story by Ruth Nicolaus
Faith Storer is leading the ribbon roping in the Nebraska Junior High School Rodeo Association.
The 14-year-old cowgirl who lives fourteen miles east of Arthur, Neb., is also a team roper (heading for Payton Gorwill), a breakaway roper, pole bender and goat tyer. In the ribbon roping, she runs for Justin Chasek.
She has four horses: Ed, her team roping horse, Smoke, the breakaway horse she shares with her brother, Brat, her pole horse, and Peanut, her goat horse. Ed is her favorite, because he was one of her first horses, and because of his personality. “He’s pretty calm,” Faith said. “He’s not very temperamental. He’s just a really good horse.”
She is one of eight eighth grade students at Arthur County High School. Her favorite classes are P.E. and math. She loves any kind of sports, and participates in basketball, Sing Around Nebraska, honor band, quiz bowl, and student council. She has been the student manager for the girls high school basketball and volleyball teams for the past three years, and is part of the Achievers and Believers 4-H Club in Arthur. In 4-H, Faith has shown pigs and steers (winning grand champion market beef steer at the Arthur Co. Fair in 2016), made a quilt, baked, done flowers, and judged range.
In her spare time, she enjoys reading. Her favorite book is one about the history of Arthur County. She loves basketball, volleyball, and track, and is on the honor roll.
When she goes to college, she’d like to play college basketball or rodeo, depending on which one she gets a scholarship for. She’s keeping her options open for her future career: she might like to be a veterinarian, or maybe a teacher, or a horse chiropractor, or a masseuse.
Last year, she made the National Junior High Finals Rodeo in the ribbon roping, running for Quade Potter. She loves to rope and won her first buckle at the Summer Sandhills Youth Breakaway Series.
Faith has an older brother, Colten, who is sixteen, and a younger brother, Dakota, who is twelve. She is the daughter of Jared and Angela Storer.
