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Home > Archive > Aug 16, 2007

Dixie Rodeo Club Has Good Showing at Regional Rodeo
By Stephen Vincent
Four members of the Dixie Rodeo Club won their events at the Panguitch Invitational Rodeo in July 25-28.
Trumbull Bundy and cousin Whit Bundy won the team roping event. Brieanna Hone won the breakaway roping title, and Sam Christensen won the saddleback racing.
A fifth member from the club, Emily Holmes, of Enterprise, also won at the rodeo.
To be invited to the Panguitch Invitational, participants must qualify for their high school state meet. The rodeo drew cowboys and cowgirls from the Western United States. As if to underscore the importance of the rodeo, the winners received saddles instead of the traditional belt buckle for winning their event.
“It's my first saddle I've won in competition,” Hone said. “It's the first one anyone in family was won. It was very cool.”
Whit Bundy said the saddle was also the first he has won, and he looks forward to riding it in competition for the upcoming school year.
Hone said the members of the Dixie Rodeo Club are close, and she said it was exciting to see how well they did at the competition.
“It's cool that Dixie swept out the place,” she said.
In the breakaway roping competition, riders have their rope tied to their saddle. When they rope the calf they are chasing, the rope becomes detached from their saddle, and that's when the clock stops.
Hone, who also does team roping, said she prefers the breakaway competition.
Hone, who will be a senior, said she rides her horses every day, but she practices her roping twice a week.
For Trumbull Bundy, the rodeo was his last in high school, and he was glad to go out on top.
“It felt pretty good to win,” he said. “It's fun to work for something and then get it at the last rodeo.”
The win in Panguitch isn't the only success Bundy has experienced. Bundy also qualified for the national high school rodeo as a sophomore and junior in the steer wrestling competition, which is his favorite event. Trumbull Bundy also participates in calf roping.
Trumbull Bundy has been into the rodeo for as long as he can remember, and he calls it a “Bundy family tradition.” An idea that Whit Bundy backs up.
“My family always was really big into rodeo,” he said. “My dad, my uncles, my cousins – they all rodeoed.”
Whit Bundy also plays football for Dixie High School, and he said rodeo and football are similar in that they test his physical abilities.
Trumbull and Whit Bundy have been partners in the team roping during their high school years, and their win in Panguitch was especially meaningful to them.
“We haven't won a lot, and that was probably our last time roping together,” Whit Bundy said. “That we won made it seem really cool.”
Whit Bundy also participates in the bulldog event in the rode – in which two people ride on a horse and one jumps off to wrestle a steer to the ground.
The competitors all say they enjoy being a part of the high school rodeo scene.
“I like the fact that we get to meet people from all over the state,” Trumbull Bundy said.
He added that rodeo differs from other high school sports because competitors get to know and befriend their opponents.
Whit Bundy said he liked the aspect of meeting people at each rodeo event, adding he also likes traveling to new places. Hone also enjoys the friendliness of the high school rodeos.
“I like how everybody gets along,” she said. “We have fun at the competitions. It's a good environment to be in.”

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