Cody Devers is from Perryton, Texas, north of Amarillo by two hours. He started competing when he was young; he grew up on a horse. “Both my parents rodeoed, trained and sold horses for a living. My mom (Sabrina) is a barrel horse trainer/seller and does clinics, and my dad (Marty) was a PRCA steer wrestler and roper. He still hazes at most of my rodeos. ”
Cody jumped his first steer off a horse when he was only 12 and was hooked on steer wrestling. He won the Texas JHSRA Region 1 and was Top 10 at the NJHSRA Finals for Texas, he was also Oklahoma State High School Finalist and won the Kansas State both KJHSRA and KHSRA associations, winning a NHSRA Finals go round for KHSRA. “I played high school baseball too, and the rodeos in the other states were closer to where I live. I would leave running from the field, jump in the truck to get to my rodeos.” He was also the NLBRA Reserve World Champion winning a go round at the finals that was .1 from a new world record, and IFYR Finals Top 5 twice.”
His family owned horse business trains and sells performance horses all over the United States and several foreign countries, even to New Zealand has allowed him to meet a wide variety of clients from famous actresses to Cody’s own steer wrestling clinics where he has taught Dallas Cowboy football players to Canadian hockey players to steer wrestle. “Most of the 40 to 50 head of barrel, roping and steer wrestling horses on the grounds are on consignment to sell are on our website that we own, barrelhorse.com and in RODEO NEWS, of course! A lot of people know our Team Devers steer head brand, which is pretty cool to walk by and see your brand on horses at a rodeo or on tv.”
Harry Vold and Roy Duvall with Cody as a young cowboy – courtesy of the family
His brother, Matt, used to steer wrestle and rope, but is now busy building his own business, ProTech, that sells and fixes computers, security systems and cameras in horse trailers and businesses. “He knows all the technical stuff and I help him with the installations when I can. Rodeo schedules make it hard to have a “real job” but I do the networking labor on the job sites and I shoe horses. I shoe A LOT OF HORSES!”
He’s spending the summer rodeoing not only pro but amateur as well. “We will be hitting five rodeos every week,” he said. Traveling with Maverick Harper for the first part and then he’ll jump in with Jule Hazen, WNFR steer wrestler for the last. Cody is the current 2016 KPRA Steer wrestling Champion, and hopes to have a repeat this year. He is also trying for the Prairie Circuit Finals, the Nebraska State Rodeo Finals and the Central Plains Finals. He has a good start on the year in all three associations.
Cody is a Dean’s Honor Roll student that rodeos for Coach Stockton Graves at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and qualified for his second trip to the CNFR in steer wrestling. “This year I split the win for the first round with a 3.7 – that time was the fastest for the entire CNFR.” The rest didn’t go as well. “I drew two hard running steers and then broke the barrier in the short round – I was coming in fourth and was set to win reserve but Denver (Berry) is one of my good friends, we rodeo together in the Central Plains region, so I’m glad he won it.”
The highlight of the CNFR, besides winning the round, was winning the Harry Vold Memorial Scholarship. “My third picture I ever had was with Harry Vold, I was four months old, and my dad was in the short go, and I ended up in a picture with Mr.Vold, World renowned PRCA stock producer and PRCA World Champion steer wrestler, Roy Duvall. 18 years later to the day, I was in the short go at the same rodeo, PRCA Dodge City Roundup, and I got my picture with him again. ”
“I wrote an essay about an Army soldier – H.D. Hogan – that died in combat, he was a young rodeo cowboy, too. The topic was sacrifice and patriotism, so he’s the one I thought of. What he and all the service men have done for our country is what I think sacrifice means.” Cody gets to apply the $2,500 scholarship to his senior year. “I’ve got at least one more year to go for my Ag Business degree.”
For Cody, pro rodeo is his future. “It’s what I love to do. It’s what I was born to do.”
