Rodeos hitch families together

• By SAMUEL IRWIN
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: Jun 15, 2008 - Page: 4B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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GONZALES -- For most parents of high school athletes, a drive across the parish line to see their child compete is not that big a deal.

Mom and Dad jump into the Buick, load up the younger brothers and sisters, enjoy refreshments as they sit in the stands and watch the kids score touchdowns, baskets or goals.

But if your child competes in high school rodeo, it means hitching a four-horse trailer with living quarters to the pickup, loading up four trained (and expensive) horses, saddles, tack and enough feed and hay for a weekend.

It often means a long drive to the far reaches of the state, camping outside a livestock show arena, cooking for the entire family either outdoors or on a RV kitchenette stove and holding your breath each time your young cowboy rides a 1,200-pound bull, a bucking bronco or spurs an 800-pound horse to breakneck speed in an effort to rope an unpredictable 450-pound steer.

For the 240 rodeo families participating in the state finals of the Louisiana High School Rodeo Association today and next week at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, it’s not a matter of choice, it’s a way of life.

“It’s fun,” said Diane Fontenot, of Ville Platte. “It’s a lifestyle. My mamma rodeoed in high school. I rodeoed in high school. My husband rodeoed in college and my kids rodeo.”

Fontenot’s sons, senior Luke and freshman Ike, are competing in various calf- and steer- roping events this week during the state finals.

For the Fontenots and other rodeo families, the 24-rodeo high school circuit has lassoed them into becoming members of an extended roping and riding family.

“If someone else’s kid needs something at a rodeo and I’m the first mamma they get to, then I help them,” Fontenot said. “And if mine need something, whoever’s mamma is standing there, that’s who helps. It’s not like any other sport.”

Rodeo bounds held fast through the Hurricane Rita disaster when the Fontenot family arranged lodging for several Cameron Parish rodeo families and their horses in Evangeline Parish.

“We had several campers and horse trailers at the house for eight or nine weeks after Rita,” Fontenot recalled.
High school rodeo also transcends generations.

William Hetzel, of Hathaway in Jefferson Davis Parish,  competed in the first state high school rodeo in 1950. His grandson, Will Hetzel, is ranked second in state standings of boys cutting, an event calling for rider and horse to separate a single calf from the herd.

“We probably had about 25 compete in that first rodeo,” the elder Hetzel said. “We just had that one rodeo. You either did something or you was out.”