story by Ruth Nicolaus
Cauy Preitauer loves animals, and he loves being outside.
The fourteen-year-old cowboy, a member of the Nebraska Junior High School Rodeo Association, has horses, cattle, goats, dogs, cats, chickens and mallards on his home near Stamford, Nebraska.
He is in his first year of junior high rodeo, competing in the team roping (as a header for Cale Buss), the ribbon roping (as a roper for Gracey Rodendecker) and in the tie-down roping.
He rides a twenty-some year old sorrel gelding named Tenino for his events. Tenino has been Cauy’s horse since the boy was two years old, and he’s “tame,” he reports. “He would let anybody in the world ride him. He does anything I ask.”
Cauy is an eighth grade student at Southern Valley Public School, where he loves basketball and wrestling. The junior high basketball team only had three losses this year; Cauy played point guard and wing. In wrestling, he did well, winning nearly every match except for a few.
Social studies is his favorite subject; he loves studying American and Nebraska history. He also trap shoots and is a member of the Dry Ridge 4-H Club. He has shown livestock at the Harlan County Fair for the past several years. Last year, he showed a Hereford-cross steer named Brockle, two sheep named Sheep and Sheepie, and two goats, named Bailey and Bailey Junior. One of his goats won its weight class, and the other goat got second place.
This year, he’ll show two cattle, a Black Angus steer and a Hereford heifer, that are, so far, unnamed.
Cauy also has a flock of ten Rhode Island Red chickens, from which he sells the eggs to neighbors, and a flock of three mallards, which he is breeding. He might sell them or keep them, and he might show them at the fair.
He loves to hunt turkeys, dove, quail, pheasants, deer and coyotes. Last year, he got a doe and called in some big bucks but didn’t get a chance to shoot them.
The family has three pet dogs: Cinch, a mix of several cattle dog breeds, Ty, a border collie, and Harley, a rat terrier-kelpie mix. Cinch is Cauy’s dog.
The best food his mom makes is goulash, and the best dessert she makes is cherry cheesecake. His favorite beverage is Pepsi or Dr. Pepper, and he loves fruit snacks. If he were at a buffet, he’d head straight for the chicken nuggets (dipped in a mixture of ranch dressing and ketchup), and tossed salad, with ranch dressing and Dorothy Lynch dressing.
The most fun he’s had on a trip was when the family went to the Royal Gorge in Canon City, Colorado. He loved viewing the gorge and the bridge.
His favorite rodeo athletes are team ropers: world champions Junior Nogueira and Trevor Brazile. He also looked up to Rickey Green. Rickey helped him, his dad, his dad’s roping partners, and his sister with their team roping. He’s seen Nogueira and Brazile rope in Phillipsburg at Kansas Biggest Rodeo.
When he grows up, he’d like to be a professional team roper and work at a feedlot.
Cauy has an older sister, Brecken, who is seventeen, and who will be his team roping partner next year in high school rodeo.
He is the son of Dustin and Tresadi Preitauer.
