A couple of young guns took the team roping honors as the 2017 Permit Members of the Year at this year’s PRCA Permit Challenge, which was held December 7 at the South Point here in Las Vegas. Jeff Flenniken of Caldwell, Idaho, and Wyatt Hansen of Oakdale, California, roped two steers in 12.6 seconds and placed second in both rounds en route to their average win. The top five money-winners rodeoing on their PRCA permits are invited to the Challenge each year.

“We made those runs on the dummy a million times when we were little,” they said, in such solidarity that they finished each other’s thoughts and sentences. “Making it reality at the BFI and now the permit finals is a dream come true.”

Flenniken, 21, and Hansen, 19, roped together at their first BFI last June, and laid down the fast time in the short round against the big dogs before finishing 10 in the average. Hansen, who’s a freshman at Weatherford Junior College in Texas, placed third at this year’s first-ever Junior Timed Event Championship at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma, and will return to that event early next year. For all you team roping trivia buffs, Flenniken is the son of 1990 BFI champ Tommye Flenniken, who won it all in Reno that year heeling for California’s Rocky Carpenter.