![]() ![]() His partner told him, "You are getting ready to go somewhere, and I've already been there. One day, Bergeron went to him to talk about buying a bulldozer. He put in long 18-hour days to complete all his jobs, and there were nights when he slept under his tractor because he was too exhausted to go back home.īergeron and his Scoutmaster formed a partnership and bought five tractors. Before long, he was also helping the local neighbors with baling hay and harvesting fruit. Soon thereafter, a neighbor asked Bergeron to mow his pasture. After answering that he was living in the oil room in the back of the station, the Scoutmaster asked if he would be interested in maintaining his coconut grove, where he could live for free in a small abandoned house. One day, his former Boy Scoutmaster brought his car in for gas and asked Bergeron where he was living. He left home with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and got a 50-cents-an-hour job at a local gas station. One day I was frustrated, and I confronted him by asking, '˜Coach, what do you want out of us?' My coach answered back, '˜I want every cell in your body.' Bergeron responded '˜Yes, sir.'" The team went to the Goldcoast State Championships in the Orange Bowl that year and won.Īs soon as Bergeron graduated from Stranahan High School in 1962, he was eager to begin his adult life. "My coach taught me how to be disciplined," he says. His coach soon became a mentor and a person whose respect he wanted to earn. In high school, Bergeron joined the football team. He qualified for the Southeastern Circuit Finals three times and competed as one of the top 15 cowboys at the International Rodeo Association World Finals in 1984." In 2006, Bergeron was inducted into the Broward County Sports Hall of Fame. At the age of 19, and for the next 20 years, Bergeron competed professionally in rodeo. Today the arena is called the Bergeron Rodeo Grounds in recognition of my family's contributions to preserving the rodeo arena and Davie's roots, culture, and heritage. The arena was built by the pioneer families of the region, and my parents helped build it. "We didn't have tennis courts or golf courses. "The rodeo arena was our form of entertainment," says Bergeron. From that day forward, cowboys were his heroes. The story appeared in newspapers across America and today Bergeron is widely known by his nickname, Alligator Ron.Īs a boy, Bergeron's parents took him to see a rodeo. He lived to tell the tale but had to have a finger sewn back onto his hand, had several bones broken in two fingers, and received multiple stitches. "It's part of my culture, part of being a Gladesman." In 2006, Bergeron was wrestling an alligator that put him in death roll down to the bottom of the lake, with his hand caught in the gator's mouth. "It's a sport and I've been doing that for 50 years," he says. My grandfather is the one who introduced me to nature and taught me the importance of the environment and conservation."īergeron's grandfather also taught him to wrestle alligators. "The landscape, the wildlife, the smell of nature, the sunsets, it just became a big part of my life. "The whole thing fascinated me," says Bergeron. He took young Bergeron with him on an airboat, giving him a tour of the tropical wetlands. As my mother used to say, '˜Thank God for what you have and don't worry about what you haven't got because you haven't got it anyway.' We were always grateful for what little we had."Īnother important person in Bergeron's life was his grandfather, who was a game warden in the Everglades. It was a small house, but it was ours, and we were proud of it. "We went to Port Everglades and got the wood for our house off the freight boxes. When Bergeron was a boy, he watched his parents build their first house. I was very blessed to have them as my parents." My mother always said, '˜Kindness is free.' They wanted us to be humble, disciplined, and determined. "They taught us boys to be kind and appreciative. "Everyone loved my parents," says Bergeron. A few years later, the couple opened a small restaurant called Percy's Steak House. The Bergerons settled in Davie, a small town in the countryside outside of Fort Lauderdale, where his father built and ran a small grocery store while his mother worked as a waitress. His mother's family goes back eight generations in Florida. Ron Bergeron was born in 1943 in New Orleans, but he, along with his parents and older brother, moved to Florida not long after his birth. ![]()
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