CALIFORNIA-WYOMING-COLORADO: Wyoming Cowboy gets his Hollywood ending.
On January 21, 2010, Junior Ray was accepting international film awards for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screen Play (ChasingYesterday 2010 BEST HISTORICAL SHORT: TRAIL DANCE FILM FESTIVAL). The Author of the regional best seller: SANCTUARY RANCH, saw a year of extreme ups and downs. In addition to the project with Arsenal/Universal to produce the story of his life in book and film, Ray has also become a regular fixture on L.A. Talk Radio. Ray has been most notable for walking away from the brink of super stardom in Nashville to focus on his rodeo career and stay “real”. However, in July of this year the struggling cowboy was injured in a rodeo that should have cost him that career. For six weeks the cowboy performed injured with what was believed to be a torn back muscle and broken hand. With a stitched up face, and battered body he pressed on. Upon winning his Second CNR Year End Title, Ray would find out his back was not injured with a torn muscle but in fact fractured in two places.
Ray and his doctors credited his amazing physical fitness, and rigorous training in Jiu-Jitsu, that saved him from ending his career. A year spent rehabbing, training, rodeoing, and accepting award after award, Junior Ray went into the new rodeo season on a mission and that mission could not be seen more than at the Denver National Western Stock and Rodeo. Where in the first round junior held on to the fourth place spot for almost a week, but it wasn’t rodeo he cared about. His greatest award came on January 13th 2011, not in a rodeo win, not a film award, fighting title or anything of the sort,but in that of a left hand.
In a quiet ceremony, Junior Ray married barrel racer, Catherine Nicole (no last name provided). So quiet their engagement, that even family were notified by texts and calls. “It’s the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. She is my life.” He says. The new Mrs. Ray comically boasted “I told him I was going to make him marry me.”
Mr. and Mrs. Ray made their first public appearance together at the Children’s Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, where Junior Ray delivered by hand a teddy bear to one hundred children for the Wings With Wishes foundation www.WingsWithWishes.org.
