NHSRA member, Trevor Leisy – JJJ Photo
story by Ruth Nicolaus
Trevor Leisy is a team roper in the Nebraska High School Rodeo Association.
The 17-year-old cowboy, who lives four miles north of Alliance, is a heeler for Bernie Girard, who lives just down the road from the Leisys.
Trevor rides a 15-year-old gray horse named Buster, who is a really good horse, reliable, and “my best friend,” he says.
He is a senior at Alliance High School, where his favorite classes are his agriculture classes. This year, he’s taking three of them: welding, natural resources, and livestock management. In welding, his favorite of the three, he has made his mom two table top lamps out of horseshoes, a receiver hitch, and a headache rack to go on the back window of the feed pickup. He’s also made a receiver hitch cover with the family’s brand on it.
Trevor is a member of his school’s FFA chapter and 4-H, where he has shown goats, sheep, and his dad’s paint horse. In 2014, he won the round robin showmanship tournament at the Box Butte County Fair.
For fun, Trevor heads a half-mile down the road to his grandparent’s house, where there is an outdoor arena. His family puts on Sunday ropings all summer long at the Double L Arena. He also likes to rope with Bernie and other friends at the Girard’s indoor arena. Trevor’s not big on going to town: “I rarely go to town with friends. I don’t care to go to town.”
He and Bernie and friends also like to coon hunt on weekends in the winter.
During the summers, Trevor can be found in the hayfield. The family puts up about 5,000 big round bales each year, and Trevor can run any machine in the field: the baler, swather, or rake, wherever he is needed. Last summer, with the extra rain the area received, they put up close to 6,000 bales.
He isn’t sure what college he will attend after high school, but he is considering Mid-Plains Community College in McCook, where he will team rope and study something agriculturally-related.
He and header Emily Vinton took sixth place in the state at last year’s state finals.
He has an older brother, Tyler, who is twenty. The brothres roped together during Trevor’s freshman and sophomore years.
He is the son of Travis and Alicia Leisy.
