story by Ruth Nicolaus
Brody Davis is off to college and to new adventures. The eighteen-year-old cowboy, a former member of the Nebraska High School Rodeo Association, just started his first semester at Ft. Hays (Kan.) State University and is on the rodeo team.
He’s looking forward to roping every day, and the freedom that college brings. He was a bit nervous, however, about a new routine and being away from home. But the first few weeks of college have gone well.
Davis, a tie-down roper and team roper, competed all four years of high school. For the tie-down, he began his high school career with a horse his uncle Brad Adamson trained. For the heeling, his horse is Skids, a thirteen-year-old who Brody is starting in the tie-down roping.
A 2018 graduate of Cody-Kilgore High School, Brody lived forty miles south of Cody on the family ranch. He played football and basketball and was a member of the speech team, FFA, and student council. He held offices in FFA and student council, and was on the honor roll and a member of the National Honor Society.
When Brody wasn’t in school, rodeoing or playing sports, he worked on the family ranch, the One Open Box Ranch. He did everything: fix fence, check pasture, move, feed and doctor cattle, help calve out 600 mama cows and first-calf heifers, and work in the hayfield.
For fun, he likes to fish, hunt coyotes, and spend time with friends. It’s tough to hang out with friends when a person lives forty miles from town, but he has some cousins and a couple friends who live close to ranch headquarters. When he is in town, he and his friends like to play pool at the bar in Cody or go to Valentine, about forty miles east. In Valentine, they might eat out, go to a movie, or cruise the streets.
Brody’s favorite meal his mom makes is spaghetti casserole. His favorite dessert is butterscotch pie, a recipe handed down to his mom from her mom and her grandma. He loves Dr. Peppers and Snickers, and his favorite movie is McClintock, which he says he’s seen a million times. As for musicians, he says it’s hard to beat “King George” Strait, but Aaron Watson is right up there, too. And his favorite place to be is the beautiful Sandhills of Nebraska, where he lives.
Brody is the fifth generation to live on the family ranch. His plan is to come home after college and possibly a few years of working somewhere else, to help run the ranch.
If he was given $1 million, he’d probably buy cattle, ranch and roping horses and an indoor arena, “all that good stuff a cowboy would want,” he said.
Brody has competed at the Nebraska State Finals Rodeo three years and finished in the top twenty his junior and senior years.
He has two younger brothers, Claysen, who is sixteen, and Gage, who is fourteen. He is the son of Greg and Angel Davis.
