When Dad Rides the Rodeo Circuit, Many Families Saddle Up
Boogie Ray, seen here with his daughter Maci, has been traveling the pro rodeo circuit with his family since 2003.
Boogie Ray at an event in Colorado Springs.
Robbin Ray, with her daughters, Maci, center, and McKenzie, in the family’s trailer.
Maci, left, and McKenzie eat breakfast from an arena concession stand.
Cowboys have a reputation as hard-living tough guys, men who have foresworn wives and children for a life riding bulls and wrestling steers. And although many rodeo competitors work hard to live up to the image, a number of them take their families on the road. Some travel with children only in the summer, when school is out and the rodeo season is at its peak. Others, like Ray and his wife, Robbin, spend much of the year on the circuit. As a result, the Ray girls are home schooled by their mother.
Although there are no statistics on how many rodeo competitors travel with their families, children are a part of rodeo life, said Karl Stressman, the commissioner of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the sport’s governing body.
“I think we’re probably the largest professional sport that does travel with families,” Stressman said. “Our sport is a young man’s sport, so there’s a lot of young families that do travel with them.”
Children often occupy the dusty lots behind any major rodeo. Boys toss ropes at hay-bale dummies and tip back their cowboy hats when they talk to strangers. Girls borrow their fathers’ horses between events. Cowboys ride to the rodeo arena with babies tucked into the saddle in front of them.
The Ray family has been traveling the circuit since 2003, when Boogie Ray qualified for the National Finals Rodeo in the team-roping event and decided to pursue his passion full time. The Rays are away from their home in Mabank, Tex., from about March through September. In the fall, Boogie Ray works for a ranch. In the winter, they travel to rodeos closer to home.
Making a living from the rodeo can be a gamble: competitors must find sponsors or pay their way, in the hopes that they will earn enough prize money to cover their expenses, which in the Rays’ case includes the upkeep of two horses and a trailer, the cost of fuel and food, and entrance fees.
So far this year, Ray, 38, has earned more than $22,500 and ranks 22nd among team-roping heelers, those who lasso the steer’s hind legs. “But I’ve spent $15,000 to get that,” he said. Sponsors pay for his clothing and his rope, and a private benefactor pays him about $35,000 a year. Other than that, he is on his own.
In the summer, the Rays travel to a new rodeo nearly every day, often showing up to morning qualifying rounds before leaving for the next town. The family’s route resembled a tangled knot of rope: during a three-week stretch leading to the Fourth of July, they traveled to Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. They then returned to Colorado, went back to Oregon and finally moved on to Montana. If the distance is too far to drive in a day, Ray flies to the next city while his wife and the girls follow in a pickup and trailer.
The family has visited nearly every state and national park west of the Mississippi. Ray pulls the trailer over whenever he sees a rest stop with a historical marker, a habit that delights McKenzie, who, depending on her mood, wants to be a paleontologist, an archeologist or a historian.
And although the Rays have many modern conveniences — satellite television, a mobile Internet connection, iPods — much of the girls’ day is spent outside, riding horses, climbing on piles of dirt and practicing roping skills.
“They don’t realize how good they’ve got it,” Robbin Ray said.
But the rodeo lifestyle is also hard work. On a recent trip from St. Paul, Ore., to Livingston, Mont., Robbin and the girls arrived at the rodeo at 4 a.m. after an 800-mile drive. While Maci slept, McKenzie helped her mother take the horses out of the trailer, filled buckets with water, fetched hay and went to sleep. Two hours later, she got up to check on the horses again.
Some children complain of not having their own rooms, but Maci and McKenzie do not even have their own beds. They usually sleep in the trailer loft with their father, and with a Chihuahua named Max and a herding dog named Jossie. Robbin converts a set of benches into a bed and sleeps by herself. “It’s easier that way,” she said.
She and her husband said they decided not to enroll the children in school because they were not satisfied with the quality of their local district and because they preferred to keep the family together. Robbin downloads a home school curriculum from the Internet and teaches during lulls in traveling.
It is an arrangement that is not without critics, even in the family. Boogie Ray’s mother, Shirley Ray, said she wished the girls would attend public school. “I think they’re missing out on Christmas programs and sports and things like that,” she said by telephone. “Besides their neighbors, they don’t really know the local kids from here in town.”
Still, she said, “They enjoy it so much that I really can’t fault it.”
Maci and McKenzie, who attended kindergarten in public school, say they like their life the way it is. “I’ve got enough friends already,” Maci said. “I’m good.”
Traveling with the girls can be distracting, Boogie said, but sometimes that’s a good thing.
At the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo in Colorado Springs last week, Ray and his partner, Brady Tryan, missed catching the steer in both rounds, earning them nothing for the day. They had driven six hours from Casper, Wyo., to compete.
Ray joined his family in the stands afterward. In a few hours, they would leave for Sheridan, Wyo., an eight-hour drive, for a competition the next morning. There were no words of encouragement, no “better luck next time.”
There was just Maci, her eyes wide with excitement. “Dad,” she said, “can we get Mexican for lunch?”
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