story by Ruth Nicolaus
Billy Warlick is not the biggest fan of school. But until he’s done, in four years, he’ll rely on rodeo and baseball to get him through.
The thirteen year old cowboy, a member of the Junior Southern Rodeo Association, loves rodeo and would rather be outside, riding, roping, hunting, anything rather than being stuck in a classroom all day. But he knows he has no choice. So he saves his rodeo for after school and the weekends, competing in the junior bull riding, tie-down roping and team roping.
His tie-down horse is a sixteen year old sorrel named Jack, and his heel horse is a fourteen year old sorrel pony named Hondo.
Of his events, junior bull riding is his favorite. He just started that this spring, and at his first JSRA rodeo, he won the event. At this point in his career, his winnings go to his mom and dad, till the majority of his entry fees have been paid. “I’m in the hole pretty bad,” he said.
The Kings Mountain, N.C. cowboy is an eighth grade student at Burns Middle School in Cleveland County. The best part of the school day is socializing with friends, and Free Fridays are his favorite part of the week. On Free Friday, the class gets to go outside and have fun. He likes social studies class, where he loves to learn about wars, especially the Vietnam War and the Civil War. If he had been alive at the time, he’d have fought for the South during the Civil War.
Billy likes to hunt whitetail deer, coyotes, turkeys and doves, and loves the way his mama cooks deer shoulder in the crockpot, so it’s nice and tender.
His mama urges her son and daughter, Hannah, to be respectable, work hard, and cheer for others’ success. When he gets to a rodeo, his mom and dad don’t brush his horse or saddle him; Billy does. And his mama is proud when she sees him cheering for others who make good runs or rides, especially when he hasn’t.
When he grows up, he’d like to be a fireman or a professional bull rider. One of his favorite bull riders, world champion J.B. Mauney, is a North Carolinian, just like Billy. Billy has a couple of Mauney’s autographs.
He has competed at the JSRA Finals four times, in his early years in the calf riding and barrel racing, and in the more recent years, in the breakaway, barrels, calf and steer riding. He is the son of Jeff and Nikki Warlick.
