By Lindsay Whelchel
There is no shortage of cowgirl determination in the Flowers household. Jayme Flowers is one of six girls in the family. She’s the second youngest, and all of her older sisters rodeoed. Their mom, Mari, was a barrel racer growing up, and Jayme quickly took up the reins herself.
“As soon as I was able to run barrels at 5, I started rodeoing in Little Britches in the Pee Wee division, and I’ve rodeoed ever since,” Jayme says.
The rest of her family is made up of dad, Kevin and sisters, Kristina, Jordan, Kendra, Nikki, and Kayla.
But Jayme has a very large extended family as well in the form of the Kansas High School Rodeo Association.
She’s a senior now and has been with them since her junior high rodeo days.
“The rodeo family that you grow up with, if you’re on the side of the road or whatever, you just know you’re going to have someone there that will be there to help, if your parents are not at the rodeo, especially Kansas High School Rodeo, the parents are awesome,” she says and adds, “I’ve just grown up with a lot of really cool people that if I wasn’t in rodeo I wouldn’t know at all.”
Jayme competes in the barrels, poles, breakaway and team roping and growing up with sisters in the sport has certainly had its advantages.
“It was really cool. Whenever I was little there was about three or four of us rodeoing at a time, so it was really fun to switch horses or learn how to ride whoever’s horse you could jump on. I got passed down a lot of my horses I used when I was younger. They were my sisters’ so it was really cool to see them win on them and then see me win on them.”
Through the years she’s learned to focus on what’s important in the sport.
“Rodeo is a mental toughness sport. You can’t always win, and if you don’t win try and stay positive. Just spend your time practicing, and hopefully all of it will pay off.”
Jayme credits her family, related and not, for their support.
“For sure my parents and my family for hauling me to rodeos and always pushing me to keep in rodeo, and they’re always there whenever I do good. I always get some kind of recognition for it and also just the family and friends of Kansas High School Rodeo, in my four years and junior high rodeo, they’ve been awesome.”
Outside of rodeo, Jayme is active in basketball but plans to focus on rodeo after high school going to Garden City to compete on the rodeo team and get her associate’s degree before heading south for her bachelor’s and of course, more rodeo.
