story by Lindsay Whelchel
Tye Hale steer wrestling off of Ace, Tee Hale on Snort (or sometimes called Buck) hazing
The rodeo road can be a long one, full of challenges and tests. It can be a place that tries your strength, but Tye Hale, 25, a cowboy from the Northwest Ranch Cowboys Association, also knows it’s a place of many rewards, not least of which, is the opportunity to travel and stay close with family and friends.
Tye, who calf ropes, team ropes and steer wrestles in the NRCA, as well as the SDRA and PRCA, has been rodeoing since he was just a kid. He grew up on a ranch 60 miles east of Sturgis, S.D. and credits his dad Jim with starting him and his brother in roping early on. Jim had been a bareback and bull rider in his past, and Tye, along with his brother Tee, has carried on the sport of rodeo. The Hale family, Jim and Tye’s mother Teresa, ranches their own land, but now Tye works at another nearby ranch when he’s not on the rodeo road with Tee.
Rodeo has given Tye many things in life, including a scholarship to attend Black Hills State University. Tye competed on the college rodeo team and double majored in management and entrepreneurship and economics and finance there.
He also served as the Great Plains Regional Director for college rodeo.
“It’s done everything for me from teaching me responsibility, to leadership and communication between friends, and created lasting views and respect for livestock,” Tye says of his rodeo life lessons.
Another reward for Tye is having his brother as a traveling companion. When they are traveling together, the Hale brothers already know what the other is thinking, so it is comfortably quiet on the road. They haze for each other and share a bulldogging horse.
“That’s pretty handy that he’s so close, and we can ride the same horse. He’s about the same height, so we don’t even switch stirrups or anything, just get in the back of the box and go,” Tye laughs.
Rodeo also had a hand in bringing Tye’s fiancé Kasey into his life. The two married January 3. Kasey and Tye both rodeoed when they met in high school and have been together for eight years now.
Tye likes to hunt and fish and have fun with his friends, but he also knows the importance of hard work and setting goals, a skill he credits in part to learning from his college rodeo coach, Glen Lammers. “Even more than just rodeo now, having a family or accomplishing things on the ranch, you’ve got to set goals and strive to reach those goals,” Tye says.
In the offseason, Tye breaks colts and thrives on seeing the young horses come along. “The rewards for doing this as a lifestyle is seeing how far you can progress, and to be honest, we didn’t come from a really rich family, so everything Tee and I have done has been just kind of on our own- training horses. We’ve trained both our bulldogging horse and hazing horse. Just watching what they’ve become has really been rewarding.”
Everyday you make progress with the horses, Tye says, but he could say the same for his other goals too.
