Deklin Titus is the reigning Nebraska Junior High School Rodeo bull riding champion.
The fourteen-year-old cowboy won the title in his final year of junior high competition, with his highest score during the regular season being a 74 point ride in Johnstown in the spring, on bull No. 195, a bull that jumps high in the air but isn’t easy to handle in the chutes.
A resident of Wood Lake, Neb., he also competes in the goat tying, team roping (heeling for Branden Freudenburg last season), tie-down roping, and ribbon roping (roping for Tygh Miller last season.)
For the goats, he rides a chestnut named Billy, who has a blaze on his face. He’s small, with a “lot of go in him,” Deklin said. Deklin purchased the horse himself.
His tie-down horse is an animal named Pedro, his favorite, who his family claims is spoiled by his rider, and Deklin doesn’t protest the point. Pedro is his favorite horse, purchased in part by him and a gift from his Nana. He has a bond with the gelding. “Ever since I went and rode him to buy him, we clicked,” he said. “The first calf out, I roped him right off, like we’d done it a thousand times.” Pedro is fast, tracks well, works the rope well, “all the good stuff for a calf horse,” he said.
For the heeling, Deklin had to borrow a heel horse this past season due to an injury to his own horse. His team roping partner Branden and Branden’s family graciously lent him one of their horses.
A student at Valentine High School, his favorite class is P.E. and his least favorite class is science. He is part of student council and in junior high, played football, wrestled, and ran cross-country and track. In high school, he plans on sticking to rodeo, cross-country, wrestling and track.
Deklin does quite a bit of wrestling outside school time. He’s traveled the Midwest, competing at duals and meets in Tulsa, Des Moines, Gary, Indiana, Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Pueblo.
He’s involved in FFA and is on his school’s high honor roll.
The best meal his Nana makes is a cheeseburger, but he also likes to eat rice and ketchup stirred together. He likes no-bake cookies, and his favorite fruit is fruit snacks. His favorite vegetable is corn on the cob, and his favorite candy is Kit Kats, “all day.” He loves Dr. Pepper and jokes that he limits himself to one bottle a day – but the bottle is a 2 liter size!
The best trip he’s ever taken was his seventh grade trip to the National Junior High Finals in Perry, Ga.
This past summer, Deklin worked in the hayfield. Last year, he ran the rake, but this year he was promoted to baler, and if mechanical problems arise, he can usually fix them.
For fun, he likes to go to a neighbor’s lake, where they jet ski, knee board, tube and fish. He likes to hunt deer, coyotes, raccoons and skunks, too.
When he grows up, he may choose to be an optometrist. He had trouble learning to read; in kindergarten, he got glasses, but the eye doctor didn’t realize he had double vision. It was his first grade teacher, Miss Lenser, who realized his vision problems weren’t fixed. She helped him “a ton,” he said, in learning how to read, and she was nice, too.
If he were given $1 million, he’d use it to buy a ranch, build an arena, get more horses and tack, and invest whatever was left over.
He didn’t junior high rodeo in sixth grade; in seventh grade, he went to state finals in all his events, finishing the year in fourth place in the bulls.
This year, he went to state in the same events and topped the charts in the bull riding at the end of the season.
At Nationals this year, he bucked off his first bull and rode his second bull for 54 points.
Deklin has a younger sister, Kealy, who is twelve years old.
He is the grandson of “Papa and Nana” John and Julie Hockenbary, and the son of Tony and Joni Titus.

by Ruth Nicolaus

photo by Acentric