Written by: Siri Stevens

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Adam Wrenn is all about riding bulls. The fourteen year old cowboy, who lives on the outskirts of Belle Plaine, Kan., started riding sheep when he was five, and liked it right away. He graduated to calves, steers, and last year made the jump to bulls.

He is in his first year of competition in the Kansas Junior High Rodeo Association, but it’s not his first association. Last year, he was an Oklahoma Junior High School Rodeo member, and has also been a member of the Northwest Oklahoma Junior Rodeo Association, Out West Junior Bull Riders, the National Junior Bull Riding Association, the Heartland Youth Rodeo Association, the Kansas Junior Bull Riding Association, and the Oklahoma Kansas Youth Rodeo Association.

He is an eighth grade student at Belle Plaine Middle School, where he enjoys math class, which is his best subject. Social studies isn’t his favorite, however. His favorite teacher was his kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Kinsley in Mooreland, Oklahoma. Adam started school in Mooreland and moved to Belle Plaine in second grade.

He plays football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and runs track, and enjoys them all, but football is his favorite. He plays any position, wherever his coach needs him, and looks forward to playing for the Belle Plaine Dragons next year. He loves following the Oklahoma State football team and the Baltimore Ravens.

Adam’s favorite bull riding role models are Lane Frost and J.B. Mauney. When he grows up, he hopes to pay for his college education with a bull riding scholarship, and possibly get a job involved with college sports.

In his rodeo career, he has sprained his thumb, his right ankle, broken his nose, and got his head stepped on. The head injury was the worst one: he was riding a calf in 2007 in Shawnee, Okla., wearing a cowboy hat, when he got bucked off and the bull stepped on his head. He laid in the arena motionless, and after that, his parents insisted that he wear a helmet.

Adam’s dad rode bulls in the pasture, but never competed, and neither did his mom. His older brothers, Chris and Jonathan, became interested
in it when they overheard their dad visiting with a friend about riding. It spurred the older brothers to ride, and Adam became interested. “It made me want to do it, and I liked it from there.” The brothers don’t ride anymore, but Adam does.

In addition to Chris, age 21 and Jonathan, age nineteen, he has another brother, Scott, who is seventeen. He also has a younger sister, Lorraine, who is four.