story by Ruth Nicolaus
Jasmyne Bryant – photo by Western Wyoming Photoraphy
Jasmyne Bryant is in her final year of competition in the Wyoming High School Rodeo Association.
The 17-year-old cowgirl, a resident of Evanston, Wyo., is a barrel racer and a pole bender. Her favorite event is the barrels, because she likes the excitement and can feel the energy emanating from her barrel horse.
Her barrel horse, a 12-year-old black mare from the race track, has lots of energy, but it takes Jasmyne to ignite it. “She’s a very calm, gentle horse and I have to get her excited to run or she doesn’t run very good,” Jasmyne said. Normally horses off the race track are hyper, but not for Kelsey Jane. “You have to get her excited and nervous to run, and then you can feel the energy from her.” Kelsey Jane serves as Jasmyne’s pole horse as well.
Jasmyne loves school and being a senior at Evanston High. She’s most excited about taking classes that prepare her for college. She’s enrolled in college English, anatomy, physiology, and political science classes. Her other classes are things she enjoys: band (where she plays bass clarinet), and a fitness class. Her difficult classes give her a lot of homework, mostly in her anatomy and physiology classes.
She plays basketball, is involved in FFA, and plays in the pep band for basketball and football games.
This fall, Jasmyne will begin her schooling for a doctor of veterinary medicine degree, and a horse therapy associate’s degree. She will begin college at Central Wyoming College in Riverton, and then transfer to Sheridan College and on to vet school in Arizona or Texas. She has always loved animals, and in sixth grade, when she met a veterinarian who helped her with her horses and dogs, she was “dead set to be a vet. I have a passion for animals and I might as well do what I love as a career.”
She loves to camp with her family in the Big Horns near Sheridan or at the Little Greys River near Afton. She also likes to hunt and fish, and when her mom needs help with her professional photography, she helps her as secretary at photo shoots.
Jasmyne used to show horses and loves to cook and bake. Her specialties are Italian breaded deer steaks and chocolate chip cookies. In fifth grade, she won the Presidential Award for Academics, and has won numerous buckles and saddles. She has two brothers, Blake, age sixteen, and Hayden, age nine, and a sister, Katherine, age fifteen. She is the daughter of Preston and Mandi Bryant.
