story by Lindsay Welchel
Owen Lott grew up in the Tri-State Rodeo Association. His dad was a rodeo producer who put on TSRA events when Owen was a kid. “I’ve just always been around horses and roped from an early age,” Owen explains.
Calf roping and team roping were the events that he stuck with, though Owen did steer wrestle some in high school.
The sport of rodeo has taken Owen from high school rodeo where he made the high school finals several times, on to college rodeo with the team in Hillsboro, Texas and a senior year qualification to the College National Finals Rodeo held then in Bozeman, Montana.
Owen also grew up active in the American Quarter Horse Association. He won a Junior Heeling World Championship in 1992 at the age of 17, as well as a reserve championship in the calf roping.
Owen is 41 now and spent many years competing in professional rodeo, with qualifications to the International Finals Rodeo from 1998 to 2002.
“It’s opened a bunch of doors for me that I don’t think would’ve been opened,” he says of the sport and adds, “I’ve seen miles of the United States that I wouldn’t have seen without rodeo.”
Owen says, recalling his memory of learning about the attacks on September 11, 2001 while he was rodeoing up north in Quebec, Canada.
Now days, Owen sticks closer to home, competing where his roots began in the TSRA, training young horses and working for Trinity River Energy, an oil company with ties near his home in Mississippi.
“I ride quite a few young horses, and I help some of the guys around my house that have grass calves during the winter, doctor those. So I stay pretty close to home most of the time now,” Owen says.
But it’s clear, his home-life is plenty busy and fulfilling. Owen is married to his wife Dawn. He has a young daughter Catie Beth, and a stepson, Garret.
Outside of work and rodeo, training is Owen’s main hobby. “I like to take young horses and turn them into team roping horses,” he says.
He’s also dedicated to his role as the TSRA team roping director, with hopes to grow and improve the association. Owen does this with a focus on working with contractors and helping to ensure the quality of steers for the ropers.
That’s just one way Owen is being a part of the sport of rodeo opening doors for other contestants just like it did for him.
