Youth rodeo, born of ranching traditions
Did you get a chance to see all the high school rodeo cowboy and cowgirl action in Newcastle at the Weston County Fairgrounds May 3-5? If you were out of town or somehow missed out, I can’t wait to tell you some of the joys the event brought me.
Hopefully, you were among the privileged watching many outstanding young people from across our state during the youth rodeo. I get chills as I see so many of them faithfully practicing the traditions of their predecessors who settled these rangelands and “broke ‘em to ride”!
If something kept you from taking in the action, you at least would have seen the healthy future of Wyoming going in and out of restaurants, motels, campgrounds, grocery stores and other local businesses. It’s hard to miss them, wearing their traditional denim pants and colorful shirts, boots, spurs and big hats. The cowboys may have followed tradition opening doors, giving up their seats or tipping their hats to you.
Our beautiful fairgrounds fill me with pride, and I love hearing happy, young voices and laughter across the big area of arenas, grandstands and barns. Some of the visitors told me how they look forward to attending events here because the facilities are all so nice. Young cowboys and cowgirls having fun and enjoying healthy competition fulfills the purpose for which many people worked so hard to build those arenas and facilities — and continue doing so to maintain them.
Wyoming kids, in our wonderful local arena, practicing the traditional rangeland skills of stockmanship and horsemanship, keep our fairgrounds alive! Watching them, you will see the principles of honesty and sportsmanship in practice, for they accompany those skills, hand in hand, among cowboys and cowgirls. Encouraging your competitors and helping them out whenever and however possible are founding principles of the cowboy sports
My very special personal treat was having a ranch couple from the Pumpkin Buttes region of Campbell County spend time at my house over the weekend. The ranch-raised mom and dad continue in the ranching business and shared all the learning privileges with their kids, bringing them up on hard work and honesty. Self-respect and respect for livestock and the people they come in contact with — whether sharing work or competing against — are important to that learning.
What a privilege to watch that son and daughter moving up, becoming truly wonderful people like their parents, as well as building awesome rodeo skills and being happy, positive, kind competitors! Rodeo challenges, teaches, stretches and builds them mentally, physically and socially, plus gives them great incentive to continue improving and never be content with the level of excellence they see today.
I’m reminded of the effort and expense of my own parents, who generously opened the same doors for me when I was barely entering my teens, just like the wonderful young cowgirl who stayed at my home over the weekend. She’s polite, shy, a little scared but wonderfully determined. She’s brilliant, paying attention to each small detail, learning all she can from each experience (good or bad) and believing the dreams that live in her heart. National finals of high school, college, amateur and even professional rodeo may stand in the wings of her future.
Standing near the arena today to watch her compete in the third and final round of breakaway roping brought back floods of memories I cherish from almost identical experiences long decades ago. I deeply admired her diligence in readying her horse, checking all her equipment, then warming his muscles up by quiet exercise. She sought quiet corners of the warm-up pen to keep him moving, the exercise his mind needed to stay calm. She sat her saddle in the relaxed manner that built his confidence and avoided any tension reaching him through her.
My adrenaline rushed as she backed into the roping box, knowing her nod to the gate man would release this calf that Savanna Schwenke is determined to catch. Cowgirl and horse did their best — but fate had written her day differently. The loop barely missed!
My late husband, Bill Stearns, and I had the privilege of meeting Savanna’s parents, Tiffany Camblin and Mark Schwenke, when neither of them were much older than Savanna is now. Across the decades since then, we’ve been privileged to work alongside them on various ranches. We’ve worked together to help organize and promote and produce rodeos. We probably even competed on teams together in ranch rodeos decades ago. Tiffany and I were founding members of the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame.
I call her “the daughter of my heart” and love her like I’d birthed her. She has accompanied me to Fort Worth, Texas, for National Cowgirl Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, sharing the driving, seeing places and meeting people she never thought she would. I’ve always been very proud of her but had to be careful sharing information on her ranch cowboy expertise — with traditional cowboy modesty she threatened me if I “bragged” on her.
What’s true isn’t bragging — all you have to do is look at her to tell she’s a real cowboy! I never spoke a word about her that wasn’t true and probably left out most of the best stories. Her son Bridger is as much of a hand as Savanna and competed in the saddle bronc and bull riding here on May 6. Then he and his dad went on to Kaycee for him to spend some time with Johnny Forbes. That’s where he’ll start learning the saddle bronc riding skills he’s determined to pursue, just like Mark did.
Now (as Paul Harvey would say) I’m gon’na tell you how you can seek out at least part of “the rest of the story” about Tiffany and Bridger and Savanna. Do a library search for the book “Fred Barton and the Warlords’ Horses of China: How an American Cowboy Brought the Old West to the Far East.” Written by Larry Weirather, the book profiles Tiffany’s uncle, who journeyed to that exotic unknown land, accompanied by his “little red-headed daughter.” Details fail me, but I think the child’s mother was dead, so he took her along.
They were there for the purpose of buying horses. He believed the natives needed money and wanted to cut down their horse herds, so it should be a routine trip. Harsh fate (almost fatal) caused a war lord named Ching Wangtao (or Ching Wang Tao) to instigate an uprising at that very time. The uncle, Fred Barton, said, “The villagers got in a war and we ran with the clothes on our backs!”
The God Tiffany’s family has always believed in intervened in an amazing way! The natives saw his little red-haired daughter and believed her to be a powerful demon, so they faded away. Meanwhile Barton and the child “ran and hid and got out with our heads — the others were in baskets! We managed to escape with the clothes on our backs!”
This is a cowboy story, you know, and the ending holds true. He not only acquired and sent back ship-loads of horses, but also arrived stateside in time to enter and compete in the 1922 Haines, Oregon Stampede. Even after such a horrible shock (or could it have been because of that?) he managed to win the Bulldogging and All Around honors there! That’s a real cowboy — but he wouldn’t want us to brag on him.