ProRodeo Hall of Fame Mel Potter passed away on the morning of Feb. 22. He was 90-years-old.

Potter competed in the PRCA longer than anyone ever has. After winning three All-Around College Championships for the University of Arizona in the 1950s, he competed at the first National Finals Rodeo in 1959. He went on to carry his PRCA card until 2017, at one point becoming the only cowboy who competed in the 1959 NFR to still do so.

In his career, he won titles like the Calgary Stampede and National Western Stock Show and Rodeo and qualified for the Great Lakes Circuit Finals in 2010 when he was 75-years-old.

Potter, a Wisconsin native who began rodeoing when he moved to Arizona as a teenager, moved to Minnesota in the 1960s with the goal of producing more rodeos in the midwest. He and his wife, Wendy, would later raise quarter horses on their Arizona ranch, which is where their daughter, Sherry Cervi, raised her barrel horse Stingray.

Potter was named inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in 2005, named a Legend of ProRodeo in 2015, and inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2022.

He is survived by his wife, Wendy, daughters Jo Lynn and Sherry, and grandchildren. His funeral will be held at 11 a.m. (MT) on Feb. 27 at the LDS Church in Mirana, Arizona.