Life On The Rodeo Road: It's The Economy, Stupid

By Paul Knight Tue., Mar. 10 2009 at 12:49 PM

Categories: Rodeo

Photo by Paul Knight

Rodeo cowboys basically live on the road, traveling with a herd of men and women crazy enough to ride, rope and wrestle live animals for a paycheck. Each day, Hair Balls is asking a different cowboy to tell us a little bit about himself and his wildest story from a life of rodeo. In the end, we hope, we'll have a collection of stories that re-enforce our Texan ideals that rodeo cowboys still like to raise hell.

Name: Jerrad Hofstetter
Age: 24
Hometown: Portales, New Mexico
Event: Tie-Down Roping

I got into rodeo by watching it on TV. My parents got me a rope for Christmas one time and I just started learning it. My parents didn't rodeo or nothing, but I was fortunate to meet the right people and they got me going. I was probably 11.

If I didn't rodeo, I don't know what I'd do.

I'm on the road not as much as some guys. I don't rodeo very much in the winter, but I leave early in the summer, like May, and I don't go home until I'm done. I met my wife at the rodeo in Cheyenne. She had her brakes catch fire on her when she was rodeoing in another rig, just going rodeo to rodeo, and handling that was probably the worst that's happened.

This economy hurts cowboys because right now nobody has any idea what to do. Me and my wife were both not going to rodeo this year, but everybody else is having a hard time getting a job, so we stayed here and stayed doing it. I don't want to rodeo forever.

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