Representing the Pine River Valley and the Basin Rodeo Club, four locals arrived in the Nashville area to compete this week in the 2017 National Junior High Finals Rodeo.
And as of late Tuesday, June 20, one had tentatively attained top-ten status in the spectacle's first go-round.
Paired with header Quincy Sullivan of Peralta, N.M., in team roping, Ignacio Middle Schooler Bodie Hine's heeling Monday night helped the duo rank third in the Finals' third rodeo performance with a 9.65-second timing, which stood eighth overall in the incomplete first go.
Their second run is scheduled for Friday morning.
By comparison, Texans Landon Cook and Cooper Parsley paced performance #3 with a 9.03 (fourth-best in the first go), and Californians Keith Johnson and Kyle Stewart clocked 9.11 (fifth-best). Evanston, Wyoming's Range Martin and Enterprise, Utah's Blake Bowler had recorded a 7.32 in the first performance, and still held the first-go lead.
Basin Rodeo's brothers Holland (header) and Teagan (heeler) Roukema, scheduled to make their first attempt Sunday night in Perf #1 but without a listed effort as of Tuesday night, are slated to team up again in Perf #12 Saturday morning, closing out the second go. The deciding short go is scheduled to then begin at 7 p.m.
Meanwhile, about 35 minutes west of the Finals' primary venues in Lebanon, Tenn., young Bayfielder Mitchell Story competed Tuesday in the NJHFR NRA Light Rifle feature-held at the Stones River Gun Range in the town of Antioch.
Wearing #893 on his back, Story tied two others with a three-position score of 146 (52 prone, 28 off-hand, 66 kneeling) after firing 12 shots from each stance at 50 yards, but did not qualify for the specialty's short go.
Colter Nunn of Laramie, Wyo. totaled a leading 316 (108-102-106) to beat Utah's Brock Alder by one point and Virginia's Sarah Streett by nine.