Welcome to the WARD & HAWKINS SHOW
Andrew Ward and Buddy Hawkins surprised some when they made their first of two-straight Wrangler National Finals Rodeos together in 2020. Others were straight-up stunned when they were the ones who broke Jake Barnes and Clay Cooper’s 27-year-old NFR average record in Las Vegas last December. God might be the only one who saw superstardom—including the 2022 windfall wins at both the Lone Star Shootout and The American—included in life’s master script for the uniquely wired team of Ward and Hawkins. These guys don’t see or walk through this world the same way as the other big dogs.
ONE AT A TIME
Ward and Hawkins have similar basic backgrounds. Andrew, 31, is the son of Terry and Terri Ward, and grew up in Edmond, Oklahoma with seven siblings, Brandon, Christin, Candace, Reagan, Meagan, Laura and Lorna. Andrew and his wife of three years, Hayli, still live on the same place where the great-eight Ward kids were raised.
“My mom and dad were both teachers, and when they started having kids, they home-schooled all of us,” remembers Andrew, who roped with brother Reagan before Buddy. “We had a classroom in our house. My dad was our math teacher, and my mom taught all the other subjects.
“My dad’s brother was the pastor of a church, and we were and still are big into church. We grew up living the dream. When we got out of school, we went outside. And we didn’t come back inside until after dark. We had a lot of friends just within our family. Our childhood was like a fairytale.”
Fred Emory Hawkins, who’s 35, grew up in rural Kansas, and was dubbed Buddy as a baby by his maternal grandfather, J.R. Ferguson.
