story by Riata Cummings
Thirteen-year-old Adrianna Fitzgerald is a rodeo athlete from the small town of Peoa, Utah. She is the youngest child of Rowdy and Jonelle Fitzgerald, and her older siblings are Nicole, Porter and his wife Shandra. Most of Adrianna’s family lives in the Kamas Valley, and she enjoys spending holidays at family functions. Adri attends South Summit Middle School as an eighth grader. She loves learning about the past and people of olden times in her history class. She also enjoys playing softball, basketball, and volleyball.
Adrianna has competed in the horse 4-H for five years, and she loves that half of her time competing is spent doing speed events like barrel racing, pole bending and keyhole racing. She has competed in local jackpots and fair rodeos, but this year her friends encouraged her to break into the world of Junior High Rodeo.
Adrianna competes in the breakaway roping, goat tying, pole bending and barrel racing. Pole bending, the slalom of rodeo, is her favorite event. “I love the tricky pattern, and the way my horse just loves to run the poles.” Adri competes on an all-around, gray dappled horse named Frost who she describes as “tall, athletic and fast but sweet as can be.” Adrianna hopes to finish in the top ten in the barrel racing and pole bending to qualify for the state finals rodeo.
“‘Believe you can and your half-way there.’ It’s true because if you go into something thinking that you can’t, then you won’t. But if you believe that you can, and you work for it, then it will happen for you.”
“There are things more important than you.” She has learned the care and horsemanship that it takes to be a responsible horse owner. “You have someone else to care for. Even if you are sick or tired, you have to feed your horses because they can’t get the hay themselves.”
Another learning experience for Adri was taking care of a bummer, or orphaned, calf. “I had to wake up at five every winter morning to bottle feed the calf and do it again right after school.” That experience showed her that “if you wake up and accomplish something right away, even if that’s the only good thing you do all day, at least you have done something. It also taught me to care about another creature.”
One of Adri’s greatest strengths is her ability to “I always put on a smile. It makes me feel better and it makes other people feel better, too.” Adrianna wants people to think of her as a caring, strong person, like she thinks of her mother. “My mom always works hard, and she somehow finds time to help me with all of my things.” Adrianna would like to thank her parents, siblings and grandparents for encouraging her in all her pursuits. She is grateful for the chance to rodeo and the people who have made it possible.
