Houston News Blog

Having trouble keeping score on the latest Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo flap? Let Hair Balls help you out. We talked to both Ben Mendez, a self-described community leader and member of the non-group group protesting HLSR practices (we'll get back to that), and HLSR's Chief Operating Officer Leroy Shafer.

What we found is that there's some truth and some bullshit on both sides.

About HLSR scholarships not being awarded to minority students:

Shafer says: "The Show found that in 2008, 29.3 percent of the scholarships were awarded to Hispanic students, 21.2 percent to African-American students, 7.8 percent to Asian students, and 41.7 percent to Anglo students. Although ethnicity is not a basis for selection of Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo scholarships, the Show believes the ethnicity of the scholarship recipients in the Houston metro area reflects the ethnicity of the area's population graduating seniors in the Houston Metropolitan area."
Mendez says: "They talk about x-number of percentage going to the minority community. But what they fail to mention is that they're only talking about certain scholarships. If you add the scholarships all together, the percentage that goes to minorities is very small. They're playing with the numbers, they just want to look good for the public. In reality, we know that those numbers have been manipulated. But what I don't want to do is make this a racial issue."
Hair Balls says: HSLR win this point. First, it's hard to give scholarships to kids who aren't going to college. Hispanics, for a host of reasons that don't involve HLSR, drop out of high school at alarming rates (some estimate the figure as high as 50%). Hispanics make up 17% of the country's high-school seniors, but only 9% of college freshmen. Should HLSR give 40% of its funds to 9% of the students?

Are there deserving Hispanic kids out there? Absolutely! But they don't make up 40% of college freshmen, so they shouldn't get 40% of the scholarship money available. Second, once you bring up race, it's a racial issue. Accuse the HLSR of shortchanging Hispanic kids, and it's a racial issue.

Horses are a big part of any rodeo, and in the waning days of HLS&R 2009 it would be easy to whip up a list of movie horses that everyone knows, to wit: Seabiscuit, the Black Stallion (plus sequel), Black Beauty, and Trigger. Booooring. And while I realize this is a nation that has the energy to work itself into spasms of rage over the new Dora the Explorer design, surely we can accept a somewhat less-noteworthy assortment of movie equines?

5. "Rising Star" -- The Electric Horseman (1979) He starts out as the best in the business, lapses into disco parody, then goes into semi-retirement out west. He's like the horse version of Gene Simmons.

Photo by Amina Rivera

Cody Blanscet of Henrietta, TX sure knows how to scramble for the big win.  

Last year, he was the first to rope a calf and the second to drag it into the center of the ring at the Houston rodeo. This year, the Angus beauty he bought with the prize money placed first in the Scramble Heifer Show.

Blanscet told Hair Balls a good wash and blow dry and a good showing helped his heifer Doe earn the top spot. He said, "I feel pretty happy. I couldn't have done it without my Ag (agriculture) teacher, Tony Dunkerley."

He also got a little help from Sen. Mario Gallegos and the Scramble Office, which requires of him a monthly report including expenses, pictures and updates. He also corresponds with the senator's office and received a visit from one of his reps at his last showing.  

Photo by Paul Knight

Name: Bud Munns
Age: 24
Hometown: Hansel Valley, Utah
Event: Bareback

I got into rodeo because I grew up on a ranch, and that's kind of the way it was. My dad did it and so did my brother. We lived too damn far from town to do anything else, so we'd just ride.

If I didn't rodeo, I'd be flying planes. I'm about to graduate with a degree in aviation science. Rodeo ain't life-long, my body is breaking down too damn fast. I start flight instruction in a couple months, then I'll be flying big planes.

I'm on the road not too much because I'm a full-time student. I got 21 upper-division credit classes right now, and I'm trying to juggle both of them. You just bust ass when you're home, and then enjoy the time when you're here. We went to Denver and San Antone and Tucson, and we bumped around this winter, but you can do two things. A lot of guys like to fly because it's faster, but that shit's expensive.

Traveling alone is the worst part. I drove down here by myself the other day, and it was 24 hours. I had a nice little chat with myself. Both my traveling partners flew down, and I'll travel back with them. We've been together as long as we've been doing it, and during the summer we're gone all the time, so you live with these guys and get to know them pretty damn good. We play a lot of pranks and shit, constantly screwing with everyone when we're driving. The other day we went fishing down in Galveston on a big ol' boat. I've never been out so far where you couldn't see land, and they caught a shark out there.

Photo by Paul Knight

Name: Ty Blasingame
Age: 24
Hometown: Pueblo, Colorado
Event: Team Roping

I got into rodeo because my parents. I've been around it my whole life; grew up on a big ranch. I just got into it and started getting pretty good at it. I got serious when I was 16, and I started pro rodeoing when I was 19.

If I didn't rodeo, I imagine I'd go home and train horses. We got a whole bunch of horses, so I'll train and sell horses. Have a cattle ranch, kind of. I might move to Texas this winter for a couple years then move back to Colorado when I get done rodeoing.

I'm on the road year round. In the winter it's not so busy, but come June 1, we'll go to one rodeo a day for sure, maybe two or three rodeos a day. It gets tiring, but it's all we know.

When rodeo cowboys fight, it's a fight. There's no arguing like high school. I've had about seven different partners, and it's like a marriage. You travel with them and everything. I didn't get along with a lot of them, and we'd just stop on the side of the road to fight. Fist fight over rodeo stuff, like who missed and why they missed, or somebody cheated someone for a dollar or two. I rodeoed with two brothers who fought all the time. A lot of times, we all get in to go together, and they'd just fight all the time. It got really hard when gas got out of control.

Photo by Paul Knight

Name: Annesa Self
Hometown: Valley View, Texas
Event: Barrel Racing

I got into rodeo because my mother and my father both did it. My dad roped, so I just kind of followed in his footsteps. I was five years old when I started winning ribbons, and when I got a little older, I was like, 'I want money.' When you feel like you got the horse power under you, you take that step to the professional ranks. I didn't know I was that well-mounted, because I was 12 years old. I just knew I wanted to win money.

If I didn't rodeo, I would probably train colts. The horse I'm riding now, I bought him when he was two, and I've trained him and brought him up through the ranks. There's nothing better than to see progress. I love working them, as long as my body lets me.

I'm on the road not as much as most of the girls. My husband works at his family-owned amusement park - Sandy Lake Amusement Park - so we kind of have to work around the work schedule.

A tough stretch on the road is the Fourth of July run. Last year we had a pretty wild time. My horse fell at the first rodeo I went to, and then we got to Greeley, Colorado, and a flood comes an hour before the performance, so I ran my colt in the mud. We packed up and went to Cody, Wyoming, and leaving Cody, we had trailer troubles. We were on the side of a two-lane road, the brakes were smoking, and I didn't know how we were going to get help out in the middle of nowhere. I found someone open on the Fourth of July, then we headed to Belle Fourche, South Dakota, and we got there with about an hour to spare.

For the last 20 years, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has held a very special event for some very special kids. The Lil Rustlers' Rodeo, which took place the 4th, 5th and 11th  this month, is an event held each year to allow physically and mentally challenged children in on the fun.

"It's just very important for these kids to have a night, a special time just for them," Kathy Herd, who has headed up the event for the last two years, told us.

Over the three days, 45-50 kids per day are invited onto the dirt of Reliant Stadium before the actual events of the night take place. There, they find an entire miniaturized version of the rodeo for them to "compete" in. They can tame the bucking bronc or the raging bull, both consisting of saddled see-saws manned by volunteers. They are given lassos to rope the calves (hay bales with bull horns attached). Volunteers lead them around the barrel racing path while they race with the stick-plush horse head combination we all know and love.

There's also real baby animals to pet and a ride around the arena on the back of a real horse.
Niki Cammaert, most famous for being the blonde, trick riding woman with the American flag on the back of the white horse during the national anthem, has helped out with this event every year she has been with the rodeo.

"You can really see it on their faces when they get out there, they just light up," she said, just before helping a child onto the back of her horse to lead him on a ride.

Photo by Paul Knight

Name: Zach Dishman
Age: 26
Hometown: Beaumont
Event: Bareback Riding

I got into rodeo because my dad rodeoed, and his dad college-rodeoed at Texas A&M. I started getting on calves when I was real young, and at ten years old I was going to youth rodeos. By the time I got in high school, I was real serious about it.

If I didn't rodeo, I would farm and ranch, because my dad and them did that, so hopefully I'd be a part of it. It's not always the most cash-flowing business, and I hope it's always a part of my family, but honestly, I just want to be led by the Holy Spirit. I do believe we need to see people get saved and win souls for Jesus. But hopefully I got a few more bucking horses in me.

I'm on the road not as much this time of year, because a lot of the big rodeos are close to home, but I plan on rodeoing hard this year. My wife is a flight attendant, so hopefully that'll make it easier for us to travel. Being married is a different experience, because when you've been a young person in the rodeo world doing what you want to do... It's definitely been a change in my life.

I'm famous for being in Canada and getting knocked out. Last year I had surgery on my hand, right after Houston, to have some hardware taken out that was bothering me. First rodeo back was Corpus Christi, and I got a severe concussion. Then I went to Cloverdale, British Columbia and I did real good, but in the final round I got knocked out again and woke up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Amazingly, it made all the papers. My hometown newspaper even come out to interview me. At Corpus, nobody cared, nobody even asked me about it, but in Canada, somehow it made headline news. I wouldn't see the doctors in Canada, because I wasn't about to give them my plastic, and the ambulance guys had stripped me clean - the only thing I had on was my pants. It was a cold, rainy day, so they gave me a blanket and I had to walk all the way back to the rodeo. So we got pictures of me walking up there, just been knocked out, wearing nothing but a towel.

Photo by Amina Rivera

Despite the inclement weather and subsequent soggy boots and jeans, Fiesta Charra was yet another great reason to head on down to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo yesterday.  The exhibition, now a staple at Go Tejano Day, showcases charro traditions common to the early, working ranch.

For the last 15 years, the vaqueros have amused audiences with their old-world customs and dancing horses. They sport the traditional vaquero garb and grandioso onlookers have come to know and love.  

The show also includes side-saddled senoritas and young, lasso-wrangling cowboys, who seem to excite the crowd almost as much as the horses' fancy footwork.

The fleet can sway back-and-forth and side-to-side like nobody's business. One horse even spun around so many times I was dizzy.  

Emcee David Gonzales told Hair Balls it takes a lot of time and savvy to teach the horses how to move like that and for the young cowboys to rope like that.  

Photo by Paul Knight

Name: Lee Graves
Age: 37
Hometown: Calgary, Alberta
Event: Steer Wrestling

I got into rodeo because I was raised around horses my whole life. I got involved with some neighbors who roped and stuff, and that's about it. I was playing a lot of hockey at the time, and I was probably like 12 when I really started rodeoing, getting ready for high school.

If I didn't rodeo, I would train horses for a living or ranch.

I'm on the road all year round. Last year I tore up my knee real bad, so I had to take off all year and didn't get to come here. I remember watching this rodeo on TV, and I didn't know if I'd ever steer wrestle again. To be here this year is kind of cool.

Every cowboy in rodeo has a bad injury story, and that's pretty common in a rodeo-type deal. Last year I had a major surgery after I tore off my knee cap at Tucson, and I had to rehab with the Phoenix Suns trainer because I couldn't rehab anywhere else. Crazy stuff. I've seen lots of car wrecks and been in lots of car wrecks. I've been knocked unconscious once. The steer stopped and run a horn through my face. I was probably 23 or 24.