story by Michele Toberer
Randi McCoy’s future with the Mid-States Rodeo Association started long before she was born; her grandfather, Don Coffell was the MSRA Tie-Down Roping champion in 1974, and her mom, Toni, competed as a breakaway roper and barrel racer while she was pregnant with her. Randi didn’t realize when she was a flag girl at a Canton, Ohio MSRA rodeo in the late 90’s when she was just 12 that her future with the MSRA would be so strong. Randi was recently named the 2018 MSRA Champion Breakaway Roper and 2018 All-Around Champion Cowgirl after a great season of roping calves and running barrels.
There are many things about life Randi didn’t know about her future, like the fact that she’d marry Seth McCoy, a fellow rodeo competitor on the Ohio High School Rodeo team, or that their first child, Lane, would pass away after a farming accident when he was just 3 years old. But Randi and Seth share Lane’s memory with their daughter, Larami, 4, and try to focus not on the past, but on today, and the memories they’re able to make each day they are given. “I tell Larami that her brother lives in Heaven with Jesus. Life is so short, and the biggest thing I’ve learned because of losing my son is that you have to make the best of every day and enjoy the moment. It’s not worth being stuck in that hole that you’re heartbroken in. You are always going to have pain because of the loss, but you have to live and make memories. We have a bumper sticker on our horse trailer, on my mom’s trailer, and even on my uncle’s motorhome, that says, ‘Making Memories,’ and it reminds us that we need to focus on the memories we’re making today.”
Randi grew up in Dalton, Ohio where her dad, Tom Forrer, is a heavy machinery mechanic, and her mom, Toni Forrer, is a school bus driver. Rodeo has been a family affair throughout Randi’s life. Tom roped for several years and now judges rodeos for MSRA. Randi’s younger sister, Dani, stepped into her spot on the OHSRA team, taking over her barrel horse after Randi graduated from Dalton High. Once Randi married Seth 11 years ago, she started competing again after taking a short break. Seth competes in the MSRA as a tie-down roper and has provided breakaway and tie-down calves for 3 Bar J and Diamond J rodeos for several years. “My favorite part of rodeo is the family aspect, roping with my husband and his brother, my sister and cousins. My mom ropes and runs barrels still, and my uncles in Texas still rodeo. It’s something we get to do together. Larami even gets on my dad’s old rope horse, Ted, and goes at a blistering trot through the barrel pattern.”
“If you would have told me that I’d win the breakaway and all-around titles at the beginning of the season I would have laughed at you.” But the course was set after Randi placed second in barrel racing at the second rodeo of the season in Portland, Indiana. She rode a sorrel mare named Streakin To Kill, (Jag) that she purchased from her mom three years ago, and that money helped her make a strong start to the season. With that added to the great breakaway season she had on her 14-year-old palomino gelding, Chip, (Solano’s Beef Eater), she came into the finals in first place.
Randi works the third-shift as a CT Tech at Highland District Hospital, and Seth works for the city of Hillsboro. She has played the piano since she was 5, and now at 33, still enjoys playing Christian music as a way to unwind. “I really appreciate my parents for pushing me to the point I’m at. They gave up a lot so we could rodeo and have the foundation that we did and they still support me 110% in all that I do. And my husband has been so supportive, as well as our rodeo family. They become family, especially when you go through a traumatic life event like we did. I may not have known it would end up this way, but I’m grateful for where I am.”
