RODEO HITS TOWN; LOCALS IN THICK OF ACTION

When the Longhorn World Championship Rodeo comes to town, some locals don't just go to watch: They go to compete.

It's almost like going to a Cardinals game in St. Louis and seeing St. Louisans get on the field and play with Brian Jordan and Ron Gant.

Tonya Crites, a nurse at St. Francis Medical Center, gave some of the rodeo professionals a run for their money. The 29-year-old Jackson resident was in second place in barrel racing after Thursday night's competition.

The rodeo continues with a show at 8 tonight and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Show Me Center.

Barrel racers ride horses around 50-gallon drums set at three corners of an elongated diamond. If it were a baseball diamond, they would start at home, ride to first base, do a 360 around the barrel at first, run to third, circle it, head for second, circle it, and head for home. The fastest time wins.

Knock down a barrel and you are penalized five seconds. With winning times as low as less than 12 seconds, the penalty puts the rider out of competition.

Barrel racing is one of six competitions in the rodeo. Other competitors try their hands at bareback bronco riding, saddle bronco riding, steer wrestling, calf roping and bull riding. Every event includes current or former world champions from the International Professional Rodeo Association.

This year's rodeo features exhibitions of trick roping and riding and a show about the history of the old west with appearances from a Calvary soldier, a Mexican Vaquero, and a Pony Express Rider. The production climaxes with the entrance of longhorn cattle to the tune of "Ghost Riders in the Sky."

Crites has attended the Longhorn Rodeo here and others in Sikeston for years. But she never competed until she bought a fast horse with competition experience last year.

Now the sport consumes her. "I breathe it, eat it and sleep it," Crites said. "That's the only reason I work."

Her time Thursday was good enough for a $60 prize, but she doesn't expect it will hold up for one of the top eight places over the four days of competition. The track was wet Thursday and she expects it to be drier and faster as the weekend wears on.

The top eight finishers earn points that count toward the International Championship.

Crites isn't the only local who entered. Kadin Boardman of Jackson competed in calf roping Friday evening, while Amanda Jordan of Advance and Carrie Stroup of Jackson competed in barrel racing Thursday.

Jordan, a senior at Advance High School, has been barrel racing since she was 6. Thursday was her first shot at the big time.

Jordan and Crites try to ride every day and compete somewhere every weekend. Often it is against other locals at the Flickerwood Arena in Fruitland.

Dayna Cravens, who works for Longhorn, said not all good horses and all good riders work well together. It takes a special affinity between animal and human to run a good barrel race.

It's not only the symbiosis of human and beast that sets rodeo apart from sports like baseball.

"There's nothing you can do about your competition," Cravens said. "All you have control over is what you do in your 12 seconds or eight seconds."

Whether she places in the top eight and wins a prize or not, Crites is glad she entered.

"I really debated whether I was going to enter," she said. "My mom said, `If you don't, you'll be sitting in the sand wondering.'"