Your future, our focus
Given the split fall-spring season and that cowboys and cowgirls compete all summer, it seems as if rodeo never ends for Northwest College.
But officially, now that the school year has begun, college rodeo is starting over.
And Friday and Saturday nights Northwest will host the two-day Trapper Stampede at Stampede Park, bringing the best college rodeo teams in the region to Cody.
The events will start at 7 p.m. each night, although there will be morning slack with about 15 teams expected. This will also be the only home competition of the 2015-16 season for Northwest.
The Trappers have several key returning athletes and numerous incoming freshman.
Among well-known competitors back are Casey Fredericks, Robby Cobbler, Tyler Sterner and Jesse Nelson.
“The kids have been exceptional,” coach Del Nose said of pre-season practice. “I think the girls will be really tough.”
“Being here really is a good advantage,” said Tori Lewis, a sophomore breakaway rider from Meeteetse of opening in Cody. “It’s nice for me. All my family can come over.”
Since NWC is located about 25 miles away in Powell, the rodeo team works to drum up support.
“We get a lot of college students to come over,” Lewis said.
Kelsy Robinson, another breakaway roper and barrel racer, said she likes the new lineup.
“I’m excited,” Robinson said. “We’ve got a lot of new girls. I really like the girls’ team.”
One newcomer to the men’s team who gave Cody Nite Rodeo a try a few times in August after coming from Utah is Taylor George, who won twice.
George, 18, scored a 77 in one of those victories, but paid for it by having a bull tear the heck out of his boots. The aging footwear had to be retired.
“My other boots are being fixed,” George said, thinking aloud that he might have to walk around in tennis shoes for a little while.
George said he heard NWC was in need of rough-stock riders, so he was receptive when the Trappers recruited him.
For a guy who spent time in small-town Utah, places called Enterprise and Laverkin City, the characteristics he cited about them should make him feel right at home in Wyoming.
“The wind blew all the time,” George said.