Club also trying to bring rodeo to CarbondaleRodeo

Enjoy riding horses but don’t have access to one? Or perhaps you knew SIU had a rodeo club, but you can’t afford the ever-raising costs of tuition. Fear not. The SIU Rodeo club is working toward bringing a rodeo to the Carbondale to raise funds for a new scholarship.

Last year, the club sponsored a bull-riding only rodeo at the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds. The money raised went into a savings account to start a scholarship. Another rodeo is expected this September in Carbondale that will include all rodeo competitions, such as barrel racing, calf roping and goat tying.

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The club has $500 saved, but it is waiting until more money is available before issuing the funds.

The group is giving a lot of credit to Patricia Welch, the department chair for Animal Science Food and Nutrition, for getting a rodeo to come to the area.

“She came to me and said, ‘What did it take to put it on last year?'” said SIU Rodeo Club president Jessica Beebe. “She said, ‘OK. I’m taking this to the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce and the Convention and Tourism Bureau.’ They came back and said, ‘We want to help you guys.'”

Beebe said the groups would help with the advertising for the rodeo.

“We had a lot of support from the community, we really did,” said club member Jodi Miller. “We got a lot of donations. But we weren’t big enough to advertise like we needed to.”

Plans for the rodeo are still underway and nothing is final yet.

One of the positives of having a Carbondale rodeo is the amount of recruiting the club can do. It is already trying to do this with club meetings and activities.

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The rodeo club is meeting every other Thursday in room 213 of the Agriculture building. The next meeting will be Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. Dues are $10 per semester.

Having a meeting the night of a Saluki men’s basketball game may not be the best thing to do to get people to attend, but the rodeo club has a plan.

It plans to have a short meeting, because it wants to go to the game as well.

The club doesn’t just sponsor meetings; it does a lot of things together. Every other Thursday when there isn’t a meeting, the club gets together to play walleyball at the Recreation Center. It also has pizza parties.

“We are a club designed for people who are interested in competing in inter-collegiate rodeo, people who are interested in learning about rodeo and people who like to watch rodeos,” Beebe said. “We have several people who compete in inter-collegiate rodeo in the Ozark region. We have two barrel racers, two bull riders and we also have one bull fighter.”

The club travels all over the Midwest to compete in such events as bull riding, barrel racing, calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling, bare-back bronco riding, saddle bronc, break-away roping and goat tying.

It isn’t all fun and games, however. A year ago, Clint Milliman, a grad student and member of the SIU rodeo team, received a serious blow to the head by a bull, leaving him with a scar on his forehead.

Reporter Christopher Morrical can be reached at [email protected]