDoux got his big break when a young Okie named Garth Brooks mentioned him in a lyric in his debut hit "Much Too Young" in the late 1980s. When Brooks sang that "a worn-out tape of Chris LeDoux, lonely women and bad booze, seem to be the only friends I've got left at all," the lyrics sent the mainstream country music world into a frenzy, leading to Capitol Records offering Ledoux a record deal in 1990.

LeDoux released another 20 records as a recording artist and paved the trail in many ways for the next generation of cowboy musicians. His high-energy live concerts featured pyrotechnics and even a bucking machine, serving as a future blueprint for other musicians such as Brooks to pattern. Before Brooks, LeDoux was one of the country music industry's best-kept secrets.

Marking the 40th anniversary of LeDoux's bareback riding world title, Ned released his first EP during this year's Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.

The five-track EP includes two co-writes with LeDoux that Ned finished after his mother, Peggy, found a stack of papers in the attic that contained some song ideas that Chris started but never finished before his untimely death from liver cancer in March 2005. It also features a completed single that LeDoux wrote before he died and a track that Ned wrote to honor his dad. Ned and Chris' longtime band leader Mark Sissel wrote one final track to complete the EP.

Ned said that he couldn't have dreamed of a better setting to debut his album than on the 40th anniversary of his dad's title win and at the WNFR. He said he wants to introduce LeDoux's music to a generation that is unfamiliar with him and carry on his father's legacy for die-hard fans.

While it has been 11 years since LeDoux's passing, his memory still lives on in his music, in his career as a PRCA cowboy, and in his family.