NHSRA member, Shane Weber
– Courtesy of JJJ Photo
story by Ruth Nicolaus
The Thanksgiving tradition at the Weber and Stout family gathering is not your typical holiday event.
As soon as the meal is over, the whole family heads outside to the arena where they spend the afternoon roping.
Roping is nothing new to Shane Weber, as the Nebraska High School Rodeo Association member used to team rope. But he’s found another love in rodeo: saddle bronc riding.
Weber, a senior in high school, got on his first saddle bronc his freshman year at former PRCA bronc rider Cory Hughes’ school, and loved it. “I never really planned on riding broncs,” he said. “The friends I hung around got into roughstock, so they started me doing it. The first one I got on, I got bucked off pretty hard but I knew I liked it a lot.”
Shane team roped in high school his freshman year, but because of the expense and because his partner graduated, he is only riding broncs now. “I decided I’m a roughie instead.”
The 18 year old cowboy took his hardest classes last semester at Burwell High School, and now he can have a little more fun this semester. He’s taking general classes, shop classes and work release, which allows him to leave at 1:45 every day. He works for his aunt and uncle, Laura and Troy Packard, at their feedlot and ranch. He doctors cattle, rides pens, feeds, and fixes fence. While riding pens, he rides a lot of young colts, since his mother’s side of the family, the Stouts, raise quarter horses.
His favorite teacher at Burwell high is Mr. Max, the industrial tech and shop class teacher. Mr. Max is also the wrestling and football coach and was an All-American wrestler who competed for Chadron (Neb.) State College. Mr. Max is Shane’s robotics class teacher this year.
In high school, Shane competed as a wrestler, was in FFA, and has been on the honor roll throughout his school career. He was class president his junior year. He has also served as a student director for the NHSRA for the past two years, a position he has really enjoyed.
He finished his sophomore and junior years of rodeo as alternate for the National High School Finals in the saddle bronc riding.
This fall, he and his good friend and bareback rider Rowdy Moon will attend Mid-Plains Community College in North Platte, where they will both rodeo. “We’ve traveled together and wrestled together,” Shane said. “We had a deal, that we’d go to the same college so we could keep rodeoing together.” Shane plans on getting his electrical technician degree.
He has an older sister, Sydney, who is 22, and a younger brother, Grady, age fourteen. Shane hopes his brother competes in rodeo someday.
He is the son of Ronda Weber.
