WHSRA member, Macy Bates – Courtesy of Marcy Cunningham
Macy Bates is in her final year of competition in the Wyoming High School Rodeo Association.
The seventeen-year-old cowgirl, who lives in Riverton, Wyo., is a barrel racer, pole bender, breakaway roper, and goat tyer.
Her current barrel, pole and breakaway horse is an eight year old “handful” named Jalapeno. Jalapeno “is kind of a brat sometimes,” she says, but “he’s taught me a lot. He’s taught me patience. I think we’ve both learned a lot from each other.” The sorrel got his name because the blaze on his face looks like a jalapeno.
Her goat tying horse is a gray gelding named Boo. Boo is an escape artist. “He can untie himself from everything,” Macy explains. “You can’t take your eyes off him or he will escape. He can open a panel. He’s quite the magician.”
Macy is a senior at Riverton High School, where she is involved as historian of her FFA chapter. She appreciates the teachers who will help students when they need it and give them plenty of one-on-one time. Her favorite teacher is Mr. Styvar, her ag advisor, because “he would do anything for me. He’s always there for me, always helping me out, no matter what it is.”
For fun, she loves to go fishing at Lake Boysen, ride her horse with friends, mud, and hang out. In the winter, they go to movies and this past winter, when Riverton got an ice rink, they all learned to ice skate.
In addition to her activities at school, she is a junior leader in the Riverview Owls 4-H Club, where she raises and shows pigs, shows horses, and does photography. This past year, she won second at state finals in 4-H barrel racing. She also participated in ten years of ballet at Main Street Dance, but discontinued that because she wanted to “put my heart and soul into rodeo.”
This fall, she will attend college somewhere in Wyoming and possibly go into radiology, because she is fascinated with the human body. She may advance her studies into being an ultrasonic technician. She hopes to compete in college rodeo as well.
She has a younger brother, Brodie, who is twelve and who loves rodeo: “it’s his life,” she says. She is the daughter of Mark and Jessica Bates.
