By Lily Weinacht
Kyla Burdick from Rosehill, Kan., is entering her second season in the KJRA, competing in goat tying and barrel racing. The 12 year old watched her dad compete in team roping and steer wrestling and wanted to try the sport of rodeo for herself. “My dad wanted me to rodeo, too, so I started off goat tying. I tried pole bending later, but now I just do goats and barrels,” says Kyla. “I like the adrenaline you get from goat tying, and the teamwork you have to have with your horse. I also enjoy meeting new people!”
Kyla competed in her first rodeo of the year in January with the OKYRA. Last year, during the OKYRA’s finals, she won prize money and a hay bag. “I’ve really missed rodeo this winter, so I’m very ready to get back into it!” Kyla says. She practices several times a week with her dad’s help, loading her horse and practice goats into the trailer in order to ride at a neighbor’s arena several miles away. “Dad helps me out with what I need to improve on, and I also look up to my friend, Avary Brown. She’s in junior high rodeo and she’s helped coach me when we practice.”
The Burdick family lives several miles outside of Rosehill. Kyla’s parents, Casey and Meridy, and her 15-year-old brother, Jace, travel with Kyla to her rodeos. “Jace is interested in sports mainly, like wrestling and baseball and soccer, but he comes to my rodeos and I go watch his games,” Kyla explains. “We do a lot of driving!” When she’s off to a rodeo, Kyla loads her ten-year-old buckskin, Gus, who is also her dad’s team roping horse. “Gus is very talented. I use him for both my events,” she says. “When I’m getting ready for a rodeo, I tell him to be good. Most of the time, he listens.”
In addition to Gus and a retired rodeo horse, the Burdicks have a donkey, pigs, goats, and chickens. “My least favorite chore is probably hauling water to our chickens,” Kyla admits. “The bucket is really heavy!” However, she is looking forward to 4-H and showing rabbits this summer. She has shown pigs in the past, but decided to switch to rabbits. “It’ll be different this year because I won’t have to get up at 3 am every day to go down and feed the pigs and show them during fair,” says Kyla. “Showing rabbits happens later in the day. We haven’t picked out a breed yet, but I’d like to get one of the lop breeds.”
A seventh grader at Mulvane Middle School, Kyla’s favorite class is science. She enjoys learning about animals and ecosystems, and she also likes sew, which she is learning in her home economics class. “I just got a sewing machine, and right now I’m making pillows,” she describes. The rest of Kyla’s time is spent riding horses with her friends, or the occasional ice skating trip to the Wichita Ice Center.
Anxious to be back in the rodeo arena, Kyla is interested in learning to breakaway rope, while she’d like to meet Tuf Cooper one day. Her dad competes in the USTRC, and Kyla wants to back into the roping box herself. “I want to keep rodeoing as I grow up, and I’d like to get better at goat tying and learn to breakaway,” Kyla finishes. “Then, hopefully, I’ll get to the college finals!”