Rodeo Road: What IS it I do?

If you've seen my previous Rodeo Road posts, you may be curious about what exactly it is I do at these rodeo. 'Cause let me tell you one thing: never in my life have I been dumb crazy adrenaline-junked enough to want to crawl on the back of one of these:

Now our family breed, raises and cares for rodeo livestock: as in the horses and bulls. We don't ride them. I like to think we're too smart for that. We stay on the back side of the bucking chutes...not down in then. When we go to rodeos we do basically one of three things:

1. Put on the entire rodeo. From insurance to arena to livestock to all of the help....you name it we do it. We're a full-service rodeo stock contractor. This is what we're doing today at the Washington County Fair in Marietta, Ohio.
2. We lease our livestock to other producers or stock contractors. Sometimes someone who is putting on the rodeo doesn't own any livestock or doesn't own enough livestock for the number of entries at their rodeo. We take our horses and/or bulls to those rodeos. That's what we do at all the youth rodeos I've been telling you about this summer. Their association puts on the rodeo, and we provide the bulls.
3. My days of competition are over, but my brother and my kids compete in rodeo...my brother professionally and my kids in youth rodeos. My little brother not only rodeos across the country, but internationally, too. His all-time favorite rodeo is the one in St. Tite, Canada.

So when we put on a rodeo (option #1), there's a lot of work involved. In the past I've competed in barrel racing, goat tying and breakaway roping. I served as secretary for one of the rodeo associations we belong to. I've been the announcer and was Announcer of the Year in 2002. And I've been a timer and rodeo secretary. But when you have kids, your priorities change. I used to take a babysitter with me to the rodeos so I could do what I needed to do, but since I had Baby Boy and there were three rugrats to look after, I've been on hiatus and focused on watching them. (And keeping Baby Boy from crawling into the back pens and onto a bull. He looks innocent. Don't let it fool ya.)

Since my mom has been fighting cancer this spring and started chemo this summer, guess what? That puts me right back in the mix of this family business and "hiatus" is no longer an option. So mom has decided to watch the kids while I do her job: rodeo secretary. (And she's smarter than me: she keeps them home and contained watching movies and eating Kid Cuisines and other special Grandma foods instead of hauling them off to the chaos of some far away fairground while letting them ride rides, play games and get all sugared/greased up on fair food before expecting them to head back to the grandstand and be still so I can actually watch the rodeo we're there for!)

So what does being rodeo secretary actually mean? Well, to start I have to take entries for the rodeo. All entries are to be given directly to the rodeo secretary and no one else. So, I sit at the phone for 6 hours straight answering calls from cowboys and cowgirls who want to enter the rodeo. This is usually done one to one and a half weeks before the rodeo. Some of the cowboys and cowgirls are old pros at this, and their entries are pretty easy. Some are competing in their first rodeo. They are understandably a little confused and have questions...that takes some time.

And then there are the team ropers. My brother is one of them. I love you guys, but you are seriously the bane of every rodeo secretary's existence. This is the only team event in rodeo. There's a header who ropes the head and a heeler who ropes the heels of the steer...just like they do when working cattle on the open range and one needs doctoring when there's not fence or pen convenient...you immobilize them with cowboys, horses and ropes.

Photo from ESPN's coverage of the National Finals Rodeo

Now we sanction our rodeos through the Mid-States Rodeo Association and the American Professional Rodeo Association. Both are regional associations, and both allow cowboys and cowgirls to enter twice in the team roping. They can enter once as a header and once as a heeler or they can enter with two different partners and head both times or heel both times. Confused already? Don't worry, it gets worse.

Now the purpose of pre-entry is to verify that each entrant is either a card-holder in one of the associations or needs to buy a day permit. More on that tomorrow. And perhaps most importantly to determine the amount of livestock you will need for the rodeo. Obviously, you will need more bulls if you have 25 bull riders than if you have 15 bull riders entered. Same with the bronc riding and roping events.

The six-hour call-in window is published well in advance so every contestant and member has the chance to call in while books are open. Rules state that all entrants who call during call-in time must be accepted. Now a number of the cowboys who call in tell me that some secretaries take their phone off the hook when they get enough entries for their rodeos. We don't roll that way. Our family has all competed as contestants, and we're out to produce a quality show for whomever has hired us to put on the rodeo but also for the contestants. Now we discovered at the last minute that the two associations we sanctioned with each posted a different call-in date for the rodeo...obviously one of them made a mistake...but once it is published, there's not really any changing it, is there? So instead of one six-hour window, last week I got to sit by the phone for 12 hours. And one of those 6 hour windows had Baby Boy with me. Who decided to poop in his underwear while the phone was ringing fast and furious. Thank you, Baby Boy. I told you not to trust his innocent look.

So back to the team ropers. Some are organized. They designate one person to call in all people and entries related to their team. I love you people. Seriously. They may call and enter 8 teams, 2 barrel racers, 4 calf ropers, and 2 steer wrestlers, and 3 bull riders, but they have it together and know what's going on.

Now some team ropers call and enter themselves or their friends and don't have all their entries together. It's you folks that make me want to drink. Let's say Jonas called and entered his friends in the team roping, and Leroy is heading for Eli

But then Peter calls and says Jonas made a mistake: Leroy shouldn't be roping with Eli. Leroy should be roping with Bob. And by the way, add another team of Bob roping with Eli, too. I clarify that Leroy is only in the team roping once, correct? Hmmm, they say. He's only entered once? Enter him with Huck, too. Okay. Still under control, right, because everyone is just entered twice.

But then Leroy's other friend Bud calls. Among other things, he wants to enter himself, his other friend Bubba and Leroy in the calf roping. Still under control, right? Then he wants to enter Leroy in the team roping with Bubba. Hold your horses, cowboy: Leroy is already roping twice. Now Leroy has never called himself, so how am I supposed to know who has their story straight?  Hold on, Bud will call Leroy and call me back. Thirty minutes later, Bud calls: Leroy is just in the calf roping and just roping with Bubba.

Okay, then. But what about Bob and Eli? They are gonna be p-o'd when they get to the rodeo and Bob is only entered once and Huck is no longer entered at all because Leroy says he's only supposed to be roping with Bubba.

See why I have a headache? And need some medicinal beverages? Unfortunately, I decide medicating myself will only make the team roping even more confusing. So I get my brother on the phone calling around because he knows all of these nutty team ropers, being one himself. Turns out Huck is out of state and was never even planning on coming to the rodeo. Leroy says if Bob wants to rope with him, he'll rope with Bob...put them back in the team roping.

Ug. Seriously? The real treat comes when some charming cowboy wants to come scream at you at the rodeo because you have his entry wrong and are too dumb to get it right...especially when he never even bothered to call himself in so he has no actual knowledge of how his buddies entered him at the rodeo. And of course, his buddies are all sunlight and innocence: they certainly couldn't have made a mistake during entries, right?

But I'm not fooled: they're just like future cowboy Baby Boy:

I'm not fooled by looks of innocence, great big eyes or even Wrangler jeans. I'm wise to your ways, cowboy.

All this and more in my 12 hours of phone time. Around 108 different rodeo contestants, many of whom are entered in multiple events for over 150 entries is a little one-night rodeo in southern Ohio down on the river. Stay tuned later in the week to find out what happens after the entries are taken.