Stinger Pierces Stereotypes as One of World's First African American Bull Owners
Fanchon Stinger has always been drawn to the meritocracy of bull riding.
Once you step into an arena with a 2-ton animal hellbent on tossing you into oblivion, things like who you are and where you’re from seem to matter as little to the bull as how you got on its back. This deft mud ballet that takes place between rider and animal ends in literal seconds, but it sometimes feels like it lasts 10 years. Stinger, a Detroit native and anchorwoman living in Indianapolis, has watched it play out many times over her life, always magnetically drawn toward bull riding’s competitive purity.
“It’s the intensity, it’s the adrenaline, it’s the true athletic competition of the bulls and the cowboys,” Stinger said. “This sport has really become a metaphor for my life.”
The 15-time Emmy Award winner remembers cultivating her love of bull riding both on her family’s farm and in rodeo venues from Michigan to Mississippi. She always wanted to be more than just a passionate spectator, though, and that’s what drew her into exploring the possibility of becoming one of the first African American bull owners in Professional Bull Riding history.
This dream was recently realized when, after more than a decade of steady buildup and close calls, Stinger became the owner of two PBR bulls—one aptly named Stinger, and the other called Lil Hott. Partnering with world-renowned PBR contractor Chad Berger after a chance meeting at an event in Las Vegas, Stinger broke through to become one of the first ever African American women in history to own a bucking bull.
“That is a huge honor because the way of life of the PBR is inclusion,” Stinger said. “I want to be able to inspire women and young girls of all colors and all backgrounds to tap into the gifts and talents they have to grow their entrepreneurial spirit.”
Drawn to Berger’s deep love of the animals—he buries all of his bulls on his own property—the girl who grew up nurturing a devotion for a sui generis sport was finally able to take part in the mud ballet in her own unique way. No longer does she have to watch from a crowded row of fans or on a beaming television broadcast as bull and rider tussle hundreds of miles away.
These days, she’s on the ground level, even getting to interact with the animals before competition. When she first met her new bulls at a PBR event in South Dakota in April, it was a transcendent experience she still gets emotional describing.
“I was like a mom going to meet their child,” she said. “I was so excited, and it was so important to me because I don’t want to just be a bull owner who owns a bull. I want to be a bull owner who wants to be involved, and I want my bull to know me. I want my bull to know I’m his mom.”
Her new venture also allows Stinger to step outside her role as news anchor, which can sometimes feel like a conduit for bad news nobody wants to hear. Being a bull owner gives her another identity to slip into when her job can leave her grasping for answers to living in an unforgiving world.
“This sport is what it truly means to be inclusive and to bring people together of all differences and—through love and honor and respect—to create something as special as this,” she said. “I really do believe it’s the antidote to so much of the division and discord that we are experiencing right now that’s creating so much turmoil.”
Television viewers may seem to agree. While many sports leagues found themselves floundering for viewers at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Professional Bull Riding on CBS closed out its 2020 season with an 8% increase in viewership year-over-year. And while it still may be a niche sport for most Americans, PBR’s pull in Stinger’s life has only fanned the flames of passion leaping inside her as she helps grow the sport she loves.
“That fire is still growing in me, because I know what it has taken in me to overcome things in my life to achieve this blessing and this dream,” she said. “I just want to inspire other people to devise that fierceness. It’s a fierceness of faith that comes through learning how to preserve.”
Now, whenever the charismatic TV anchor needs a metaphor to help make sense of the world she reports on nightly, she reaches back to a familiar scene. Most people use the phrase “get back on the horse that threw you” as a way to describe persevering through difficult circumstances.
But for Stinger, a horse just isn’t quite electric enough.
“When people or circumstances try to knock you down, you keep bucking like those elite bulls do,” she said. “No matter what it is that you are facing, no matter how big it looks, how difficult and devastating it may feel, you get up. You keep riding and you keep fighting. No matter how hard you think you want to give up, just like the bulls, you keep bucking.”