by Ruth Nicolaus
Shadrach Feild comes from a rodeo family, and he married into one as well. Feild, a member of the Rocky Mountain Pro Rodeo Association, is the elder son of the five-time world champion bareback riding cowboy Lewis Feild.
Shad, who lives in Roosevelt, Utah, team ropes as a heeler for Kaden Richard. He used to ride saddle broncs in high school, as well as team rope, but focused solely on the team roping in college and beyond. “That (roughstock) gene skipped me,” he joked. “I did OK (riding saddle broncs) but I knew up front I wasn’t going to make a career out of it, so I started focusing a lot more on team roping.”
After graduating from high school, he went to college at Utah Valley University, where he won the Rocky Mountain Region in the National Inter-Collegiate Rodeo Association, as a header, in 2001.
Shad spent a semester in college, then went on a two-year mission for the LDS Church. His time on the rodeo road is limited because he is the owner of an oil field service company, which provides a variety of maintenance services to the oilfield: clean-ups, maintenance of pipelines and gas separators, tank cleanouts, and more. “We’re the housekeepers of the oilfield, you could say.” In the winter, the business slows down to about six employees. In the summer, Shad has up to as many as fifteen workers.
He married into a timed event family twelve years ago when he and Jazyln Richard tied the knot. Jazyln’s brother is Rhen Richard, a PRCA team roper. Rhen is the brother of Shad’s partner, Kaden, and when Rhen is home, Shad ropes with him and his partners, which have included world champion Jeremy Buhler two years ago and eight-time world champ Rich Skelton.
For fun, he and his family like to hunt, fish, snowmobile, and camp. He and Jazlyn have three boys (Daxtyn, age ten, Bronx, age six, and Mavryx, who is four) and twin daughters, who are three months old. The girls are named Poppy Lew and Goldie True. Poppy Lew is named after her grandpa, and the grandkids called her Lewie. Lewie passed away last year, and “it’s been a hard adjustment,” Shad said.
The family loves to spend time outdoors, and working with their cattle herd, which includes 600 cows.
In addition to the RMPRA, he competes in the World Series of Team Roping, the USTRC, and the PRCA.
