McCracken ? Jack Wilson calls cancer “a little bug” he’s trying to kick and downplays his importance to the award-winning McCracken Rodeo.

But those who know the 71-year-old rodeo coordinator are used to his humility and say the McCracken resident is perhaps the biggest part of the annual event, which ran July 9-10.

“He’s the rodeo,” said Jackie Casey, who helps out with the rodeo. “When people hear him on the radio, they know.”

Wilson probably had cancer during last year’s rodeo, but he didn’t know it yet. Though the disease has spread to his liver, lung and bones, he says “it’s beginning to fade.”

He rides into the rodeo each night as part of the grand entry, and rides around the ring when he’s introduced before the big event. Those rides were a little rocky as his new horse, Betsy Ross, kicked and bucked her way into the arena.

Wilson later laughed and said he hoped his doctor wasn’t there to see that, since she has told him he can only ride a mild-mannered horse this year.

A local organizer of the rodeo said many people come to the event because of Wilson, and local sponsors all have the man for whom the rodeo arena is named on their mind.

“They ask about Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack,” said Jerilyn Stull. “When they see him, they know it’s rodeo time.”

The couple who has supplied the rodeo stock for the past 10 years, Allen and Janice McCloy of Morse, Texas, said coming to McCracken each year was like a family reunion for them.

When Janice McCloy’s son died a year ago, Wilson and his wife, Verlene, went to Texas for the funeral and stayed with the family for a few days.

“It’s that kind of friend,” Janice McCloy said.

Wilson is quick to give credit to residents of the city and Rush County for sponsoring the rodeo, caring for the rodeo grounds and this year, building a new set of bleachers.

But one of those residents, Bob House, said Wilson’s claim that he didn’t contribute much was ludicrous.

“He does more than any five people in town,” House said.