~ Ransom Morris ~

By Lori Bizzell / Photos Courtesy of Ransom Morris and Team Cavender’s

 

More Than a Name

I couldn’t get past his name.

Ransom.

Before our conversation went very far, I had to know whether Ransom Morris knew why his parents had chosen it.

The story goes that his Pop knew a guy named Ransom, and when he told his parents about him, they thought it was “a cool, unique name. I’ve only heard of one or two more people with it,” he said.

I told him what had caught my attention. Ransom carries meanings tied to redemption, rescue, and setting free. Whether his parents had any of that in mind, he didn’t know. But it was an interesting place to begin getting to know the young cowboy behind the name ~and behind the Cavender’s patch.

Ransom lives in Muleshoe, Texas, where horses are woven into the rhythm of his days. When I asked what I would discover if I spent an ordinary day with him, though, his first answer had nothing to do with rodeo. “I’m just kind of laid-back, and I like to have fun around here.”

I asked whether he was the quietest one in the family. He laughed. “If you ask any of my family, I’m not at all sit-back-and-be-quiet. They give me a hard time about talking too much.”

There was my first glimpse of the real Ransom.

One of his grandfathers, he told me, is someone he hardly thinks of simply as Papa anymore. “I wouldn’t even call him my Papa. He’s my best friend.”

The two spend their days giving each other a hard time, talking a little smack and enjoying the kind of relationship that doesn’t need much explanation.

Horses run through both sides of the Morris family. His father’s side owns and operates Good Times Arena and Good Times Horse Co., where they buy and sell family-type horses and rope horses; his mom’s side owns and operates Levelland Horse Sale in Levelland, Texas. His parents have ridden outside horses for as long as Ransom can remember, and he and his older brother grew up doing the same.

The Morris family is in the horse industry. “That’s all we do every day,” he explained.

I wondered whether there had ever been a point when horses and rodeo stopped being simply what the Morris family did and became his choice.

There wasn’t. “I’ve grown up loving it,” he said. “I get up every day wanting to do something around it.” In fact, he had come to our interview almost directly from doing exactly that. “We actually just got done roping a second ago,” he told me.

One horse in particular is teaching Ransom that growing up around horses doesn’t mean having them all figured out.

His name is Spook.

Ransom got him at 4 and began developing him in the roping arena. Spook became the first horse Ransom had really taken through the process himself. “He’s taught me a lot of patience; well, he hasn’t taught me. He’s teaching me.”

That distinction made me laugh. Ransom readily admitted patience isn’t exactly one of his natural gifts. “I’ll get a little aggravated now and then,” he said.

But he is learning what happens when a horse is given the time he needs. “I always try to remember how much better they’ll turn out if you’re more patient and go a little slower with them instead of getting frustrated and mad at them.”

For now, there are horses to ride, ropes to throw, and one named Spook who is still teaching a cowboy that sometimes the fastest way forward is to slow down.

Ride Out Smiling

For all the patience Spook is teaching Ransom at home, there is another place where the lessons tend to come a little faster.

Inside the arena.

Team roping has been a big part of Ransom’s life, but lately another event has been pulling harder at him: saddle bronc. “The broncs have kind of turned into my main event here lately,” he told me. His family doesn’t necessarily understand the attraction. “They called me the other day and said, ‘I don’t know what makes a guy get on there smiling and thinking they want to do it again.’”

Ransom couldn’t exactly explain it either. “I’ve always wanted to do it since I was little. It’s just a blast. It’s just kind of a cowboy event,” he said. “It’s really cool how the horse and rider…I really don’t even know how to explain it. In my mind, it’s just a very unique event in rodeo. You’re sitting up there on a bucking horse trying to spur his guts out, and he’s bucking his guts out trying to buck you off.”

Ransom loves it because he loves it. Sometimes that is explanation enough.

But how he handles what happens afterward says considerably more about him. I asked which would tell me more about Ransom Morris: the way he handles a great run or one that goes completely wrong. “Probably the one that goes wrong,” he decided.

He admitted he can get mad when things don’t go the way he wants. But throwing a fit isn’t something he wants to be known for. That lesson came largely from his dad, Justin. “My dad always tells me, when you ride out of the arena, you want them to wonder what you did on that run.” Miss? Ride out smiling with your head up. Make a great run? Ride out much the same way.

“I try not to show too much emotion after either one,” Ransom said. “It’s not the last steer I’ll ever run or anything. I’ve got another chance at one. It’s not the end of the world.”

There is no sugarcoating what went wrong, either. “My dad, there are no excuses. Very, very rarely is it on the animal. It’s you. It dang sure does hurt when he tells you,” he said, “but it just makes you a lot better than you are right then.”

There is plenty of laughter mixed in with those lessons.

Last summer, Ransom was team roping with his brother when he delivered a loop intended for the horns and somehow ended up considerably south of his target. “I think I maybe roped both front feet ~or a front leg,” he said, laughing as he tried to reconstruct exactly how he’d managed it.

“But you got him,” I reminded him. “I did.” It didn’t count, of course.

But it made for a pretty good story.

Some of Ransom’s favorite times in an arena aren’t about winning anyway. They’re about who is there with him.

On his dad’s side, there are eight grandchildren. Five of the boys’ team rope, another cousin competes in breakaway, and most live close enough that they grew up practicing and competing together. “We all just kind of live right here together,” Ransom said. “We grew up together every day and practice together every day.”

There is plenty of competition, but underneath it, they show up for one another. That becomes especially clear when Ransom climbs onto a bucking horse. There may be plenty of voices around the chute, but there are only a few he is really listening for.

His dad: “Bear down. Go to him.” His mom, Kaci: “Be gritty. Be tough.”

And because Ransom has never been the biggest guy in the bunch, his dad gives him one more: “Be big. Show ’em how big you are.” Then there is his brother. “When I’m on a bucking horse, I don’t hear very many people,” Ransom told me. “But my brother’s the one I hear hollering for me.”

Maybe that’s why Ransom can climb onto a bucking horse smiling. Long before he ever has to prove how big he is inside an arena, he already knows exactly who is standing behind him.

Let the Light Show

There was a time when Ransom wanted a particular outcome at a rodeo. It was his final year of junior high rodeo, and he wanted to make the National Junior High Finals. He had already missed the team roping and hadn’t made it back in the breakaway or ribbon roping. Steer saddle bronc was still in front of him.

He made the short round with a chance. He needed to cover his last steer. He didn’t. “I got bucked off in the short round,” Ransom said. “It was my last year to make junior high finals. It really stung.” It hurt. But his older brother was waiting in high school rodeo, and Ransom would have the next two years to rodeo alongside him. “That was a lot of fun,” he said. “That really helped a lot of things out.”

And somewhere in the disappointment, his faith gave him a way to look farther down the road. “I knew that the Lord had a plan for the next couple of years, and making nationals just wasn’t part of it. I’ve got a bigger future down the road in the rodeo world. I plan on making the NFR, which is bigger than junior high finals.”

Faith is an important part of Ransom’s life, but he doesn’t necessarily want to announce it every time he walks into an arena.

He wants people to see it.

“Through the stuff we do every day and our sport, I try to let the light shine as good as I can,” he said. “I try to serve Him. I may not go around telling them, ‘You need to go to church,’” he explained. “But I try to do it in ways that maybe somebody will ask me.”

There have been times when other kids were partying or doing things he didn’t want to be part of and asked him why. His answer was simple. “I’m a child of God. That’s not what He’d want us to do.”

Becoming a member of Team Cavender’s has put him alongside accomplished young competitors, and Ransom described the environment with a phrase that says a great deal about what he values:

“Iron sharpens iron.”

The talent matters, but so do the relationships.

“It really does feel like a family.”

He spoke warmly about Sydney Shepard and Jennifer Green and the way they have helped him since he joined the team. “I’ve made some good friends. Probably lifelong friends out of there.”

Ransom understands that younger cowboys will be watching, and he takes that responsibility pretty seriously. “You try to be the best you can around them,” he said. “One bad decision can give them a bad memory of you, and a bad look on the rest of the cowboy world. The little kids will remember it,” he said.

When I asked which cowboys he looks up to beyond just winning, the first was his dad, Justin. “He’s very humble,” Ransom said. “He lets his light shine through the Lord.” The other was bronc rider Ira Dickinson; another man Ransom has watched for the way he carries himself as much as for what he does in competition.

Ransom laughed when he explained that his own personality may come from the other side of the family. “I look up to my dad a lot, but I get a lot of my personality from my mom.”

I asked him what kind of legacy he hopes to leave someday. “I’d hope they’d say I’m good at what I do, that I’m a great guy, and that they have seen the Lord through me.”

He wants to make the NFR. He wants to compete with the best, but he also wants a younger kid watching from the fence to see something that can’t be measured on a scoreboard.

Not because Ransom told them what to see. Because he lived in a way that made them ask.

It Ain’t Dyin’ I’m Talking About

Not every teacher in Ransom’s life is quite so serious.

There is also Trump. Trump is a horse with enough personality that when I asked which horse in the barn had the biggest one, there wasn’t much competition. “This one ~his name’s Trump,” he said. “I feel like something is very mentally wrong with him.”

I laughed. Ransom did too. “He’s just about like me. He’s fun-going. Nothing much bothers him.” Apparently, something does bother Trump:

Halters.

“I’m going through about a halter a week with him. He eats them.” And according to Ransom, Trump practically smiles about it afterward. “He’s just funny and goofy, and I honestly think that’s just me in horse form.”

When I asked what Trump would say about Ransom if he could talk, he struggled with that one for a moment.

Then he landed somewhere better than a clever answer. “We’ve had some great times together. We understand each other very much. Great minds think alike.”

Isaiah 41:10, a passage that begins with a simple instruction: do not fear, for God is present, is one of his favorite Scriptures. Ransom had another favorite line too; this one borrowed from Lonesome Dove and Gus McCrae:

“It ain’t dyin’ I’m talking about. It’s living.”

Maybe that is a pretty good line for this season of Ransom’s life.

There are young horses waiting to be made and bucking horses waiting in the chute. And through it all, there is a family who loves him like nobody’s business.

There will be misses and wins, and probably a few more ropes that end up somewhere they weren’t supposed to. And there are dreams still far enough down the road that a young cowboy doesn’t need to have all the answers yet.

For now, maybe his mom’s advice is enough.

Be gritty. Be tough. His dad would add one more. Be big. Show ’em how big you are.

And Ransom?

He’ll probably ride out smiling and leave everybody wondering exactly what happened in the arena.

Then he’ll head home, get up the next morning, and do what he has always done.

Live it.

Ransom’s Accolades

2023 TJHRA Region 2 Reserve Champion Header
2023 TJHRA Region 2 Reserve Champion Boys Breakaway Roping
2023 TJHRA Region 2 Reserve Champion Steer Saddle Bronc Riding
2024 TJHRA Region 2 Reserve Champion Header
2024 TJHRA Region 2 Reserve Champion Steer Saddle Bronc Riding
2024 TJHRA Region 2 Finals Steer Saddle Bronc Riding Average Champion
2024 TJHRA State Finals Short Round Qualifier: Steer Saddle Bronc Riding
2024 WRCA Youth World Championship Ranch Rodeo Qualifier
2025 Patriot Open Finals Qualifier
2025 Patriot 10.5 Finals Qualifier
2025 THSRA State Final Qualifier

2026 Patriot Open Qualifier

2026 THSRA Region 2 Reserve Champion Header

2026 THSRA State Qualifier