Rodeo cowboy’s remains found in wrecked car

STEPHENVILLE (AP) — The remains of a young rodeo cowboy missing for six weeks were found in a wrecked car in an overgrown creek bed near Stephenville, authorities said.

Danny Joe Allen, 23, of Fort Worth died after his car hit a concrete culvert, rolled and landed upside down in the creek bed, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety report. Authorities said Allen, who also worked as a welder, was last seen in mid-February.

The crash site, which is not easily seen by drivers on the road near Stephenville in rural Erath County, was discovered Sunday by a rancher searching for a calf, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune reported.

Rodeo organizers said Allen won money at events in 2008, and he also made it to the finals of the Cowboy’s Professional Rodeo Association in October in Angleton.

“He was a nice young man — a ‘yes sir, no sir’ type of boy,” said Jim Richards, a director for the association, formed in 1992 and based in Dayton, Texas. “But he had high expectations of himself, and he was doing everything possible to meet those expectations.”

A big part of that was having an attitude suited for rodeo, Richards told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“You can’t ride bulls, bareback broncs and saddle broncs with a negative attitude,” said Richards, who lives in Stephenville. “Even when you fall off one, you got to find something positive about it, if you’re going to stick with it.”