High schoolers in saddle, or on bare back, for weekend

The chutes will open Friday and Saturday nights for the second annual S.C. High School Rodeo Association weekend in Horry County.

Gates to see older teens compete in such disciplines as saddle broncs, bareback, team roping barrels, and breakaway roping, will open at 6 p.m. daily, with competitions at 8 p.m., at RES-LES Farms, 1208 Gilbert Road. Find the site, just a few miles south of Conway, west off U.S. 701, past Harper Road.

Even without a child young enough anymore to saddle up for such rodeos – a transition to which many association board members now relate – hosts Stacy and Buddy Smith want to keep and build a local tradition through this rodeo.

“Once you get there,” Smith said, “we’re all family, and you can’t leave. .. It’s not what we do; it’s who we are.”

Helping a child who asks, “Ms. Stacy, can you tighten my saddle up?” she sees an expanded role.

“Now I can be a mama to everybody,” she said, remembering having her first horse at age 2 and daughter Erin Smith riding “totally independently” at age 3.

When Erin Smith saw her first rodeo, her mother said, the girl found “heaven,” especially after seeing “all the cowboys and cowgirls dressed liked how she liked to dress.”

She said in this field, competition spans three age groups for boys and girls, all in a “positive environment”: “Youth” for ages kindergarten through fifth-graders, and Junior and High School levels. For riders who reach the national level, scholarships command their own league in prizes.

Stacy Smith said an audience of about 500 turned out the first night of the high school rodeo last year, and more than 400 showed up for the finale night, even after a rainy day. High schoolers compete both nights for the public, and juniors will have their own rodeo at 11 a.m. Saturday this year.

With this circuit of competitions, probably about 16 weekends a year, Stacy Smith admires how the atmosphere remains a place where teens find it cool to still be hanging out for periods with parents.

“Everybody helps one another,” Smith said, whether through adults assisting, or the youngsters themselves for fellow competitors, such as when one’s horse goes lame, and “time and time again, I hear, ‘You can use my horse.’”

Keeping grades up in school also matters mightily, Smith said, and report cards are checked to ensure eligibility for such rodeos, and a dress code, including keeping shirt tails in and sporting a back number ID at all times, reigns.

Such “very high standards and a lot of accountability” also apply to the “top priority” care of the animals brought in by “stock contractors” for rodeos.

“The horses and cattle are well taken of,” Smith said, “I can promise you that.”

Ridin’ high in preserving heritage

Continuing and touting the rodeo lifestyle means “a way to preserve Western heritage,” Smith said, because it’s more than “hat and boots,” with an identity of “a strong work ethic, high morals, and working till you get it done.”

“It’s kind of like growing up on a farm,” she said. “You have a job, and you do it.”

Rodeo competition and its way of life require “a big investment, and it’s a bigger commitment,” with such vital needs as talent in rider and horse, a truck, trailer for sleeping, generator, and camping arrangements.

Smith said, with help through connections made on the association’s Facebook page, they want to raise awareness about rodeo statewide and the opportunities in this sport. With families “being there for victories and defeats, and all the different highs and lows,” children who grow in this field carry out instilled values for life.

With all the qualifying that goes into rodeo to reach national levels, in high schoolers and junior ranks, “just making it to nationals” – last year in Wyoming and Iowa, respectively – Smith just to make it to compete on that level, “you’re already a winner” in multiple ways that don’t show up in scores, and that so many association “alumni” become “productive citizens in their communities.”

When the country music gets cranked at rodeos – especially “Big Ball’s in Cowtown,” which George Strait remade with Asleep at the Wheel – and the flags wave in the arena, “your adrenaline gets pumping,” Smith said, loving how everyone has “a ball.”

The Edwin Hawkins Singers’ “Oh, Happy Day,” from the “Secretariat” movie soundtrack, also plays for “our grant entry” nightly, Smith said, praising its connection with the Bible, and welcoming any student spectator this weekend who quotes scripture to receive half-off admission.

She also said the announcer – Martin Blanton is back for this year – also adds to the aura of the whole experience.

Blessed to be giving back

The Smith couple have three older children, with two sons in Conway and a married daughter in Raleigh.

Buddy Smith outlined some perks from a parental perspective, all on sharing.

“Having been along for this wonderful ride with Erin,” he said, “and enjoying every minute of it, makes me want other families to be able to experience the same blessings as we have.”

Helping other families in the fold comes easily and naturally, and with nothing but gratitude the Smiths bring home.

“We have gained so much knowledge and experience,” Buddy Smith said, “not only on the competition end and preparation for each rodeo, but also the trip out to nationals. There is a lot to be shared with families who have never been there that can help them become better prepared so that they can make it an awesome adventure for them. I am always available to share any of my experience with the kids and their parents. I believe that to him who much is given, much is expected, and we have been blessed immeasurably.”

Erin Smith, balancing a job with her studies in criminal justice as a freshman at Horry-Georgetown Technical College, sang the praises of her favorite childhood pastime, crowned by competing last year in the Equality State.

“Rodeo definitely taught me to be responsible, prompt, and accountable for myself,” she said. “These life skills have helped me, now that I am in college, to be able to manage life, school, work, and continuing to find time to work my horse. Not that it is easy, but the skills I gained through high school rodeo definitely have made an impact.”

Her friendships made go way outside the arena as well, in an extended family.

“It’s hard to understand if you are not a part of rodeo,” Erin Smith said, “but it is really like a brother- and sisterhood. The bond that you make with your rodeo peers, spending weekends and weeks together, is awesome. We always knew that we were there for one another, swapping tack, clothes, horses, crying with one another over times when our horse was sick, or even had to be put down, whatever we needed to help one another out. My rodeo friends were always there for me, and me for them. Not only that, but all the parents treated us all like their own kids, helping us any way that they could. That is the part I will take with me all my life.”

Laury Wilson of Fountain Inn, the association’s state secretary for the high school and junior divisions, said having this rodeo near Conway every year will let the Lowcountry take a bow in hospitality, especially because most of its events happen in the Upstate and that several competitiors hail from the coastal area.

Wilson said the public might not connect rodeo “that much” with South Carolina, and instead think of points “out west,” but the following among association members, with parents, grandparents and friends,” are “amazing,” staying true and loyal with their youngsters participating, “to stick it out in rain and mud.”

This story was originally published March 10, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "High schoolers in saddle, or on bare back, for weekend."