Personal Essay: How Rodeo Changed My Life

I watched as the flashes of orange lights from cars raced past me through the city, and knew there were no signs of any possibilities that there would be a place to keep a horse. I lived in northern Virginia near Washington D.C., where the city was filled with gigantic, tall office buildings with gray and gloomy windows. I could smell the gasoline and smoke coming from the cars’ exhaust. I felt the cool breeze as cars whipped past me, and the air tasted like millions of littered cigarettes on the side of the road. However, there were some horse stables, but they were far away, and the payment required for horseback riding lessons was a ridiculously large price. Of course, that never stopped me from continuously asking

“In running, it doesn’t matter whether you come in first, in the middle or last. You can say, ‘ I finished’ There is a lot of satisfaction in that” - Fred Lebow. I began cross country in eighth grade shortly after my brother joined the year before. He enjoyed it a lot, so I thought it would be fun. I’ve been on the team for two years. I would like to run for the rest of my life. Cross country changed my life positively forever. It taught me to push myself past what I thought was my limit. It revealed to me a great community of people and it taught me to leave my comfort zone.

A week before I decided to quit gymnastics I was discussing with my family and friends that I wanted to join cross country. It was the beginning of ninth grade and I was not enjoying gymnastics as much as I used to. I didn’t want to quit entirely because I was progressing my skills on beam and vault, but at the same time the sport became too much to handle. I also knew that if I wanted to run cross country that I would not be able to do gymnastics since the sport required me to drive up to Lincoln four to five times a week. Deciding whether to

Life isn’t fair, but over these years we’ve dealt with so many things that lead us to get used to it. Everyone deals with pain and regret, and some people never get happiness in return. Some people have the happiest lives, yet never have to deal with what’s going on in the outside of their perfection. It seems as though the heartache in this world will cease to be equal. The nicest and kindest people can be put through hell, as if they are getting punished for something they never did; yet the virtue of the rest can live without pain. Life will never have the scale weighed to equal because life isn’t, and never will be fair.

I took a deep breath as I walked my horse into the Greeley Stampede Arena. I told myself just to "relax." I loped a circle around the arena to make sure that my horse was warmed up and ready to go. He was ready but I was starting to get nervous. I stopped in front of the roping box to put my piggin' string in my mouth. I looked at my calf in the chute to make sure that it was number 33, which was one of the best calves out of the whole set. It was, and I was ready to ride into the box and rope my calf, or attempt to rope my calf. I began to get more nervous, more nervous than I ever had been at a rodeo.

Athletics had not always been a flauntable aspect of my life as they are now. In grades 1-4, I was uncoordinated and far too lanky to produce and store any muscle. I often ponder about what changed in the fifth grade, for I became very agile and have exercised almost every day since the beginning of that year. I did not pick up the sport of swimming until the seventh grade and I cannot imagine myself not swimming, not only as a source of exercise but as a source of pure pleasure.

I am the daughter of a livestock dealer. My father was an amazing wrangler and rancher. Throughout my life, we have bought and sold many horses--too many to count, and I have also sent my own fair share to the slaughter plants. As a young teen I had a horse we called Whino, he was a great horse for me when I was learning to ride and wanting to follow Dad around. There comes a time in a horse’s life when they are not capable of doing what they once were or that they become sore or crippled to lead a life with meaning or comfort. I was raised to understand life and death and that one will follow the other. I knew when we had

At any roping or college rodeo I was getting extremely nervous, and I couldn't rope anything at all. Even if I did rope anything I was messing up on everything; I was not setting my horse up, I was not flanking calves properly, and I was not tying calves like I should have been. But I realized that I was letting my mind get in the way of my success, I never thought that was my problem; I was blaming everyone that was around me and helping, I started blaming more horse each time I roped on him, and I was blaming all of the livestock for all of my problems.

Rodeo is my life. School plays a big role in my life with rodeo. If I dont have above a 2.0 GPA I can't rodeo because when you rodeo in high school it's considered a sport in your school so you have to stay on top of your grades so that you can rodeo. Balancing school and rodeo is pretty difficult, because you have to stay on your grades and then you go home and practice for 3 hours every day and it’s hard to find time to do your homework. I have plans to rodeo professionally when i turn 18 and make a living on rodeo, once you turn pro you buy your traveling card for $100 and that lasts you a year and you have to renew it every year.

It was a sunny warm day in November when I was scheduled to have cortisone injections in my back. Upon arriving to my appointment, I was given a sedative to relax me and a pain medication so that I would not feel the insertion of the needle in my lower back to administer the cortisone. I did not feel any of the procedure, which lasted approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour. I was given pain medication to take home to help with the pain of the injections, and that’s when the “demon” was released, leading to 8 years of uncontrollable substance abuse.

I signed up for the 4-H club, Rough Ridin’ City Slickers, and the 4-H Horse and Pony Project right away, in September of 2007. Beyond ecstatic didn’t even describe it, I was about to compete in my first 4-H horse show. I walked Tip in the arena and lined up facing the judges. Before I knew what happened, I stood up with a mouthful of mud; Tip dragged me across the arena. With a clenched jaw, I snatched the lead-line and marched myself and Tip back to the line-up facing the judge. As she gave me the nod to begin, I gripped the lead-line and advanced towards her.As she told me to trot off, the corners of my mouth slid upward. Despite being drug across the arena, we finished with a First Place ribbon in the class. Following that class, I tacked Tip up for the gymkhana portion of the day. Finishing the day with all first place ribbons, it was set in stone that I was meant to be a barrel

it was the day after sectionals and we found out we would be one of the teams that qualified for Regional duals. We started focusing on that the best part about qualifying is we got to host it so we didn’t have to worry about driving for a couple hours just to wrestle. The teams that qualified with us was MOC, Spencer, and Sergeant Bluff.

Braaaaaap! Braaaaaaap! Ricky Charmichael takes the lead! He made the pass in the air over the 80 foot triple. Something that I love to do more than anything in the world is motocross. Motocross is racing over rough ground on specially strengthened motorcycles.

During my lifetime so far I do not have much work experience; however, the work experience I do have is very diverse. This diversity ranges between working for an insurance brokerage, to working at a rodeo – both providing me with useful skills I am able to utilize for the rest of my life. I have spent the past two summers working at VanHelden Agencies. During my time at VanHelden Agencies, I performed various aspects of office assistant and clerical work – both positions requiring a great amount of organization. From pulling and putting way files, to processing ingoing and outgoing mail, as well to filing claims that have been reported to the office, I had to always be organized of what was going on. At the Rough Stock Rumble, I greeted guests,

I never liked playing with dolls, painting nails, pretending I was a teacher or even acting like I was baking with fake food. All that girly stuff sounded boring to me, so the one thing that kept me busy everyday was going outside and playing whatever sport was on for that day with all my neighborhood friends. We played everything from kickball to football in the streets. Ever since I was a little child, playing sports was my passion. In my free time I played every sport you can think of, but sports that I actually was on a team for was baseball, hockey, soccer, and I ran track. Being an athlete is how people knew me, I guess you could say I was and still am a tomboy. Being involved in a sport ever since I was four years old, has really taught me a lot about not just playing the sports itself, but at life as a whole. Being apart of a team, can teach someone many skills, and life lessons. Because there are uncountable reasons why one should be involved in a sport, the main skills, and lessons include learning how to work together, and developing communication, and organizing skills. Additionally, one could develop a good work ethic, and learn how to control body language/temper.