story by Ruth Nicolaus
Shylene Drumm is a five-time Colorado Junior High School Rodeo champion.
This year, she won the pole bending, breakaway roping, goat tying, ribbon roping, and all-around titles.
The Durango, Colo. cowgirl has four rodeo horses. Kasino is her ribbon roping horse (Shylene ropes for Tanner Richards, who is the runner.) She used Kasino for the team roping and breakaway roping this past spring, as her good breakaway horse was on the injured list due to a tendon problem.
That good breakaway horse is Shadow, and he’s back from injury. The nine-year-old roan returned by late May, and she was able to ride him at the National Junior High Finals Rodeo.
Her pole and barrel horse (she also competes in the barrels) is Titan, an eight-year-old bay, and her goat tying horse is Doc, who also served parttime as breakaway horse this spring when Shadow was injured. Of her horses, she’s had Doc the longest.
And of her horses, Kasino has the biggest personality. He’s not big on running, which is ironic, due to his rodeo resume, but when it’s time to compete, he’s all in. He’s also the Harry Houdini of horses: he opens gates, gets out, and even unties himself! He’s even opened a gate one time, letting himself into the other horse’s pen. “He’s smart,” Shylene said.
Shadow is her most stubborn horse, and Doc is a sweetheart and loves kids. “You can put a kid on him and he’ll baby him for days,” she said. Doc was the horse Shylene rode when she started her events.
Titan and Kasino have the closest bond of her animals. Kasino, who is fourteen hands, is Titan’s “support pony,” she laughed. Titan is seventeen hands, so the height difference between them “is crazy,” she said. “They really love each other.”
Shylene is a freshman in high school and attends Southwest Colorado E-School. She loves online school. “It has more flexibility,” she said. “I get my schoolwork done from 9 to 1 pm, then check (school) emails in the afternoon. I have more flexibility to work, train horses and be a part of rodeo.”
Her favorite subject is writing. She used to write fiction stories but now focuses on journaling and writing about her favorite subject: horses.
The best meal her mom makes is manicotti, with sauce from scratch. The best meal her dad makes is barbecue ribs, and she loves vanilla bean ice cream, watermelon (her favorite fruit) and cucumbers dipped in ranch dressing (her favorite vegetable.)
The most fun Shylene has had on a trip was to the National Junior High Finals in 2021, her sixth grade year. She loved the environment, being surrounded by good people, and going to different restaurants. One of her favorite restaurant meals in Des Moines was Mexican; she loves carne asada.
If she had $1 million to spend, she’d spend it on her family: buying her mom a nice heel horse, buying her dad some nice horses, and donating the rest to a cowboy crisis fund.
For fun, she loves to play the guitar and hang out with friends, either at her house, where they often ride horses, or the friends’ homes, where they’ll play volleyball, soccer or basketball.
Shylene would like to follow in her great-granddad and great-great granddad’s footsteps, as a veterinarian. She’s always been interested in animal anatomy and the way horses and cows work.
When she was seven years old, she found a letter from Kansas State University, sent to her family, congratulating them on over a combined 100 years of veterinary medicine between her great- and great-great granddads. It made an impact on her. As a kid, she discovered her great-grandpa’s chest with medicines and informational sheets in it, and she loved studying those.
Shylene has competed at Nationals the last three years. Her sixth grade year, she finished thirtieth in the goat tying. Her seventh grade year, she finished seventeenth in the goats, and this year, she was fourth in the world standings.
Shylene’s mom, Andi, is a former track and volleyball star who has gotten into team roping the last two decades. Her dad, Brian, is a tie-down and team roper.
