story by Ruth Nicolaus
Slate Micheel likes to be busy and active. The fourteen-year-old cowboy, a resident of Sargent, Nebraska, is a member of the Nebraska Junior High School Rodeo Association.
He competes in bareback steer riding, bull riding, and chute dogging. He also plays football and basketball, wrestles, and runs track. Pole vaulting is his favorite track event.
The minute he’s home from eighth grade at Sargent Public Schools, he’s outside, doing his chores, helping his dad, or wood working.
Slate doesn’t sit around much. He showed goats this summer, showing a breeding doe in the meat goat class. He has shown goats for the past seven years at the Loup County Fair.
The Micheels raise bucking bulls, so Slate also helps with feeding and watering them. They have an outdoor arena, and his dad Stan used to ride bulls, so Slate often gets on them in the practice pen. His favorite bull the family owns is No. 186, because “he turns back and is pretty fun.”
The Micheels have five horses, “a whole bunch of cats” and two dogs: George, a cow dog, and a new puppy, Remi, a Corgi-Catahoula-blue heeler cross.
In school, he enjoys sports. His best classes are math and science, and his least favorite class is history. Slate is an honor roll student.
His mom loves the gifts he has. “He’s very talented at a lot of things,” Mandy said. “He has a good work ethic, and loves to be outside.” Slate is good at woodworking. He and his dad, Stan, have built a dog house, gun rack, hat racks, and shelves for the garage.
Slate loves watching bull riding. His favorite bull rider is J.B. Mauney, and his most memorable moment was at the National Junior High Finals in Huron last summer. He tied for third in the first round of the bull riding, and it was extra-special to him, because his granddad Bernie Micheel, who has passed and was a native South Dakotan, raised bucking bulls.
The best meal his dad makes is homemade Mexican bread loaf. The best school lunch is chicken fajitas, and his favorite dessert is brownies. He loves Razzleberry Peace iced tea, Kit Kat bars, and the movie Eight Seconds. He likes to listen to Chris LeDoux and country music.
If he was given $1 million, he’d spend it on a trip to the PBR World Finals.
When he grows up, he wants to continue his bull riding career, work as a game warden and in carpentry.
Slate competed at the 2017 and 2018 National Junior High Finals. His favorite quote is something Michael Jordan said: “Never say never, because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.”
He has a step-sister, Cassey Younghans, who is married to Josh, and Ally Micheel, a sophomore in high school.
