story by Siri Stevens
There are a set of triplets that have been competing in the CSHSRA for three years. Add to that the fact that they live in suburbia, didn’t know a thing about rodeo four years ago, and the challenges facing the Gray family on a daily basis are huge. “We live in a covenant controlled neighborhood,” explains Doug, the father, who owns a roofing company. “Nobody has property around us, so there’s no steers to rope or horses to ride unless we drive to them. Colorado State High School Rodeo has been great – the people are there to help and are friendly,” he said. “We’ve made some really good friends– people have taken our horses and tried to make them better.”
The three; Dillon, who is oldest by a minute, Dalton, and Kendra, who are the “youngest,” attend Chaffield Senior High. Kendra got the family started in the horse world. “My mom’s aunt, Shannon, taught me how to ride. I did little gymkhanas on the old horses and got better and then we got horses that were able to compete.” Kendra competes in barrel racing and pole bending and thinks the rodeo world is good for her. She decided to run for rodeo queen last year. “I studied a lot and had a past queen help me – hardest part of the tryout was the speech. I don’t like speaking in front of people so that was hard. Being part of the competition taught me self-confidence.” Kendra wants to be in the medical field – large animal or something. She just passed her National Registry Skills test, and has to wait until she is 18 (June 21) to take the written part of the program to become an EMT. She spent countless hours studying for the exam, through Warren Tech. “I took the test before the rodeo season started, so I could focus on that.” Now her focus is rodeo. “I love rodeo – we get to travel every weekend and spend time together instead of being separated.” Kendra used to do gymnastics and dance and couldn’t progress to the next level. She couldn’t do back bends and after rolling her dad’s four wheeler, breaking and separating her shoulder, her mom, Heather, saw in the Xrays that she was forming scoliosis. The doctors were able to do surgery and they corrected it with two rods and 20 screws, which are still in place. She has no restrictions. Kendra is working at Dairy Queen so she can make and save money for college. Her plan is to attend CSU and will take some animal science classes to see if that is the direction she wants to pursue.
Dalton – the middle triplet– is a team roper. “Kids will ask about the smell and I’ll look down and see my boots,” said Dalton, who claims that he and his siblings are the only ones that rodeo in their school. “When we bought Kendra’s first horse, I learned to rope from my Uncle, roping his dummy, but when I was younger, I always pretended I was roping by throwing the leash, with a loop, at my grandma’s dog. My Uncle showed me how to build a loop, swing it and coil it up. My dad went to Murdocks and bought a steer head. I saved up my money and bought a roping dummy. Six months later, we went to the stock show and bought my first horse, 027, Money, Top Grit … a week later we went to the JefCo rodeo team practice. I was chasing the sled that night. By April, my dad’s old co-worker watched me and a week or two later, April 1, 2015, I turned my first steer. It’s changed my life. It gave me something to work for that I liked – it gave me a passion.” His second passion is firefighting. He goes to Warren Tech in the afternoons, learning about firefighting. This fall he will be going to Red Rocks Community College to earn his way into a firefighting position somewhere. “I want to be an engineer on a fire department and I plan to keep jackpotting during my studies. “I will have free time to rope being a firefighter, so the combination will work well.”
Dillon competes in the bareback riding and is currently sitting first in the standings. He is also a leftie, but decided to ride right handed, which was challenging. “I went to a couple of schools, one at Garden City, and just picked it up.” He rides in red/white/and blue starting with the chaps and putting it all together. “I’m patriotic; I’m respectful of the flag and always want to support my country and the troops.” For Dillon rodeo has opened up the doors for a lot of things, including a scholarship for Otero Junior College, as well as a bunch of new friends. “I’ve got my weekend friends and weekday friends,” he says. He is planning to get an associate’s degree in livestock management, which will teach him accounting and AI. “I’m thinking about taking over my dad’s company, as well as learning more about livestock.”
Having three kids competing at the same time can get interesting for the Gray family, but it’s something they are used to. “It makes life interesting – but it has its advantages as well,” said Heather, who spent the last five weeks of her pregnancy on bedrest. “We had a family all at once, they are all different kids, so that’s been a good thing.” Heather works as a respiratory therapist. “When we first started going to gymkhanas with Kendra, the boys would come along, and Dalton decided he wanted to rope, so we got two horses. It was a big decision for us to buy the big trailer, living quarters.”
What they learned over the past three years is that it doesn’t matter where you live or your background, if you want to rodeo, then you can. “It’s afforded us the opportunity to be with family and we don’t know too many other families that get to do that,” said Heather. “We don’t have to divide and conquer, we do it together.”
