story by Ruth Nicolaus
Trell Shrewsbury is wrapping up his final months in the Nebraska High School Rodeo Association.
The nineteen-year-old lives near Alliance, Neb., and competes in the tie-down and team roping. He’s heeled the last three years of high school but this year switched ends and ropes in front of Montgomery Brown.
His head horse is a 2006 model, a sorrel whose pedigree goes back to Smart Little Lena. Trell’s dad rode the gelding for a while, and Trell rode him when he was a kid. This year, he got back on the horse, “and it’s working out pretty good so far.” Lena is cautious, Trell says. “He knows where he’s putting his feet,” he said, “and he’s scared of everything.”
For the tie-down, he rides a thirteen-year-old sorrel named Playboy. He’s an all-around horse, he said; Trell can rope calves and head and heel on the gelding. Playboy is a different kind of horse, he said. “He’s the boss. He doesn’t hate you but he’d rather not be around you.” But the horse has talent. “He’s pretty solid. He’s the real deal.”
A senior at Alliance High School, Trell doesn’t mind school. His favorite classes are woods and welding. “I learn a lot in those classes,” he said. His least favorite is English, where students are doing a lot of creative writing. “None of it is my style. It’s obnoxious.”
He wrestled and played football in middle school and in ninth grade but quit to focus on rodeo.
For lunch, he and his friends go downtown, to Papa’s Pizza or Subway, where his favorite sandwich is the chicken-bacon-ranch.
Trell leaves school early to go to his job, as a mechanic at Alliance Tractor and Implement. He services and inspects tractors and has learned a lot. Mostly the shop works on New Holland and Case tractors. He puts in about 20 hours a week.
For fun, he likes to hang out with friends, working on dirt bikes and driving at the MX track in Alliance or in the Sandhills. He also likes to drive around town, looking for something to do.
The best meal his mom makes is barbecue chicken drumsticks. His favorite fruit is watermelon, and there is no vegetable he likes. His favorite desserts are cookies, of nearly any kind, but especially chocolate chip cookies.
If he were given $1 million, he would buy a pickup (preferably a 2015 Fourth Gen Dodge 3500 flatbed, a “little rodeo rig,”), a new trailer, and set his family up: “get a nice house, help the ranch out, pay bills on the ranch, get some cows, then invest” the remainder.
This fall, he might attend lineman’s school in Alliance. Or he might go into the workforce for a year, then go back to college.
He has competed at the state finals the last two years; as a sophomore in the tie-down, and last year, in both roping events.
His parents, Rhett and Erin, love their oldest child and only son. “He’s helpful,” Erin said. “When I ask him to do things, he does them without arguing. And he’s an honest person who works hard and does well in school.”
Trell has three younger sisters (Hadley, 14, Aubree, 12, and Whitley, 6), and, like all siblings, they have their squabbles. But he helps them with their horses and drives them to school when needed. And in the summer, when he spends the week in the hayfield at the ranch 45 miles from town, the sisters miss him.
He and Montgomery are ranked in the top five in the team roping, after the fall season.
Beau played football and wrestled, having returned to wrestling after a three-year hiatus. He wrestled from preschool till the start of high school, when he quit because he was burned out. This year, he decided to do it again, because his brother, a freshman, wrestled. At state, he won third place in Class D in the 195 lb. division. He is also a member of his school’s FFA chapter, where his welding team won districts and will compete at state later this spring.
For fun, Beau likes to hunt for raccoons and coyotes and fish. He and his brother and dad and buddies like to bow fish – shoot fish with bows – in the Missouri River, where they catch bighead Asian carp. His brother harvested a 50 lb. carp once, which their dad likes to fry up. “There’s a certain way to clean them, and they taste better than walleye,” Beau said.
This fall he will attend Mid-Plains Community College in North Platte, Neb., working towards an associates degree as an electrician. Because of the college credits he’s already earned, he will graduate in May of 2024. After that, he will work towards his Journeyman electrician, then towards being a Master electrician.
He will get his PRCA permit and rodeo professionally as a steer wrestler.
The best meal Beau’s mom makes is beef enchiladas, followed with his favorite dessert, her peanut butter pie. There are no vegetables that he likes, and he prefers strawberries as his favorite fruit.
If he had $1 million, he’d use it to buy ranch land in northern Nebraska.
Beau qualified for state finals his sophomore year, but couldn’t compete due to a broken arm. His junior year, he finished in fourth place and went on to Nationals, where he missed his first steer, caught the second one, and made “a pretty good run but not good enough.” He did not compete in rodeo his freshman year.
His parents, Reagan and Darcy, are proud of their son.
“He’s no-nonsense, no drama,” Reagan said. “He loves individual sports, because if he loses, it’s on him, and if he wins, it’s on him.”
Beau has helped his younger brother, Zachary, in the steer wrestling. Zachary hopes to high school rodeo next year.
