While most students participate in athletics, theater, show choir, and other activities, one Wahlert freshman has a very unique hobby of his own. Colton Kisting,’22, participates in rodeos twice a month in the spring and summer months.

He describes a typical rodeo day. “Everybody trailers in the night before. You get all your stuff set up, and the next morning they go right into events,” Kisting said. “They tell you where you’re at, and what number you are. The rodeo normally starts with bull and bronco riding, then livestock, barrels and poles, racing events, and it finishes with livestock roping.”

The first time Colton participated in a rodeo he was 11-years-old.  “The first time never really goes the best. It’s all a learning experience, and I get to hang out with friends,” Kisting said.

His favorite memory was the first time he went shoot dogging. “Shoot dogging is when you’re in a cattle shoot with a steer, and you’re holding onto his horns,” Kisting explains. “You nod your head, they open the gate, the steer runs out, and you have to wrestle him to the ground.”

Colton’s favorite events are team roping, which is when one person ropes the horns of the calf and another person goes behind, ropes the feet and they have to stretch the calf out. His PR is 24.2 sec.

Secondly, there’s bull dogging, which is when you jump off your horse on a steer at a run and wrestle them to the ground. His PR in this event is 17.3 seconds. Lastly there’s break aways. In this event, you rope a calf right out of the shoot, and Kisting’s PR is 6.2 seconds.  

One of his favorite things about life in the rodeo is that it teaches him how to work hard for what he wants, and that not everything in life comes easy.