PREP RODEO : At La Grange High and Other Schools in Wyoming, It’s the Most Popular Sport

Craig Latham, 18, flew through the air, landing on the hard arena turf after being bucked off the horse.

He wasn’t hurt.

The Kaycee (Wyo.) High School senior bounced back on his feet, dusted himself off and walked away grinning.

He is always getting thrown off a bucking horse. Saddle bronc riding is his cup of tea. He has had two concussions in his rodeo career.

Latham, who lives on Red Fork Ranch 27 miles out of Kaycee, stayed on the bucking bronc long enough to win himself $150 in cash and a $75 silver belt buckle.

The 400 spectators ringing the La Grange Rodeo Arena seated in their pickups and automobiles honked their horns loudly, their way of applauding the young cowboy’s performance.

High school rodeo is one of Wyoming’s most popular spectator sports. For tiny isolated ranch towns like La Grange, pop. 132, the annual high school rodeo is the biggest social event of the year.

La Grange High has only 27 students. Seven are in high school rodeo competing every weekend during the five-month season throughout the state.

“Folks, this is what Wyoming High School Rodeo is all about,” announced rodeo broadcaster Monty Hopkins, 47, from his post high above the arena in the Crow’s Nest, as a cloudburst suddenly drenched the small town’s rodeo field.

“These kids don’t let the weather get them down. Come snow, sleet, hail, rain or shine. They’re like the mailmen. Nothing stops them. They hang in there and tough it out.”

Parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, friends of the teen aged rodeo performers honk their horns in agreement. High school boys and girls astride their horses waiting the next events and those in the chutes getting ready for bull riding grimaced at the downpour.

High school rodeo in Wyoming is a religion to ranch families scattered all over the cowboy state, the state that has had a cowboy on a bucking bronc on its license plate for the last 50 years or more. Some of professional rodeos top performers are graduates of the Wyoming high school rodeo program.

The 175 boys and girls competing in the annual La Grange High School Rodeo had come from ranches scattered throughout the state, from as far away as Pinedale, 450 miles to the northwest.

Every Friday afternoon after school from April through June and in September and October teen-agers, relatives and friends head out in caravans of pickups and horse trailers crisscrossing the state to the far flung high schools for the weekend rodeos. Some go to nearly every rodeo. Others pick and choose.

Each weekend during the season the high schoolers take part in two rodeos, one on Saturday, another on Sunday. This weekend the Saturday rodeo is in La Grange, the Sunday rodeo 238 miles to the north in Gillette.

The high school students accumulate valuable points. They win trophies, belt buckles, saddles, spurs, scholarship money toward their college educations. And, they compete for entry fee jackpots.

Wyoming is the only state where high school students pay entry fees ($30 for each event) and compete for all the money in the jackpots with 50% for first prize, 30% for second and 20% for third.

There were only five entries, for example, in saddle bronc competition won by Craig Latham. Four of the boys were disqualified as they failed to stay on their horses the minimum time required. So, Craig walked away with all the money.

La Grange ranchers, townspeople and merchants contributed monthly to buy thee 13 first place silver belt buckles, each costing $75, and two $250 scholarships for the top senior boy and top senior girl in the rodeo.

The local American Legion Auxiliary put on the annual rodeo dinner with women like Grace Gregory, 74, and Audrey Logan, 73, baking home made pies. Other women prepare baked beans, chili, potato salad, homemade bread, doughnuts and biscuits.

K.C. Jones, 17, from Ralston, pop. 100, and Wendy Kaufman, 18, from Kaycee, pop. 280, won the $250 scholarships for being top performers at this year’s La Grange High School Rodeo.

In his four year career as a high school rodeo performer Jones has won six saddles each worth $800, 50 belt buckles, spurs and several hundred dollars in entry fee prize money. Wendy Kaufman has won 100 belt buckles, spurs and also several hundred dollars in entry fee winnings.

Jones drove 404 miles with his family from his home in Ralston to La Grange Friday after school. By the time he returned home from the Gillette rodeo he would have driven more than 1,000 miles for the two rodeos. There is no air service in Wyoming except to Cheyenne and Casper from Denver.

“I’m planning to become a professional rodeo performer,” said Jones. “I have four scholarships offers from college already but hope to get many more if I do well in the high school rodeo nationals to be held in Rapid City in July.”

Wendy Kaufman is going to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and hopes to be on that school’s rodeo team. She, too, hopes to become a professional rodeo performer.

“You cannot imagine the miles we put on our pickups traveling all over the state to the weekend rodeos,” said Linda Moore, 42, whose ranch is on the Dry Fork of the Powder River near Midwest, Wyo. “It’s a marvelous experience.

“We get to know people all over the state. Lifelong friendships develop through the program for the kids and for their parents.”

Her daughter, Lisa, 18, competed in the La Grange rodeo. Another daughter, Jamie, 21, is Miss Rodeo Wyoming this year and her son, Mark, 22, spent four years in high school rodeo.

Linda Moore drove to the La Grange rodeo picking up her friend Sharon Jarrad, 40, and her daughter, Jo Ann, 18, on a ranch near Wheatland. Jo Ann also competed in the La Grange rodeo.

“You know how people have car pools. We have high school rodeo pools,” laughed Jarrad.

Many of the rodeo performers and their parents are home guests of ranchers near where the rodeos take place. Some of the communities where the rodeos occur are so small that there are no motels nearby and the closest towns with motels are too far away.

In most parts of Wyoming, a state which is nearly all range land for grazing cattle and sheep, high school rodeos is the biggest thing going.