Kelsey Willis of Wagener, South Carolina, first ran across the pages of this magazine in the spring of 2022.

In that story about retired police officer Greg Ziel, Ziel had discovered Willis Performance Horses and was learning to rope and to ride—a daring combination that Willis, 37, specializes in. In the beginning, though, Willis was Texas-bound with big plans. 

Switching gears

“I [roped and] rode cutting horses, and I moved out to Texas after a year of college,” Willis said. “I was always into colt starting, and I had done a little bit of teaching.”

Willis then met and married his wife, Brittney, now a professional photographer who’s cutting her teeth shooting rodeo at Little Britches Rodeos, and became a father to daughter Riley, 11, and son Reese, 9.

“I became a paramedic,” Willis explained. “That is something that people in my family had done. So the fire service and EMS background, it was something that I kind of fell into because I needed insurance when I was training horses, and I grew to love that, so I got out of roping for a few years.”

Making connections

With a bit of family life under their belts, the Willises built a home facility and began training and offering lessons for a whole range of riders and rodeo up-and-comers, including Ziel, who was readying to rope at Charly Crawford’s American Hero Celebration in Decatur, Texas, in 2022. After, Willis submitted his own application for entry into the Horns N’ Heroes Clinic with Crawford and Trey Johnson and was accepted into the 2023 program as a heeler.

“From a coaching aspect, Trey helped me so much with my heeling,” Willis said. “He’s probably one of the coolest teachers that I’ve ever been around because he simplifies things. For my own teaching, it was really cool to see the drills they used and kind of the way they broke things down.

“Especially with some of my younger students, I get so technical,” Willis admitted. “That’s probably the single biggest thing—how they were able to take all the technical jargon and really slow it down and make it something that people could understand. That’s what I hope to have accomplished with my teaching.”

But sometimes it also just takes a real-world experience to really light a fire.

Future champions

“We had six of the students that I coach, including my two kids, qualify for the National Little Britches Finals in Oklahoma in July,” Willis reported. “Pretty much all my kids got the pants beat off ’em, but it was their first time out and it was really good. 

“I told them, ‘This is the pinnacle of junior rodeo between this and the high school finals. So when you’re here, you need to take something from it.’ Just like I decided when I was at Charly’s and Trey’s I was going to get everything I could from it. So that’s what we focused on instead of them getting discouraged because they were getting beat by kids who had been there and done that. What they ended up doing is they let it burn a fire in them.”

Since that inaugural finals experience, Willis’ kids have anteed up. His own two were saddling up twice a day, every day to prep for their next rodeo,

“They went to our first Little Britches Rodeo, and they won every single event, and each of them won the all-around,” Willis stated proudly. “Riley won the junior girls all-around for the weekend, and Reese won the junior boys all-around. And they’ve kept it up. They’ve had four rodeos so far, and Reese in one of his events is ranked seventh in the country right now and Riley’s 14^th.”

Back at it

For his own roping, Willis has found a practice buddy in the BFI’s first onsite veterinarian, Andy Clark, DVM, who, according to Willis, paid his way through veterinary school in California as a PRCA header who roped with the likes of Walt Woodard and the Camarillos and company. In the spring, Clark and Willis entered up for an IPRA rodeo in the area.

“I entered him and he said, ‘This is the first rodeo I’ve entered since Salinas in 1980,’” Willis said. 

Willis is tentatively eyeing up a run at the 2025 International Finals Rodeo (IFR55), but he won’t be mad about it if the timing isn’t right for him because his kids and clients are making their own goes.

“We’re going,” Kelsey stated. “And I was really thinking that I was going to regret that and be like, ‘Oh man, what if this or that?’ But I have so much fun going to these junior rodeos and hauling these kids around. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

⚠️ Attn: South Carolina Ropers: Join the Ziels and Willis Performance Horses to support a great cause

—TRJ—

Thank you to Equinety for helping us share stories of military members, veterans and first responders in the team roping community.