Rounding up Tomorrow's Cowboys Today

Patty Franklin is the founder of Cowboy Roundup, a non-profit organization providing scholarships to young boys and girls, from the ages of seven to twenty-four, to help with training and equipment necessary to realize their dreams of becoming rodeo athletes. How, you ask? By Roping in sponsors to Wrestle support to help Steer aspiring young people into the sport, of course! (See what we did there?)

Transcript

 Authentic Wyoming

Guest: Patty Franklin

This transcript was generated automatically using speech-to-text technology. The accuracy may vary in spots.

This episode first aired on May 21, 2024

 Hi, I'm Myra, and I'm Tressa. We are fancy marketing people with Union, Wyoming-based telecommunications company. Yes, Wyoming really does exist. We proudly serve the Rocky Mountain region. On this podcast, we will feature businesses, organizations, nonprofits, and influential people

from Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Our mission is to highlight those who inspire their communities daily. We believe this makes us truly authentic because a journey of a thousand miles always begins with a single step.

 Three. Two. One. Yeah. Okay. Three. Two. One. Keep that. That's more like a Keith slap. What?

I try not to kill flies. I don't know, lately, like, I had this little bug by my sink the other day. I just I'm. Am I becoming a Buddhist? It's like I don't want to kill this love bug and this cute little lake.

So I picked it up with a piece of paper. I've not been killing, but lately. Yeah. On this episode, we'll talk about how to not kill bugs. no. Yeah. I don't know if it was a snake. I'd be like, where's the shovel? Death to the snake. Yeah. I'm petrified, but I don't know 

I've not been killing bugs lately. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, but I see a lot of ladybugs. I love lady, yeah, and they're like, good fortune and. Yeah, other things, you know? So I just scoop scoop them up and. Yeah, ladybugs are like, when you see them, it's good luck. Yeah. It is good luck. Yeah, yeah. I feel the same about dragonflies. I love dragonflies.

Yeah. Dragonflies I think are is on a good luck too. Yeah. That's what I said one time I saw one in my house. Oh, really? Like, what are you doing? Yeah. Like, what is happening? I see; yeah, I see them around my house, but I don't think I've ever had one inside my house. Yeah, yeah, it was interesting.

So I said, hello, Mr. Dragonfly. I personify it, so I don't know. Well, yesterday we had a team meeting. You might have not been in the meeting at the time, but one of the trivia questions was about the dragon. Yeah, yeah. Could fly forward, backward, and sideways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very versatile. I didn't know that either. A hummingbird is the bird that does that.

It goes forward. Backward. Okay, so I decided I don't know, I believe that looks good. Some boogies. Yeah, that goes so fast. Her wings are. I love watching them. Yeah, I have a well, actually, I have a tattoo of a hummingbird. I like hummingbird, so I have a tattoo of a dragonfly. See? Yes, we have our things. Yeah.

Yeah. You know. Yeah. Speaking of tattoos, did you finish your sleeve? Yeah. It's done. It's done? Yeah. Have you ever fallen asleep while getting your sleeve done? I don't know, but I don't think so. So Blake finished his third tattoo, and he fell asleep. Really? Yeah. I want to know how that's possible. Me, too. I want that in my life.

Like, how do you do that? Does he not feel pain? Yes. Oh, yeah, he does. But, like, does pain just make him fall asleep? I don't know. Yeah I don't, I can't say I've ever. No. Me either. I don't even know if I get relaxed I'm more like tense. Yeah. I don't know how I don't it's not a relaxing experience for me.

Plus, if I fall asleep or I am on Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. The dragonfly would be up here. I don't know if I'd have a mustache. Yeah. Two buck teeth we like. Woops. Yeah. Did you sleep through the entire thing. But maybe it's because he's a dad of a newborn I don't know. But yeah he's so exhausted. Whatever. Yeah.

Like this is relaxing compared to what I could be doing I don't know. He did he did tell me the other day and he looked tired. He's like, yeah, I need a nap. I was like, yeah, you look tired. Yeah, he's been a real one. Yeah. Especially with me coming back to work and things. He's been pretty cool about it.

So being the one to get up at night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's nice. Blake's a great dad. Yeah, well, I mean, I was in, like, the super meditative state last night, and so I don't remember anything, like, I just went to bed and I woke up and I was like, wow, I'm a person again. Like, I don't. I just was gone.

Oh, yeah. When I got home, I said goodbye. Yeah. Bed. Yeah. Said, never mind. We're we're in America I don't know, Blake's got the kids. Yeah. Honestly I'm like, well, it's all right. Somebodies, somebodies here. The dogs will babysit maple. It'll be maple. Well that's nice when you get that kind of rest. Yeah. I felt pretty rested.

Yeah. I'm not mad. Yeah. I went to bed early last night to sleep till like 630. It felt great. Yeah. I could have kept sleeping and then, then I remembered I had to come back to. Yeah. You're like oh yes. Oh yeah. This is happening. I have to wake up. Yeah. Especially today podcast. Yeah I know, yeah I had to be punctual.

Yeah. You did great. Yeah, 30 minutes early I know I threatened all of that way. I say, hey, listen, Tressa’s gonna be mad at me. You don't want to get so mad at me, do you? And she's like, no, I'm like, all right, we got to go like it's a she knows. Good thing Nola loves me. Yeah, exactly. 

It's you. It's she's doing it for you, not for me. So I use your leverage. Exactly. I'm like, well, trust isn't going to find out. well, are you ready to get into our bed for today? today we have the honor of having Patty Franklin on. She is with Cowboy round up. Welcome, Patty. Hi, Guys. Hey, Patty.

How are you today? I'm doing great. Great. Well, do you want to just start out telling us a little bit about Cowboy Roundup? The mission of Cowboy Roundup? well, we started cowboy Round up, a couple of years ago. I worked for the PRCA back in 1990, which seems a lifetime ago. And I have always been interested in rodeo, and, was coming back through Colorado and this just, you know, when you're driving, things are popping in your head, and, I had a I still have a lot of friends that are in rodeo, and we talked and they were just concerned about the numbers that were dropping.

There weren't enough young kids that were coming up through the ranks. the ones that were coming up, really didn't have their skill honed in on which, when you're young, you know, you're always working on your discipline. If it's team roping, steer wrestling, bronc riding, but, I felt like we needed to help some of these kids a little bit.

There's all of these clinics that are out there, but, some of these kids can't afford to go to the clinics. So, we put together the Cowboy Roundup. It's a nonprofit, 501 C3. It awards rodeo clinics, scholarships to athletes 7 to 24. And our first year out, we awarded nine scholarships, $1,500 each. And I was able to attend quite a few of those clinics just to make sure that they fell in line with our mission, faith based, and that the clinicians were really.

 Giving those kids something that they could take out and really follow through, finance, social media. so that they could really build up where they needed to be if that was a career that they decided they wanted to go into. So that's kind of how it all started. And what we do, that's great. are these clinics just throughout the state of Wyoming or do you sponsor through the Rocky Mountain region or.

 We, nationwide? I went to, I went to Tyler Wag clinic down in Alabama, and I can't even pronounce the name of the town we went to, but, Kyle Irwin. Tyler Wag is back, and I believe Tyler Pearson, we're all there at that. And they had kids from all over the United States that came in for it. pretty comprehensive. Tyler Wag is, oh at the time was the world champion steer wrestler. And so it was just really good to see that we did a, a clinic in Cody. not this summer, but last summer, with Charlie Crawford. And that was an amazing clinic. I had three girls go to that and all breakaway ropers.

Little apprehensive. You know, if you don't know your coach going in and so we went and everybody was just ecstatic. He did such, a phenomenal job for these girls. And, two of them college, you know, all three of them college rodeo. So, it was good for their, their particular discipline. yeah. I mean, last year was a whirlwind....  we had three kids go. Or three, young cowgirls go to the Martha Josie's clinic. gosh, Chip. And he, because of the dollar in Canada, it was easier for him to stay in Canada instead of come down into the United States. And so he went to a bull riding school and he. What a phenomenal kid. 11 years old. He used his scholarship to buy a best, a bull rope, a helmet, and, a couple other things. And he wrote a letter to the board of directors and told them that. Thanks for emotional. He felt so safe for the first time that he loved it. And that's what we want these kids to do, is really find that love for rodeo and really develop that that discipline.

Oh, I love that. Yeah, I do too, I think, yeah. No, that that was beautiful. Patty. I don't know a ton about it. I, I've not I didn't really grow up around rodeos. And so how would somebody, if they're looking to get their kid into rodeo or looking to be a part of these clinics? how would they go about that?

How do they find out about what the Cowboy roundup does? But, still, in the. Oh, gosh. Fell off. Sorry. rodeo in general for young kids, there are junior rodeo associations all over the United. She runs the Wyoming Junior Rodeo, and she does a phenomenal job. They have a great, membership, but every state has a junior rodeo.

And so I would tell people first, reach out to those junior rodeos. And that's kind of the direction that we decided to go this year. the last two years, we've let people, or let the kids, apply and you can email me an application that you get off the website. The website is, dot the cowboy roundup.com, and you can email me the application. and then the board usually before would look at each one of the applications, and then they would decide how they felt they would move forward. you know, and if they were a good candidate this year, we've decided to go a little different direction, and we're reaching out to all of the junior rodeos in the United States, specifically focusing on Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah and Idaho, because, there's a lot of those kids in those states, it kind of get overlooked.

So I've been in contact with Megan, and I've been in contact with the Colorado Junior Rodeo Association, and we decided to let them because they knew their membership, pick a couple kids that they thought would be worthy of a scholarship. You know, then we really get to make it a little bit better as they're closer. And so, we're going to go to each one of those finals.

I believe Colorado's is in July and kind of talk to him. And, but the Junior Rodeo Student Association is actually that they're going to be the ones introducing the kids to us. So because they can see who's gone through a hardship, because that was really what what sparked the start of it was, there's a lot of kids out there that have the resources to go down the road.

 And, then there's a lot of kids that don't. We have a young lady, Addison, out of South Dakota, and her mom doesn't rodeo or mom and dad don't rodeo. So her, scholarship went to buying, a horse trailer and buying a horse. Wow. And, and you may you may think, oh, that's not enough money, because that's what I thought.

I thought, it's $1,500, but she works, and she's only so very young. I want to say she's like, might be possibly 16, but she went to the Martha Josie clinic and she she shaved two seconds off of her time and she won the saddle. Wow. So, it, you know, you hear these stories, but the best way is to go to the website and then reach out to me.

My email address is Patty. Patty at the Cowboy Roundup track. if you have any questions at all, if you want to sponsor an event or if you want to sponsor, one of our athletes, let me know. We're always looking for additional funding, to, to help. So, but that that's kind of where we're at this year.

We kind of regrouped a little bit, and we're really looking forward to this year and being able to help even more athletes. So on your, how, how you're raising money to provide these scholarships, for these clinics or whatever they, these kids need to use that for, do you do any big fundraisers or is that just through like a, a company or a private person wanting to give you a donation or sponsor an athlete?

How does that work? We have done a few fundraisers. this year we wanted to do two particular fundraisers. We want to, we want to do a cornhole tournament. And, there's a lot of college rodeos that are going on right now. their spring season has started. And so, we're we're going to we're going to work with, I believe, Casper College, to see if we can't do a cornhole tournament and then, probably around Cheyenne Frontier Days.

But we'll have it all on the website, where people can come and and be part of the fundraising. last year we were able to, we weren't able to raise the amount of money that we wanted to. So our scholarships last year, last year were a little smaller. But, with the regroup and going out and actually going to some of the associations, we feel that's going to kind of help, but definitely watch the, website, because that was the other thing, the round up, we wanted to be able to, if you've never been around rodeo a big thing about rodeo at the end of the performance is everybody kind of comes together and they, they share their family life, they share where they've been, they share their kids, and it really is kind of like a reunion of people getting together and and talking.

And I always encourage new kids coming up. If you want to know something about rodeo, find these cowboys to talk to them. They'll they'll share a lot about what they're going, you know, through, travel. hacks that work for them. And so, probably around Cheyenne because that is one of my favorite rodeos.

if you look back at a lot of the rodeos in the way it started, it was it was kids going down the road. young, young kids. and they bought they brought so much money to the sport.

That's, it's it's exciting. And I know that there's young adults out there, young athletes that that want to be a part of this. And so I always just encourage them. There are two organizations that I work with and I promote, Rodeo University and, Rodeo kids. kamri. has rodeo kids, and they work together, and, it's it's just getting the the interest built up. I was told one time, if you can get kids to rodeos, you can generate the excitement and get their parents. And really, having butts in seats is so important to every rodeo. So I encourage people, if you know there's going to be a rodeo in your town, get out, support the athlete, support the rodeo committee, and just I want to keep it alive.

That was really why we did what we did.

 Yeah, I can understand that. And even, we're we're just working on the Wyoming High School Rodeo A ssociation. And that's actually even though it says high school, it's ran by the parents. Right? It has nothing to do with actual schools. And without the support of the community and the parents coming together, these kids wouldn't be able to participate in the sport that they love, right? so I think it's it's a vital part of our history, our legacy. and, you know, whatever we can do collectively to keep, to keep that going and allow these kids to to try it and, you know, if it's something they love to continue to do it. I think it's I think it's a great thing. I want to encourage the high school Rodeo Association that, it is run by the parents.

They're the ones that are really pushing to have those kids in that sport.

Sometimes the kids love it, sometimes the kids don't. But what I would just say is these, these because there's a lot of kids that are coming up that don't have parent involvement, and they're going to need good mentors like the ones we have in these associations right now.

And so I just, if there's an association that is hurting or there's a high school rodeo association or this year the high school rodeo finals are going to be in Rock Springs. And reach out to reach reach out to organizations that might be like minded like that and ask for help because I don't want to see these parents get burnout because it's a lot. It is really a lot to get a kid down the road and then to get them to clinics and to, help them hone those skills. But there's a lot of us that have been there or had been, in the industry. We really want to see you continue, and go out there and look for scholarships.

 Kendra Santos has scholarship. not sure if it is based on all of the disciplines or if it just focuses on steer wrestling. I'm, I think it's all of the disciplines. Julie Howard out of Laramie. She has, a scholarship that she gives. But look at those scholarships. There's a there's a lot of money that gets left on the table for kids that want to rodeo.

 And so I just encourage them to really, do your research and ask because we all work together or I try to work with other organizations because I just we don't want to see it in.

 Yeah, yeah. Supporting those organizations is vital so looking ahead, what are some of the goals and aspirations that you have for the Cowboy Roundup? I work closely with Tim Key, and he's one of my board of directors Donna bold has been on my board, and, Kylie Scott out of Douglas. for this year, we're going to be fundraising. We want to continue to have at least nine scholarships that are 1500.

 I want to be able to go and attend each one of those junior associations, in our partnering states or our neighboring states from Wyoming, and then also work with, Megan Dillard with the Wyoming Junior Rodeo Association. And really make sure that we're continuing to to focus on the kids that have that love and that, that want, and then have a couple fundraisers that we can really get out and meet some of these kids. there's a lot of times that we have scholar we have positions in a clinic that are donated. And so I really have to be out where I can see,

 Tyler wag is back. Donated a, spot in his clinic in Alabama, and we've got a young kid from Oklahoma that's going to go to that. So we just, you know, we really try to get out in front of the, the kids. we try to get out in front of the adults for the fundraising part, but the kids, because they just they're so incredible and wonderful wild rides TV did a spot on us a couple years ago, and, it actually got sold to the Cowboy Channel and aired three weeks ago, the website blew up a little bit,

 I'd like to see it happen again, I just. Ladies, I appreciate you inviting me on your podcast Union Wireless is wonderful. And I just appreciate every opportunity to be able to talk about what the cowboy roundup is and what we do for kids.

 Yeah, well thank you, Patty, really appreciate this conversation. Yeah, absolutely. we're coming to the end of our podcast. We think we have one final question that we usually ask all of our guests, and that is how do you stay authentic?

 I am very true to my myself. I think that growing up in Wyoming, it's such a beautiful state, I stay authentic by staying grounded in what I grew up in. I grew up in farming and ranching, and I hope when people get to meet me, I know no strangers. So if you see me out and about now, I always tell people, if you see me, stop me, tell me your story, share where you're at, what you're going through. So I just, I love the state of Wyoming. I'm a big cowboy fan, and I just. That's how I stay authentic. I just, I stay rooted in Wyoming, and, I leave, and I always find my way back, and so I'm just. I'm blessed to live under these skies.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Couldn't agree more. Yeah. That's wonderful. Well thank you, Patty. We appreciate the conversation today.

Thank you so much for helping me promote the cowboy roundup.

You know, we'll see you down the road. 

Yeah. Love that. Well, until next time, stay authentic.