Over the past three weekends, high school rodeo participants have travelid to St. George for the Dixie Six rodeo competition. The Dixie Six rodeos include two rodeos each weekend for three weeks.
A total of seven Carbon students attended the event with three of them placing in the final fall rodeo event.
Senior Sierra Edwards competed in barrel racing, pole bending, break away roping and goat tying. In pole bending she placed 8th, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, and 3rd. She is currently ranked 5th in the state. She went to Silver State last year.
Senior Kolton Rhodes competed in light rifle and trap shooting. He is in first place in the state rankings in the light rifle competition and it showed in his scores at the Dixie rodeos as he placed first in all six competitions. In the trap shooting events he placed in two events by taking a 2nd and a 6th place.
Sophomore Kagen Rhodes also shoots in the light rifle and trap events. In light rifle he came away with three 6th places, a 7th and two 5th places. In the trap competition he tied for first, took a 2nd, tied for another 2nd place with his brother Kolton Rhodes, then took a 3rd, 5th and a 6th. In the light rifle he is 6th in the state and in trap he is third in the state.
The fall rodeo season is now over, but the team from Carbon will continue training and practicing for when the spring season starts in April. The state finals are in June, Silver State competition is held in July, as are the nationals.
Kolton went to nationals last year and took 13th overall in light rifle.
In the light rifle competition contestants shoot from 50 yards in the prone, standing and kneeling positions. Each participant shoots 12 shots in each position. Points are added up with 350 points possible in a shoot. Kolton’s high point win was 346. He constantly shoots between 330 to 340.
The trap shooting competition consists of shooting 50 clay pigeons per rodeo. There are five stations with the participant shooting five clay pigeons per position. Participants get 1 point per clay pigeon. Kagen has had a few perfect shoots. Most of the time he is shooting 48 or 49 clay pigeons.
Other Carbon team members who attended the Dixie rodeo included freshman Destiny Andrews – barrel racing and pole bending; senior Lacey Bennett – barrel racing; sophmore Brock Allred – shot light rifle and trap and sophomore Jace Draper – trap shooting.
“High school rodeo is fun and competitive,” stated Sierra Edwards.
She takes two horses to the rodeos – Ginger and Boston. Boston is the faster of the two horses and loves pole bending. Ginger is Sierra’s favorite horse, and she is now 18 years old.
“I have ridden her ever since Jr. high rodeo,” said Sierra. “And she still loves the breakaway and goat tying events.
Colton Rhodes has a favorite 22 that he uses in the light rifle competition and has used it now for four years. It started out as a stock rifle and now it is upgraded to a target shooting piece.
The shotguns used by Kagon and Kolton Rhodes are special trap shooting over and under shotguns. Kolton uses a Remington 3200 and Kagon has a Benelli 828U. The Benelli is really light coming in at about half the weight of the weight of the Remington.
Rodeo competition ends fall season
Bringing home awards from the final fall High School Rodeo competition from the Carbon high school rodeo club were Sierra Edwards, Kolton Rhodes and his brother Kagen Rhodes. Sierra is currently 5th in the state in pole bending, Kolton is first in the state in light rifle shooting and Kagen is currently 3rd in the state in trap shooting.