story by Lily Weinacht
Donald Wilson acquired a taste for riding horses and the western lifestyle as a kid, but it wasn’t until his teens that he found the rest of his niche. “My neighbors down the road, Don and Russ Oberdier, roped, and I thought it would be fun to try,” says the 35-year-old team roper from Vincent, Ohio. “It just escalated from there! Before that, I’d never roped or been into rodeo, so my neighbors started teaching me a few things.”
Donald started out heading and switched to heeling for several years before returning to his original end. “With my day job, I can’t make every rodeo, so it’s tough to get the same partner for the whole year, so I rope with whoever is available,” he explains. Two of his friends that he ropes with are Zach Kilgus and Zach Waggoner. “Those two guys are really driven, and having them around definitely drives me to get better,” says Donald. “They’re really good motivational friends, and I look up to the pro rodeo guys like Jake Barnes and Charles Pogue. It was Zach Kilgus who first told me about the APRA and the added money at the finals, plus the fact that they have plenty of rodeos within a couple of hours of my house.” Donald also competes in the USTRC, and in January, he roped in The Patriot qualifier in Oklahoma City. He and Zach Waggoner are also entered in both the #10 and #11 at the World Series of Team Roping Finale XI in Las Vegas this December. “We were out there a few years ago to watch, but this will be my first time roping there,” says Donald. “Competing there was definitely a goal of mine.”
When Donald makes the trek to Las Vegas, he’ll have his main horse, Jag, in tow. “Jag is a step up from anything I’ve ever had,” Donald says of the 12-year-old gelding he purchased last summer. “He’s making me a better roper. He has more buttons than I’m used to, so I’m still figuring him out. I also ride Lotto, and he’s a great practice horse – he’d let me make a thousand runs on him. I go down to Zach Kilgus’s house for practice – we go in together on leasing steers. I’m there roping at least four days a week in the summer, or as much as my wife will let me,” he jokes.
Though Donald’s wife, Angela, doesn’t rodeo, they have a multitude of interests, including camping in the mountains of West Virginia with friends, deer hunting, or driving their UTV side by side. Their daughter, Hallie, and her husband, Tylor Pannell, are currently stationed in Hawaii with the U.S. Marine Corps, while the rest of the Wilson family comes in the canine form of two boxers. “We went out there to visit Hallie and Tylor at the end of February. It was my first time to Hawaii, and it’s a nice place to visit,” says Donald.
During the week, Donald is a mechanic at DuPont. “I fix the machines that make the plastic, and I’ve been doing that for ten years now. I got all my training on the job, but I was already mechanically inclined when I signed on.”
Once home, Donald is quick to put on his cowboy boots. “This year, I definitely want to make the APRA finals and the Mid-States finals,” he says. “I went to the 2013 AFR in the heeling, but with my new horse last year, I didn’t make it back to the finals. I just want to keep working on being a better roper!”
