Entertainment
Bill Pickett Rodeo Founder Dies At 76
Lu Vason, the founder and producer of 31 year old Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo (Courtesy of The Chicago Defender)
Lu Vason: Visionary and Producer
Special to the NNPA from The Chicago Defender
Best known for the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, founder and producer Lu Vason who grew up in Berkeley, California. He moved to Denver in 1977. Vason, who lived in Aurora and had just turned 76, died early Sunday of a heart condition, said Les Franklin, a close friend of Vason’s and the founder of the Shaka Franklin Foundation for Youth.
Like many successful people Lu Vason had a varied life, with each experience leading him to his destiny. He had established himself as an innovative leader in special events marketing. had over 40 years experience as a producer, media impresario and marketing consultant.
Before Vason got into show business, he was a beautician and barber. When he began a career as a promoter and producer, the legendary rock music promoter Barry Fey became his mentor.
Lu Vason, promoted musical artists and is credited with creating the Pointers Sisters and managing various other artists. He formed Aries Concerts and the Jazz Lives Series promoting various concerts and concert tours. He promoted performances by stars like Prince and Stevie Wonder.
Eventually, he realized that the music industry was being taken over by bigger corporations with deeper pockets and he couldn’t compete with that.
He continued to promote smaller concerts, and was working until shortly before he died.
In 1977, during Wyoming’s Cheyenne Frontier Days, Vason’s interest turned toward rodeo. His curiosity was inspired when he noted that there were no Black cowboys participating that day. He then Were people aware of the role that the Black cowboy had played in this country’s history?
At the Black American West Museum, in Denver, Vason learned of Bill Pickett, a black cowboy who created “bulldogging,” now called steer wrestling, according to the rodeo website. Pickett would ride alongside a steer, jump on its shoulders and bring the animal down by digging in his heels.
Lu Vason was convinced that the time had come to uncover the cultural past of the Black cowboy. In 1984, he created an all Black rodeo named after legendary Black cowboy, Bill Pickett, who originated “bulldogging”. Some 25 years later the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo is now a popular series, which reaches over 130,000 spectators annually across the United States..
“People knew the name, Will Rogers, but who they hadn’t heard of was Bill Pickett, and if they had, they didn’t know he was Black,” Vason said, according to the website.
The first Bill Pickett Invitational was held in 1984 in Denver.
“Lu was an incredible creative conceptionalist and organizer. The Bill Pickett Rodeo is proof of his vision to see what is sustainable and far reaching. His legacy will continue through the Bill Pickett Rodeo,” said Margo LaDrew, LaDrew & Associates who worked as a consultant for over 20 years with Mr. Vason.
Committed to the black community, especially to helping black youngsters, Vason was always around youth and children making a difference.
On Sunday, Vason’s Facebook page was filled with condolences and tributes from friends.
A funeral service is set for Friday at Shorter Community AME Church in Denver at 11:30 a.m.
Black History
Jackie Wright Champions Bay Area Stories, Filmmakers and Cultural Institutions
As an award-winning communications professional, Wright has worked with corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, artists, and community organizations. In 2026, she expanded that work by launching an introductory public relations class for small businesses and nonprofits, offering practical tools for gaining visibility, shaping messages and building productive relationships with the media.
Jackie Wright has spent more than two decades helping people, organizations and communities understand the power of a well-told story.
As founder and president of Wright Enterprises, a San Francisco-based strategic communications and public affairs firm, Wright has built a career spanning journalism, public relations, media relations, crisis communications, community engagement and multimedia storytelling.
As an award-winning communications professional, Wright has worked with corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, artists, and community organizations. In 2026, she expanded that work by launching an introductory public relations class for small businesses and nonprofits, offering practical tools for gaining visibility, shaping messages and building productive relationships with the media.
Wright’s commitment to storytelling is also deeply personal. She wrote and co-directed the 15-minute documentary, “Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in Honor,” which chronicles the story of her parents, Specialist Five (S5 Wyley Wright Jr. and Ouida Fay McClendon Wright. Her father, a U.S. Army helicopter crew chief, died in Vietnam in 1964 while serving as an honor guard during a visit by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Decades later, Wright and her siblings had their father exhumed from a segregated cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida, and their mother moved from her burial place in Georgia so the couple could be reunited at Arlington National Cemetery in 2014.
The family journey later took Wright and her sister to Vietnam, where they discovered the former military compound that had been named in honor of their father and another fallen soldier. The documentary, centered on love, war, family, racial understanding, and remembrance, earned festival recognition at screenings.
“It was quite an honor to learn about my family’s history and share it on film,” said Wright.
That filmmaking experience complements Wright’s longstanding advocacy for independent cinema. She has served as a media partner and brand ambassador for Bay Area film festivals, including the San Francisco Black Film Festival, Oakland International Film Festival, and the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa.
“It’s important to help filmmakers and underrepresented stories reach broader audiences,” said Wright.
Whether promoting a neighborhood organization, championing an independent filmmaker or preserving her own family history, Wright has remained consistent. Through Wright Enterprises, she has turned communications into both a profession and a form of community service, telling stories that might otherwise go unheard.
“Our stories are an integral part of our history, and our history is not only American history, but worldwide,” she said.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of August 26 – September 1, 2026
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of August 26 – September 1, 2026
To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.
Black History
IN MEMORIAM: Dolly Parton Dead at 80 — How She Built a Legacy of Love and Earned Her Place in Black Culture
BAYOU BEAT NEWS — For Black audiences, the bridge to Dolly will always run through Whitney Houston. Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” as she prepared to leave Porter Wagoner’s television show and released it in 1974. The original was tender and restrained, a country goodbye delivered with grace. Then Whitney got hold of it.
Before some of us knew Dolly Parton as the Queen of Country Music, we knew her as the woman behind Whitney Houston’s song. We knew the blonde hair, the rhinestones, and that unmistakable Tennessee voice. But somewhere along the way, Black America came to understand something deeper about Dolly; when she said she loved people, she had the receipts to prove it.
The community is now left to mourn the icon who passed away at the age of 80, on Aug. 25, after dealing with an unknown medical condition. Known for her chart-topping country music hits, Dolly never felt as though she belonged only to one genre, or one kind of person. She showed up with humor, humility and a generosity that did not ask who you voted for before offering a helping hand. She made room for people, and in return, people from every corner of the culture made room for her.
The Song That Brought Dolly and Whitney Together
For Black audiences, the bridge to Dolly will always run through Whitney Houston. Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” as she prepared to leave Porter Wagoner’s television show and released it in 1974. The original was tender and restrained, a country goodbye delivered with grace. Then Whitney got hold of it.
Houston’s 1992 rendition for “The Bodyguard” did not merely update the record. She took it to church, then carried it around the world. That opening a cappella moment, the controlled stillness and the key change that made everybody reach for a note they had no business trying to hit turned Parton’s country ballad into a global anthem. The single spent 14 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, became the best-selling physical single by a woman and earned two Grammy Awards.
And instead of trying to deny contribution or rush to remind everyone who wrote the song, she celebrated the way Houston’s voice transformed it. In an industry with a long history of taking from Black artists while denying them proper credit, Dolly understood that acknowledging Whitney’s greatness did not diminish her own. One woman wrote an extraordinary song. Another woman revealed everything else that song could become.
“This is the house that Whitney built.”
— Dolly Parton
Parton later shared that she used some of the royalties from Houston’s recording to purchase commercial property in a predominantly Black Nashville neighborhood. She called it “the house that Whitney built.” There was something beautiful about that acknowledgment. Whitney’s voice had generated wealth, and Dolly wanted part of that wealth rooted among people she described as Whitney’s people, and her people, too.
Dolly’s relationship with Black America was not built on pretending she did not see color. She saw us. In a 2020 Billboard interview, she made her position plain: “Of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”
It was blunt, funny, and completely on brand. But Dolly also understood that allyship could not stop with a quote. After learning why the word “Dixie” was offensive and painful to many people, she removed it from the name of her Civil War-themed dinner attraction. She called her previous understanding “innocent ignorance.” More important, she fixed it.
That willingness to listen mattered. Dolly did not perform perfection or become defensive when someone pointed out harm. She showed that loving people means caring enough to learn, change and do better. In a time when public figures often double down just to avoid admitting they were wrong, Dolly simply chose not to be cruel.
Dolly’s love also arrived in the mail. Inspired by her father, who could not read or write, she launched the Imagination Library in 1995. The program began in Sevier County, Tennessee, sending one free, age-appropriate book each month to enrolled children from birth to age 5. What started in the rural community that raised her grew into an international literacy movement. By the end of 2025, the program had distributed more than 300 million books and was mailing about 3.4 million books each month.
Those books found their way into homes in big cities as well as small towns. In New York City, the Imagination Library has been promoted through public schools and community organizations in the Bronx. For urban families navigating tight budgets, limited bookstore access or neighborhoods where children’s books are not always easy to find, a brand-new book addressed directly to a child can mean more than one package. It tells that child, “This belongs to you. Your imagination matters.”
That was Dolly’s kind of giving: personal, useful and rooted in dignity. She also funded scholarships, supported hospitals, invested in medical research and helped families recover from disasters. Her $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University Medical Center supported research connected to the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. She turned the money she made entertaining people into opportunities to help them live, learn and rebuild.
A preschooler opening one of Dolly’s books in the Bronx did not need to know “Jolene.” A parent reading that book at bedtime did not need to be a country music fan. Her generosity crossed racial and economic lines because it met families in real life, at the mailbox, in a hospital room or after the unthinkable happened.
A Legacy That Felt Like Love
Dolly Parton leaves behind thousands of songs, beloved films, major businesses and enough rhinestones to keep heaven sparkling for a while. But her greatest legacy may be the way she made strength feel soft without ever making it weak. She knew exactly who she was, yet she never needed anyone else to become smaller so she could shine.
For Black listeners, her bond will always be part of that story. “I Will Always Love You” was never about choosing between the white woman who wrote it and the Black woman who took it somewhere new. Dolly gave the world the words. Whitney gave those words wings. Together, they created a piece of American music that refuses to stay inside one genre or belong to only one community.
That is why this loss feels personal, even to people who never met her. Dolly reminded us that tenderness can be powerful. She showed us that changing your mind can be a sign of character, that celebrating another woman’s brilliance does not steal your light and that love means very little if it never becomes action.
Country music will forever call Dolly Parton one of its queens. But Black culture recognized something in her, too: a woman who respected our greatness, spoke up for our humanity and invested in our children. She did not simply leave this world loved. In the ways that mattered most, Dolly loved us back.
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Entertainment
Bill Pickett Rodeo Founder Dies At 76
Lu Vason, the founder and producer of 31 year old Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo (Courtesy of The Chicago Defender)
Lu Vason: Visionary and Producer
Special to the NNPA from The Chicago Defender
Best known for the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, founder and producer Lu Vason who grew up in Berkeley, California. He moved to Denver in 1977. Vason, who lived in Aurora and had just turned 76, died early Sunday of a heart condition, said Les Franklin, a close friend of Vason’s and the founder of the Shaka Franklin Foundation for Youth.
Like many successful people Lu Vason had a varied life, with each experience leading him to his destiny. He had established himself as an innovative leader in special events marketing. had over 40 years experience as a producer, media impresario and marketing consultant.
Before Vason got into show business, he was a beautician and barber. When he began a career as a promoter and producer, the legendary rock music promoter Barry Fey became his mentor.
Lu Vason, promoted musical artists and is credited with creating the Pointers Sisters and managing various other artists. He formed Aries Concerts and the Jazz Lives Series promoting various concerts and concert tours. He promoted performances by stars like Prince and Stevie Wonder.
Eventually, he realized that the music industry was being taken over by bigger corporations with deeper pockets and he couldn’t compete with that.
He continued to promote smaller concerts, and was working until shortly before he died.
In 1977, during Wyoming’s Cheyenne Frontier Days, Vason’s interest turned toward rodeo. His curiosity was inspired when he noted that there were no Black cowboys participating that day. He then Were people aware of the role that the Black cowboy had played in this country’s history?
At the Black American West Museum, in Denver, Vason learned of Bill Pickett, a black cowboy who created “bulldogging,” now called steer wrestling, according to the rodeo website. Pickett would ride alongside a steer, jump on its shoulders and bring the animal down by digging in his heels.
Lu Vason was convinced that the time had come to uncover the cultural past of the Black cowboy. In 1984, he created an all Black rodeo named after legendary Black cowboy, Bill Pickett, who originated “bulldogging”. Some 25 years later the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo is now a popular series, which reaches over 130,000 spectators annually across the United States..
“People knew the name, Will Rogers, but who they hadn’t heard of was Bill Pickett, and if they had, they didn’t know he was Black,” Vason said, according to the website.
The first Bill Pickett Invitational was held in 1984 in Denver.
“Lu was an incredible creative conceptionalist and organizer. The Bill Pickett Rodeo is proof of his vision to see what is sustainable and far reaching. His legacy will continue through the Bill Pickett Rodeo,” said Margo LaDrew, LaDrew & Associates who worked as a consultant for over 20 years with Mr. Vason.
Committed to the black community, especially to helping black youngsters, Vason was always around youth and children making a difference.
On Sunday, Vason’s Facebook page was filled with condolences and tributes from friends.
A funeral service is set for Friday at Shorter Community AME Church in Denver at 11:30 a.m.
Black History
Jackie Wright Champions Bay Area Stories, Filmmakers and Cultural Institutions
As an award-winning communications professional, Wright has worked with corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, artists, and community organizations. In 2026, she expanded that work by launching an introductory public relations class for small businesses and nonprofits, offering practical tools for gaining visibility, shaping messages and building productive relationships with the media.
Jackie Wright has spent more than two decades helping people, organizations and communities understand the power of a well-told story.
As founder and president of Wright Enterprises, a San Francisco-based strategic communications and public affairs firm, Wright has built a career spanning journalism, public relations, media relations, crisis communications, community engagement and multimedia storytelling.
As an award-winning communications professional, Wright has worked with corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, artists, and community organizations. In 2026, she expanded that work by launching an introductory public relations class for small businesses and nonprofits, offering practical tools for gaining visibility, shaping messages and building productive relationships with the media.
Wright’s commitment to storytelling is also deeply personal. She wrote and co-directed the 15-minute documentary, “Love Separated in Life…Love Reunited in Honor,” which chronicles the story of her parents, Specialist Five (S5 Wyley Wright Jr. and Ouida Fay McClendon Wright. Her father, a U.S. Army helicopter crew chief, died in Vietnam in 1964 while serving as an honor guard during a visit by then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Decades later, Wright and her siblings had their father exhumed from a segregated cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida, and their mother moved from her burial place in Georgia so the couple could be reunited at Arlington National Cemetery in 2014.
The family journey later took Wright and her sister to Vietnam, where they discovered the former military compound that had been named in honor of their father and another fallen soldier. The documentary, centered on love, war, family, racial understanding, and remembrance, earned festival recognition at screenings.
“It was quite an honor to learn about my family’s history and share it on film,” said Wright.
That filmmaking experience complements Wright’s longstanding advocacy for independent cinema. She has served as a media partner and brand ambassador for Bay Area film festivals, including the San Francisco Black Film Festival, Oakland International Film Festival, and the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa.
“It’s important to help filmmakers and underrepresented stories reach broader audiences,” said Wright.
Whether promoting a neighborhood organization, championing an independent filmmaker or preserving her own family history, Wright has remained consistent. Through Wright Enterprises, she has turned communications into both a profession and a form of community service, telling stories that might otherwise go unheard.
“Our stories are an integral part of our history, and our history is not only American history, but worldwide,” she said.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of August 26 – September 1, 2026
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of August 26 – September 1, 2026
To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.
Black History
IN MEMORIAM: Dolly Parton Dead at 80 — How She Built a Legacy of Love and Earned Her Place in Black Culture
BAYOU BEAT NEWS — For Black audiences, the bridge to Dolly will always run through Whitney Houston. Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” as she prepared to leave Porter Wagoner’s television show and released it in 1974. The original was tender and restrained, a country goodbye delivered with grace. Then Whitney got hold of it.
Before some of us knew Dolly Parton as the Queen of Country Music, we knew her as the woman behind Whitney Houston’s song. We knew the blonde hair, the rhinestones, and that unmistakable Tennessee voice. But somewhere along the way, Black America came to understand something deeper about Dolly; when she said she loved people, she had the receipts to prove it.
The community is now left to mourn the icon who passed away at the age of 80, on Aug. 25, after dealing with an unknown medical condition. Known for her chart-topping country music hits, Dolly never felt as though she belonged only to one genre, or one kind of person. She showed up with humor, humility and a generosity that did not ask who you voted for before offering a helping hand. She made room for people, and in return, people from every corner of the culture made room for her.
The Song That Brought Dolly and Whitney Together
For Black audiences, the bridge to Dolly will always run through Whitney Houston. Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You” as she prepared to leave Porter Wagoner’s television show and released it in 1974. The original was tender and restrained, a country goodbye delivered with grace. Then Whitney got hold of it.
Houston’s 1992 rendition for “The Bodyguard” did not merely update the record. She took it to church, then carried it around the world. That opening a cappella moment, the controlled stillness and the key change that made everybody reach for a note they had no business trying to hit turned Parton’s country ballad into a global anthem. The single spent 14 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, became the best-selling physical single by a woman and earned two Grammy Awards.
And instead of trying to deny contribution or rush to remind everyone who wrote the song, she celebrated the way Houston’s voice transformed it. In an industry with a long history of taking from Black artists while denying them proper credit, Dolly understood that acknowledging Whitney’s greatness did not diminish her own. One woman wrote an extraordinary song. Another woman revealed everything else that song could become.
“This is the house that Whitney built.”
— Dolly Parton
Parton later shared that she used some of the royalties from Houston’s recording to purchase commercial property in a predominantly Black Nashville neighborhood. She called it “the house that Whitney built.” There was something beautiful about that acknowledgment. Whitney’s voice had generated wealth, and Dolly wanted part of that wealth rooted among people she described as Whitney’s people, and her people, too.
Dolly’s relationship with Black America was not built on pretending she did not see color. She saw us. In a 2020 Billboard interview, she made her position plain: “Of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”
It was blunt, funny, and completely on brand. But Dolly also understood that allyship could not stop with a quote. After learning why the word “Dixie” was offensive and painful to many people, she removed it from the name of her Civil War-themed dinner attraction. She called her previous understanding “innocent ignorance.” More important, she fixed it.
That willingness to listen mattered. Dolly did not perform perfection or become defensive when someone pointed out harm. She showed that loving people means caring enough to learn, change and do better. In a time when public figures often double down just to avoid admitting they were wrong, Dolly simply chose not to be cruel.
Dolly’s love also arrived in the mail. Inspired by her father, who could not read or write, she launched the Imagination Library in 1995. The program began in Sevier County, Tennessee, sending one free, age-appropriate book each month to enrolled children from birth to age 5. What started in the rural community that raised her grew into an international literacy movement. By the end of 2025, the program had distributed more than 300 million books and was mailing about 3.4 million books each month.
Those books found their way into homes in big cities as well as small towns. In New York City, the Imagination Library has been promoted through public schools and community organizations in the Bronx. For urban families navigating tight budgets, limited bookstore access or neighborhoods where children’s books are not always easy to find, a brand-new book addressed directly to a child can mean more than one package. It tells that child, “This belongs to you. Your imagination matters.”
That was Dolly’s kind of giving: personal, useful and rooted in dignity. She also funded scholarships, supported hospitals, invested in medical research and helped families recover from disasters. Her $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University Medical Center supported research connected to the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. She turned the money she made entertaining people into opportunities to help them live, learn and rebuild.
A preschooler opening one of Dolly’s books in the Bronx did not need to know “Jolene.” A parent reading that book at bedtime did not need to be a country music fan. Her generosity crossed racial and economic lines because it met families in real life, at the mailbox, in a hospital room or after the unthinkable happened.
A Legacy That Felt Like Love
Dolly Parton leaves behind thousands of songs, beloved films, major businesses and enough rhinestones to keep heaven sparkling for a while. But her greatest legacy may be the way she made strength feel soft without ever making it weak. She knew exactly who she was, yet she never needed anyone else to become smaller so she could shine.
For Black listeners, her bond will always be part of that story. “I Will Always Love You” was never about choosing between the white woman who wrote it and the Black woman who took it somewhere new. Dolly gave the world the words. Whitney gave those words wings. Together, they created a piece of American music that refuses to stay inside one genre or belong to only one community.
That is why this loss feels personal, even to people who never met her. Dolly reminded us that tenderness can be powerful. She showed us that changing your mind can be a sign of character, that celebrating another woman’s brilliance does not steal your light and that love means very little if it never becomes action.
Country music will forever call Dolly Parton one of its queens. But Black culture recognized something in her, too: a woman who respected our greatness, spoke up for our humanity and invested in our children. She did not simply leave this world loved. In the ways that mattered most, Dolly loved us back.
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Department of Homeland Security Demands California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber Scrub Voter Rolls
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-
Black History4 weeks ago
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Celebrates New North Atlantic Regional Director
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Less Affluent School Districts, Including Sacramento City, Face Threat of State Takeover
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Community3 weeks ago
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