Matt Peters
– BQGAUCKPhotography
story by Lindsay Whelchel
Rodeo is a sport that takes support. Luckily, it’s also a sport where a supportive and helpful attitude is common. Matt Peters, who competes in the Northwest Ranch Cowboys Association, as well as college rodeos for Gillette College in Wyoming, understands this sentiment well.
“It’s a big responsibility. You’ve got horses to take care of all the time. I’m not from a very wealthy family, so you can’t just buy [an expensive horse], and you’ve got to know how to train one. You’ve got to have a rig to go down the road. It’s not like playing basketball [where] you jump in the car and go.”
The inverse of that however, is that multiple people have stepped in to help Matt in his rodeo career. He’s quick to thank Jerry Means, a regular supporter of the Gillette College Rodeo Team, where Matt is on a rodeo scholarship. Means keeps students’ horses at his barn and goes beyond that to help out the team.
“I actually ride his horse at all the college rodeos and take him to a few amateurs and stuff. I actually won the finals on his horse,” Matt says of the horse called Rat.
Rodeo was something Matt was perhaps born to do. His dad rodeoed some as a team roper. “I pretty much just grew up swinging a rope. Whenever I could walk I was roping,” Matt says.
He’s 21 now and competes in calf roping and team roping. He won the NRCA Finals in calf roping last year.
Matt is studying to be an industrial electrician and is a junior this year.
This year, Matt bought his permit to go to pro rodeos and plans to hit the circuit ones this season. He’s also after another NRCA finals among his busy college rodeo schedule.
“I like the people, they’re great. [NRCA] are fun rodeos. You don’t have to travel very far,” he says of the association.
In return for the help he’s been given from his friends and family, Matt values being there for someone else in need.
“I’m there to help anyone out if they need it,” he says.
Back home in Oelrichs, S.D., his parents, Frank and Marla, ranch, and his little sister Courtney does high school rodeo and Little Britches. Matt’s older sister Jessica works as a stylist in Rapid City.
When Matt isn’t rodeing, he likes to hunt and ride colts.
But when it comes to the arena, he keeps his focus.
“I just try to make every run the same try, to make every run quality.”
Like any other sport’s athletes, for Matt, rodeo time is game time.
