March 13, 1931
Sam was born at a house in Thedford, NE on March 13, 1931 to Austin and Mae Miles, joining four older siblings: Lester, Eldora, Robert and Merle Marie. The first seven years of his life was at the soddy, an actual 4 room sod house northeast of Brownlee, NE. In 1938 Austin bought the old Doc Higgins place 5 miles southeast of Brownlee. This ranch is to this day referred to as the “home place”.
As a young boy, Sam and his younger brother Bernard liked riding calves at brandings as well as the bucket calves that his older brothers would put him on. Probably just for the wrecks that would ensue. Sam soon found out that the local rodeos would pay kids a dollar to ride steers thus bring the thrill of the moment to real life. This stirred his interest in the riding, roping and excitement that came with the sport of rodeo and being a cowboy. He soon found that he liked roping so at the age of 16 he joined the Brownlee Roping Club. This club was located just northwest of Brownlee and was quite active for those days with a fair number of active ropers. His passion for roping became reality and the thought of good horses was the direction he and his brothers pursued.
The Korean War put a pause on horses and roping when Sam was drafted in March of 1953 and sent to Fort Sill Oklahoma for boot camp. While on leave at boot camp he and Gene Carver hitchhiked to Wichita Falls, TX to look at some quarter horses. Days before being sent to Korea the war ended and Sam found himself fin Germany serving from 1953 to late spring of 1955.
Sam and his older brother Robert rode with the Vern Whitaker family to the Lowry Dispersion Horse sale at Lenapah, OK that fall. The two young men rode from Chambers, NE to the sale in the back of Vern’s truck. This is a story pretty much all of its own as you can imagine. Vern purchased two horses while Robert and Sam each purchased one. The men then were able to partition the back of the truck off so they weren’t stepped on by the horses on the way home. The mare that Sam acquired was a daughter of Lowery’s Oklahoma Star which sired quite a number of excellent rope horses, tied down and steer ropers. Sam called this mare Lena and she turned out to be an outstanding cowy horse. Sam’s love for good horsed, riding roping and rodeo have always been important to him.
In 1972 his father Austin passed and he took over the home place operation with the help of his wife Charlotte and two sons, Scott and Craig. This is when Herefords started being replaced with Angus cattle and his Angus based cowherd has served the Miles family well for years. In the mid 70’s the two sons now became interested in roping so Sam and the boys started going to the nearby Byron and Wayne Eatinger ranch since they had an arena and steers. Sam helped with the high school rodeo in Thedford for many years providing cattle for cutting and helping with maintenance on the old rodeo grounds. Sam served on the Thedford High School rodeo committee and helped out with that for many years. Helping haul cattle and providing support were important to him so all could enjoy the sport. Going to Hollis Fuchs’ arena west of Thedford was always a high light. Team roping lessons from E.V. Dorsey at Middle Loup Roping Club changed team roping for the Miles family. One team roping highlight for Sam was winning first place at the Chamber, NE family team roping in 1978 at the Holt County Fair with his nephew Rory, brother Bernard’s son.
Now retire at 93, very soon to be 94, he and Charlotte have enjoyed going to the Guthrie, OK timed event championships, watching rodeo on the Cowboy Channel but most favorite is going to horse sales with his grandson Caleb.