story by Ruth Nicolaus
Sabrina Schemper knows how it feels to be in the middle. That’s because the Nebraska Junior High School Rodeo Association member is the middle child in the Schemper family, smack-dab between older sisters Sierra and Samantha and younger siblings Sophia, and little brother Sawyer.
She claims that she is ignored, but truthfully she loves her siblings and her family, and they love her.
The thirteen-year-old cowgirl competes in barrel racing, pole bending, goat tying and ribbon roping. She rides two horses: Mikey, a fourteen-year-old blue roan is her barrel and pole horse, and Peewee, a ten-year-old sorrel, is her goat tying horse. She prefers Mikey because she’s had him the longest. He can be “cranky,” though, she says. “His ears are back and he’s always biting the other horses.”
Sabrina, a resident of Holdrege, Nebraska, is an eighth grade student at Holdrege Middle School. She loves math class and excels at pre-algebra; all the other kids like to sit around her, because if they need help, she knows how to do the problems. She’s not crazy about social studies, however. She plays percussion in the band (with suspended cymbals, base drum and timpani her favorites), and for sports, plays volleyball, basketball, and does the pole vault and hurdles in track. She is on the honor roll.
For fun, she likes to hang out with friends and go to the movies at the Sun Theatre in Holdrege. Her favorite movie is The Greatest Showman and she loves to enjoy buttered popcorn and lemonade during a show.
The best trip Sabrina has been on was to Washington, D.C. last June, as a school-sponsored trip. It was her first time to fly on an airplane, and she loved seeing Ford’s Theatre, where President Lincoln was assassinated; the Lincoln Memorial, and a wax museum, where students got to make wax models using their own hands. One of the funnier moments on the trip was seeing a man wearing a Donald Trump mask, who, if he was given money, would dance the floss with someone. But Sabrina didn’t dance with him!
Sabrina is the reigning Miss Southwest Nebraska Junior Rodeo Queen, having been crowned in July at the Red Willow County Fair and Rodeo in McCook. She’s represented her title at parades and the Mid-States Finals in Broken Bow. Someday, she might decide to run for Miss Rodeo Nebraska.
The best meal her mom makes is stuffed peppers, and for dessert, cookies and cream cheesecake. The best school lunch is nachos with chips, meat and cheese, and she loves to snack on Skittles or strawberry sugar wafers, and wash it all down with a Sprite. Her favorite vegetable and fruit are asparagus and strawberries.
When she grows up, Sabrina would like to be a veterinary technician. She loves animals, her mom, Dawn, said. “She has a soft heart and likes to be around animals and take care of them.”
Her mom also enjoys that Sabrina is a hard worker and easy to get along with. “She works hard at everything. She gives one hundred percent, and she gets along with everybody.”
The Schemper household has two cats, and at her grandpa’s farm, there are goats, chickens and horses.
Sabrina finished in the top ten in the barrel racing at the Nebraska State Junior High School Finals last June.
She is the daughter of Jared and Dawn Schemper.
