story by Ruth Nicolaus
Haydn Hegemann is not lounging around this summer.
The Nebraska Junior High School Rodeo Association member is hard at work.
He mows a couple residential lawns, four cemeteries (with the help of friends), runs the baler when the family puts up hay, has gone to a few wrestling camps and lifts weights, practices for his rodeo events and shows cattle.
A bareback rider, saddle bronc rider, bull rider and goat tyer, he had a great National Junior High Finals, barely missing the short go in the goats and covering one of his saddle broncs and one of his bulls.
Of his three events, bull riding is his favorite, even though he won the 2023 Nebraska junior high goat tying title.
In May, he completed his eighth grade year at Arlington Public School. School is good, mostly because of his FFA and woodworking classes. He’s excited to take welding classes this fall. He has a good start on the welding, as his grandpa gave him a mig wire-fed welder last Christmas and taught him the fundamentals of welding.
The best meal Haydn’s mom makes is tater tot casserole. His favorite desserts are rhubarb crisp and angel food cake with ice cream and strawberries on top. His grandma makes both of those dishes, and sometimes she cuts strawberries for him and sprinkles sugar on top, another of his favorites. His favorite fruit is mango and his favorite vegetable is carrots.
The most fun Haydn had on a trip was going to Ft. Worth two years ago to the Hooey Junior Patriot Rodeo. His sister competed there, and they were able to watch the longhorns go down the street and eat at nice restaurants (the ribs meal was his favorite.)
He also had a lot of fun at Nationals the last two years. While in Perry, Georgia, he experienced a crawfish boil. “I’d never had crawfish before,” he said. “It was so good, with the brats and the corn. It was so fun.” He and friends kayaked in the ponds and had water balloon fights.
If Haydn were given $1 million, he’d spend it on goats and a new truck.
As for the goats, they are a project he started last November as part of his FFA CDE project. He’s raising kids from ten nannies. They are dual purpose goats: both show quality and meat as well. Hayden does all the chores for the goats (plus for the roping calves and pigs), morning and night. He sells some of the goats as show animals and some for processing.
He’s enjoyed the goats a lot. “It’s been more fun that I thought it would be.” Every morning, he gets up and heads outside to check on them. “Sometimes they just make me laugh.”
The money he raises from the goats is his college fund.
As for the pickup, his dream truck is a 1997 Ford Highboy, dark blue, with a straight pipe out the back. He’d redo the interior and put “nice big chrome wheels” on it.
When he grows up, he’d like to be an electrician and a plumber, like his granddad and great-uncles, and farm on the side.
Haydn has an older sister, Libby, who participates in high school rodeo, and a younger brother, Eli, who will be a sixth grade student this fall.
He is the son of Craig and Lindsay Hegemann.
