story by Ruth Nicolaus
Tucker Ravenscroft is a chute dogger, tie-down roper, and team roper in the Nebraska Junior High School Rodeo Association. The thirteen year old cowboy lives 43 miles from Cody, Neb., on the family ranch. Because of the distance to school and the road conditions, he and his mom Shannon and siblings live in Cody during the week and travel to the ranch on the weekends. His dad, Eric, stays on the ranch but comes to town to watch his kids’ activities.
Tucker is an eighth grade student at Cody-Kilgore School. He loves social studies and learning about American history, including World War I and II. He’s not a big fan of English class; the teacher is great, but reading and writing aren’t his favorites.
He plays football (his second favorite sport after rodeo), basketball (his third favorite sport), and runs track. In band, Tucker plays the trombone, is a member of FFA, and is on his school’s A-B Honor Roll. The best part of the school day is seventh period, the final class of the day, which is practice time for the students playing sports.
Tucker helps out on the ranch with chores, which include feeding pellets to the bulls, feeding big round bales of hay, and helping with the family’s annual bull sale. He loves to weld and often helps with welding projects around the ranch.
For his rodeo events, he rides two horses. Cactus, a gray mare, is his head horse (he heads for Dakota Storer). Tuffy, his tie-down horse, a bay, belonged to his dad. Cactus is his favorite and the horse he most often uses for ranch work.
Tucker’s favorite event is the steer wrestling, because of the adrenaline rush, and “it’s where all the action’s at.” His uncle is Sean Mulligan, a National Finals Rodeo steer wrestling qualifier and a hazer at the NFR. He looks up to his Uncle Sean and also to world champion steer wrestler Tyler Waguespack. When he grows up, he’d like to be a professional steer wrestler, team roper, rancher and welder.
Tucker’s favorite food is beef. At school, it’s hamburgers with mashed potatoes and chocolate milk (his school serves locally raised beef). At home, it’s his Mom’s enchiladas. His favorite snack is beef jerky, and if he walked into a buffet, the first thing he’d go for is the beef: “I’d go straight to it.” For his birthdays, he likes it when his mom makes Reese’s cheesecake.
Tucker has three older siblings: sisters Jaylynn, who is eighteen and a student at Ft. Hays (Kan.) State University, and Elle, who is fifteen, and a brother, Tyler, who is seventeen. Elle and Tyler participate in high school rodeo.
