story by Ruth Nicolaus
Teige Whetham is a busy man during football and rodeo seasons.
The Nebraska High School Rodeo Association member plays ball for the Morrill (Neb.) High School Lions, and to be ready for high school rodeos the next day, he and his family make some long drives from the far western part of the state to rodeos in central and eastern Nebraska.
All but two of the state high school rodeos are no less than four hours away.
So during the game, the Whetham truck and trailer is loaded and parked at the high school, so as soon as the game is over, Teige showers, changes, and crawls into the back seat, as his parents drive to the next day’s rodeo.
And sleeping in the back seat isn’t the most comfortable for him, who is 6’6”. “I don’t fit very well in vehicles,” he said. “And after football games, I cramp up, so I don’t get very good sleep.”
Teige (pronounced “Teeg”), is a tie-down roper and team roper, heading for Cash Cooper.
His horse for both events is a fourteen-year-old bay gelding who was his brother’s and sister’s horse before Teige inherited him. The horse, named Rodeo, “is real fast, and has that little move on the corner, to set up cattle for the heeler,” he said. “He’s pretty automatic. He’s fast, he scores sharp, and puts you in the right spot every time.
“The only thing you have to do is nod and throw your rope. He pretty much does the rest.”
Teige is prepping a tie-down horse named Tonto, a nine-year-old dark paint. Tonto hasn’t been roped on the past 18 months, so he’s getting some workout time in the arena. The horse is short, “which works good for me. I can step off him and I’m on the ground.”
A senior at Morrill High School, he loves playing football and basketball (as post: “they give me the ball over the top of everybody”), welding, and FFA class. In welding, he made it to District FFA convention in the stick welding.
Some of his welding projects include a fire pit with stones around it and a triangle-shaped lid with mesh. Last year, the welding class made a garden rail and patio, twisting steel bars for the decoration, at a house near Morrill.
As a senior, he has three classes: welding, government and English and is out of school by 10:30 am each day to go to his job at a feedlot a mile from town. He’d work for his dad on the ranch, but the ranch is 30 miles north of town and with needing to be at football practice after school, it’s not worth it to drive home and back. He enjoys the feedlot, where he rides pens looking for sick calves and does some welding and maintenance. He can run the feed truck, too, if needed.
For fun, Teige likes to call coyotes, hunt deer and be on Lake Minatare, tubing and surfing.
The best meal his mom makes is steak and cheese sandwiches, with thin sliced sirloin and onions. It’s similar to a Philly cheesesteak but with no peppers. He loves “Better than Anything” cake, and he loves the family’s annual roping trips to Rapid City over Independence Day, when they compete in the National Team Roping event. Teige’s aunt, uncle and cousin live there, and he spends three days roping with his dad, brother, cousin, and any friends who might be there. They enjoy eating at Texas Roadhouse and when he was younger, they drove go-carts and went to Mount Rushmore.
Teige’s rodeo career started in the saddle bronc riding. He thought it looked fun, so as a freshman in the ., he tried it.
“I thought I would be a big bad bronc rider, then I broke my arm at the first spring rodeo,” he said. He and a friend had gotten on practice horses, which was fun at the time.
“When I finally got on some rodeo horses, I thought it wasn’t as fun as it looks. And I wasn’t good at it.”
The broken arm kept him out of state finals his freshman year. He made state his junior year, finishing in the top 25 in the tie-down that year.
Next fall, he will attend Casper (Wyo.) College to rodeo and work towards a welding certificate.
Teige has an older sister, Taylor, who is 24, and an older brother, Tanner, who is 22.
He is the son of Shon and Cathy Whetham.
