Monthly Archives: March 2026

Frontier Rodeo’s Gun Fire has been recognized as one of the best bucking horses in rodeo. The mare was named the 2022 PRCA Bareback Horse of the Year and helped cowboys to the Guymon Pioneer Days Rodeo title three years in a row through 2024. Gun Fire is one of many elite animals from Frontier, the 11-time Stock Contractor of the Year.   GUYMON, Okla. – When Frontier Rodeo was established 35 years ago, it was simply an idea. It’s become an award-winning reality. For 11 straight years, it has been honored as the PRCA’s Stock Contractor of the Year. Other accolades have graced the company, too. From Big Bucks being named the PBR’s Bull of the Year in 2005 to Gun Fire’s Bareback Horse of the Year title in 2022, Frontier has had five animals win nine year-end achievements. That excellence will be on display at Guymon Pioneer Days Rodeo, set for 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 1; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 2; and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 3, at Henry C. Hitch Pioneer Arena. “They understand the game,” said saddle bronc rider Weston Patterson, a 2025 National Finals Rodeo qualifier from Waverly, Kansas. “They know the difference in good-quality stock and common-quality stock, and I think that’s why everybody goes to all their rodeos. You know you’re going to have a chance to get on good bucking horses and be around a great group of guys. “They’re not just good guys; they’re good cowboys. They’re just all-around good people, and they’re the type of contractor that will take care of you.” The company’s origins may be in southeast Texas, but its foundation is in the Plains. Nelson found northwest Oklahoma to his liking and purchased his first plot of land in 1997. The firm is spread over 10,000 acres near Freedom, Oklahoma. That’s where Medicine Woman was born in 2003. As she grew, she developed into one of the greatest bucking horses ever. Medicine Woman was the Saddle Bronc of the Year in 2011, ’14, ’15, ’16 and was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2022, a year and a half after she was retired from bucking and just a few months after her death. In 2015, NFR veteran Issac Diaz won two rodeos on the mare, in Corpus Christi, Texas, and Dodge City, Kansas. He realized then the importance of having a horse of her caliber. “Just to be able to draw a horse like that twice in a year is amazing,” Diaz said then. That’s a fairly common theme for cowboys who are matched with Frontier animals. That’s why Maple Leaf was the top bronc in 2013 and why Full Baggage was the Bareback Riding Horse of the Year in 2011 and ’13. “Frontier is a powerhouse when it comes to stock contracting,” said Wyatt Casper, a five-time NFR qualifier who grew up in the Oklahoma Panhandle community of Balko. “Their horses are great, and they’re not content with where they’re at. They’re working at it every day to get better. Their genetics go back far enough that they’re breeding good stock. “That’s a really good crew to be around, and they know what good horses are.” So do the thousands of fans who pack into Hitch Arena in Guymon every May. Casper felt that on Gossip Girl, a horse then owned by Kirsten Vold Rodeo. Casper scored 88.5 points on the strong bay to win the 2025 Pioneer Days Rodeo title. “I knew I had a pretty good chance to win,” Casper said last year. “Gossip Girl has been good. I was coming up here pretty confident that we had a pretty good horse.” Frontier Rodeo acquired Vold and renamed the company Double J. With that, the Frontier team added more power to its already proven herd of \bucking animals, 17 of which were selected to perform at the NFR in December. “That’s going to be a great deal for Frontier,” Casper said. “Kirsten did a great job with that program, and with them being able to add those genetics to the herd. It’s going to be nothing but positive. I’m excited to see where they take it.” In addition to Pioneer Days, the Frontier team produces many of the top events in ProRodeo, like Cody (Wyoming) Stampede; Spanish Fork (Utah) Fiesta Days; Dodge City Roundup; Buc Days in Corpus Christi, Texas; and The American. On top of that, there are several smaller events that are part of the Frontier resume. “I think that Vold card is going to affect them greatly,” Patterson said. “I think at the smaller rodeos they have in the Prairie Circuit, they’re going to see more guys just knowing they have a good chance of getting on quality stock. I think that’s going to be a big deal on what Frontier Rodeo has to come in the near future.” Pioneer Days Rodeo is known for high scores, fast times and high-energy entertainment, and much of that is thanks to its association with another Oklahoma icon, Frontier Rodeo.

Northwestern Oklahoma State University junior Sam Daly earned his first intercollegiate title this past weekend, picking up the steer wrestling championship in Garden City, Kansas. (PHOTO BY DALE HIRSCHMAN)   ALVA, Okla. – In the Nebraska Sandhills, Sam Daly is one of about 400 people who live in McPherson County. It’s sparse, inhabited mostly with prairie grasses and livestock. It’s cattle country in the Cornhusker State, and it’s home for Northwestern Oklahoma State University steer wrestler Sam Daly. It’s where he learned what it takes to be a cowboy, and he’s putting it to use for the Rangers. Daly shared the first-round victory, then posted a 3.8-second for the fastest of the rodeo to win the championship round and the aggregate title this past weekend at the Garden City (Kansas) Community College rodeo. It was his first intercollegiate victory. “It’s cool, because it’s something I ain’t done before,” said Daly, a junior transfer from Tryon, Nebraska. “It was fun going out there and being able to be fast on two (steers) and win it. “I drew two good steers and blew the barrier out twice.” Getting a good start is imperative in the timed events, where contestants begin behind a barrier rope that allows the cattle to get the appropriate head start. With teammate Hazen Sparks of Talihina, Oklahoma, serving as the hazer, Daly capitalized on horsemanship and teamwork to grab the title and wrap enough points to move into fifth place in the Central Plains Region. The goal for all contestants is to finish among the top three in the standings at the close of the regular season in order to qualify for the College National Finals Rodeo, which takes place in June at Casper, Wyoming. Northwestern holds down four of the top five positions in the points race. “Alva’s not very far of a move from where I was,” said Daly, who transferred from Pratt (Kansas) Community College. “I knew Emmett (Edler) was going to be the assistant coach, and we knew each other from high school. I just thought it would be a good place to go where I’d be able to bulldog a bunch and hopefully get better.” It seems to be working, but so is his horse, Rogue, an 11-year-old gelding. The sorrel was just one of the keys to Daly’s success in western Kansas. “There are a lot of good guys in our region,” he said. “There were a lot of good steers this weekend, and it just came down to scoring and horsepower.” Daly was one of nine Rangers in Sunday’s short round. Three other steer wrestlers were in that crew, including Tydon Tsosie of Crownpoint, New Mexico, who placed in both rounds and finished third. Sparks placed third in the opening round before being saddled with a no-time, and Riley Smith of Poteau, Oklahoma, was 6.5 seconds in the long round to advance among the top 12 in the championship field. Heeler Colter Snook of Ford, Kansas – the No. 3 man in the regionals standings – secured the team roping victory while competing with Dexton Hoelting of Western Oklahoma State College. The tandem placed fourth in the first round, then tied for the short-round win to take the top spot in the two-run average. Tie-down roper Carter Anderson of Merriman, Nebraska, placed sixth in the first round. The Rangers women were led by goat-tier Payton Dingman, who stopped the clock in 6.6 seconds to share the first-round victory. She was 6.3 in the finale and placed second overall. With the 155 points she gained, the Pryor, Oklahoma, sophomore moved into the Central Plains lead. Breakaway ropers  Saddie Hammond of Avondale, Colorado, and Savannah Greenfield of Lakeview, Oregon, were 2.9 seconds each and finished in a six-way tie for fifth place in the opening round. The Northwestern men and women have just three events remaining in the season to accrue the points necessary to compete at the college finals. For Daly, that means taking a clichéd approach to competition, focusing on each run as it comes. “I’m just going to let whatever happens happen,” he said. “All the steers are going to be really good at these next couple of rodeos. It’s just going to come down to going out there, getting your hands on the steer and making the run happen.” It’s a process that worked in Garden City, so he may as well let it roll.

Northwestern Oklahoma State University steer wrestler Nathan Duvall went from worst to first during Sunday’s championship round at the Fort Scott (Kansas) Community College rodeo. Duvall, shown in this image from last fall in Stillwater, Oklahoma, was atop the race but was followed by teammates Tydon Tsosie and Emmett Edler. (PHOTO BY EMILY VILLEIUX)   ALVA, Okla. – On paper, Nathan Duvall didn’t think he had much of a chance. It might be a good thing his skin is thicker than that. He stopped the clock in 3.8 seconds during Sunday’s championship round of the Fort Scott Community College rodeo to not only win the day but also the steer wrestling title in southeast Kansas. “I thought I was out of it, so I took a start,” said Duvall, a junior at Northwestern Oklahoma State University from Henryetta, Oklahoma. “I drew a steer that they hadn’t done any good on him. I watched video, and he looked like he had a lot of action.” It all went back to the beginning. Steers – and all timed-event cattle – are given a head start. Contestants must begin behind a barrier line that is only tripped when the animal has the correct advantage. If a cowboy or cowgirl leaves too early, the barrier will break resulting in a 10-second penalty. Timing it perfectly means the chest of the horse hits the barrier at the same time it releases. That’s where Duvall was Sunday afternoon. “I was pretty into it,” he said with a laugh. “That steer did have a lot of action.” The combination made for the fastest time of the rodeo. It made up some serious time. Of the 12 bulldoggers in the short go-round, Duvall’s 6.0-second run in the first round was the slowest. By making such a quick second run, he blew past all the others into the top spot. Right behind him, though, were sophomore Tydon Tsosie of Crownpoint, New Mexico, and graduate student Emmett Edler of State Center, Iowa. Tsosie was the runner-up in the opener with a 4.7 and finished third in the final round to place second overall, while Edler’s 4.7-second run in the short run helped him to second in the round and third in the aggregate. “All of us bulldoggers showed out,” Duvall said, pointing out that 16 Northwestern contestants made up 17 positions in the championship round. Proof was in the field. Half the steer wrestlers in the short round were Rangers. Grady Aasby of Highmore, South Dakota, and Sam Daly of Tryon, Nebraska, placed in the first go-round but failed to record times on their second steers. Hazen Sparks of Talihina, Oklahoma, was also in the final round. “We were there to take their money,” Duvall said. “We’ve been having really good practices, and everybody’s been showing up and lifting each other up. That helps out a lot.” Sparks gathered points by winning the first round of tie-down roping. Carter Anderson of Merriman, Nebraska, was fifth in the first round and sixth overall. Team roping heelers Sage Bader of Kim, Colorado, and Colter Snook of Ford, Kansas, placed in the opener. Bader, who roped with Mattox Moyer of Oklahoma State University, won the first round after posting a 6.0-second run. Snook finished sixth with a 7.8-second run roping with Dexton Hoelting of Western Oklahoma State College. Saddle bronc rider Riley Smith of Poteau, Oklahoma, also made the final round for the Rangers. Northwestern was fourth in the men’s team race, while the women’s team finished third overall. Breakaway roper Kinlyn Yadon of Otterkein, Indiana, led the way for the Rangers women; she won the short round with a 2.4-second run and moved up to second in the aggregate. Bleu Hall of Okmulgee, Oklahoma, finished fourth in both rounds and the average. Sarah Pita of Middle Grove, New York, and Y’Leigh Yarbrough of Cheyenne, Oklahoma, joined their teammates in Sunday’s round. Goat-tier Payton Dingman padded her lead in the Central Plains Region standings. Dingman, a sophomore from Pryor, Oklahoma, placed fourth in both go-rounds and finished third overall. Tyra Tsosie of Crownpoint capitalized on two solid runs to finish sixth in both the short round and the aggregate. Like Dingman, Duvall increased his lead in the standings. He entered the competition in Fort Scott as the top dog, then added 120 points to his resume. He has accumulated 610 points and holds a 245-point lead over Edler, the No. 2 man, with four events remaining on the schedule. With each opportunity, Duvall will continue to lean on his primary partner, Turnpike, an 11-year-old palomino gelding that he acquired from his cousin, four-time National Finals Rodeo qualifier Riley Duvall. “I took him to his first rodeo,” Nathan Duvall said. “He taught me a lot from teaching him. We’ve just been made for each other.” The Rangers return to action the final weekend of March, then will have four rodeos in five weeks. A season ago, Duvall placed in the final four rodeos while competing at Connors State College in Warner, Oklahoma, and earned his spot at the College National Finals Rodeo. “My goal is to win the region,” he said. “That’s the reason I came back to college. Last year, I ended up fourth (at the college finals,), so I want to do better than I did last year.” Striving for excellence is a winning formula.

Travis Hamblen carries his family’s legacy with him every day. It’s the foundation for Hamblen Hats, and it’s part of the company’s logo. From loving cowboy hats as a youngster his passion for building and repairing them, his passion continues. (PHOTO BY IN THE WILD WONDER PHOTOGRAPHY)   Hamblen Hats’ Flying H stands for hope, heritage and history AULT, Colo. – It’s the brand that smiles back, but there’s more to the Hamblen Hats logo than meets the eye. “That H stands for hope, heritage and history, and then the Flying H is the hard work part of it,” said Travis Hamblen, the company’s founder and owner. “I get to tell everybody that when I put it on their hats.” The foundation for that mindset is deeply rooted not only in the company but in Hamblen himself. It’s something that was passed on to him from the generations that came before. With the logo, he is honoring his late-grandfather, Sam Hamblen, and his parents, Cliff and Carol Hamblen. “When we first started, I reached out to Matt Charboneau, who has done graphic designs for four generations of us,” Travis Hamblen said. “I told him I wanted to build an iconic logo that doesn’t scream hats, like the Nike swoosh logo, where when somebody sees it, they recognize, ‘Just Do It!’ as a brand.” Charboneau nailed it. So has Hamblen, still holding onto his family birthright and passing it along to his sons, Braxton, 18, and Kason, 16. “I can’t say enough about my Grandpa Sam’s legacy,” Hamblen said. “Part of what got me into hats was Grandpa Sam.” That story goes back to when Hamblen was about the age of his sons. Situations arose, and he opted to drop out of high school. He was working full time and planning to take over the family business, but his grandfather intervened. “Grandpa says, ‘Listen, I dropped out of school at 13 when my dad died, and that was one of the things that I never finished in my life,’ ” Hamblen recalled. “He said, ‘I quit because I had to, and I regret it every day. If you go back to school, I’ll buy you the best hat I can find.’ “He went and bought me a 200X felt hat when I graduated high school. That was my first good hat and where everything started. I realized that hats are my love language.” It’s been a love affair ever since. The passion derived from that moment eventually guided Hamblen to create his hat company. He had been shaping hats since age 13, taking his own and adjusting or fixing them over a tea kettle’s steam. “I realized I really like shaping hats, and I’m good at this,” he said. That’s what happens when there’s affection for what one’s doing. After attending an event in Texas and being around hat-makers and cowboys, he opted to build the brand. Hamblen Hats began in a 24-foot trailer with a showroom in the front and hats in the back. “My grandpa and my family helped me remodel that trailer into a little, mobile showroom,” Hamblen said. “This all started in the fall of 2019 and into the winter of 2020.” It didn’t take long before he opened a “brick-and-mortar” store in Ault, a community of about 3,000 in north-central Colorado. Even though Grandpa Sam wasn’t in the best of health, he made it to his grandson’s opening, despite the fact that the date coincided with a family member’s first birthday. “I didn’t plan things very well, and everybody was at that party,” Hamblen said. “Later on that evening, my grandpa showed up, and I got to introduce everybody to my Grandpa Sam. It was important to me because of the morals and ethics of Grandpa Sam’s story. “I can’t say enough about Grandpa Sam’s legacy.” It’s been a deciding factor into what Travis Hamblen has become and why he takes such pride in his work. Just three months after the grand opening, he left his shop in a rush, trying to get to his grandfather’s side at the hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. “I dropped everything and drove like a banshee,” he said. “I got to hold my grandpa’s hand and pray with him and thank him for everything that he taught me throughout my life. “I got to have the closure that I’d never had before with something like that.” Grandpa Sam’s lessons continue daily. It’s what drives Hamblen to not only create but to innovate. The Flying H on every Hamblen Hat stands for everything he holds dear while also recognizing the legacy that was handed to him by those he has loved the most.