In November 2023, Delane Haynes made his Cowboy Channel debut.
“I wear a Gus hat with a mule-kick and my bright shirts, and my dad said, ‘I wasn’t even close to the TV, and I seen you,”’ Haynes said.
Haynes, 56, had earned three berths into Fort Worth’s Cowtown Coliseum competing in Charly Crawford’s American Hero Celebration—the annual event hosted by the Liberty & Loyalty Foundation that honors and supports team ropers from the military and first responder communities. In the preceding days, the burgeoning roper earned his first qualification roping with reigning PAFRA world champion heeler Clint McMurtry, but also by getting on two qualifying ranch rodeo teams and competing in the team penning.
Ranch raised
Haynes grew up in the ranching lifestyle in and around Wheatland, Wyoming, and adopted his dad’s commitment to putting in long days every day, but he was never at an operation that leaned heavily on rope work. Good using horses that can gather, cut and sort, yes, but not roping. So it wasn’t until the early 2020s when Haynes’ wife, Tracie, told him he needed to get a hobby and quit spending so much time with his nose to the grind did he find himself under the tutelage of his neighbor and friend, Sergio Mireles.
“Sergio and I were at the arena most every night,” Haynes said, chuckling at how Tracie probably didn’t anticipate him getting hooked the way he did. “I bought about six roping steers, and I wore them out.”
Since his Wheatland start, Haynes had moved to Kansas and joined the Kansas National Guard in 1989 and started his trucking company, Delane Haynes Trucking, in 1996. With his return to Wyoming, he joined the 133rd Engineer Company of the Wyoming National Guard.
“I slowed down in the trucking and went to work for the Department of Corrections in 2000,” said Haynes, who is now a resident of Upton, Wyoming. “And while I was working for them, we got mobilized.”
The man in charge
As Haynes was readying to deploy from Fort Lewis Army Base in Washington State, he received a promotion he wasn’t quite prepared for.
“I marched my platoon down to the armory to draw our weapons so that we could go get on an airplane and go overseas,” Haynes explained. “And while I’m standing there with my guys drawing weapons, my company commander comes up to me with a 9 mm pistol holster, handed me the holster and said, ‘Draw your weapon, First Sergeant.’
“We finished drawing our weapons and we had a formation that night. They promoted me to First Sergeant and, that night, we got on an airplane and went to the Sandbox.”
In a matter of minutes, Haynes had gone from being responsible for the 32 soldiers in his platoon to being in charge of 152 troops.
“I don’t think I slept for a week after that.”
In a miraculous feat, however, Haynes and his 152 soldiers all returned home nearly a year later.
“We flew over Bagdad, New Year’s Eve, stroke of midnight,” Haynes said of his arrival in theater. “We rung in 2005 over Bagdad, and then we touched down in Kuwait. Then, I think we left theater Dec. 11.”
In that time, Haynes’ company was recognized as the key to success for the battalion of 790 troops under which they operated.
“At the end of the year, that little engineer company with 152 soldiers completed more projects, moved more earth, hauled more water than the battalion did,” Haynes said. “Gen. Welch out of Tennessee and Command Sgt. Maj. Jones got the commander and I and said, ‘Your unit is the reason that the battalion and the brigade is getting this unit citation.’ He said, ‘That unit just outperformed anybody in theater.’”
Finding a new focus
As is often the challenge for service members, it’s the coming home part that presents the unforeseen battles. While Haynes is rightfully proud to have brought all 152 troops home, it devastates him to report that four have succumbed to suicide in the years since.
Haynes would continue serving the 133rd until 2009, marking a 20-year commitment to the Guard and, after his time overseas, he returned to his family and his work.
“What I’d done with the Department of Corrections was a boot camp program,” Haynes explained. “I used my Army training to help these young, juvenile males, and I enjoyed that because the majority of these kids was on drugs or alcohol or something when they’d committed a crime…. I had kids that were 7 years old when their mom handed them their first joint.”
But while Haynes was overseas, the program had shifted to the purview of Wyoming Law Enforcement and underwent changes that challenged its efficacy in Haynes’ opinion, so he went to work for the Sheriff’s Office until 2014, when the trucking business was booming.
“I stayed on their reserve status and, anytime that I could and the sheriff’s office was shorthanded, I would still come back,” Haynes said. “I would patrol and help them do whatever they needed, just help them out when I could. And then it was either ’19 or ’20 I went back to work full time.”
Haynes again encountered challenging changes that had taken place in his absence, prompting Tracie and her best friend, Susan—maker of the iconic Western shirts Haynes competes in—to convince Haynes to find another focus.
With Mireles as a coach and his roping steers at the ready, Haynes put his ranch horses to work in the team roping arena. Predictably, he introduced a few bad habits as he went, learning and training at the same time, but ultimately, his horses proved capable and valuable partners.
Roping from the northeast corner of Wyoming, Haynes’ roping endeavors went full swing by 2022, which he spent competing in the Wrangler Team Roping Championships after discovering success in their Cactus Challenge in 2021. Tracie and Susan found themselves hauling Haynes and the horses across North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana, and even to Wickenburg at the suggestion of another roping partner.
Entering up
By the time the crew made it to the WTRC National Finals in Billings, Montana, that fall, Haynes was in contention to win multiple Challenges.
“Out of six Challenges, I won four, took second in one and, I think, sixth place in the sixth one. So I was in the top six of all six Challenges. I ended up with 30 Fast Back Ropes and 20-some more Cactus Ropes, four saddles, a Priefert chute, a Smarty Xtreme and Wrangler shirts and pants.
“I had to have my daughter bring an extra pickup and small trailer to Billings that year to haul it all home,” Haynes continued. “Without my girls, I wouldn’t have been able to make it to the ropings that allowed 584 entries. You might out-rope me, but you won’t out-enter me!”
In February 2023, Haynes detached his bicep pulling the ramp out from one of his trucks, and was perusing this magazine.
“I was reading an issue of The Team Roping Journal, and there’s an article about Charly Crawford and this program he’s got going on, and I’m like, that’s amazing. I think maybe I’ll put in for it.”
Haynes made the cut and, following the Horns ‘N Heroes clinic with Crawford and Trey Johnson, he hit up a Wyoming benefit roping after his Cowboy Channel debut. He won a good check to give back to the family in need, thanks to Crawford’s helpful coaching.
“There are so many things,” Haynes said of the guidance Crawford offered. “He refreshed my memory on horsemanship. That’s my big struggle. I get out there, and I’m wanting to go left all the time. Charly worked with me on setting up my heeler.”
It seemed to click in time for his run with McMurtry, too, and now Haynes is also a proud member of the Professional Armed Forces Rodeo Association.
“Hopefully I’ll be all healed up, and we’ll go rope in Clovis, New Mexico, at the end of September,” said Haynes, who’s now recovering from a recent hip surgery.
Either way, he’s looking forward to supporting the efforts of organizations like the Liberty & Loyalty Foundation and PAFRA, and is hoping to contribute through sponsorship opportunities, too.
“I sponsored a dinner with the trucking company last year, and I’m hoping to sponsor a back number this year.”
Haynes is also enjoying watching his granddaughters take to the rodeo arena and develop into handy horsewomen.
“I can’t talk enough about those grandkids,” Haynes confirmed.
—TRJ—
Thank you to Equinety for helping us share stories of military members, veterans and first responders in the team roping community.
