Written by: Siri Stevens

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Clayton Van Aken is a California transplant. Born and raised in Descanso, California, a little town 40 miles southeast of San Diego, he grew up playing baseball and football and roping. He high school rodeoed, making the finals his senior year. Everywhere he roped to compete, he drove at least 300 miles to Phoenix or Oakdale up north to do so. The only child of John and Maggie, Clayton is the first one in his family to compete. “My dad has always roped – he shoes horses – and he’s always telling me he doesn’t know anything about how to enter and how to get the traveling done.”

After high school, he went to the University of Wyoming where he obtained an undergraduate degree in farm and ranch management with a minor in finance. He has been to the CNFR all four years – one time heading, twice heeling, and three times tie down roping – and will make it this year too in the tie down roping.  “I roped a lot of calves – I went to six of the pro rodeos and made the amateur rodeos – but I’ve never had a horse that I could go on – I’ve always sold them early on.”  He has concentrated on team roping admitting, he can’t tie fast enough to beat the pros going down the road. “I’m more of an 8.2, not a 7,” said the 24-year-old that is currently working on his Masters Degree at Chadron State College in Nebraska. He is taking his classes online and will finish with his Masters in Organizational Management with an emphasis in sports. “My main deal is to look at sports from a business perspective like an agent would do. Put numbers to values and values to talent. That’s how they do it in the big industry – baseball and football – I want to help the program inside and outside the arena.”

His goal is to become a college rodeo coach and integrate that with his growing roping cattle business. Three years ago, Jerry Palm from Centennial, Wyo., approached Clayton with a partnership idea. “I was thinking about going home,” said Clayton. “Jerry brought it up and it’s developed into something pretty cool. We’ve got 130 head of jackpot steers that Jerry buys and I run. This is the third year for this partnership.”  The cattle come from Gem, Wyo., get broke in, then get leased or hauled depending on what the customer wants. “We’ve got a lot of two year olds that are good to rope and they are leased out. I’ve got fresh ones coming in.” Clayton puts on a jackpot series in Laramie, Wyo., every Thursday night May through June. He hauls them to other local jackpots and producers, and by the end of June all the cattle are leased or sold for the summer. “I get the jackpots done seven weeks in a row and we end after the college finals, and then I head out after I lease them out for the rest of the summer.”

Then it’s Clayton’s turn to hit the pro rodeo road for the summer, a dream he has had since he was 15. “When I won the Lucky 7 #15 in Laughlin in 2009 with Wade Hooker, I realized I might be good enough to do this.” He got his Rookie card when he turned 18 so he could go to Cheyenne and the close rodeos and the bigger ones. “Those are the ones in our circuit that I could get to while I was in college.” He started his PRCA career heeling for Paul Beckett and made they made the circuit finals twice. “I went down to Texas and started riding this really nice head horse, so I switched and it’s working out – I can’t complain.”

Going down the road with Paul helped Clayton learn the ropes of the road. “He’s been around and knows where to go. He’d always have a plan and be good where we needed to be good.” Now Clayton is heading for Cole Cooper, from Sheridan, Wyo. “We just decided to rope together the other day – I roped with him in Colorado and we finally are going to make it work. The plan is to hit the road this summer and go. Our first one is Guymon and we’ve got our schedule set through the first of July.” Cole’s  wife is going to have a baby around July 1, so the plan is to be rodeoing around home then so Cole can be with her. “The way I’ve got it mapped out, we’ll be everywhere. This year if we go hard and give it a good lick we might have a shot at the NFR. But the real goal is to get into the big rodeos like San Antonio, Denver, and Ft. Worth next year. It helps to get the ball rolling.”

For now, Laramie, Wyo., is home. “There’s nothing like this where I come from in southern California. I can rope, rodeo, run cows, and ride horses. What more could I want?”