story by Siri Stevens
Kash and his twin brother, Klay are both team ropers. Klay is older by two minutes. The 12-year-old roper is a #3 header. “I started roping when I was 8 at home, and then started going to youth associations.” Klay also does goat tying and spends every night at the barn for at least three hours. He has one horse that he uses for all his events. Big is a 16-year-old gelding that Bo, his brother used for the Junior Ironman. Big was his dad’s horse. Kash enjoys his twin brother. “People can’t tell us apart so we have fun pretending to be each other.” Kash wants to be a professional header when he grows up and will spend his summer riding and roping. For fun, Kash plays baseball at the rec center. The sixth grader goes to a private school and likes math best. “It makes you think and stick to a strategy.”
Klay and Kash rope together so they don’t have to compete against each other. They don’t get upset when each other misses, chalking it up the time the other one missed.
Klay is #3 heeler and used to compete in other events but decided to stick with roping. “I want to focus on one thing and not all the other stuff.” As the older brother, he tries to be two minutes better than his brother. He goes to the same school as his brother, and like him, math is his favorite subject. “I like working with numbers.” He wants to be a horse trainer and a professional heeler, roping with his brother. In the summertime, Klay plays baseball and hopes to get ready for National Junior High Finals in Tennessee and then he and his brother head to Wyoming to support their older brother.
“Our boys are all pretty self-sufficient,” said mom, Paula. “They make their own lunches and do all their own laundry for the most part. I just have to wrangle them around and make sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.” Rick and Paula tag-team haul to the rodeos. “Oklahoma has done a great job of scheduling both junior high and high school rodeos at the same time.” When their stock trailer pulls out, it’s loaded with six or seven horses and the family stays in a hotel. “We have an older daughter (Bailey, 21); she rodeoed for Howard College in Big Spring Texas and will graduate next May from Wichita State University with a degree in secondary English education. There was a time when there was six of us and the horses going down the road.”
The twins are currently sitting 4th in the team roping.
