Local students spend a day learning about the rodeo

Students were invited to their own personal rodeo by the Professional Cowboy Association.

Students learned how to say yee-haw and rope a calf, thanks to the Professional Cowboy Association.

Each year the PCA Rodeo invites students from local schools to have a front row view to the rodeo, where they are able to learn everything from the breed of a horse to how to spin a lasso.

PCA CEO Will Campbell hopes that the experience can show children a life they may not have imagined for themselves. “I hope it inspires one of the little boys or girls to maybe, you know, ‘I can do this. I want to do this’. You don’t have to live on a farm or out in the country to be a cowboy, you can live in a city. You’ve just got to…you know, if it’s something that inspire them, you know, then one day they can do it too. ”

While the event is fun for the children, it’s just as fun for the cowgirls and cowboys that are putting on the rodeo.

Not every child will want to be a cowboy, but PCA competitors who volunteer at the children’s rodeo hope it educates the younger generation on this way of life and the love they have for it. Barrel Racer Erica Nelson said, “The love of livestock is something that kind of gets misconstrued in the rodeo industry when people don’t really know about rodeo. We love our animals. We just really want them to know that we take care of our horses, and our… all our other livestock and that we do love them.”

The children hoot and hollered throughout the whole show and as some of them left, they told their teachers they want to be a cowboy when they grow up.