Rodeo Life

Category: Rodeo LIFE Cover Feature

  • Ken Etchieson

    Ken Etchieson

    It was the allure of rodeo life that drew Ken Etchieson to the sport.

    “I started out just like anybody else. I always had a love and a desire for the sport, enjoyed the people,” Ken said.

    He had an uncle who roped, and though he played other sports in high school, Ken was always aware of what it meant to be an athlete in rodeo because he grew up around the cattle industry.

    Ken Etchieson

    Naturally, Ken set out to ride bulls at first, but quickly found he was better behind a microphone than a bull rope.

    Ken explained he didn’t have the talent to compete, but clearly, his love of the sport was just as great as any of the athletes’.

    “All I could do was talk about it, and therefore, the opportunity came quite by accident to start announcing rodeos through the miniature rodeo association.”

    This was back in the early 1960s, and starting with the very youngest in the sport made sense to the also green beginning announcer.

    “I figured to get somewhere I needed to start with a group of young people. I had a great affection for them as far as watching them develop, and away we went. I grew up with those kids literally from behind the microphone. So as they matured and went on, so did I.”

    This led to an in-depth and varied career in rodeo for Ken, who has been a staple of the International Professional Rodeo Association since its inception. He’s a gold card holder number 5383.

    Given his start with the youngest competitors in rodeo, it was only natural that one of his greatest successes later in life would also involve young people. Ken is a founder and creator of the International Finals Youth Rodeo.

    Leading up to this was Ken’s longtime work announcing professional rodeo.

    Ken Etchieson

    “I started announcing a lot of rodeos, and I chased my own gold buckle like a lot of the guys chasing a world championship title. I wanted to go to the finals, and I did, and I got my buckle, but along the way I got involved in a lot of different aspects of rodeo,” said Ken. He announced IFR6, as well as worked as a producer and served as the business manager at the IPRA headquarters from 1973 to 1975.

    Rodeo was magic to Ken.

    “There was a uniqueness of the era in the ‘70s, the days of Bobby DelVecchio, and Rob McDonald and Dan Dailey. All of those guys I grew up with, and there was a mystique, a wonderment, about them, the way they cooperated with each other and anted up in a truck and traveled. I was envious of that in a way, but I could still tell about it. I could tell about the relationship and try to expand that knowledge to people out there that weren’t aware of what being a real cowboy was all about,” he said and added, “It wasn’t necessarily about riding a horse or roping a calf. It’s an attitude. It’s a culture. It’s a way of life.”

    That way of life afforded Ken the opportunity to travel and see a lot of different event facilities at fairgrounds around the country. That experience, coupled with his work back home in the construction field, equipped Ken with the tools needed to create a successful expo center in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

    “In order to build the expo in Shawnee the way we wanted it, we needed something big, we needed something to happen.”

    That “something big” was the National High School Finals Rodeo, which Ken and his team began pursuing in 1985.

    “We went after that with a dream, and through their goodness and the efforts of our community, we built the expo center with the sport of rodeo in mind,” he said.

    The impact of the event was good for the community, but the fact that the NHSFR did not have a permanent home and rotated locations every three years, made that impact a temporary one. Ken was already listening to the wants of contestants and parents and formulating something else in his mind, something that would become a mecca of rodeo for youth competitors.

    Going off the feedback that contestants were really interested in a rodeo with a direct payout, Ken and his team started the IFYR in 1993 with the help of the IPRA.

    “The IPRA became a very valuable partner, because they provided us with a means, a direction to go for personnel, stock etcetera… so there was a marriage there and through their hands-on [participation] that gave us the opportunity to be able to get contestant insurance and make things happen. [The IPRA] gave us a rule book, gave us opportunity.”

    Ken did not want the IFYR to be exclusive in that resulting opportunity. He spread the obligation and reward across the rodeo world involving many stock contractors and other personnel.

    “The amount of cooperation that all of those people put in to making this thing happen really contributed to its overall success,” he said.

    “We didn’t have anyone in the country putting it down, because there were so many people out there trying to make it work.”

    Those involved shared a bigger vision through the IFYR, Ken said.

    “We let a lot of people be able to come and participate. They were coming for a cause, because they wanted to see the sport get bigger and get better, and we wanted to expose the IPRA to a lot more people.”

    IFYR, Shawnee, OK

    The IFYR has been a success. Ken’s goal was for the grandeur to become a pinnacle for youth rodeo contestants, and by the sheer size and excitement of the event, that goal has clearly been achieved.

    Many contestants have gone on to professional rodeo success in adulthood, but just as important, they’ve become successful in many professions, from the medical field, to politics, to working in finance.

    Around 2006, Ken retired to enjoy being with his family, which includes wife Betty of 51 years and three sons, Bill, Russell and Justin, as well as eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

    But he still stays involved in rodeo and the IP

     

    RA, giving committee seminars and pondering ways to help continue the growth of the sport he dearly loves.

    “It’s a great sport. My involvement with it over the years, the greatness of the people,” he said and added, “On an all-too-often basis I still think about [many well-known rodeo legends]. Those people were dedicated to the sport they loved, and that was the way I was. I loved the sport because of the personalities, the camaraderie, the involvement. They always had your back. They were there for each other. I had a lot of instances to see how they supported each other, and that’s really all that’s about.”

     

     

  • On the Trail with the Soileau Brothers

    On the Trail with the Soileau Brothers

    “I rodeoed and I loved it,” said Kent Soileau, from White Ville, Louisiana. “When my oldest son (Garrett) was 8, I decided he should rodeo and I built a rope pen and got a set of steers.” Life took over, and Kent didn’t push it. “We were farming and buying properties.” Three or four years went by, and Kent realized if he didn’t put rodeo as a priority, he was going to miss out and so were his boys. “They all agreed to plow the pen, get some horses and go again.” The hard work paid off and this year three of his boys are headed to the National Junior High and High School Finals. His wife, Sadie, was a city girl who came to the country.

    “I love it,” she said about rodeo. “I’m still not a horse person, but I get the clothes and the cooking together. I like seeing new places.” The family had never been to Tennessee and made the ten hour drive to Lebannon to watch their youngest son, Grant, compete. After that they will head to Gillette, Wyoming, to watch two other sons, Gavin and Gabe, compete at the National High School Finals.

    Grant competes in team roping and chute dogging. He spends his spare time working on the family farm, where they grow rice, sugar cane, wheat, corn, and beans. They also run crawfish traps from February to mid-June. He likes working on the farm and plans to come back after obtaining an ag business degree in college. “It’s very hot and I like it,” he says of farming. Grant started competing when he was at the end of his fifth grade year. Before his first rodeo, he had practiced for about three months. He learned from his dad and family friend, Tom Carney (Steer Wrestling 101). “It looked fun and it was a challenge,” said the 14-year-old, a ninth grader at Sacred Heart High School in Ville Platte (11 miles away). “When I went to Tom’s school, I didn’t know anything about bull dogging; I didn’t want to go. I just wanted to practice team roping. But now that I’m bull dogging I like it a lot, it’s a lot of action.” Grant believes that if you want something, you have to work hard for it, and with that, he practices a lot. “I get up every morning, I practice, and every night we are bull dogging – every time it doesn’t rain and our pen is dry enough.” Grant is the red headed youngest in the family of five. “I have a sister (Lainey, 21) that is a red head, and my older brother (Garrett– 19 about to turn 20); he doesn’t rodeo. When we started he was about to graduate so he didn’t rodeo. He’s going to college for Ag Business and working on the farm.” Grant has met a lot of friends through rodeo, and when he’s not practicing, rodeoing, or working on the farm, he likes to go swimming, four wheeling, fishing and duck hunting. He works hard not to be in the shadow of his older brothers. “We ride different and we swing our ropes different, but we still help each other out.”

    Gavin is two years older than Grant and made the National High School Finals for the first time in the team roping as a heeler. He went into the Louisiana High School Rodeo Finals in the tenth hole in the team roping and ended up in the fourth hole going to Nationals. Gavin works on the farm, and he spends most of his time practicing. “We go to school and when we get home we crawfish or practice. In the summer time, I help my dad drive tractors, plow, shred, or get the cane ground ready.” His least favorite thing to do is pull red rice. “It’s hot and sweaty and my arms get cut up.” Gavin is going to be a junior and school is not his favorite to do. “There are other things I’d rather do, like rodeo or hunt or fish or drive around in my truck.” The 16-year-old drives a 2013 2500 GMC. “It was my dad’s older truck and he gave it to me and got a new one.” His dad is insistent that his sons practice. “There are days I’m lazy and he makes me go,” said Gavin, who wants to be a vet or come back to the ranch and be a foreman. Gavin stared rodeoing in the 8th grade. “We never really got into the competition big – we went to some smaller ones, and we were showing goats and we had some friends that rodeoed and we decided to do it.” Gavin is hoping to be a National Champion – and is preparing for it. “We rope our machine and even though we just got a big rain, we will get out there again and prepare for the finals.” His hero is Ote Barry. “He’s a four time world champion steer wrestler and came back to go the American and did pretty well.” He has learned along the way the he can’t look at what everyone else is doing, he just needs to be the best he can be. “I have the want and drive to get better, and reach the full potential of what I can be.”

    Gabe is the oldest in the family that competes. “I try to help my brothers in any way I can and make sure they do everything they can when we practice,” said the 18-year-old. “I want us all to succeed. When we practice, it’s me, Gavin and my dad. My dad works the chute. Gavin hazes for me and I haze for him and we haze for Grant, who just stared jumping steers. We do all the ground work first.”

    Gabe is heading back to the National High School Finals Rodeo to defend his 2015 Steer Wrestling Championship. “It really didn’t sink in right away,” said the recent graduate from Sacred Heart High School of his win last year in Rock Springs, Wyo. He is concentrating on making sure he is focused this year. “I am preparing myself as best I can to compete. It is more muscle memory – if I prepare myself the right way it’s easier to compete.” He slides the stick, jumps the dummy and chute dogs before he ever jumps a steer on a horse. He typically practices two to three hours a day. “I don’t practice every single day, but I do, at least three or four times a week.” He believes the horse has a lot to do with everything. “I have a lot of good luck with my horses. For a horse, you’ve got to get along, and me and my little brother can’t ride the same horses, we don’t always get along the same.” The horse he rode last year is Kid Rock, a horse he owns. “I bought him right before state finals last year and rode him at state finals and that was the first rodeo I rode him at. I bought him from Marcus Theriot (2016 CNFR All Around Champion) – he had three bull dogging horses at the time and he sold him. I got along with him right away.”

    Gabe will head to college at Mcneese State. “It is close to home and I always wanted to go there. Half my friends and my brother go there.” He will study Ag Business and will come back and work on the farm with his dad. “My older brother is doing the same thing.” Unlike his older brother, Gabe plans to college rodeo and once he graduates, he will get his card and travel around and see how it goes.

    Next to their dad, all three boys count their grandpa Melvin as their hero. “He’s always worked hard his whole life and he’s never quit. He’d put his mind to something and he would do it.” All of Kent and Sadie’s children have the same determination and drive. “The perfect day is waking up healthy, having my family around and being able to do the things I love, rodeo and farm,” said Gabe.

  • Back When They Bucked with Vernon Dude Smith

    Back When They Bucked with Vernon Dude Smith

    [ The Smith family’s only bootprint in the horse world was a great-great-grandfather who traded horses, but that all changed when Dude went to watch his first rodeo. ]

    Dude Smith was 13 years old when he stuck a blue-jeaned leg over his first bucking bull. In actuality, it was a milk cow tied to the fence. But for the teenager from Burkburnett, Texas, it was the start to a rodeo career that would give him the love and friendships of a lifetime, and the honor of being inducted into both the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum’s Rodeo Hall of Fame.
    Born Vernon Smith, Jr., in 1928, he was the oldest of three sisters, Geneva, Anita, and Kay, and a brother, Billy. Neither Dude nor his dad, whom he was named after, had middle names, and went by Big Dude or Little Dude to tell them apart. The Smith family’s only bootprint in the horse world was a great-great-grandfather who traded horses, but that all changed when Dude went to watch his first rodeo. “I told my mom that’s what I wanted to do, and she told me I didn’t know anything about rodeo,” Dude recalls. “And I told her those cowboys didn’t know anything about it either at one time!”
    Dude rode one bucking bronc that year, but nearly didn’t make it to the chutes again after he tried to join the U.S. Navy. “I lied about my age and tried to join up, but they caught me,” says Dude. “That was just before Pearl Harbor was bombed – a few people I knew lost their lives there.” Soon after, Dude was given a 4F by the draft board after he was kicked while playing football, which broke an artery in his leg. One hospital was ready to amputate it, but another doctor was able to operate and repair Dude’s leg, cautioning him to never do anything that would bump it.
    But Dude wasn’t long out of the hospital bed before he was back in the arena, finding work for rodeo producer Paul Long in Kansas and running the rodeo arena for Floyd Reynolds of Montgomery, Ala., doing his own rodeoing on Saturday nights. Dude’s first jobs as a child were carrying water jars in wet tow sacks to field hands for 50 cents a day, or pulling a funnel wagon which carried grain. But in 1947, he and several friends, including Neal Gay and Wiz Whizenheimer, decided to head north and east to the larger rodeos, and Dude sold a cow he owned to his dad and used the money to buy a ticket to Philadelphia. “I sat on the airplane with my nose on the glass and wondered how much better it could get,” says Dude. “I had on boots with more tape than leather holding them together, and I went on to compete in Detroit and New York. I’d never seen that kind of money in my life.” He competed in 53 performances in 30 days in the Madison Square Garden rodeo, having joined the Cowboys’ Turtle Association just before it was named the RCA. He recently received a buckle from Montana Silversmiths for being one of the four oldest gold card members – #159.
    Dude competed in every event but team roping, mainly entering the bareback riding, bull riding, steer wrestling, and wild horse mugging. “I loved riding bulls, and I could ride broncs, I just wasn’t as classy as the other guys. I travelled with Casey Tibbs for a while, and if I got lucky enough to draw and beat him, he’d say we didn’t go to that rodeo,” Dude says with a laugh. “There was one bull, Iron Ore, that I got on all the time, and I never rode him. He wouldn’t hook me, but he’d look at me like I was dummy to keep trying. When I leave this world, he’ll be on my headstone – I thought he deserved to be the winner of the deal.”
    Dude saw much of his success in the steer wrestling, winning the event at Cheyenne Frontier Days more than any other rodeo. The greatest thrill of his steer wrestling career was in 1953, when he was invited to compete among the top 25 steer wrestlers in the world in Grady, N.M. Another high point came in the early 1960s, when Clem McSpadden, as part of John F. Kennedy’s “Partners of the Alliance” exchange with Mexico, asked Dude to go with a group of cowboys from Oklahoma to aid cities in Mexico and put on a rodeo. “During the rodeo, they brought out a pretty nice steer and a Mexican fighting bull that probably weighed 850 pounds,” says Dude. “I was able to throw that bull, and everybody threw their hats in the ring and hollered I could be president of Mexico!”
    Yet one of the greatest events of his life was when Dude met his wife, Frances, in the late 1940s. She was performing with a horseback square dancing team in Burkburnett when Dude met her, and they married in 1950. “I chased her for a couple of years and finally got her hemmed up, but it wasn’t easy!” says Dude. “After that, it lasted pretty good. She was one of the greatest horsewomen there ever was.” A barrel racer, Frances qualified for the 1967 NFR in Oklahoma City – the first year barrel racing was added to the finals – and won the World title. She was also a member of the AQHA and won titles in the both the junior and senior divisions, along with keeping books for rodeo producer Ed Curtis. She and Dude rodeoed together for nearly 20 years, crisscrossing the plains of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, and even into New Mexico. Dude finished 16th in the world in steer wrestling in 1966. “But I never really rodeoed to be a world champion,” he says. “My dad told me it was better to be a big fish in a little pond than a little fish in a big pond, and I hardly remember going to a rodeo I didn’t win.”
    One of Dude’s greatest horses was Scooter, born the same year he and Frances married. The horse was a gift from Dude’s father-in-law, and he was Dude’s mount in the steer wrestling, also winning Frances a barrel racing saddle in Mesquite, Texas, after her horse went lame. In his later years, Scooter went on to teach many kids how to steer wrestle and high school rodeo.
    In addition to competing, Dude ran footraces to earn extra money on the road, and he worked as a pickup man, arena director, and even an arena policeman. “We had to keep people back from the arena a certain distance,” Dude explains. “In Cheyenne, people would bring their blankets and set up in the roping box end of the arena. I helped anywhere they needed me. Sonny Ringer was the arena director for Beutlers when I helped them. He carried a pair of pliers in his pocket, but if I couldn’t get a steer to go in, I’d just bite his tail!”
    When Dude decided to retire from rodeo in the 1970s, he started training racehorses in Texas. “Frances didn’t understand how I could like training horses, since I didn’t get to ride them, but I told her when the horses crossed the finish line first you’d get goose bumps an inch high!” He and Frances had two sons, Mark and Vern. Vern went on to ride bulls after high school and qualified for the NFR in 1980 , but Mark passed away in 1973. He was driving home on a three-wheeler when a pipe fell off a passing truck and hit him. “I lost everything for a few months,” Dude remembers. “But between my friends and the Lord, I got myself on the right track.”
    Dude and Frances made their home for many years in a house near the Red River but later moved to higher ground in Burkburnett. Their son Vern now lives near the river and runs cattle with his wife, LaDonne, who college rodeoed on a scholarship. Dude lives with his granddaughter, Sage Smith, who barrel races, and trains and sells horses. She won the BFA World Championship in 2003. Dude and Frances were married for 63 years before she passed away in 2013, and she was inducted into the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum’s Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2014.
    Along with his immediate family, Dude continues many friendships with his rodeo family, and continues to run a small trucking business. “When I first started rodeo, Neal Gay was my closest friend, and he still is,” says Dude. “We’re like brothers.” He feels he competed in the greatest age of rodeo, where camaraderie was staying with families in the same town as the rodeo – some of them barely acquaintances – and hospitality was an ice box full of beer and a plate of chicken or steak. “I worked with committee men and contestants, and we were one big family. I never went to the National Finals, but I would venture to say I wound up better off than a bunch of the gold buckle boys.”

  • On the Trail with Ali Armstrong

    On the Trail with Ali Armstrong

    Ali Armstrong has a long list of credentials for a 17-year–old. Among her credentials, she is the only one to win six straight go-rounds at the International Finals Youth Rodeo in Shawnee, Okla., and she is hoping to keep the streak alive.

    The cowgirl from Lexington, Okla., has been riding horses since she was 6-years-old and competing in barrel racing since she was 8-years-old. She got her first horse, from Audra Masterson. “I took riding lessons with Audra on her good horse, Fuel, and she found my barrel horse U-turn,” she said. U-turn got his name from Ali when Audra had to make a U-turn to go ask if the horse was for sale.

    He gets the credit for helping Ali learn to ride and run barrels. “He was a lefty and so is the horse I run now. I ‘m more confident on a horse that goes to the left and more partial to them too,” Ali said.

    Ali Armstrong and MattsFreckledCowboy, better known as Panama, are living a dream in and outside the rodeo arena but it was not always smooth sailing. She came across Panama when she went to a barrel race with her good friend Debbie Caywood. “Debbie wanted me to exhibition a 4-year-old who hadn’t been hauled much, so of course I said yes,” said Ali. They clicked right away and the rest is history.

    “He was running to the right when we got him and we didn’t have much confidence together so I switched him to the left,” said Ali. “We started winning and he was more consistent.”

    Ali is breaking records at the IFYR with hopes of keeping them going. “I’m not nervous, I know what I want to do and will try my hardest to accomplish my goals,” she said. The young superstar is thankful for what she has already done but is excited for what the future holds. “Panama likes the atmosphere at Shawnee and he likes Monty, the announcer,” she added. Monty announces many of the rodeos that Ali and Panama compete at.

    In addition to the IFYR the two won the 2015 National High School Finals, qualified for the 2014-2015 American semi-finals, won the 2014 NBHA Teen 1D World Championship, and 2015 high school Texas rodeo state average champion. She attributes her success to the small group of friends and family that stand behind her. “I have the most amazing support group. My friends and family have stood behind me and they continue to believe in me.” she said.

    Ali is homeschooled through Extension Taught Classes of south Norman and will be a senior this coming school year. After graduation she plans on going to college on a rodeo scholarship and wants to get her WPRA card when she turns 18 and start hauling in October to pro rodeos for a few years and then try her hand at futurity horses.

    “I have the best traveling partner, his name is John Wayne and he is a 7-week-old Jack Russell,” she said. Ali travels with her stepdad Clifford and mother Andrea. “The furthest I’ve been for a rodeo was Rock Springs, Wyo., for the National High School Finals and I’m looking forward to making that trip again, God willing.”

    At every barrel race and rodeo you can find Clifford in the alleyway. “He’s always there to walk me in, not just on Panama but every horse I’m on,” she said. Her mom is in the stands filming her runs and little brother Case comes to support when he isn’t roping. “It takes a village.”

    She is riding with Mary Ellen Hickman, owner of Future Fortunes, and has gained new knowledge for young horses and how each horse is different. “Mary Ellen not only has helped me as a rider but as a person,” said Ali. She rides four to five horses a day and goes to weekly night jackpots and on the weekend she finds rodeos and barrel races to enter.

    Her freshman year at the IFYR she had a goal set to make it back to the short-go, she never thought it would turn into six straight go-rounds. Before she runs she makes sure she has on her lucky beaded earrings and warms-up the same way. “I saddle him, put his boots on then I put my running bit on him. I lope him about 5-10 circles each way and do reverse arches to make sure he is listening to me.”
    Last year the duo drew up on dry ground in the first-go, however in the second-go it had rained and they ran in deep mud. She had never run Panama in mud and had brought a backup horse just in case something happened. Ali knew Panama would take care of her in the mud and that he did. “I wasn’t sure what to do but as the day went on I knew he would do his job and I decided to run him and I’m glad I did.”

    Ali would like to thank her sponsors; Dr. LeRoy Howell, Kevin Sherman, Lonice Tucker, Dustin Lucas, Sheresa Jackson and Michelle French, with Animal Element, Darla Schneider with Schneider Saddle Pads, Heritage Horse Feeds, Diamond V, Iconoclast, Justin Thomason with Resistol Hats, Marcum, Jill Beaty with Competitive Edge Chiropractic, Laney Fowler with LF Beadwork, Tonda Collins and Vickie James with Equi-Resp, Bobbi Jo with Hidez Compression Suits, Donna Wooten with Acculife and Jo Hurta with JoJo Jewels.
    For a 17-year-old Ali has her priories straight. She knows what she wants and works for it everyday. She continues to ride even in less than perfect riding conditions.

  • Back When They Bucked with Harry Straw

    Back When They Bucked with Harry Straw

    Harry Straw married well.
    When he married Betty Jane Webster, the sister of world champion steer roper Shoat Webster, he got an incredible horsewoman for a wife, the use of her horses, and the advice of her brother, Shoat.
    He was born and raised in Nowata, Okla., the son of Homer and Lillie Straw, with a daddy who roped, and Harry would tag along to rodeos with his father. His dad made a living driving truck, hauling hay to western Oklahoma and grain on the return trip. The family lived on 125 acres of corn, oats and wheat, and Harry and his mother milked ten cows by hand, separated the cream, and sold it to Gus Andrews in Nowata for grocery money. Harry hunted possums at night with his possum dog, making thirty five cents a hide. “It was kinda tough,” he said. “That’s how I was raised.”
    He learned to rope at Deacon May’s place. Deacon had a roping pen, and when Homer came over to rope, Deacon’s son and Harry would run calves in.
    During his high school days, he worked for his uncle, who owned a Phillips gas station in Nowata, pumping gas for fifty cents a day.
    After high school graduation in 1955, he went to work for Phillips Petroleum in Bartlesville, working in the plastics department.
    And in the evenings, he’d rope.
    Harry would come home after work, and Betty Jane would have the horses ready. “I’d get home by five, she’d have horses loaded, saddles in the pickup, and away we’d go,” he said, to a rodeo where he’d rope calves, steer wrestle or steer rope.
    His wife was better with horses than he was, he readily admitted. “She could do more with a horse than I could,” he said. “Shoat had her pretty well tutored before I got her.” She also trained horses, and “she could rope better than I could,” he said. But Betty Jane only roped at home, never at a contest.
    Harry roped evenings and weekends, never going too far out of Oklahoma, and concentrating mostly on steer roping. Steer roping was his strength, and his daughter Jeannie McKee remembers camping out at Cheyenne Frontier Days with her family while her daddy roped. He competed at amateur rodeos and in the Rodeo Cowboys Association as well.
    He worked for Phillips Petroleum for 33 years and was part of the research team who developed plastic pipe. Phillips built four plastic pipe plants across the country: in California, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Pryor, Okla., and Harry was sent to train employees and work with the machinery. “They’d send me to get them out of trouble when the machines acted up. I’d go there, and train them.”
    Harry often practiced with Shoat, his brother-in-law, a four-time world champion steer roper (1949-50, 1954-55) and twice runner-up. Shoat made his own horses, and Harry usually rode one of his. One of his favorites of Shoat’s was Deck, a calf horse and son of Leo. “Shoat made him, and boy he made a good one,” Harry said.
    Another horse he liked to ride belonged to Willard Combs. The famous steer wrestling horse Baby Doll “was a dream to bulldog off of,” he said. “She was all right. She done the same thing every time, she’d run right up (to the steer), and let you down, not try to cripple you or cut in front of the steer. She done everything just right.” Harry rode the little blaze-faced dark bay anytime Willard or his brother Benny offered.
    But, in his estimation, the best horse he ever got on was one owned by his wife. Betty Jane’s aunt Kate (Choteau) Lowry, the wife of Fred Lowry, took her into one of Fred’s pastures one day. “We was out in the big pastures on the Lowry ranch,” Harry remembered, with 35 mares and weanling colts, “and Kate told Betty Jane to pick a colt. That colt made the best steer horse I ever had.” The horse, named Chico, belonged to Betty Jane, not Harry, and “she never did let me forget that,” he chuckled.
    Betty Jane broke and trained the gelding, who was a Hancock horse. The horse liked to buck. “He didn’t buck hard, but he had to crow hop out there every night, till he was eight years old.” One time, at Cheyenne Frontier Days, someone offered Harry $5,000 for Chico. “I just laughed at him,” he said. “There was no way I was ever going to sell him, or do anything with him but rope on him.” And Chico wasn’t Harry’s to sell anyway. “He didn’t belong to me, he belonged to my wife.”
    Aunt Kate Lowry had a big heart and was willing to help anyone, including her niece and nephew. She didn’t ride much, Harry said, but she helped pay his entry fees. “When I first started roping, she’d stop by the house to see my wife and me, and she’d always ask, did I need a little entry fee money. Aunt Kate would help anybody.” Harry was reluctant to take her money, but in the early days, he did. “She’ll always have a soft spot in my heart.”
    Harry rodeoed with the likes of Harry Swalley, Don McLaughlin, Sonny Davis, Troy Fort, and Sonny Worrell. He remembers their friendships and the characteristics each one had. Swalley was like Harry, a cowboy with a fulltime job, who “was the only guy who could work hard enough to keep up with Shoat,” he said. And Don McLaughlin, for his ability to remember cattle. “Don could be at a roping where they had 100 steers, and three years later, he could tell you what everybody (drew) and what they did on them.”
    Harry spent a lot of time with Shoat in the practice pen. Shoat was “an extremely, extremely hard man on his horses, his dogs, anybody who worked for him or practiced with him,” a family member said. “He was rough and tough and hard to please.” But Shoat was never hard on Harry, and he attributes that to his wife. “I don’t know what Betty told him, but the only thing I knew was Shoat was scared of his little sister, and she didn’t weigh 95 lbs. Still to this day, I don’t know what she told Shoat, but he never treated me like anybody else.”
    Harry and Betty Jane had two children: a son, Lee, who married Christie and has two children, Tori, and R.J., and daughter Jeannie, who married rodeo announcer Justin McKee and their daughter, Kassidy. Justin says people love Harry. “My father-in-law is the most well-liked human being who ever lived.  He’s everybody’s favorite guy, non-judgmental, the most genuine, likeable, nice guy there ever was. Anybody who knows him, would agree one hundred percent.”
    “I had an awful good life,” Harry said. “I’ve been the luckiest man alive. I had the only woman who would ever live with me, and I’ve had some awful good horses to rope on, and Shoat to rope with and help me. I’ve had a pretty good life.”
    In 1955, he and Betty Jane moved to Lenapah, where they lived until Betty Jane’s passing two years ago. Harry just recently moved to a nursing home, and spends many days at the McKee household, surrounded by the love of his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter.
    Harry served in the Army and was stationed in Washington State from about 1948 to 1951.

     

  • Roper Review: Cody Snow

    Roper Review: Cody Snow

    Cody Snow will head out June 18, and be back to his home in Santa Ynez, Calif., when the season is over. This is the second year for this 19-year-old to cross the country in hopes of winning a chance to turn ten steers at the Thomas & Mack. “I like it,” he says of being on the road all summer. “It’s fun
    He ended last season as Resistol Rookie of the Year in the team roping as a header, turning steers for his partner, Dugan Kelly. “Dugan is a veteran at this and makes it easy for me,” he said. “He does all the entering and maps out where we’re going.”  The race for Resistol Rookie was a tight one, and Cody didn’t know he was the winner until the last couple weeks of the season. “You can win a lot of money at the end, so it’s not done until it’s done.”
    Cody learned how to rope from his dad, Van, who was a noted orthopedic veterinarian. “My dad was my biggest help as well as influence. He got me a good start. He had a vet clinic at the house and we worked out of the house. I saw a lot of lame horses, and learned how to take care of horses and how to keep them sound.” He also learned from other people. “I’ve been around a lot of people that roped and I practiced a lot and figured it out. I had plenty of help.”
    Cody was home schooled from the seventh grade through high school. He plans to take a few classes online, but not be a fulltime student, instead concentrating on his roping career. “It’s a job, and I make money at it,” he said. To make it fun, when he gets to the rodeo, he finds something to do in the town he’s in. “I don’t like sitting around, so I rope the dummy.” He likes to bowl so he tries to find a bowling alley when he has some down time.
    He has made all his own horses. “I bought younger horses and brought them along and rodeoed on them.” Right now he has nine, and hauls two or three. His goal for this year is to make it to the WNFR. “I want to make the finals, and then do it consistently.”

  • ProFile: Bubba Paschal, P&P Trailer Sales

    ProFile: Bubba Paschal, P&P Trailer Sales

    Bubba Paschal was raised in LaPorte, Texas – Southeast of Houston. “My family was involved in rodeo – they always enjoyed horses and my dad (Chuck) rodeoed in high school and bulldogged when I was growing up.  He taught us how to bulldog and hazed for me and my brother for the first several years we prorodeoed. My Mom (Cecile) ran barrels and supported us through everything. Shane, my brother, bulldogged and team ropes.  We travelled together a lot starting off, he won San Antonio one year but never really went hard enough to make the finals.”
    Bubba started off calf roping, adding steer wrestling when he got into high school. “I played around team roping and never did it a lot until recently. I won the PRCA Rookie of the Year in the bulldogging and the All Around in 1995 and made the Finals in calf roping in 1998.” He realized that in order to rope and be competitive, he had to travel and keep up with his horses. “I made the Finals after I started the business (P & P Trailer Sales), but it wasn’t in my heart to stay out there and pound the pavement.” He went just enough to make Houston and go to the big rodeos. “2010 was the last year I roped calves and just went to some local jackpots.  Since then I have changed my focus to team roping.  They have become the place of old calf roper reunions.”
    “I’ve always been somewhat of an entrepreneur. I was always looking how to make and save money. I always knew I wanted to be in business for myself.  I started with a load of utility trailers and I was pulling a trailer when I won Rookie, trying to promote and sell them for a new dealer in the Houston area. I was still finishing up college. I refinanced my truck to get the money to buy the first load of trailers. We had a hay pasture with a portable building, and we set that up and I still rodeoed to pay the bills.”
    From that hay pasture 18 years ago, P & P Trailer Sales now has five locations in Texas and Oklahoma to serve the needs of their customers. The latest one is in Hockley Texas, northwest of Houston “Every dealership we’ve added has been because of a person, not a place. If the right opportunity comes up, we’ll take advantage of it.” He believes the key to any business is good people. “I’m fortunate to have really good people at every location that are willing to show up and work hard and believe in what we’re selling. When they become part of something they enjoy, they stay. I’ve got several employees that have been with me more than 15 years.” The masthead of his business model is to treat people the way you want to be treated. “That’s how we treat anybody that comes to any of our stores. That’s the mindset that I portray to all our people. You encounter difficult people and all you can do is what you feel is the right thing.” He considers all of his locations and employees as one big family. “Both my grandfathers had tremendous work ethic, and believed to do things right the first time and always do the right thing.  I hope I can carry this with me in everything I do.”
    “I only get to practice a couple times a week right now, but that’s going to change when my arena is done.” He and his wife Sherry have two children, Cane (7) and Cade (14). Cade is involved in football, baseball, golf and other activities in school. Cane is into soccer and baseball. “I didn’t rodeo until I was in high school so there is no pressure for them to rodeo. Once I get my arena, they will be involved more, but I’ve let them do what they want to do.”
    His plans for the future are to keep doing family things, work, and rope. “I’m going to keep looking for opportunities and take them as they come.”

  • Back When They Bucked with Charley Lyons

    Back When They Bucked with Charley Lyons

    Charley Lyons had one of the most unique acts in rodeo, one that has rarely been duplicated.
    The Montana man built his reputation as a rodeo clown with his washtub saddle bronc act. With a #3 washtub bolted to a saddle tree and filled with flour, Charley would put it on a bucking horse. He’d sit in it, with legs over the bronc’s neck, and explode from the chute. Crowds loved it and it catapulted Charley onto the nation-wide rodeo scene.
    He was born in 1938, the son of Ed and Vera Lyons, in Milliken, Colorado, just outside of Arvada. The city kid grew up with 4-H livestock: pigs, cattle, and horses, and somewhere in his youth, he decided he wanted to be a clown. His first rodeo was an FFA rodeo in Greeley, when he was a senior in high school.
    After high school graduation in 1957, he went straight to the rodeo industry. The first few years were slim, but as committee members and stock contractors heard about his acts, he was hired for more and more rodeos.
    In addition to riding a saddle bronc in a washtub, Charley had other acts. He had a pure white trick horse named Soapy who would crawl on his knees like an Indian scout, play dead, and sit like a dog. He had a half-Brahma steer named Roberto, who had foot-long horns. Roberto was broke to ride, and Charley rode him in parades and grand entries. He’d also ride Roberto in the barrel racing, dressed in a dress and wig and calling himself Charlotte. He also had a palomino Shetland pony named Dandy, and during the steer wrestling, dressed as Batman, he would bulldog a mini steer named Pistol.
    Charley had a variety of solo acts, and he  rounded out his repertoire with other acts, involving kids from the crowd (and later, his own kids). They milked his donkey named Ruba or were part of his very large family stuffed into a hollowed-out car.
    Charley did more than clown. In those days, rodeo clowns often worked as bullfighter as well, and he was also a contestant in three events: bareback riding, steer wrestling and bull riding. He worked acts between contesting his events, and during the bull riding, the producer saved his bull for the last one. One time, at a small rodeo, they were short of contestants, so he had to work all five events, “and he couldn’t rope worth a darn,” his wife, Carol, laughed. There was no time to spare, he said. “I did all three events and worked two or three acts in between times. In my day, if you didn’t have a few acts, you didn’t get any jobs. Them bullfighters were a dime a dozen, but a clown could stay busy.”
    He started out with stock contractor Hoss Inman, from Colorado, and worked many of his rodeos, before fanning out across the country. He worked rodeos in the Dakotas for Korkow and Sutton, in Iowa and Minnesota for Bob Barnes, in Canada for Harry Vold, and for the Christensen Brothers in the Northwest. He worked Pendleton, Ore.; Burwell, Neb.; Deadwood, S.D.; Fort Worth, Texas, and a whole bunch of other rodeos in between.
    It was in the early 1970s that Charley and his wife Carol Lehl, who had married in 1961, decided where they wanted to settle. They had traveled across the country and found a beautiful place in Montana, just outside St. Ignatius, and decided to buy a place there. They made an offer on a ranch, it was accepted, and they moved there in 1972, calling the ranch the TUB and incorporating the TUB brand onto their Simmental-cross cattle.
    As is typical among bullfighters, Charley had his share of injuries, just “broke a few bones, nothing serious,” he said. He broke his back twice, two legs, both arms, and at a rodeo in South Dakota, was unconscious when his head was knocked off the spinal cord. There was a doctor in the crowd who knew how to adjust it back on.
    Some of the nastier bulls he recalls include one of Hoss Inman’s, named the Devil’s Partner, a fighting Mexican bull who would “darn sure come and eat your lunch.” Hoss also had another bull named Shorty who was fun to fight. “If he ever hit you, he’d back up and apologize. They’d have to rope him and drag him out of the arena, every performance.” And it was one of Erv Korkow’s bulls, Sonny Liston, who got ahold of him and knocked his head off his spinal column.
    With the washtub, Charley rode whatever horse the stock contractor ran into the chute for him. Stock contractors liked the tub, he said. “They’d take a good solid horse that was slowing down, and he’d be good for another four or five trips” after he’d had Charley and the washtub on him.
    And there was no getting off on the pickup man. “There was no way a pickup horse would run into that fog,” he said. “I’d catch my timing, bail out after a while, and try to land on my feet.”
    Charley and Carol had three children: C.J., Anna and Katie, and before the kids were in school, they all traveled together. “We had a trailer house, a twenty-footer, and lived on the road,” Carol said. Charley had a two-ton truck with a big box he built on it for the animals, and the house trailer was pulled behind it. The family left in May and returned in October. The truck was full of animals: Charlie’s bulldogging horse, Carol’s barrel horse (she barrel raced for a short time), and the clown act animals: the trick horse, trained steer, donkey, and Shetland pony. When they pulled into a rodeo, it was like “the circus was in town,” Carol laughed.
    Charley’s rodeoing slowed down after he bought the ranch. With three kids, 200 mother cows, hay to put up and irrigating to do, he stayed closer to home, and in 1972 he quit rodeo. He worked at a paper mill for a while, retiring in 2006, and the couple sold their cow herd in 2008. They rent out the pasture and continue to put up hay.
    In 2014, he was inducted into the Montana Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. He and Carol attend the rodeo clown reunions and they have never missed a year of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo for the past three decades. In 2001, his washtub act was recognized and honored in one of the opening ceremonies of the Wrangler NFR.
    He loved fighting bulls as much as he did clowning. “It would give me a big thrill to stand out in front of that chute and nod for the producer to turn out his fighting bull.” He fought the first Mexican fighting bulls that were brought into the U.S. at a rodeo Buddy Heaton promoted.
    And his rodeo days were good ones. “I met a lot of good people rodeoing, and still have a lot of friends I stay in contact with.”
    The couple’s children are married: C.J. to Miae, Anna to Jim and Katie to Ray. They have three grandchildren: Clay, Amanda and Mian.

  • On the Trail with Garrison Panzer

    On the Trail with Garrison Panzer

    “Be a blessing because you are blessed,” said 18-year-old rodeo announcer Garrison Panzer before switching off the microphone, closing the 2016 Kansas Junior High School State Finals Rodeo. Such are the values of the entire Panzer family, who instilled the importance of serving others in the cowboy from Lakin, Kan., at a young age. A family of rodeo competitors, judges, announcers, timers, and secretary assistants, the Panzers have helped in nearly every aspect of the National Little Britches Rodeo Association in their 30 years with the association.

    “We absolutely love the National Little Britches Rodeo Association and everything it does for our kids,” says Garrett Panzer, himself a Little Britches alumni and now a rodeo judge and former member of the NLBRA board of directors. “We’ve gotten everything out of rodeo that we could ever want. We haven’t so much rodeoed with the world championships and buckles and saddles in mind, but instead used it as an avenue to help raise our kids and teach them the strong values of competing, being responsible, and respecting the western lifestyle.”

    Garrett and his sister, Dia Panzer-Biddle, grew up in Little Britches, while their dad, Dwayne Panzer, served as a rodeo judge for the association, and continues to do so today. Even from a young age, Garrett knew the rodeo lifestyle and values were what he wanted to instill in his future family. “I played college football two years for Dodge City Community College and then two years at Hastings College. After my playing days were done and I found my wife of 20 years, Kim, we knew rodeo was the avenue we wanted to take with our family,” says Garrett. “I think God really blessed us with two great boys to raise,” Kim adds. “When I was pregnant with Garrison, we attended the baptism of a friend, who was born about five months before Garrison. In part of the sermon, they quoted Proverbs 22:6, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.’ The importance of starting early with a solid, Christian foundation really stuck with me.”

    Garrison, the NLBRA youth board president and a ribbon and team roper, was one of the competitors to qualify for the 2003 NLBFR in the newly minted Little Wrangler division. His 15-year-old brother, Hadley, rodeoed for several years before pursuing other sports, but continues to help behind the scenes at Little Britches rodeos and run sound while Garrison announces. The 2016 NLBFR is Garrison’s last as a competitor, but his days with the association are far from over. “I’m in the process of getting my NLBRA judge’s and announcer’s card, and I plan to apply for one of the announcer positions for the finals next year,” he explains. “It’s always been my goal and dream to judge a rodeo with my dad and grandpa, and after this finals, I’ll have a chance to do that.” While he’s qualified for the finals in both his events, Garrison is also announcing the grand entry and portions of the queen contest, along with helping Doug Wade on the production side – and finishing out his third term as the youth board president. “It’s a bittersweet year. I wouldn’t trade any of the ups and downs of the past 13 years for the world. People might say the competition isn’t as tough as others, but if you look at the times and scores turned in, it’s just as tough as many other rodeo associations. And the friendships you build and the rodeo family you have is second to none.”

    Beyond Little Britches, Garrison announces rodeos for the NSRA, KPRA, KJHSRA, mini bull ridings, and even the 2016 Oklahoma vs. Kansas Border Bash Rodeo in Guthrie, Okla. “Monty Stueve and I were the two announcers for the weekend, then I turned around and announced the high school rodeo in Lakin,” says Garrison. “I also announced a high school rodeo in McCook, Nebraska, so within a month, I announced a rodeo in three different states. Then I decided to skip a weekend so I could graduate high school, but I have a rodeo to announce every weekend except for three this summer. At first I was worried about being repetitive, but with each rodeo, I’ve gotten more relaxed. I’ve come to realize as long as the contestants are having fun and the crowd is enjoying it, that’s what I need to keep doing!” With the help of his Sports Sound Pro and pointers from several people, including NLBRA producer Janet Honeycutt, he has more than 5,000 songs and sound clips at his fingertips. Garrison announces most of his rodeos from the stand, but he’s debuting his horseback announcing during the NLBFR. “I’ve watched Boyd Polhamus do it a few times, and I can definitely see where you can build a connection with the crowd. I’d like to add that to the performances.”
    During the KPRA rodeo in Springfield, Colo., last summer, Garrison announced, while Hadley ran sound, Garrett judged, and Kim was a timer. Garrett’s goal is to judge both the NLBFR and the NHSFR in the same year, while Kim has helped the Little Britches secretaries with their local rodeos the past five years. She plans to continue after Garrison ages out. “I didn’t grow up rodeoing, but my family always had horses,” she says. “My mother was a paraprofessional in Garrett’s first classroom he taught, and she told me I should meet him when I came home from college for Christmas break. We hit it off, and the rest is history! Since I came to be part of the rodeo family, I see so much kindness and generosity. Everyone is more than willing to bend over backwards to help, and I want to pay it forward.” Kim is also the coordinator of the federal programs for her school district, helping migrant and ESL families, as well as coordinating buildings during testing season. Garrett teaches STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) to seventh and eighth grade students at Lakin Middle School, while teaching driver’s ed. in the summer, refereeing basketball, and umpiring softball. He has coached football for more than 20 years at both the high school and middle school levels, and became a wrestling coach nine years ago.

     

    An avid athlete, Hadley is attending several wrestling and football camps this summer, and playing baseball on a recreation ball team. “Football is my favorite – I enjoy being around my teammates. I play defensive end, and on offence I play center,” he says. “It’s me and my mom going to games most of the time since Dad is with Garrison at rodeos, and we have some good bonding time.” Hadley will be a freshman at Lakin High School this fall, which Garrison graduated from this spring at the top of his class with Honors. Like Garrison, Hadley will represent his class as the Class of 2020 Vice-President and serve on the Student Council. “We’re very pleased with the young man Hadley’s become,” says Garrett. “He graduated junior high lettering in four sports. Both our boys have learned from sports to compete at the best of their abilities and compromise without compromising their values.”

    Throughout high school, Garrison was involved in Student Council (STUCO), band, vocal, golf, and refereeing basketball, while he played lead roles in two high school plays, including King Arthur in Camelot. His cowboy boots even travelled internationally in January when he went on a weeklong mission trip in Guatemala, which included building stoves for the people of Panajachel. A month later, he travelled to England for a week. A recipient of the OSU McKnight Scholarship and President’s Distinguished Scholarship, he’ll be studying Ag. Business at Oklahoma State University this fall and is considering law school in the future. Prior to that, he’s running sound for Jared Slagle at several PRCA rodeos this summer, and plans to keep up his roping through jackpots and helping the college rodeo team.

    “It will hit me in August that Garrison’s not going to be able to walk through the door and give me a hug,” says Garrett. “But we’ll be there for him whenever we can. My mom and dad drove four hours to listen to him announce the KJHSRA finals – that’s how our family is. We meet ourselves coming and going sometimes and wonder why we do this crazy life, and I think the result is in the character of our kids. If between Kim and I our boys grow up to be fine gentlemen, then I think we’ve done our job.”

  • BFO Bullfighters Form Historic Pact

    BFO Bullfighters Form Historic Pact

    courtesy of Aaron Furguson,
    Founder & CEO, Bullfighters Only

    Founded by pro bullfighter Aaron Ferguson, Bullfighters Only (BFO) was created to promote growth, popularity, and acceptance of freestyle bullfighting worldwide. Since its inception, BFO has evolved to become a platform that serves to excite the western community, educate both the avid and casual fans, and present the sport to an entirely new audience.
    In a showing of solidarity, the top-ranked bullfighters in the world have formed an exclusive alliance known as the BFO Pioneer Project. Through this coalition, Bullfighters Only can ensure that the direction of freestyle bullfighting is guided by its athletes and guarantee its fans more action-packed entertainment from the sport’s greatest bullfighters.
    “To be a part of the Pioneer Project is a blessing,” explains Dusty Tuckness, six-time and reigning PRCA Bullfighter of the Year. “This group of guys is standing together and it’s a brotherhood – bullfighters for bullfighters.  BFO is changing the game of freestyle bullfighting.”
    Fellow freestyle veteran Ross Hill agrees. “It’s such a ground-breaking movement. The Pioneer Project allows us (the bullfighters) to control the destiny of our sport.  This is our passion.  We want to advance freestyle bullfighting, not just for this generation, but for the generations to come.”
    The talented group is fresh off of another successful BFO Session, an experimental action-sports style event that introduces a new flare to the western sports world.  They are now preparing for the BFO’s first stand-alone title fight on June 26, 2016 at the Cedar Park Center – an 8,700 seat state-of-the-art arena near Austin, TX.
    Bullfighters Only will also announce partnerships to create a premium global qualification system that spans from amateur events to the World Championship. These partnerships will give non-BFO Pros the opportunity to become part of the current BFO roster and compete on tour. This system will also serve as a way for current BFO Pros to gain extra championship qualification points.
    To stay up to date with all of the latest news, follow Bullfighters Only on social media or visit www.bullfightersonly.com.

  • Roper Review: Cody Thornton

    Roper Review: Cody Thornton

    On the Friday before Thanksgiving in 2015, Cody Thornton was in the roping pen training an outside horse. He had already headed ten steers and was getting ready to throw his rope on number eleven. As he stood to throw, without warning, his horse buried his head and bucked, hard. And Cody landed, hard. After spending a night sick from pain he ended up at an Urgent Care clinic the following morning where he learned he had fractured his C5 vertebrae. The injury resulted in two rods, four screws, and his C4 and C5 vertebrae being fused together. After spending seven weeks recuperating, Cody started back riding.
    Cody grew up in Huntsville, Texas where he was raised roping and catching wild cows. He started team roping about the age of five. While growing up he went to high school rodeos and earning a rodeo scholarship. Cody graduated from Sam Houston University with a degree in General Agriculture and a minor in Management.
    For the six years following college Cody chose to train horses, riding up to 13 per month. Putting his degree to good use Cody now manages the Steinhauser’s Feed Store in Navasota, Texas, where they carry just about everything including a full line of feed, ranch supplies, and even home décor. Steinhausers has total of eleven stores located in southeastern Texas.
    As a #9 heeler, Cody enjoys rodeoing on the weekends and giving roping lessons. When he’s not working or roping, you can usually find him spending time in the woods hog hunting with his friends and family.
    Cody’s dad, Lynn Thornton, is a farrier in south Texas and shoes some of the best barrel horses in the country. His mom, Tamera Gann, is the City Manager of Huntsville, Texas.
    Cody owns and lives on 20 acres next to his sister and brother-in-law, Kassie and Chad White. He spends much of his time with them and their two sons, Cougar and Riggins.

    cody

    How much do you practice?
    Three or four times a week.
    Do you make your own horses?
    Yes.
    Who were your roping (rodeo) heroes?
    Clay O’Brien Cooper, Leo Camarillo.
    Who do you respect most in the world?
    The good Lord for sure. My grandpa and my sister.
    Who has been the biggest influence in your life?
    My sister.
    If you had a day off what would you like to do?
    Go hog hunting.
    Favorite movie?
    Lonesome Dove and Where the Red Fern Grows.
    What’s the last thing you read?
    The Bible.
    How would you describe yourself in three words?
    Caring, loyal, hard working.
    What makes you happy?
    Being in the country.
    What makes you angry?
    Being in the city.
    If you were given 1 million dollars, how would you spend it?
    Buy a ranch.
    What is your best quality – your worst?
    Best quality is I’m very honest. Worst quality is being too independent.
    Where do you see yourself in ten years?
    Having a nice piece of property with a nice herd of cows.

  • On the Trail with Clayton Van Aken

    On the Trail with Clayton Van Aken

    Clayton Van Aken is a California transplant. Born and raised in Descanso, California, a little town 40 miles southeast of San Diego, he grew up playing baseball and football and roping. He high school rodeoed, making the finals his senior year. Everywhere he roped to compete, he drove at least 300 miles to Phoenix or Oakdale up north to do so. The only child of John and Maggie, Clayton is the first one in his family to compete. “My dad has always roped – he shoes horses – and he’s always telling me he doesn’t know anything about how to enter and how to get the traveling done.”

    After high school, he went to the University of Wyoming where he obtained an undergraduate degree in farm and ranch management with a minor in finance. He has been to the CNFR all four years – one time heading, twice heeling, and three times tie down roping – and will make it this year too in the tie down roping.  “I roped a lot of calves – I went to six of the pro rodeos and made the amateur rodeos – but I’ve never had a horse that I could go on – I’ve always sold them early on.”  He has concentrated on team roping admitting, he can’t tie fast enough to beat the pros going down the road. “I’m more of an 8.2, not a 7,” said the 24-year-old that is currently working on his Masters Degree at Chadron State College in Nebraska. He is taking his classes online and will finish with his Masters in Organizational Management with an emphasis in sports. “My main deal is to look at sports from a business perspective like an agent would do. Put numbers to values and values to talent. That’s how they do it in the big industry – baseball and football – I want to help the program inside and outside the arena.”

    His goal is to become a college rodeo coach and integrate that with his growing roping cattle business. Three years ago, Jerry Palm from Centennial, Wyo., approached Clayton with a partnership idea. “I was thinking about going home,” said Clayton. “Jerry brought it up and it’s developed into something pretty cool. We’ve got 130 head of jackpot steers that Jerry buys and I run. This is the third year for this partnership.”  The cattle come from Gem, Wyo., get broke in, then get leased or hauled depending on what the customer wants. “We’ve got a lot of two year olds that are good to rope and they are leased out. I’ve got fresh ones coming in.” Clayton puts on a jackpot series in Laramie, Wyo., every Thursday night May through June. He hauls them to other local jackpots and producers, and by the end of June all the cattle are leased or sold for the summer. “I get the jackpots done seven weeks in a row and we end after the college finals, and then I head out after I lease them out for the rest of the summer.”

    Then it’s Clayton’s turn to hit the pro rodeo road for the summer, a dream he has had since he was 15. “When I won the Lucky 7 #15 in Laughlin in 2009 with Wade Hooker, I realized I might be good enough to do this.” He got his Rookie card when he turned 18 so he could go to Cheyenne and the close rodeos and the bigger ones. “Those are the ones in our circuit that I could get to while I was in college.” He started his PRCA career heeling for Paul Beckett and made they made the circuit finals twice. “I went down to Texas and started riding this really nice head horse, so I switched and it’s working out – I can’t complain.”

    Going down the road with Paul helped Clayton learn the ropes of the road. “He’s been around and knows where to go. He’d always have a plan and be good where we needed to be good.” Now Clayton is heading for Cole Cooper, from Sheridan, Wyo. “We just decided to rope together the other day – I roped with him in Colorado and we finally are going to make it work. The plan is to hit the road this summer and go. Our first one is Guymon and we’ve got our schedule set through the first of July.” Cole’s  wife is going to have a baby around July 1, so the plan is to be rodeoing around home then so Cole can be with her. “The way I’ve got it mapped out, we’ll be everywhere. This year if we go hard and give it a good lick we might have a shot at the NFR. But the real goal is to get into the big rodeos like San Antonio, Denver, and Ft. Worth next year. It helps to get the ball rolling.”

    For now, Laramie, Wyo., is home. “There’s nothing like this where I come from in southern California. I can rope, rodeo, run cows, and ride horses. What more could I want?”