About: Ted

Cinch saddle bronc rider makes time to spend with his family in Texas On Easter Sunday as Cooper and Cheyenne Casper were hunting eggs, their dad was 1,600 miles away from home handling his business. He certainly wanted to celebrate the holiday with his family, but Cinch saddle bronc rider Wyatt Casper had a wild horse to ride at the Red Bluff (California) Round-Up. He had placed his association saddle on a big, black Calgary Stampede horse named Yo Yo Marble and turned his attention to the powerful Canadian bucking machine. Once he nodded his head, Casper matched every jump and kick from the animal with a classic spur ride. The result was 88 points, enough to win the ProRodeo Hall of Fame event and add big bucks to his bank account. He may have missed hunting eggs and or going to church, but he better provided for his family and gave Casper a chance to not have to miss more family time in the months ahead. “I feel like family time at home is pretty important,” said Casper, 25, of Miami, Texas. “Just take Red Bluff and Clovis (California): I was at Red Bluff on (April) 17th, and I ended up flying home so I could help (wife) Lesley at a barrel race and flew back to Clovis to ride on the 22nd. “That’s a pretty good example of what I do to make sure I get home.” As of April 25, he had pocketed $61,000 and was fifth in the world standings. That offered a bit of cushion for the cowboy, who was raised in the tiny Oklahoma Panhandle community of Balko before moving an hour or so south into Texas. He’s earned National Finals Rodeo qualifications each of the past two seasons and has proven his place among ProRodeo’s elite. He knows being away from his wife and kids is just part of the job, but he doesn’t mind extending himself to make sure all the Caspers are together when possible. “This year’s been really good; I’m pretty tickled with it,” he said. “I feel like I’m starting to figure out a little bit on how to rodeo and when to rodeo. I’m trying not to rodeo my butt off right now. I want to take it easy and be at home with my family and maybe take a different route on rodeoing this year. “I’m usually pretty high on my rodeo count when I get toward the end of the year, so maybe I’ll skip some rodeos I normally go to and spend that time at home.” It’s definitely a give-and-take. He doesn’t want to miss out on opportunities in rodeo, yet he doesn’t want to miss out on watching his children grow. FaceTime is amazing, and technology allows for more visual contact, but it can’t beat a hug or tucking the little ones in at night. “I wouldn’t say I miss a whole lot of stuff with the kids yet,” Casper said. “I feel like when they get into sports and school, I might miss some pretty important stuff. This is a subject my wife and I talk about a lot. When the day comes that I feel comfortable enough pushing back on the bronc riding for me to do something here at the house, I’m probably going to do that. “I had a pretty good upbringing with my parents being at all my sports events, so I want to teach my kids how to play football and rope and be able to go to all their junior rodeos.” It was a sense of family that drew John and Amy Casper to the Panhandle region in the first place. Originally from Minnesota, they moved to Balko two decades ago to help set up Wyatt and his brothers, Ty and Clay. Family friend Ralph Taton was living in Beaver, Oklahoma, and he suggested the family move south if they wanted the boys to have a future in rodeo. It worked out pretty well. Wyatt was 4 years old when the family made its way to the Sooner State, and that’s pretty much all he’s known. Too young to remember much about his first few years, he’s content to have grown up in warmer temperatures. When he was set to graduate high school, Casper found Clarendon (Texas) College. “I was pretty late on looking at colleges, and Clarendon was the first one I looked at,” he said. “Cody Heck was the coach at the time. They sold me on the indoor practice facility and the welding program. I was really glad to be able to go there. Bret (Franks) took over coaching my second year, and he had been a really good assistant coach for my first year.” Franks is a three-time NFR qualifier in saddle bronc riding, so that mentorship remains valuable. “It was a great time for me,” Casper said. “It was exactly where I needed to be.” He proved that in June 2016, when he became the first Clarendon cowboy to win the national championship, doing so during the bronc riding at the College National Finals Rodeo. He was followed by bronc rider Riggin Smith in 2019 and bareback rider and all-around champion Cole Franks in 2021; last year’s team also won the men’s title, the first in school history. “It’s pretty cool what they’ve accomplished since I’ve been there,” Casper said. In 2020, Casper set his family up for success by winning The American, collecting $603,000 in the process. While only $50,000 counted toward the PRCA world standings, it propelled him to his first NFR, where he finished second in the world standings. That financial windfall allows him the opportunity to travel home a bit more than others, but he’s doing pretty well fiscally riding broncs year after year. Over the last two and a half seasons, Casper has earned nearly $1.1 million riding bucking horses. When he’s not doing that, there are plenty of things to do around his family’s home.  Continue Reading »

ALVA, Okla. – Tucker Huffman will graduate from Northwestern Oklahoma State University this coming Saturday, but he’s already received a pretty nice present. Actually, he gifted it to himself this past weekend. Huffman, a senior from Mutual, Oklahoma, posted the fastest tie-down roping run of the Doc Gardner Memorial Rodeo presented by Oklahoma Panhandle State University at Hitch Arena in Guymon, Oklahoma. He roped and tied his calf in 9.2 seconds to win the championship round Saturday afternoon and move up to second place in the aggregate with a two-run cumulative time of 20.7 seconds. “It was a good feeling to know I went out on a high note and competed how you want to,” Huffman said. “I really wanted to make the college finals this last year, but I needed to have that kind of rodeo all year instead of just the last one if I was going to do that.” That’s just part of it. The Central Plains Region is tough in all events, which makes it so difficult to win on a consistent level. Of all the events, Northwestern had just one contestant, steer wrestler Kaden Greenfield of Lakeview, Oregon, come away with a regional title. He finished second in the long round but was unable to compete in the short round; he was part of the Rookie Roundup, which conducted its final go-round at the same time Saturday as the last performance in Guymon. Greenfield won the championship at the rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas, and his first-round run in the Oklahoma Panhandle helped him clinch the regional title. “Our region is super tough across the board,” Huffman said. “There are so many guys that can compete that you can’t slack off any if you want to be at the top.” While the season was disappointing, the Oklahoma cowboy didn’t let that bother him when it came time to nod his head in the large, outdoor arena. All tie-down ropers ran fresh calves in the first round, meaning the cattle had never been through a rodeo pen and chute system before they were released into competition. The better calves were used in the final go-round. “When we got down to the final round, I was just going for it all,” he said. “It was the last one, so you might as well. I didn’t have anything to lose. Stockton and I were talking right before my short-round calf, and I was the first guy out. I told Stockton, ‘I’ll just run him like he’s fresh again,’ and it seemed to work out.” Two other Rangers tie-down ropers joined Huffman in the championship round: Kade Chace of Cherokee, Oklahoma, finished fourth in the first round with a 10.1 second run, and Kerry Duvall of Farmington, California, was fifth in 10.4. Chace was unable to secure a catch in the short round, but Duvall stopped the clock in 11.5 seconds to finish fifth again; his two-run aggregate of 21.9 was good enough for third overall. The team ropers were led by header Stran Morris of Woodward, Oklahoma, who won the first round, finished third in the final round and second overall while roping with Jordan Lovins of Western Oklahoma State College. The Northwestern teams of Jaden Trimble of Coffeyville, Kansas, and Brandon Hittle of Topeka, Kansas, placed in the short round and finished in a tie for fourth, while T.W. Carson of Gate, Oklahoma, and Cole Koppitz of Alva finished third in the opening round. With that, the 10-event Central Plains Region season is over. It is the first time in two years that the Rangers were able to compete in all 10 rodeos; the 2020 season was canceled because of the pandemic, and the 2021 campaign had at least one cancelation. That gave the Northwestern cowboys and cowgirls more opportunities, and that’s all they had asked for. “I decided to come to Northwestern because of the atmosphere,” Huffman said. “I had a lot of friends that went to school there that said they really liked it. I get to rope all the time. Where I live, there are probably seven arenas within five miles of my place. “Everybody’s really friendly and lets you rope, and everybody’s always helping each other to get better.” After graduation, he will return home to Mutual to handle his business as a cattleman. He’ll rodeo some through the summer, then plans to try his hand at PRCA rodeos starting in the 2023 season. He realizes that he has something special in Thomasita, a 12-year-old mare that helped him find success in Guymon. “She’s the best horse I’ve ever swung a leg over,” Huffman said. “This is the second year I’ve been riding her, and she’s a big part of any success I get. She’s a bit jittery in the box, but she’s always on go and always stops hard and puts me in position I need to be in. “If you don’t have a good horse, you can’t make a good run in calf roping.”

A lifetime of struggles has placed bull rider in position for greatness When Laramie Mosley suffered a fractured neck last September and was forced to miss the rest of his promising season, it would have been easy for any competitor to get down in the dumps. Mosley has been through worse, so his frustration didn’t last as long as it may have for other men. He knows what it means to be bounced around a bit. He knows what it means to have suffered great loss. Missing out on his first qualification to the National Finals Rodeo sucked, but he didn’t sulk for long. He used it as motivation. “It emotionally wrecked me for a long time,” said Mosley, who finished the year 18th in the world standings while on injured reserve. “I didn’t know if I was going to be able to overcome that. After three months into it, I figured I could sit back and sulk and quit, or I could do what I’ve done the rest of my life and get out of the mud and come back firing.” If he was going to take time away from the game he loved, he was going to figure out a way to make things better. It’s the way he’s handled things his whole life, and he’s dealt with a lot for a 26-year-old man. Born in Corsicana, Texas, he never really knew that as his home. He was 6 months old when his parents took a job managing a feedlot in Walsh, a community on the Plains in eastern Colorado. They moved to Saint Francis, Kansas, for a few years, then back to Walsh, all while in the feed-yard business, a prospering operation in cattle country. His folks divorced when he was 12, and his mother died two years later. He moved in with his father some and lived with other families until his aunt, Trish Parrish, moved him to Sublette in southwest Kansas. He finished out his last three years of high school and found a true kinship with a man named Larry Phillips, who also served as a mentor. Growing up near the pasturelands and wheat fields of western Kansas and eastern Colorado provided the nutrients for growth, just a bit different than many. He learned about life and sports and found a passion for riding bulls, and he had people like Parrish and Phillips who helped develop a passion for good. “My mom and real dad … they always worked hard, but when I got with Larry, it was a whole new level of work,” said Mosley, 26, a Cinch endorsee now living in Palestine, Texas. “I learned how to work cows and ride a horse good. I always had work wherever I wanted to go. Now, if I need something or want something, I’m not scared to ask somebody if they want help. I managed a feed yard for Larry Phillips, so I actually know what it takes to do all that. I’m not afraid to work, and I got that by how I grew up.” He graduated from Sublette High School in 2014, then found his way to the rodeo teams at Pratt (Kansas) Community College and Oklahoma Panhandle State University. Two years after wearing the cap and gown in Sublette, his father died. Just out of his teens, he had been through more than most people experience in a lifetime. It didn’t define Laramie Mosley, but it did help him figure out who the man was that he wants to be. “I feel like it was more motivation than anything,” he said. “I knew right at the point when I was in high school that I grew up a little bit. I could dwell on the past and my life, or I could let it be motivation. “Maybe somebody would want to be like me, and I could be an example. If I can go from losing both my parents and still be successful and being a role model to somebody, then I’m going to do it. I could have gone the other way. I could be a drunk or on drugs or in jail, but I didn’t want that, and I didn’t want there to be any sort of doubt that I was going to be better than that.” Fast forward to September 2021. He was ninth in the PRCA’s bull riding world standings and was hoping to close out his season with his first NFR qualification. He was bucked off in Lewiston, Idaho and suffered a spinal fracture in three cervical vertebrae. Doctors fused his C5-C7 – his C6 was crushed. The truth is he was fortunate it wasn’t worse. He didn’t return to action until the first of March, and while he struggled at first, he was able to continue to push through. Over the first weekend in April, he scored 90 points, which held on for the first-round victory at the San Angelo Stock Show and Rodeo. He finished second overall and pocketed more than $13,000. “Going into San Angelo, it had been pretty rough,” Mosley said. “I had just been getting beat up. I had a bull that everybody was talking about how tough he was, how he hadn’t been ridden. I thought if it didn’t work out here, I might have to find something else to do. “I’m not one to give up, but it was rough. Then I was 90 on that bull, and I felt like I could do this. Financially it was a blessing. I dang sure needed it for the world standings and my bank account. I had a different feeling that day.” He found renewed confidence, and he hopes to build upon it. “There’s no better feeling when you’re in time with one of those rank bulls,” he said. “It’s pretty much effortless.” Laramie Mosley knows how to ride the rank ones. He’s scored at least 90 points several times in his life, including last May when he won the  Continue Reading »

Milligan returns to top form in a Big Time way with new horsepower There were points in the 2021 ProRodeo season that Cinch endorsee Tyler Milligan was just miserable. After two straight National Finals Rodeo qualifications in 2019-20, good fortune seemed to be avoiding the handy tie-down roper. Some of it was mental, he admitted; some of it was just circumstantial. There are tremendous challenges that come while competing among the very best in the game. “Last year was definitely one of the lowest of my roping career,” said Milligan, 25, from the rugged ranching community of Pawhuska in the Oklahoma Osage country. “I didn’t have a horse. I was mounting out (on others’ horses). I didn’t have any confidence. I just struggled.” There were several things that played into it, but one held the most significance. In November 2020, just as he was preparing to compete at his second straight NFR, his horse, Big Time, died after a bout with colic. Milligan was a bit lost. Big Time was the two-time PRCA Tie-Down Roping Horse of the Year and had guided Milligan to the 2017 Resistol Rookie of the Year award. He also placed the roper – now living in Stephenville, Texas – in solid positioning for three straight years. In addition to his two NFRs, Milligan just missed the championship in 2018, finishing 18th on the money list; only the top 15 on the money list at the end of the regular season advance to Las Vegas. While Big Time helped Milligan to two go-round wins in 2019, the standout sorrel gelding wasn’t around for his run at the 2020 NFR at its one-time home in Arlington, Texas. Milligan still placed in three go-rounds and finished in the money in the 10-run aggregate race, but it wasn’t the same. He knew things needed to change, but he wasn’t sure how to make it happen. He’d been looking for the right fit in a partner that could deliver the goods and finally found one in Tequila, another red rocket he acquired in mid-March. “I got a new horse, and that’s been the difference,” Milligan said. “He fits me. He is the closest fit since Big Time. I got him during Austin (Texas). I actually just got him. I tried him, then rode him and won the first round in Austin on him, so I bought him and took him to Houston.” It was a Texas three-step for Mulligan and Tequila, which he bought from fellow tie-down roper Ryan Thibodeaux. From that time forward, the two collected nearly $4,000 in Austin, finished second at RodeoHouston ($27,750) and shared the win in San Angelo ($17,364). As of April 25, Milligan had defined his own rags-to-richest story, moving from 46th on the money list at the end of the 2021 to fourth in the world standings this season. In just a few months, he has more than doubled his income from a year ago and still has five months remaining in the 2020 regular season. “Just getting a horse that I could trust and get along with changed everything,” he said of Tequila, a 17-year-old sorrel gelding. “The biggest thing is mainly the confidence of having one I know I get along with. That helps your confidence a whole bunch. “He’s probably got a couple more years in him. I’ve got to ride him at the right places. I’m always looking for horses. You’ve got to be mounted to beat these guys, because everybody ropes so good.” Being well-mounted is something Milligan has known about since he was a youngster. He was raised on a ranch between Pawhuska and Bartlesville – basically, he was primarily north of Tulsa, the state’s second-largest city – and definitely among the rangelands in the Osage Nation. Homeschooled on the ranch, he helped around the place doing whatever needed to be done. “It was 20 miles to town on dirt roads, so we didn’t go to town a whole lot,” he said. “Living out there, I liked to rope, and my parents helped me out; they definitely did really good by me. If I put the work in practicing, they would take me to every junior rodeo. We went through junior rodeoing and kept on going.” While his dad handled things round the ranch and kept an eye on his talented son, Steve Milligan had never really competed in rodeo. Mom, Tammy, didn’t either, though she enjoys riding horses and even making runs on a barrel racing pattern. Tyler is the first of his family to do so. His mom – a dermatologist – was the hardest on him, he said, and even got him out of his comfort zone while competing in rodeo as a youngster. “My mom made me tie goats all the time,” Milligan said, still sounding a bit embarrassed by it. “Looking back on it, I’m fortunate because it taught me some things I still use now, but I hated doing it when I was a kid.” He still has his folks, who are now divorced, but he doesn’t see either of them as much now that he’s living in Texas. Tammy is the type that prays for her son, while Steve will be the one who would drop what he’s doing to help Tyler if the occasion were to come up. Milligan also has a family on the road, as rodeo cowboys do, in traveling partner Hunter Herrin, an 11-time NFR qualifier. “Hunter knows what’s going on and helps in so many different ways,” Milligan said. “I always try to go with somebody who knows more than I do. When I first went out on the road, I went with Trent Creager, Caddo Lewallen and Timber Moore. I’m still trying to figure out what to do. “I try to learn as much as I can, because before long I’m going to have to do it myself.” As with every man who has saddled a horse for competition, he has gold buckle  Continue Reading »

DUNCAN, Okla. –In this part of southern Oklahoma, the sport of rodeo is more than a past time and a night out with family and friends. It’s a lifestyle for many in Stephens County, and nobody needs to look any further than the community of Comanche, just nine miles down the road from the Stephens County Expo Center in Duncan, which will be home to the Duncan Pro Rodeo presented by the Chisholm Trail Casino. Just over the last couple of decades, Comanche has produced four National Finals Rodeo qualifiers, two of whom have earned world championships in that time: Janae Ward Massey, the 2003 barrel racing titlist, and Ryan Jarrett, the 2005 all-around winner. Others who have played on the sports biggest stage in recent years were Colt Gordon and Kylie Ward Weast, one of the champ’s little sisters. It’s that kind of passion that brings some of the best in rodeo back to southern Oklahoma to compete at the Duncan Pro Rodeo, which takes place at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 6-Saturday, May 7. Tickets can be purchased at Crutcher’s Western Wear in Duncan or online at McCoyRodeo.com. McCoy Rodeo has also added a specialized third performance with the Duncan WRCA Ranch Rodeo, set for 5 p.m. Thursday, May 5. It will feature 10 teams and serve as a qualifying event for the Working Ranch Cowboys Association & Foundation’s Finals. “I grew up rodeoing with a lot of people from around Duncan, so I know how much rodeo means to the people there,” said Cord McCoy, who operates the Oklahoma-based livestock production firm McCoy Rodeo with his wife, Sara, and Joe Waln, a third-generation stock contractor. “Back when I was rodeoing, I made sure to enter the Duncan rodeo every year I could. “Competing at that rodeo was a big deal to me, and we are working to make it a big deal again.” After years away, McCoy brought the PRCA-sanctioned rodeo back a year ago, and he’s excited to return. He understands what people in Stephens County think about when it comes to rodeo and the Western lifestyle. Take the Ward sisters, Massey and Weast. They are part of the third generation of NFR qualifiers: grandmother Florence Youree; great aunt Sherry Johnson; and mother Renee Ward. Jarrett is a 14-time NFR qualifier, earning most of his trips to the big show in tie-down roping. Gordon earned his first bid to Las Vegas as a saddle bronc rider in 2019. He finished outside the top 15 each of the past two years, but things can change mighty fast in ProRodeo. Take Cody Ballard of Tumut, South Wales, Australia, who dominated saddle bronc riding in Duncan a year ago and rode the wave to the Prairie Circuit year-end and average titles, which he clinched during the regional finals last October at the Stephens County Expo Center. While bareback rider Mark Kreder of Collinsville, Oklahoma, didn’t win the circuit, the money he won in Duncan last May helped propel him to another qualification to the Chisholm Trail Ram Prairie Circuit Finals Rodeo. He finished fourth in the average and third in the final circuit standings. “Last year when I saw that Cord had these rodeos, I knew I wanted to be part of it,” Kreder said. “It was a great rodeo. The production was great, and the horses bucked great.” That’s just what rodeo cowboys and fans will realize quickly when the Duncan Pro Rodeo returns to town.