American Hat Company: Jarvis Demery

Jarvis Demery said he was introduced to quality hats after an American Hats representative stopped him after he won the second round of tie-down roping at the 2019 National High School Rodeo Finals.

“The rep stopped me and told me I would look good in an American,” Demery said. “That’s where it all started for me. The hat I was wearing before was not good at all. I did not know the difference between 10X and 100X.”

Demery, a second-generation rodeo cowboy from Beggs, Oklahoma, said his father paved the way for his future in rodeo.

“My dad, Rodney Demery, was a steer wrestler. He was the first person in my family to ever do anything in a rodeo,” Demery said. “My grandfather had horses, and they actually ran a relay race, but he didn’t rodeo.”

One day, my older brother, CJ, and I decided we wanted to try and rope,” he said. “So, Dad brought some goats home for us to learn. It may not have been ideal or the most correct, but we taught ourselves how to rope.”

There were two people Demery said he leaned on while fine-tuning his roping. The first is Glenn Jackson, Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association cowboy and Screen Actors GuildStunt Performer. The second is Ron Beaver, who was inducted into the Iowa Rodeo Cowboys Association in 2017.

“Glenn moved to my hometown when I was probably eight or nine, and he helped me a bit more with my roping and skills at that point,” Demery said. “Later down the road, I met Ronafter he moved from Iowa to Oklahoma. He helped me take my roping to a different level. One I didn’t even realize I could reach.”

Another person Demery said he owes his success to is his girlfriend, Emily Dooley.”I take outside horses, so I don’t always have time to ride my own, and I tend to tighten them up when I do,” he said. “Emily will get on and rope a few breakaway calves and she really frees them up, so they’ll run a little closer for me the next time.”

Demery graduated from Preston Public School in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, in 2019. He then attended Connors State College in Warner, Oklahoma. In 2022, he graduated with a degree in Agricultural Business, but not before he represented his college at the College NationalFinals Rodeo as a bull dogger.

“I made the finals for Connors in the steer wrestling,” he said. “That’s not something I do regularly. I sold my bulldogging horse a few years ago. It is easier to stay healthy just roping calves.”

Now, Demery is enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, Oklahoma.”

I took a break after graduating from Connors to save up some money and rodeo a little more,” he said. “Then Christy Broderick recruited me to come back and see if I could make college finals for Southeastern.”

This time, Demery said he is pursuing a degree in Safety and minoring in sports education.”My own mother asked me the other day what my plan was,” he said. “Eventually, I plan to come back home. There is a company here in Okmulgee that has a job for me when I am ready to stop rodeoing hard. But I want to try to go rodeo more and see how far I can make it.”

And making it he is. Demery qualified for Kid Rock’s Rock N Rodeo. Although it was not his first rodeo, this one was a little different from the others he had entered before. At this rodeo, athletes on six teams coached by rodeo icons competed in a head-to-head style competition to make their way up the bracket to the winner’s circle.

Five teams were created via the draft formulated by Kid Rock, and the sixth team was decided on the results of the World Champions Rodeo Alliance Major Rodeo Corpus Christi. Demery was a member of the Free Riders, the sixth team not formed by the draft. The Free Riders were coached by arguably one of the greatest bareback riders in history, Bobby Mote.

“I had never experienced a rodeo like that,” he said. “I mean, I roped at San Antonio last year, which is a very big deal for me. I don’t think I’ve ever stepped foot in an arena as big as the one in AT&T stadium.”

Demery said he will keep roping and plans to buy his PRCA card for the 2025 season.

“The last two years, I rodeoed on my permit just to get a better feel for it. But it’s been great,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of new guys that want to help me. I enjoy getting to go and learn from other guys, and I’m excited to be able to enter at bigger and better rodeos.”