Author: Siri Stevens

Karsyn Daniels, from McKinney, Texas, won the National Junior High National Finals Barrel Racing Championship for 2017. Out of around 160 girls, and inclement conditions, she and her horse, Muffin, were able to get a total of three clean runs: 15.6, 16.0 and the short to 15.7. “The 16.0 was in the mud, but they took all the mud out and put new dirt in for the short go,” said the 13-year-old who has been chasing cans since she was three. “Muffin handled the ground even though it was raining and muddy. “I went in there going for it and she took care of me and herself and we did good.”
Karsyn got Muffin when she was six and Muffin was five. “One of my mom’s friends had her, and we went to see her and bought her the same day. After I first got her, it went downhill,” she admits. “We took her to 4 time NFR qualifier Michelle McCloud and she had to completely restart her. She was there for a year, and when we got her back, we clicked.” Karsyn has been competing on Muffin for six years and it keeps getting better. “She’s come a long way – and so have I.” Karsyn never gets nervous, but at Nationals, she did. She came back in the number one hole to the short go and just needed a clean run. “I just had to keep all three barrels up and hope that I was fast,” she said. “I was in the lead by a ways and hoping it would hold.” After the run, she had to go do an interview, then pictures, and it was crazy. “I’m still in shock from what happened – there was so much stuff that went on – I just took it all in.” They left the next morning for the 14 hour drive home.
Karsyn can blame her love of rodeo on her parents. “My parents took me to the NFR when I was four and ever since I was there I wanted to rodeo,” said the Texas Junior High competitor who also breakaway ropes. She spends her whole summer on the rodeo trail. “I just get in the truck and go,” she said. “My dad (Jack) drives and my mom (Kristen) is the videographer.” In addition to the TJHRA, she competes in the WPRA and has qualified for the American Semi Finals three times. She rides every day – all of her horses are at home, and she rides about four a day. She will be in 8th grade next year and this is her first year to do junior high rodeo. She was barrel racing a lot and didn’t have time to do junior rodeos. “I got into roping and I wanted to go do that and I thought it would be fun to be around kids my age.” Her roping horse came from the Driver’s, Marty Yates trained him and next year her goals are to make it to Nationals in Breakaway and Barrels and repeat as the champion.

Cody Devers is from Perryton, Texas, north of Amarillo by two hours. He started competing when he was young; he grew up on a horse. “Both my parents rodeoed, trained and sold horses for a living. My mom (Sabrina) is a barrel horse trainer/seller and does clinics, and my dad (Marty) was a PRCA steer wrestler and roper. He still hazes at most of my rodeos. ”
Cody jumped his first steer off a horse when he was only 12 and was hooked on steer wrestling. He won the Texas JHSRA Region 1 and was Top 10 at the NJHSRA Finals for Texas, he was also Oklahoma State High School Finalist and won the Kansas State both KJHSRA and KHSRA associations, winning a NHSRA Finals go round for KHSRA. “I played high school baseball too, and the rodeos in the other states were closer to where I live. I would leave running from the field, jump in the truck to get to my rodeos.” He was also the NLBRA Reserve World Champion winning a go round at the finals that was .1 from a new world record, and IFYR Finals Top 5 twice.”
His family owned horse business trains and sells performance horses all over the United States and several foreign countries, even to New Zealand has allowed him to meet a wide variety of clients from famous actresses to Cody’s own steer wrestling clinics where he has taught Dallas Cowboy football players to Canadian hockey players to steer wrestle. “Most of the 40 to 50 head of barrel, roping and steer wrestling horses on the grounds are on consignment to sell are on our website that we own, barrelhorse.com and in RODEO NEWS, of course! A lot of people know our Team Devers steer head brand, which is pretty cool to walk by and see your brand on horses at a rodeo or on tv.”

His brother, Matt, used to steer wrestle and rope, but is now busy building his own business, ProTech, that sells and fixes computers, security systems and cameras in horse trailers and businesses. “He knows all the technical stuff and I help him with the installations when I can. Rodeo schedules make it hard to have a “real job” but I do the networking labor on the job sites and I shoe horses. I shoe A LOT OF HORSES!”
He’s spending the summer rodeoing not only pro but amateur as well. “We will be hitting five rodeos every week,” he said. Traveling with Maverick Harper for the first part and then he’ll jump in with Jule Hazen, WNFR steer wrestler for the last. Cody is the current 2016 KPRA Steer wrestling Champion, and hopes to have a repeat this year. He is also trying for the Prairie Circuit Finals, the Nebraska State Rodeo Finals and the Central Plains Finals. He has a good start on the year in all three associations.
Cody is a Dean’s Honor Roll student that rodeos for Coach Stockton Graves at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and qualified for his second trip to the CNFR in steer wrestling. “This year I split the win for the first round with a 3.7 – that time was the fastest for the entire CNFR.” The rest didn’t go as well. “I drew two hard running steers and then broke the barrier in the short round – I was coming in fourth and was set to win reserve but Denver (Berry) is one of my good friends, we rodeo together in the Central Plains region, so I’m glad he won it.”
The highlight of the CNFR, besides winning the round, was winning the Harry Vold Memorial Scholarship. “My third picture I ever had was with Harry Vold, I was four months old, and my dad was in the short go, and I ended up in a picture with Mr.Vold, World renowned PRCA stock producer and PRCA World Champion steer wrestler, Roy Duvall. 18 years later to the day, I was in the short go at the same rodeo, PRCA Dodge City Roundup, and I got my picture with him again. ”
“I wrote an essay about an Army soldier – H.D. Hogan – that died in combat, he was a young rodeo cowboy, too. The topic was sacrifice and patriotism, so he’s the one I thought of. What he and all the service men have done for our country is what I think sacrifice means.” Cody gets to apply the $2,500 scholarship to his senior year. “I’ve got at least one more year to go for my Ag Business degree.”
For Cody, pro rodeo is his future. “It’s what I love to do. It’s what I was born to do.”

In 1990 Jeff Todd graduated from high school in northwest Kansas. “I was second in my class, but that didn’t make the top ten percent since there were only 10 of us that graduated.”He went to Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva, Oklahoma on an academic and rodeo scholarship, roping calves and team roping. He fell in with a group of rodeo kids from Wyoming, including Jhett and Justin Johnson. “All I wanted to do was rope – that was my goal. My plan as a college kid was to get a teaching degree so I could have my summers off and rodeo. My fall back plan was to go home and ranch on the family ranch.” He met Nancy Hainzinger on the rodeo team and they got married in 1992, Jeff was just 20, right after his sophomore year. The next summer his dad offered to let them run the ranch in eastern Colorado. It was a great opportunity for the young couple as they got to work together with few distractions those 90 days for there were no neighbors in sight. “We checked cattle or farmed every day, but also made it to 30 rodeos. One weekend they went to 5 rodeos in 3 days stretching from Nebraska to Texas. “We started out in Benkleman, Nebraska and roped in the Friday night slack. We left at midnight and had to be in Dalhart, Texas for the 7:30am slack. We barely made it and both made the short round at the XIT rodeo (amateur at the time). We were up at Elkhart, Kansas that night and Springfield, Colorado the next day before driving back to Dalhart.” It was great fun and for me, that was my opportunity to really rodeo.” Jeff was a history major, and was heading towards being a teacher, but decided after that summer that he wanted more. Spending hours on the tractor, Jeff made plans for the future. It didn’t involve the Colorado farm and ranch but did include kids, horses and rodeo. “I knew I was smart enough, and I started preparing myself to go to law school.” He set his goals so that he could make a living for his family, Nancy could stay home and work with horses and they could take their kids to rodeos. “I still wanted the lifestyle, but didn’t think running down the road was for me.”
After a couple more years of college rodeo, Jeff and Nancy graduated from Northwestern in 1994, and got ready for Jeff to start law school that fall. “We lived with Nancy’s mom and dad in Ponca City, Oklahoma and I shod horses. They were saving money for the transition and entry fees were not in the budget. But, Jeff’s mom loaned him $250 to enter the local open rodeos. “Actually, that was the best summer I ever had. I was just so happy to be able to enter and knew things were getting ready to change soon with law school that I didn’t worry about anything. I rodeoed on that $250 all summer and had money left over in August when I pulled up and sold my good calf horse. “The pull of the rodeo deal was tough to turn from; it was a whole different life where they were headed.”
They moved into an apartment in Norman, across from OU law school. Nancy taught school while Jeff went to law school. “I treated law school like a job, when she went to work, I would start studying. If they’d have told me how much I had to read, I would have never done it.” After that first tough year of law school they eased back into horses. “We would go home on the weekends and ride. Riding today is still how I get rid of stress.” He graduated 9th in his class out of 220 in 1997 and got a job at McAfee & Taft a large law firm in downtown Oklahoma City. “I’ve been here for 20 years.”
Right after he took the bar exam, they signed a contract on 15 acres and a contract to build a house. “We didn’t even know if I’d passed the bar,” he recalls. “The place was perfect – 26 miles from downtown, the best of both worlds for us.” They moved in with their two-year-old son, Haines, and started building their place. “I worked all day at the office and rushed home so Nancy and I could build fence and Haines helped.”
McAfee & Taft is now the largest law firm in the state, and a perfect fit for Todd. One of his first cases involved a patent owned by horse trailer manufacturer. “My main job was to be the interpreter between the owners and the complicated legal process. Early on I figured out that ag clients liked working with me because I could talk their language. McAfee was a full service business firm so I figured why not develop a full service agriculture practice. I got hired by Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and pretty soon other ag-based clients started calling.” Today, he spends most days working on agriculture and equine cases and even rodeo matters. He represents many businesses and people that he rodeoed with. “I went to Little Britches rodeos with KC Jones, and now I represent ProFantasy Rodeo and Rodeo Vegas. Another college buddy owns a feed mill and trucking company.”
He still had to put in his 10,000 hours, and let rodeo go for awhile. “I didn’t have time and family came first. We messed with a couple colts, and my son went with me once a week to a little calf roping jackpot. One summer that was the only place I entered, but that was just fine. Our goal was to get our kids around it and our dream was to take our kids to junior rodeos and we did that.” They have three children, and they all grew up in the arena. That is until six years ago. “On April 16, 2011 we found out my wife had a golfball size tumor on her brain. Life stopped for us. By that time, I was a shareholder in the firm and we were doing junior rodeos.” Nancy had major surgery May 9 and by the grace of God, she was back riding horses for her kids less than a month later. Everyone in the family had a life change from that experience. Haines quit rodeo all together, deciding to focus on his schooling, and the 21-year-old junior at Oklahoma State University is majoring in Electrical Engineering, carrying a 3.98 GPA.
Kathryn (17) coped by practicing more and that dedication paid off. She went to the NJHSFR in Gallup, N.M. a couple summers later and came back to Oklahoma as the 2013 National Champion pole bender as well as the National Champion All Around Cowgirl. Gretchen, who was five at the time, is now 11 and rodeos right along with her sister. Jeff credits Nancy for his kids’ rodeo success. “My girls are blessed that their mom is pretty handy with horses and takes the time to make, finish and fine tune their rodeo horses.”

Coming full circle, Jeff has been able to keep his identity as a cowboy and farm kid. “I told my wife I never wanted to have soft hands. I still shoe horses and I have cattle with my brother in law.” They ride and practice a lot on that same 15 acre place they built. Most evenings someone is coming over to rope. He is the president of the Oklahoma High School Rodeo Associationj. “I’m a product of Kansas High School rodeo, and everything I do relates back to that. For me, we made the decision to try something different – but we still wanted our kids to have what we had.”
After Nancy’s life-threatening operation, he decided to slow down a bit and pick the rope up more often. “Life is unexpected and it refocused things. I was 40 and figured I’d use these young horses. We rope a lot at home, but I didn’t go much.” Practice paid off, and in 2014 he left Vegas and the World Series Finale splitting $180,000 with his partner, David Mize. “That was unexpected but a lot of fun. Nancy told me I should quit while I was ahead but I told her I would probably just keep roping till it was all gone.”
A teacher at heart, Jeff likes to mentor along his rodeo kids. He tells them “Whatever you do, make sure you’re passionate about it and be the very best you can be at it. When you’re 20, and you think all you want to do is rodeo, it’s ok to take a break and come back to it later – It doesn’t matter what you do, what the world lacks are people putting in the hard work to be the best they can be at it.”
“We go pretty hard and get spread a little thin sometimes, but life is too fun to let it slide by. We are blessed and been put in the right situation when we didn’t know what the heck we were doing. God’s guided all this, we don’t take credit for any of it.”

Top Hand Ropes has been in production for six months. Under the direction of rope maker, Curt Matthews, the company has quickly spun its way into the hands of thousands of ropers across the country.
Curt grew up around horses and landed a job at a western store on May 31, 1969. That store happened to have a rope company in the back. “As a kid, I wanted money and it was something I was interested in,” he said. “I made girths, swept floors, and did it all. I worked the western store on the weekends and helped in the rope company the rest of the week.” He apprenticed under Pete Emmons, a rope master and innovator. In 1986, at the age of 30, he and a few partners took that knowledge to open up their own rope shop. “I invented the first nylon poly rope right there,” he said. The poly blend rope completely eliminated the need for aging and breaking in ropes and was put together by a machine that Curt also improved, with the help of his father, Curtis Sr, and brother, Tommy. The new rope was so popular, Curt’s shop quickly grew to become one of the biggest rope shops around (Classic Ropes) and he had the opportunity to sell out. The original poly blend rope is called the Money Maker and is still available.
He went to work for an order buying company buying cattle. “My family had done that so it came easy,” he said. After his five year non-compete was over, he took a job with Professionals Choice making ropes for them and eventually moved over to Fast Back, working with Al Benson. “Al was my first employee at the Classic rope shop and he and I made a good team. It was a good combination and I stayed there until Al retired from Fast Back Ropes last spring.”
Shortly after that, two of his best friends convinced him to start one more rope company. “The other two owners are my best friends and their wives are my wife’s best friends and I hesitated because I didn’t want business to affect our friendships. It’s worked out great – we know how to be friends and we know how to do business.”
He lives 12 miles from the shop and gets to work at 5:30 every day to check ropes that were made the day before. “Then by 10:30 I start shipping. I do all the shipping so I can see every rope that leaves here.” That pretty much takes the rest of the day. He does all the purchasing as well. Curt has surrounded himself with quality people, from the marketing to the management and he enjoys it all.
When he’s not at work, he enjoys hog hunting, team roping, and spending time with his family. He has been married to Christi for 32 years and they have three children; an older son, Jim, two grandsons, their middle son, Cory, who is a baseball coach, and their daughter, Catherine, who played fast pitch softball. None of his kids roped, they were involved in sports – baseball, softball and football – which Curt helped coach. He is still involved in baseball through the Miracle League, a baseball program for children with physical and mental challenges that he is very passionate about.
He is also still passionate about ropes. “My longevity and reputation as a rope maker from years of doing it has helped make Top Hand Ropes so successful from the start. You’ve got to prove yourself daily as a rope maker.” The company has three machines going, all day and Curt still has his hand in the tying, waxing, and overall manufacturing process. “I still have a few ideas of new ropes I’d like to try,” he said.