story by Siri Stevens
Aaron Pohlman was the 2017 Rookie Ranch Bronc Riding Champion for the KPRA. The 30-year-old cowboy lives in Ellenwood, Kansas, in central Kansas, with his wife, Nikki, and their two children, Cambree, 4, Elaina is 1, and Miss Finnley, who will be here June 13th. “We went to every rodeo that the KPRA had, missed three in the middle of August because we were cutting silage,” said Aaron, who enjoys the KPRA and the ability to travel and rodeo. “It satisfies that itch to drift – for my whole life, from a wee young lad, the romanticism and free life of a cowboy to ride sections and get paid for it is all I knew and all I dreamt of. After I got out of school, I cowboyed from Texas to Kansas and then went north to Montana and Wyoming, cowboying for different outfits – I never stayed in one place too long.”
Aaron missed home and came back after six years. “I settled in with my dad (Alan) and started day working.” Alan is the manager of Barton County Feeders, and Aaron worked on the feed lot and for local ranchers and farmers doing everything from hauling to checking cattle turned out on rye, to farming. He does day work at a couple feed yard, calves heifers in the winter, and drives a truck, and farms. He likes running outside cattle the best. “I have more chance to rope.”
Aaron started his rodeo career in high school riding bulls. He was breaking colts for people at the age of 12. “My daddy had a theory if you couldn’t ride a bad one, you shouldn’t ride a good one. He would take on anything, and so did I.” He met his wife at WalMart. “I was coming out, she was coming in. We visited for a minute or two at the entrance and she got hold of me through FaceBook and that was it. I jingle jangle everywhere I go with my spurs on and I’m thinking she was making fun of me.”
Aaron also ropes, but doesn’t compete in that at the KPRA rodeos, preferring the Wrangler ropings, or the USTRC. “I’m a consistent roper, but not a fast one, so if I can rope four steers in a row, I’ve got a better chance to win.” He doesn’t get to go to ropings as often as he’d like. “I’m working a lot, and it’s hard. I leave to go trade horses in Wyoming, Montana, or I’m punching cows somewhere. I’m most of the time on rank horses. I seldom get bucked off but when I do it’s almost always a catastrophe. I leave at 5:30 in the morning, and get home after dark – in the summertime.”
Aaron loves his life as a cowboy, but if he could do anything else, he would like to be a history teacher. “If I was to break my back again and couldn’t work, that is what I would strive to be.” Aaron broke his back when he was 14. “I was driving to work one day after school and ran over a Camaro – it pulled out in front of me,” he explains. “When I was growing up, that was the 11th commandment – never be late. I was driving a 1976 Chevy pickup the cab cratered in and broke my back in 9 places. It bothers me every day of my life.”
Aaron has an older brother, Michael, who is a decorated soldier in the Kansas National Guard. His sister, Neesha, is a nurse.
