story by Lily Weinacht
Clyde Bolejack and Chase Atkinson are ranked first in the CSHSRA team roping standings with 32 points separating them from second place. The two friends have grown up and backed into the roping box together the last five or six years, and their teamwork spoke for itself when they won state in 2016 and placed seventh in the nation at the NHSFR. “It’s a big-time family oriented deal,” says 16-year-old Clyde, the heeler from Elbert, Colorado. “I’ve always liked rodeo, and I like the people and the friends and the competition. It’s a good atmosphere.”
Along with team roping, Clyde enjoys tie-down roping, which he’ll return to this spring after recovering from shoulder surgery. He dislocated his left shoulder playing basketball and put the surgery off until the 2017 rodeo season finished, though it meant sitting out of basketball and tie-down roping. “The doctor says I’ll be 100% by March, and we have rodeos in the middle of March,” says Clyde. He also competes in the CJRA, entering the mixed team roping with Graycee Lay. “Team roping is my favorite. It’s something that’s always come to me kind of naturally, and it’s always been fun. I look up to my mom and dad and brother, and Dale Atkinson. My dad and brother taught me how to rope. I haul to a lot of rodeos with Dale, and he’s a high-number heeler, so he knows what he’s doing. If we’re on the road and I fall into a slump, he fixes it. Chase and his family are like my second family.”
Clyde’s parents, Diamond and Paula, and his brother and sister, Caleb and Shawna, make up his immediate family. The Bolejacks make their home near Elbert and run 100 head of cattle. “That’s pretty much all I do is rodeo and ranching,” says Clyde. “Whatever needs done, I fill in. Having to gather cows when it’s bitter cold, I always hate that, and I don’t really care for cleaning out the calving barn,” he admits with a laugh. “But I lucked out of that the last few years going from the IFYR straight to Nationals. I like being gone for those rodeos, but I’m glad to be home.” Clyde competed in the Best of the Best Timed Event Rodeo in Gallup, New Mexico, where he won second in the team roping in 2016, and he attributes much of his success to his 11-year-old gelding, Roanie. The horse nearly didn’t get to keep his home with the Bolejacks because of his flighty temperament, but just when the family was ready to sell him, Clyde started working with the horse and training him, and the two forged a strong bond. “You name it and I’ve won everything on that horse. He’s a pretty good one. When I was at Nationals, Shay Carroll told me he was a very nice horse, and he rides one of the best horses in the business!” Clyde also does ranch work on Roanie and enjoys riding colts, while he has a 4-year-old rope horse, Voodoo, he’s working with. “He has a good mind, and I look forward to this year on him.”
A junior at Elbert Junior/Senior High School, Clyde enjoys his industrial arts classes. “At the beginning of the year we made bird houses, and I just finished a blanket chest and the next project is a cutting board. We got a new school four years ago, and me and one of my classmates are making a display case for the shovels that dug the first holes.” Clyde is missing basketball this year because of his shoulder, especially since he played on the Varsity team the last two years, but he’s looking forward to his senior year of sports. “Since this is Chase’s senior year, we would like to win state again,” he finishes. “That’s our goal for this year, and going to Nationals again and doing some good there.”
Clyde also extends his thanks to his sponsors: Montana Silversmiths, Cactus Ropes, High Plains Cattle Supply, Rowan and Merrilyn Tyson, Jim and Heidi Faughnan, TSG Auto, and Silver Spur Ranches.
