Going places

Megan Williams hopes to make it to the National Finals Rodeo — and there’s a whole network of cowboys and cowgirls to help her get there.

But, the 18-year-old Daingerfield, Texas, woman may just not know them yet.

The rodeo culture follows her, as well as other contestants and their families, wherever they go. Many agree it’s a supportive network of people involved in rodeo who share interests, favors and supplies with one another while traveling across the country or the world for shows.

“You can meet new people,” Williams, who’s been in rodeos since age 9, said. “You get to go everywhere.”

The 75th SandHills Stock Show and Rodeo kicked off Friday evening at the Coliseum, and many contestants like Williams filled the grounds prior to the first rodeo performance.

Williams arrived Friday afternoon on the Coliseum grounds with her parents, Gerald and Paula Williams, hauling a 35-foot-long trailer housing a medium-size living space and their horses.

Megan Williams plans to compete in a ladies barrel racing event, and Paula Williams said she and her husband want to see their daughter succeed.

“That’s our main deal right now — letting her do this,” Paula Williams said.

The rodeo culture, or lifestyle, can be found on the Ector County Coliseum grounds or any rodeo in the United States or the world.

Brody Bolton, 23, a former Odessa College rodeo student, grew up with ranches and rodeos in his family. His family has owned Ratliff Ranch between Odessa and Gardendale since 1902.

He’s seen the culture first hand and said the rodeo lifestyle has a culture all its own where some bull riders may have never ridden a horse before and people are open to new friendships.

“You never really meet a stranger,” he said. “You’re already connected through what you do.”

Even though everyone competes against each other, he said, everyone roots for each other in events.

“Everybody’s the same as far as their attitude,” Bolton, a professional saddle bronc rider, said.

Brandi Clements, 28, the 1997 SandHills Rodeo Queen, said many consider the rodeo lifestyle to be an extended network of people.

“Even though you aren’t blood-related, everybody is a close-knit family,” she said.

While in high school in Crane or in college, Clements and her brother, Ben, brought friends home when a rodeo came through Odessa, and people they knew planned to compete in events.

Brandi’s mom, Melinda Clements, 57, said she remembers having up to 15 young people sleeping on her couch, her living room floor and on her guest beds — not to mention about five trailers hooked up to outlets in front of her house — at one point.

Melinda Clements said that’s just one example of how the rodeo lifestyle takes its shape.

“If I went anywhere, they would open their door to me. It’s just what you do. It’s a neat family of athletes who participate in rodeo,” Melinda Clements, an English and multimedia teacher at Crane High, said.

In 1996, as a junior in high school, Brandi Clements said her quarter horse, Captain, suffered a fatal brain aneurysm about a month before she was to compete with him in the Texas High School Rodeo Finals in Abilene.

But many people, including some she didn’t know well, offered her their own horses to use for her competition.

“They fill in wherever you need them,” she said. “It’s like having a whole bunch of big brothers and big sisters.”

D.J. Domangue, 25, of Houma, La., a professional bull rider and former OC rodeo student from 2002-’04, said that’s the amazing part of rodeoing.

Even without the animals and the competitive aspect of the sport, the close network of people makes the rodeos what they are.

“Respect others, and others will respect you,” Domangue, who started bull riding 12 years ago, said. “That’s kind of what the rodeoing mentality is.”

But even with all the generosity, contestants’ paychecks aren’t guaranteed, bull rider Myron Duarte said. The 39-year-old Auburn, Wash., man was on the Coliseum grounds Friday, brushing the tail of Mouse, a 7-year-old horse of his sponsor Rodeo Maui.

But, it’s nice to know people can rely on others if they need something. And, rodeo contestants get to make their own schedules, he said.

“I don’t really have a boss telling me I have to go to work today,” Duarte said.