Dennis Weaver and Ted Nuce.
They are arguably Manteca’s two most famous cowboys.
Both spent part of their school years in Manteca.
Weaver is better known by his TV characters’ names.
Deputy Chester Goode in Gunsmoke.
And Marshall Sam McCloud in McCloud.
Weaver passed away in 2006 at the age of 81.
Nuce won the 1994 Professional Bull Riders World Championship.
He made a record 14 straight world championship appearances.
In 2023, Nuce was ranked No. 18 on the list of the top 30 bull riders in PBR history
Nuce, 63, lives in Stephenville, Texas.
About Weaver
It must have been a bit of heaven for a 13-year-old Missouri boy whose parents were migrant workers to step through the doors of the Grand Dame of Entertainment during the height of the Great Depression.
Billy Dennis Weaver spent a year of his youth in Manteca helping clean the fabled El Rey Theatre that is now in its third act as The Veranda events center in the 100 block of East Yosemite in the heart of Manteca.
Weaver’s parents hit the road in 1934 during the Dust Bowl looking for work.
They found harvest season work in the packing sheds of Manteca that once lined Oak Street. They spent five years traveling from their home in Joplin to work packing fruit.
They rented a home on the southern edge of Manteca.
Weaver in his autobiography “All the World’s a Stage” told of the fun he had playing in a South San Joaquin Irrigation Distinct canal that ran south of Woodward Avenue along Tinnin Road.
Weaver made friends with an older Manteca boy, George Hogrefe.
Hogrefe’s family took a liking to Weaver and offered to let him spend a year with them from 1937 to 1938 when the Weavers returned to the Show Me State.
Weaver attended Manteca Grammar School (now Manteca Day School) on West Yosemite Avenue. The young Weaver is part of the school pictures from 1937-38.
Weaver in his book credited Hogrefe with providing him not just with his first bicycle but a wealth of characteristics and habits that he built his life on.
That included the importance of honesty, to be the best you can be, to play chess, to enjoy poetry, and how to drive a car.
Weaver got a part-time job alongside Hogrefe to clean the El Rey to help pay for room and board as well as provide spending money.
It was there where he was able to take in movies that Weaver developed a love for acting.
Most remember Weaver as Marshal Matt Dillon’s sidekick Deputy Chester Goode in “Gunsmoke.” It was back in the days when TV shows didn’t need gratuitous sex, saucy language, or violence to enthrall viewers.
Weaver as Chester walked with a slight limp and could be expected at least once a week to utter his trademark line, “Mar-shal Dil-lon, Mar-shal Dil-lon” as he hurried down the streets of Dodge City to summon the marshal.
He starred in three other TV series, “Gentle Ben”, “The Buck Smith Television Series” and “McCloud.”
McCloud ran from 1970 to 1977. It was a show about a Taos, New Mexico deputy assigned to the New York Police Department.
His character’s tendency to repeat the line “there you go again” numerous times during the show helped make those four words part of the American vernacular.
But what made him a Hollywood legend was his starring role in a movie that many film critics deem as one of the industry’s all-time classics, “Duel.”
About Nuce
Nuce won the 1994 Professional Bull Riders World Championship and has made a record 14 straight world championship appearances.
He qualified and competed in the finals from 1982 through 1996. The world championship is the equivalent of winning the Super Bowl in rodeo circles.
Nuce also was a four-time runner-up to the world title in the National Finals Rodeo Championship. Nuce also won the 1994 Professional Bull Riders Title.
The 5-foot-6, 145-pound Nuce built his reputation in the rodeo world not only on his athletic abilities but for his gentlemanly manners that are an outgrowth of his deep Christian beliefs.
The 1979 Manteca High graduate retired from riding after the 1996 season.
Nuce was born in Escalon.
He moved to Manteca in the early 1970s and enrolled as a fourth grader at Nile Garden School.
Nuce joined the rodeo circuit as a bull rider in 1980, two years after graduating from high school.
He’s one a handful of people to ever be presented with a key to the city.
Thirteen years ago, Nuce was also riding another type of bull as a stock trader.
“When I’m teaching bull riding the first lesson is learning how to get off the bull safely,” Nuce said from his home in Stephenville, Texas during a 2011 interview. “Same thing with stocks. You’ve got to know when to get out of the stock market safely with your money.”
He’s been bull riding since age 14 when he straddled his first bull in Oakdale.
Nuce, one of the 15 founding members of the Professional Bull Riders that put up $1,000 apiece for the now-high profile organization, knew he was hooked on the sport when he completed his first full 8-second ride on a steer at a junior rodeo in Ceres where he finished fourth.
He turned pro in 1982 after graduating from Manteca High noting that many of his teachers probably thought he was crazy.
Nuce was the champion bull rider of the California PRCA circuit for eight years. In the 14 years he rode bulls, he finished in the Top 10 in worldwide rankings 12 times and second three times.
It was back when the prize money was minuscule compared to today’s big paydays. His earnings for his championship year in 1985 was $107,872.
Nuce was inducted into the professional Bull Riders Ring of Honor in 1996. He has also been inducted into the Manteca Hall of Fame.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
