The wild pace has continued since. "I've been through every emotion that there is," Bronco says. "This job gives you a great chance to be fulfilled as a person. I'm being challenged in every possible way that I can express. Each day, there's some area of my being that is being developed just through the demand. I've been exposed to my weaknesses and my hidden strengths that I didn't know existed quite to the level that they were."

About the name: Bronco. Paul and Lenore Mendenhall named their first three sons Mike, Mat and Marty. But when their fourth son was born, some six years after Marty, Paul had something different and distinctive in mind.

Bronco.

"I felt the name would fit what he'd be like," Paul says. "It was inspiration."

"I didn't name him that," Bronco's mom says with a laugh. "We were at the dinner table one night and I was about ready to deliver. When that name came up, I said, 'Over my dead body.' But I was overruled."

Lenore also gave the boy two other names, just in case he didn't like Bronco. His full name is Marc Bronco Clay Mendenhall.

"My concern was that he could end up being a ballet dancer," she explains.

Turned out, she worried in vain. The name stuck like Super Glue, and it did, indeed, fit him. Still, when he was young, people frequently asked her, "What's his real name?"

When he was a senior in high school, a Navy recruiter called the Mendenhall residence looking for a Marc Mendenhall. "I told him there was no one here by that name," she says. "It wasn't until later that I realized he was looking for Bronco. I had forgotten we had named him Marc."

Lenore says Bronco was an ideal child to raise. "He never got into mischief," she says. "He did everything well. He's not perfect, but he made very few mistakes."

For years, the Mendenhalls lived in Salt Lake City, where Paul worked as a real estate developer. The three oldest boys all graduated from East High School. When Bronco was in fifth grade, the family moved to Alpine, where, eventually, Paul taught him to train horses and together they showed them all over the country. "He has a real gift for that," says Paul, who played football at BYU in the 1950s. "He's an excellent rider and trainer."

"I was raised in another setting from my brothers," Bronco recalls. "Those three were all two years apart and had all the same ski racing and motorcycle racing experiences. I was just the tag-along at that point."

Today, Mike, Mat and Marty look up to their little brother, Paul says. "It's funny, but even though Bronco is the youngest, he is the leader of the bunch. They all listen to him and they all respect him."

Mike lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains in central California in a tent-like structure called a yurt. Bronco lovingly refers to him as "my hippie brother" and describes him as an intelligent man who loves the outdoors. "He's chosen a different lifestyle," he says.