A rider breaks out of the chutes in the third and final go-round at the annual PRCA Oregon Trail Rodeo in Hastings, Nebraska.

Photo courtesy Steve Moseley

Steve Moseley

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I could easily compile a near-endless list of things I miss about Wyoming since returning to Nebraska from Powell a couple decades ago. Near the top would be rodeo, especially rodeo action photography.

Southeast Nebraska, as you could see at a glance by simply driving through the ocean of corn and soybeans on I-80 in our neck of the woods, is a rodeo-free zone. Or nearly so at least.

As the sports guy at your newspaper over some five year’s time, I found myself delightfully immersed in rodeo. It was everywhere; the Cody Nite, Cody Stampede, Northwest College Trappers of Coach Del Nose, Deaver, Ralston’s Jake Clark Mule Rodeo and more.

Cowley is where I photographed what I still believe to be the most out-of-control, rank pen of bucking stock I’ve seen before or since. Those horses hadn’t been to town enough to have a clue how to do their job. You know, explode out of the chute like the Nebraska bareback rocket pictured here, buck like a fiend for eight seconds, wait for the pickup man to unburden it of flank strap and rider, then make a beeline for the exit gate. This day in Cowley we had horses crashing full speed into the fence in front of the grandstand, throwing themselves over onto their backs and exhibiting a wildly entertaining variety of berserk behavior.

This happened to one rowdy young hand who we all thought might be crushed as he lay, nearly invisible, under the upside-down beast, all four hooves flailing straight in the air. He was awarded a re-ride option. I would have advised against it, but he figured otherwise. Incredibly, the exact same thing happened again: He defied death and/or closed head injury a second time.

Another re-ride, sir, asked the judge? Our judgmentally challenged young cowpoke nodded his head yes, then got on a third bronc and won the rodeo.

No such heroics in Nebraska. Oh, we have some decent rodeo in this citified end of the state — high school, a regional pro circuit and the odd PRCA event, but sadly for me the operative word is ‘some’. Nothing here compares to the sheer volume and passion for rodeo I found in northwest Wyoming. It is stitched into your cultural fabric. Did you know that?

On a recent Sunday evening I photographed the third and final go-round at the annual PRCA Oregon Trail Rodeo in Hastings, Nebraska. It’s where this photo was taken, but sadly, this was also the only rodeo I had within reach this entire season. What is an old poop with a passion for rodeo photography to do in Nebraska?

All I can say is, thank God for the Cowboy Channel.

(Contact the writer at stevemoseley42@gmail.com)