Trio on only team to win three consecutive rodeo titles

By Myra Miller

“Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys...” was a futile caution for these guys’ mothers.

Warren Frey, Greg (Honey Bee) Bollich, and Jim Miller, originally of Eunice, grew up to become high-ridin’g heroes.

Boots, buckles, jeans, broad-brim hats -- they all say cowboy when you sit down with them to talk rodeo over lunch.

During their high school years they rode in rodeos and later became very tall in the saddle at McNeese State University.

Even though the trio attended and graduated from two different high schools they became fast friends through the rodeo circuit.

Frey graduated from St. Edmund in 1956, Bollich from St. Michael’s in Crowley in 1957, and Miller is a 1956 graduate of St. Edmund.

They were what you would probably call “die-hards” and really wanted their names big in the rodeo circuit.

That would take practice, and lots of it.

Frey said, “We would meet to practice at my home and we would ride my father’s milk cow. My father always wondered why his cow wasn’t giving any more milk.”

While in high school, Frey and his buddies took on a major project, deciding to build a rodeo arena.

The students built the arena with available resources, such as scrap materials and donations from people. They cut timber from nearby woods.

Everyone pitched in to create a place where cowboy competition could be held on a regular basis.

Donations were collected from a number of supportive citizens and businesses.

The arena was named Frey’s arena and stood alongside La. Hwy. 13 South near the old Oscar Frey’s home near the site of the Cleco-Calpine plant.

The men would occasionally practice at the fairgrounds arena where the Buddy Fay Memorial Tennis Complex now stands, an arena that was open to the public.

Frey said, “The Frey arena was private. It was a playground for us to practice.”

After high school graduations all three podnahs attended McNeese State University and roomed together.

They formed a rodeo team there along with students from different areas of the state.

That team became the only one, to this day, to win three consecutive National Collegiate Rodeo titles -- 1957, 1958 and 1959.

Frey, Bollich and Miller are in the McNeese Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Their title, trophies and awards are displayed inside a showcase at Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles. No other McNeese rodeo team has won nationals since 1959.

The first two nationals they won were in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the third one was held at Klamath Falls, Ore.

The cowboys participated as a team in bull riding, bare back horse, saddle bronc, and steer wrestling, and there were no milk cows in the rodeo stock.

Kenneth Sweeney was their college rodeo coach. Frey said that Sweeney was instrumental in making the team what it was.

Frey said he kept his friends on track while they were attending McNeese. He said, laughing, “I would make sure they would get to the library to study. I kind of took charge of that.”

Frey shared a story about how desperate they were to get to rodeos.

“In 1954, we had to get to a youth rodeo. It was during the summer and it was hot. We didn’t have a ride or a place to stay, and no driver’s license at the time. We hopped a passenger train from Eunice to Abilene, Texas, and slept on rodeo bleachers overnight.”

The cowboys are retired now but enjoy recalling their rodeo rides. Miller is currently owner of a livestock marketing firm in DeQuincy since 1962.

Bollich is a retired rice and soybean farmer and Frey is a retired rice, soybeans, and livestock farmer.

During their rodeo years the only major injury they received was a broken leg by Frey.

And the legacy lives on -- Frey’s grandchildren rodeo, as did their parents and, of course, grandpa.