Dear Roper,
This magazine walks a tightrope: we deeply believe in covering what’s newsworthy to team ropers as a whole, and time and time again, you tell us you want to hear the secrets of the pros, the inside stories of big wins and tales of the best horses in the game. (I promise, we survey thousands annually, and we have for years.)
At the same time, it’s our stated goal to best serve and tell the stories of the everyday team roper, the men and women who make up the grassroots of the sport. To that end, we dedicate page after page to your lives, in and out of the arena, whether it’s the kids in the Resistol Jr. Standings on page 36, or those who win big at the World Series and USTRC ropings we cover each month.
Some issues feel like a trudge—like we’re manually trying to strike that balance, fighting to get it right and sometimes missing the mark. This issue, though, feels—at least to me—like we hit our stride… you know, six years into this gig.
It’s always a pleasure on the months when Kendra Santos digs deep into the inner workings of professional team roping with a story like her NFR Hump feature on page 70, and I got to talk to the most B-A ladies in the sport on page 80 for my Winningest Women story in advance of the USTRC’s Cinch National Finals of Team Roping.
Along these same lines, our 2019 story on unknown greats from the 1970s engages 100,000 people every time we post it. So, we figured one was due on the 1980s, which you’ll find on page 58. Here it is, and yes, we’re expecting (and hoping for, really) feedback from, say, California and Florida, about who’s missing. We’ll stockpile that for something down the road, because finding these stories is one of our favorite pastimes.
Let us know how we did, because we spend all month putting together something you’ll enjoy on the coffee table or in the passenger seat of the pickup.
On the cover: Barrie Smith, one of roping’s winningest women.
