UJHRSA member, Trinitie Lopshire – Courtesy of the family
stories by Siri Stevens
Trinitie Lopshire likes to rodeo and hunt. She is an eighth grader at Snowcress Junior High, outside of Ogden, Utah. She will be at Snowcrest for one more year before heading downtown Ogden for high school. Her favorite subject is math so far this year because she really likes her teacher. Her favorite part of the day comes when she gets off the bus and can come home and rope.
The 13-year-old competes in breakaway, barrels, and team roping. She likes breakaway the best. “I just got a new horse and we work well together,” she said. The family has a little arena at the house where Trinitie and her brothers can pull the Tuf Kalf around with the Ranger when their parents are working. In addition to practicing at home, the family loads up two or three times a week to go to her grandparents place about 15 minutes away, where there is a bigger arena and live cattle. Trinitie started competing when she was 7. “My mom (April) high school rodeoed and my dad (Travis) started roping when he got married. My whole family ropes. I have an older brother (Ty), 14, and a little brother (Ruger), 8.” Ty has moved on to high school rodeo, so Trinitie lost her team roping partner. She is a heeler. “My brother liked heading, so I decided I was going to heel so we could rope together. I’ve been heeling for four years.”
The team made it to state Finals, but not to Nationals. Trinitie has a new heading partner, Cale Stratton, and the team won the team roping last weekend at the first rodeo of the season in Tooele. Tinitie is starting the year off on the right foot with that win, as well as a win in the breakaway. Her goal this year is to make it to Nationals. “You have to do good every weekend, and we take our average winners to Finals. We have a state Finals, but you have to carry points to go to their. It’s my last year in Junior High so I really want to go to Nationals.”
Trinitie loves rodeoing. “I like the friendship we have with the other people. We see the same people for six weekends.” She also loves hunting pheasants, deer, and elf. The family has five dogs and seven horses. “My dad has three hunting dogs and then we have another hunting dogs and a house dog. We raise pheasants in Huntsville and raise short hairs to hunt them. We turn them out and train the dogs with them.” Her dad’s email address is Elk Shed Hunter. “We go every year and go to where the elk sheds it’s antlers in the fall and we keep them. My dad sometimes makes furniture out of them.” She hunts about half an hour from her home.
Rodeo and hunting is what defines Trinitie and she is eager to watch Utah win the team title at Nationals next year and be a part of it.
UJHRSA member, Sammy Taylor – JenningsRodeoPhotography.com
Sammy Taylor competed at the National Junior High Finals in the goat tying and pole bending last year. “We got to hang out with our friends that we junior high rodeo with and make friends. It was fun to compete in a big arena and see new country. The weather was great and it was way fun.” Sammy also competes in breakaway roping, barrel racing, team roping, ribbon roping. “I do everything I can,” said the 13-year-old from Neola, Utah. “I like to do all the events, but my favorite it goat tying. That’s what I’m best at and I’ve got good horses. It’s the event I like to practice the best.”
Sammy, short for Samantha, has lived in Neola all her life. “It’s a really small town and I know everyone. We live by the mountains, but I don’t ski.” Her cell phone comes up from Texas, something her dad (Sam) did. “We all have a cell phone number from a different state,” she said. She goes to school at Roosevelt Junior High School and likes the eighth grade. “All my friends are there and I’ve known them since I was little. I have good teachers and good role models there.” Her favorite class is helping in PE, where she helps give students their lockers, run errands, and organize the closets – whatever the PE teachers need.
Sammy started rodeoing when she was three or four. “My dad rodeoed in high school and I was on a horse pretty much when I got back from the hospital. My dad has a couple race horses, and we have 45 horses here, some that are in training, and some that we ride to see what we can do on them.” Sam ropes on the weekends, and sometimes will go farther to compete. Mom, Amy Horrocks, doesn’t rodeo or ride, but she helps with the trip planning. Sammy has two sisters, Brittian, 8; and Milly, 6; and one brother, Payden, 11.
Sammy is hoping to go to West Texas A&M for their veterinary science, college rodeo, and go on to the Pro Rodeo Circuit. She has a really good barrel horse but she is still getting used to him. “I love to rodeo, it’s one of the greatest sports.”
UJHRSA member, Amy Mason – JenningsRodeoPhotography.com
Amy Mason, 13, from Dammeron Valley Utah competes in goat tying, barrels, poles, ribbon roping and breakaway, but goat tying is is her favorite event. “I love stepping off my horse going full speed” she says. She began her rodeo career about six years ago when she started riding in the WCBRA and the Dixie 6.
In eighth grade, Amy just started Utah Online School this year. PE is her favorite subject because she enjoys learning about health, physical fitness and “I like that I can record all the activities I do and it counts toward my class”. Home schooling allows her more time to practice. “It really does give me more time to get stuff done.” She says. Amy wakes up early, exercises her horses, feeds, comes inside to do schoolwork, and then it’s off for more rodeo practice. Her friend and all around rodeo champion, Kaytlyn Miller, lives just through the block and she often gets to practice with her.
College is also one of her many goals. She wants to attend Southern Utah University and hopes to continue her education in anything animal related.
Amy is the youngest of 14 children. Her mom, Kathie, had 10 children and her dad, Von, had two when they met, married and had two more. The family has grown to include 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. “It’s pretty cool”, she said of her siblings, “My oldest brother is 39 and I get all the hand me downs – I’m pretty spoiled.”
She and her brother Brent, 16, are the only ones left at home and since he competes in the high school rodeos, their parents are hauling almost every weekend.
She is about to turn 14 – October 27 – and what she wants for her birthday is for her whole family to be around – scattered between Utah and Texas, that will be quite a feat.
Kathie says her daughter Amy is “the fun one of the family. As soon as the grandkids or neighbor kids step in the front door they ask, ‘where’s Amy?’, she is amazing!”
