To Idaho, he stars as Cowboy Ninja on a TV show. To a Texas woman, ‘he saved my life’

Swinging from rope to rope and scaling the infamous Warped Wall in front of a boisterous crowd, the Cowboy Ninja and his distinct cowboy hat and jeans became a common sight on NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior.”

The Cowboy Ninja — who goes by his real name, Lance Pekus, when not performing feats of inhuman strength on national television — has been a fan favorite over the years. He’s been competing on the show since 2011 and made his most recent appearance on Monday night in Season 14’s semifinal round in Los Angeles.

But when his feet are firmly back on the ground, Pekus, 35, is just a rancher from Salmon — and a life-saving stem cell donor.

Becoming the Cowboy Ninja

In the mid-2000s, American television network G4 picked up the Japanese reality TV show “Sasuke,” which pitted 100 contestants against one another to complete a four-stage obstacle course.

The show gained a cult following in the United States and rebranded as “Ninja Warrior” for English-speaking viewers. The vast success of that resulted in an American version being created in 2009, aptly called “American Ninja Warrior.”

It was around this time that Pekus said he began watching the show, and quickly figured it was something he could do.

“I was kind of one of the only competitors that came from an ag-culture, rural background,” Pekus told the Idaho Statesman on Monday.

Pekus spent much of his youth moving around the Pacific Northwest before settling in Salmon at age 18.

“I live and work on a cow-calf cattle ranch,” Pekus said. “And so the show kind of gave me the name ‘Cowboy Ninja,’ and I’ve kind of went with that over the years and kind of grown up on that.”

The Cowboy Ninja continued to grow his reputation in the ninja world. He’s made it to the Las Vegas finals on six occasions, most recently in 2021, when he fell on the Tire Run obstacle.

He’s even built his own obstacles around his father-in-law’s ranch, with names such as The Lache and the Salmon Ladder.

“Everyone I compete with has their home gym and pretty high-tech facilities. But I am still one of the holdouts,” Pekus said. “I live in the middle of nowhere, so I just pretty much train on either stuff I’ve built at home, or I just train in unique ways.”

Pekus said “American Ninja Warrior” has dramatically changed his life, but a decision he made in 2016 resulted in even more impact.

Finding a match and saving a life

Getting that initial cheek swap, Pekus said he thought nothing of it. It was 2016 and he’d just enrolled for Be The Match, an organization that aims to match bone marrow and stem cell donors with patients nationwide.

“Most of the time, people don’t match up,” Pekus said. “You just sit in the registry, you know, so I wasn’t really expecting to ever get called.”

But four years later, in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Pekus received the call.

“I matched with a female that was in her mid-30s, a mother of two children that had leukemia and was in dire need of a stem cell transplant,” Pekus said.

That was all he knew about his match. Pekus said he wanted to learn more, but HIPAA — the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — laws meant that he wasn’t allowed to know more about her or reach out to her until a year after the donation.

Pekus said there was no way that would stop him from donating. For him, it was a personal issue, too.

Pekus’ wife, Heather, has multiple sclerosis, resulting in many medical issues over the years.

“Knowing that if something ever happened to my family and somebody was out there and was given the chance to be able to help ... it’s just one of those things, you know?” Pekus said. “To kind of give back, and hopefully, things will work out.”

The woman whose life he might help save stayed on his mind, he said. Then, about 18 months after donating his stem cells, Pekus finally got the chance to meet her: Ashley Arter, a mother of two from Quanah, Texas, who found out she had leukemia on her birthday in 2019.

“Be The Match lined up a time and date, and I flew down and got to meet the recipient of my blood stem cells and see how she’s doing,” Pekus said. “It was just one of those amazing experiences; everything just happened to line up and work out.”

The pair remain in contact through text messages and keep in regular touch, Pekus said.

“I’m so thankful for Lance. He saved my life,” Arter told Be The Match. “I can actually walk again now that everything is over. I look forward to the future, to being able to spend more time with my kids, to keep raising them, and see them go to college. I’m glad I have all of that back.”

Swinging forward

Pekus said he was surprised at how simple the donation process was. All it took was a couple of trips to Boise to perform the procedure, followed by a couple of days of feeling sluggish.

That meant he could get right back to his “American Ninja Warrior” training. He fell in the semifinal round in 2020 before bouncing back with that trip to the finals in 2021.

Unfortunately, his 2022 journey fell short in the semifinals again. Viewers and fans of the Cowboy Ninja saw him come unstuck on Monday night on the fifth obstacle of the course, the Hopscotch.

“It was a pretty tricky obstacle. I just missed the cut-off of the top 15, so I just missed nationals,” Pekus said. “But you know, it was a tough round. I think we only had one finisher that night; it was actually a young high school kid.”

The age limit for “American Ninja Warrior” dropped to 15 in 2021, but Pekus said he isn’t ready to quit. Competing against people less than half his age is part of the fun, he said.

“I enjoy seeing the sport evolve and these young kids come in and doing so well, and just the friendships I’ve built over the years,” Pekus said. “I’m taking it year by year at this point. As long as I can stay healthy and stay active, I plan to keep competing for as long as I can.”