This article was a freelance piece featured in https://rocknwreport.com
Hello Rock N W Report readers! I have been invited by your fearless editor and creator Holly to come back and write for you! Usually I’m writing on the fashion side of things…..but for this special Anniversary addition of the Rock N W Report I have been asked to write on a subject I guess I know pretty well. Rodeo. What it means to me, my view on understanding it, and it’s future today. If this is the first you’ve ever heard of me which it just might be I’ll give you the run down. If you have read anything from me on my own blog “Hi Sierra” on www.sierraraeblog.com or follow me on any of my social media’s…maybe even through the Bleacher Babe Squad…. you’ve heard this part before just bear with me.
My name is Sierra Rae Lewis and I am a college student studying Agricultural Communications and Media at West Texas A & M. These day’s I am lucky enough to work with the best western fashion brands as a western blogger and influencer. If you have followed the sport of rodeo though, you could know my Dad. My Dad is multiple time NFR qualifying Calf Roper and PRCA cowboy, Brent Lewis. I’ve been on the rodeo road since I was born….and when Dad retired was off it for quite a while, until he returned to the arena in recent years as a Steer Roper. You never really get away from rodeo once you are a part of it as much as we were though. My dad did not have a normal 9-5 job, he was and still is in the business of rodeo.
My whole life I’ve had to explain what his career actually means. Today though as a grown up (well sometimes I’m a grown up) Rodeo kid I realize how important it is for people to understand that rodeo must be understood as a business just as much as anything else. I’ve written a few blogs and articles on the subject over the past few years. In the very first piece I ever did for The Bleacher Babe featured in her Bleacher Babe Reports I had spoken about how my wish for rodeo in the future was that it would become as mainstream as possible to an extent that keeps us operating in all events. Timed and judged. That someone crossing the streets of New York City would understand it, in a way that we do who are a part of it and not view it as some old wild west show.
My whole life has been supported by the business of Rodeo. I had no interest as I have also written before in being a part of the western industry as a teenager. Now here I am. If I can help my generation make sure the business of rodeo stays in business, for my little brother to have his chance to back into the box at the Finals just like my Dad did then I will. The best childhood memories of my Dad’s career that I have would be during the Calf Roping under the lights of the Thomas and Mack roper after roper the crowd got more excited. They brought down the house. They yelled and stood up and cheered. It’s not only an exciting event but it makes career’s, and stars of the sport. It provides for families, and there are so many more jobs than that of the Cowboys that keep the business going. It may just fill up this whole magazine if I put down every job that is part of the Rodeo industry. We don’t have room or time for that. So I’m just speaking from behind the “chutes” if you will of the athletes because that’s what I have the best knowledge of. I’ve heard of rodeo spoken about throughout my whole life in way that it IS a business and entering every rodeo is just another business move. The right horse, the right business partner. When we understand that rodeo must be looked in this way, as someone who’s actually in the business will understand, we keep it going….no different than any other business operation.
Keeping rodeo alive for as long as we can as a whole with every event we’ve been fans of for years… in my opinion means that we remember it’s a more than a sport, than a cowboy, than a rodeo itself, that a horse, than the cattle, than the fans, than the trucks and trailers, than a longstanding tradition of the west…..it’s a business. And well for some of us it’s the family business.