Nolan Reardon is invaluable to his family’s ranching operation.
The Colorado Junior High School Rodeo athlete helps out on the family ranch, the Rocking R Ranch near Gunnison, Colo., nearly every day.
In rodeo, he is a team roper (heading for Casen Pridemore), a ribbon roper (roping for Josey McClain), a goat tyer, tie-down roper and chute dogger.
Of his events, the team roping is his favorite, because he’s been doing it the longest.
For the tie-down and ribbon roping, he rides a ten-year-old red roan named Red, who acts like a big puppy dog, Nolan said. “He’ll follow you around. He always wants to be around people.” Red can sense what his rider is feeling, and is “really strong, athletic and fast.”
For the goat tying, he rides a four-year-old bay gelding named Boone, who the family raised and bottle fed. Nolan’s been putting the training on him, and it’s a satisfying feeling to see Boone get better at goat tying. “It’s been really cool.”
For the team roping, he’s riding a horse that will do, but the family is looking for one to lease or purchase.
Last May, he finished his eighth grade year at Colorado Connections Academy, and loves science, including biology, science experiments, and learning about different animals. As for math, he’s not so crazy about it.
Nolan plays on a travel baseball team, playing catcher, pitcher and third base. Third base is his favorite position, because “you get a lot of action and really hard ground balls.”
The best meal his mom makes is steak, medium rare with mashed potatoes and Caesar salad. His favorite dessert is his mom’s brownies with homemade ice cream. His favorite fruit is apples, and the best veggie is carrots.
Nolan had a lot of fun on a trip the family took to the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean five years ago. They snorkeled, hung out on the beach, went boogie boarding, and went bone-fishing. He especially loved the fishing for the beautiful silver-black, slender bonefish.
He likes to hunt and fish and has harvested an elk and a whitetail deer. The elk skull is mounted, the deer is shoulder mounted and both are hanging in his room. He also loves to fish for trout, both fly fishing and fishing the creeks in the high country at the ranch. He loves it when his dad fries them with garlic and lemon.
His favorite holiday is Independence Day, which also happens to be his birthday. On July Fourth, the family goes to their cabin near Creede where they fish in the lake and fly fish on the Rio Grande. His requested birthday treat is always brownies and ice cream.
The family runs registered Red Angus with a bull sale each spring. Nolan helps with every aspect of the ranch, his mom Katie reports. “We would not be able to ranch without him,” she said. “He is such a big part of our operation and the day-to-day of what we do.”
Nolan loves ranching, especially in the summertime when they move cattle on horseback to dif-ferent pastures.
When he grows up, he’d like to be a pro rodeo roper and run the ranch.
His parents, Katie and Dan, love and appreciate their son. “He is an incredibly intelligent, deep thinker. He is also very reliable. He’s willing to help out, he has a big heart, and he really cares for others and notices when they are down.”
In May, he finished his junior high school rodeo career as reserve all-around champion and is headed to the National Junior High Finals in three events: the tie-down, goat tying, and ribbon roping. Last year he went to Nationals in the goat tying. At Nationals, things didn’t go as he had planned, “but it went pretty good,” he said.
Nolan has a younger sister, Lyla, who is eleven years old and also a rodeo competitor.

by Ruth Nicolaus

Photo by Acentric