Page 8A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
NAMES: Rope said he’s proud
of his heritage and name
Continued from 1A
Stran Smith won the world
champion title in 2008. One
of his cousins is Tuf Cooper,
a three-time world champion
with a uniquely western
name of his own who is also
competing at Round-Up this
year.
Most of Stetson’s family
has western-inspired names,
and he’s thought a bit about
what he will name his chil-
dren if he has them. But he
doesn’t share his ideas with
the family.
“They’d totally steal ’em,”
he said.
Rope Myers knows quite
a bit about being named for
rodeo roots.
Rope is a 2001 world
champion steer wrestler
from Longview, Texas, and
the oldest child of Butch
Myers, world champion in
1980. Because of his big win
that year, Butch committed
to naming his youngest son
Cash. He’d already named
his daughter and middle child
“Tygh” (pronounced “Tie”).
“It’s ’cause you rope the
calf, tie the calf and win the
cash,” Rope explained. “The
names are all intentionally
rodeo-themed.”
Rope said he’s proud
of his heritage and name,
but doesn’t attribute it to
his or his brother’s success
— Cash Myers won $21,045
at the Round-Up during his
all-around title campaigns in
2005, 2007 and 2008.
For team roping partners
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Stetson Vest of Childress, Texas, center, watches
calf roping during slack on Tuesday at the Pendleton
Round-Up.
Speed Williams and Rich
Skelton, the victorious
connotations were purely
coincidental. They went by
what they preferred. Speed,
who is from Jacksonvile,
Fla., goes by his middle
name; his first is Ken. His
partner, who is from Llano,
Texas, shortened his name
from Richard.
Rich denies the names had
any influence on their rodeo
careers, though they did sell
merchandise with the phrase
“To get Rich, you gotta have
Speed.”
It’s clever, but also true.
They won eight straight
world championship titles
from 1997 to 2004 and took
the Round-Up title in 1997.
The 2002 steer roping
world champion, Buster
Record Jr. also blames
coincidence for his winning
moniker. His birth certifi-
cate reads “Tommy Junior
Record.” In the time since
that was chosen, however,
he’s been known solely by
his nickname: Buster.
“That’s the only thing
I’ve ever gone by,” he said.
“I don’t have a clue why my
parents called me that. I think
they just liked it.” It’s even
Buster on his Social Security
card.
Though it created a lot
of conversation and poten-
tially attracted a few more
sponsors, the cowboy from
Buffalo, Okla., agreed with
the others that his name had
no impact on his success.
That success included a
Round-Up steer roping
record of 10.1 seconds, set in
1999, that still stands.
———
Contact Emily Olson at
eolson@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0809
MOTE: Quit school at 17 to follow
his dreams of competing full-time
Continued from 1A
He and hundreds of
others at the rodeo that day
felt an emotional surge of
patriotism.
“It was electric,” Mote
said. “That place had more
energy than any other place
I’d ever been.”
The memory joins scores
of sweet moments dotting
Mote’s 22-year professional
rodeo career. The cowboy,
who retired recently at age
41 to concentrate on horse
training, won’t make it this
year to the Round-Up, a
rodeo he missed only twice
as a professional bareback
rider.
Mote, known for his
unruffled demeanor as he
climbs aboard high-octane
broncs, will leave his
mark. The four-time world
champion competed in
15 consecutive Wrangler
National Finals Rodeos. He
won Pendleton in 2012 and
earned numerous seconds
and thirds.
The Culver cowboy, who
now lives in Llano, Texas,
rode his first bareback horse
at age 15 after paying eight
dollars to ride at a prac-
tice pen in Powell Butte,
Oregon. He climbed aboard
a horse named Squeak.
“The horse basically just
ran,” he said. “He barely
bucked. He wouldn’t have
jumped over a pop can.”
Nevertheless, “I was
hooked,” he said. “That’s
all I wanted to do.”
Even as a teenager, Mote
was big on setting goals for
himself.
“Before I could really
ride, I had the goal of being
a multiple-time world
champion and going to the
NFR more than a dozen
times,” he said. “I meant it
when I wrote it down and I
believed it.”
At age 17, he told some
of his teachers about his
dream. He remembers them
telling him he would never
make a living. He ignored
them, quitting school to
compete full-time. Over the
years, he met his original
goals and more.
Professional roper Mike
Beers, who once competed
on the Blue Mountain
Community College rodeo
team, is a pal. They met
when Mote showed up for a
team roping event at Beers’
home arena in Powell Butte.
“Bobby rode good,
but he had no idea what
team roping was,” Beers
recalled, with a guffaw. “It
was a little scary.”
Beers tutored Mote,
teaching him the finer
EO file photo
Bobby Mote of rides for 83 points at the 2013 Pendle-
ton Round-Up.
“Before I could really ride, I had the
goal of being a multiple-time world
champion and going to the NFR more
than a dozen times. I meant it when I
wrote it down and I believed it.”
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Ashlee Hatch, a massage therapist from Idaho, gives a full-body massage to
Sadie Garner, Blue Mountain Community College softball player and friend. The
bulk of Hatch’s clients are rodeo athletes.
VENDORS: Ashlee Hatch caters to
rodeo athletes aching after competition
Continued from 1A
trailers that surrounded the
zipline.
A Pendleton High School
graduate, Porter moved
away when he joined
the Marine Corps and
eventually settled in Yuma,
Arizona.
Now a superintendent for
a commercial construction
company, Porter decided to
buy the zipline three weeks
ago and scrambled to obtain
all the proper permits and
licenses.
“As a superintendent,
I know how to pull things
together,” he said.
Porter took two weeks
off work and brought his
wife and family back home
for the Round-Up, making
the zipline available to the
public for the first time.
The whole family is
involved in the operation:
Porter’s wife, Sabrina,
handles customer intake,
Porter harnasses people
onto the zipline and the kids
get free rides when business
slows down.
Porter acknowledged the
financial risk he took when
he bought the zipline, but he
both men. Mote described
the rodeo as “tough to win.”
“Pendleton was always
exciting — no doubt about
that,” Mote said. “You never
know what to expect. There
are more conditions (such
as the grass and the size of
the arena) that impact what
horses do. A so-so horse
may come to Pendleton and
buck like crazy. You always
had a chance.”
Mote said, since bare-
back is the first event, he
loved watching the place
start from dead silence for
the opening ceremony to
crazy exuberance as the
rodeo kicked into gear.
“The place would light
up,” he said.
Mote said he wants to go
out on top instead of after
his “expiration date.” He
will miss the adrenaline, the
camaraderie and the pride
in seeing a plan unfold, but
now it’s time to chase a new
dream.
In March, he took a posi-
tion with Reliance Ranches,
a quarter horse racing
program in Texas and
Oklahoma. He describes
his new job as “repurposing
racehorses” that are done
with their racing careers,
but can be transformed into
ranch horses or mounts for
barrel racers or ropers.
As he moves forward,
Mote doesn’t spend time
second-guessing his deci-
sion to quit rodeo.
“No regrets,” he said,
“I’ll miss it, but it was a
chapter in my life.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or 941-966-0810.
prices on (the antlers),”
Mike said. “It’d scare you.”
While most vendors
primarily cater to tourists,
Country Road Massage is
after a different clientele:
cowboys.
Camped out in a lot near
Club 24 Fitness, Country
Road provides deep tissue
massage to rodeo contes-
tants looking to recover
from the aches and pains of
their sport.
Based out of Dayton,
Idaho, Country Road owner
Ashlee Hatch said she’s
been a masseuse for 11
years but only started taking
her act on the road last year.
In that time, Hatch
has provided massages
to cowboys in Cheyenne,
Wyoming,
Ellensburg,
Washington and Caldwell,
Idaho and more.
Hatch said she aims to
give her clients a sense of
familiarity and consistency
instead of having to seek out
an unknown masseuse in the
town they’re competing in.
This is her first time in
Pendleton, but Hatch knows
what to do.
“This isn’t my first
rodeo,” she said.
FLY IN STYLE TO THE
2017 ROUND UP!
BOOK WITH
BOUTIQUE AIR
— Bobby Mote, four-time world champion
points of roping and in time
Mote got it. Eventually, the
two men competed together
in team roping. They won
a buckle at the Wainwright
Stampede in Alberta and
earned their way into the
Canadian National Finals
Rodeo. They never got
the chance to compete,
however, because a few
weeks later Mote punctured
his pancreas at a rodeo in
San Juan Capistrano, Cali-
fornia. The injury joined a
long list of others, including
a sprained neck and broken
collar bone suffered when
his bronc tried to jump over
another horse.
“I pay for it every
morning when I wake up,”
Mote said, laughing.
Beers, who now lives
in British Columbia, has
suffered his own share of
injuries. One came not
during a rodeo, but at
Mote’s Culver ranch in
2007, a time when Beers
and his son Brandon sat
atop the world standings
for team roping. Beers was
putting one of Mote’s horses
(a previously gentle horse
that Mote’s daughter rode
in junior rodeos) through its
paces for a potential buyer
when the horse dropped
its head and kicked up its
back legs. Beers banged
his pelvis hard against
the saddle horn and went
airborne. The impact broke
his scapula in half and
fractured his pelvis. Mote,
knowing his buddy didn’t
have adequate insurance,
put on a fundraiser and
raised $25,000.
The
Pendleton
Round-Up is a favorite of
hopes it will pay off with an
even larger-scale dream: an
indoor playground business.
Just a block away from
the Round-Up Arena, the
Jones family is trying to
figure out if their shop is a
good fit for rodeo week.
Mike and Becky Jones
run Mikes Antler Stuff,
which is situated beside a
taco truck, lemonade stand
and jerky booth in the small
parking lot for The Muffler
Shop on Southwest Court
Avenue.
The wares Mikes Antler
Stuff sells are self-explan-
atory: products made of
deer and elk antlers, mainly
chandeliers and lamps.
A retired
wildland
firefighter, Mike said the
business evolved from a
hobby and he now sells his
antler products from Pend-
leton to customers all over
the country through word of
mouth.
The Joneses said it’s a
lot of work to put together
a Round-Up booth and
the locals often balk at the
product prices, which range
from $5 to $1,000, thinking
they could do it themselves.
“Go online and see the
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