story by Lily Landreth
Chance Derner competed in his second consecutive 20X Extreme Showcase Rodeo this February and took home his second title representing the Southwest Region. The 18-year-old from New Underwood, South Dakota, won the tie-down roping with a 10.87. In 2019 he won the team roping with Thane Lockwood. “There were some things I could’ve done better, but I was real excited about (winning) it,” says Chance. “We live 20 miles east of Rapid City, so every year we hang out and watch the rodeos.”
During the Black Hills Stock Show, Chance was also one of two recipients of a $1,000 scholarship sponsored by the Black Hills Stock Show Foundation. “You had to write an essay, and the theme was how can I continue the western way of life through my college education,” Chance explains. “I’m going to school for either Ag business or Ag production, and I’m going to take those skills and bring them back because I want to be in agriculture my whole life. My dad owns a fencing company, so whether it’s fencing or ranching, I just want to help better the western way of life.”
The rodeo way of life goes back in Chance’s family several generations. His parents, Levi and Angie Derner, both college rodeoed, while both sets of Chance’s grandparents rodeoed, along with five uncles on his mom’s side. Chance’s 15-year-old sister, Shelby, is a freshman in the SDHSRA this season. “Mom and Dad are huge supporters of my roping, and my sister. She normally heads for me and Mom and Dad run chutes,” says Chance. “My two uncles, Tim Nelson and Jeff Nelson, have helped me with my heeling and are always giving me advice. When I was in middle school, my cousin Jade Nelson would come stay for a few weeks and work with my dad, and at night he’d get off work and go rope. He helped me a lot with my heeling.”
Along with the SDHSRA, where Chance will be competing in the tie-down roping and team roping with header Teigan Fite, he hopes to enter the SDRA and Mid-States Rodeo Association this summer. He won state heeling his sophomore year in 2018 and wants to return to the NHSFR to finish out his senior year. “I think everybody at the end of the day wants to go to the NFR and win a gold buckle, so that drives me, and continuing on the heritage,” says Chance. “In team roping, I think it’s fun to bring five minds together—me and my horse, the steer, and my partner and his horse—and it’s very rewarding. And I’ve liked to calf rope my whole life.”
Chance won the tie-down roping at the 20X on his 11-year-old gelding, Julio, whom he purchased from his uncle Mike. His heel horse is a 15-year-old sorrel gelding he calls Red Dragon. “I bought him from my cousin Jade, and he’s taken me a lot of places I wouldn’t have been able to go without him. We’ll check on cows to get the horses in shape, and there’s people around with barns that we can call up and ask if we can come rope or just ride.” Chance also works part time at a feed store in town after school, and enjoys hunting with his friends in the winter.
A senior at New Underwood High School, Chance is finishing the semester through online classes due to the coronavirus. When his school was open, a favorite part of his day was working as a teacher assistant in the library. Chance plans to attend Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyoming, this fall and college rodeo. “I’ll keep doing both my roping events and I think it would be cool to go to the College Finals my freshman year.”
