Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Region still making stars in pro rodeo

Eastern New Mexico and our Texas neighbors have produced some of the world’s greatest athletes.

Hank Baskett (2006-2010) and Jerry Nuzum (1948-1951) played pro football. Bubba Jennings was a major college basketball star (Naismith Award winner in 1985). Amber Campbell threw the hammer in the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.

But our best sport is rodeo.

Sonny Davis, Glen Franklin, Charmayne James and Homer Pettigrew are among locals who’ve been inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. B.J. Pierce is a member of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum’s Rodeo Hall of Fame.

And we’re still creating legends in the sport.

Last month, Clovis’ Shad Mayfield qualified for the National Finals Rodeo in tie-down roping.

Last week, Muleshoe’s Dalton Kasel was selected for Team USA in the Global Cup, which promoters bill as the “Olympics of bull riding.” Australia, Brazil, Canada and Mexico also field teams in the international competition, which began in 2017.

Kasel, 21, was named Pro Bull Riders Rookie of the Year for 2019.

His is a remarkable story.

He was a 5-pound premature baby when his parents, Tim and Kristin Kasel, adopted him.

“We’re not rodeo people at all,” Tim Kasel told PBR’s Darci Miller in a story published online late last year.

But Tim enjoyed watching bull riding on television and toddler Dalton watched with him.

“(He) would watch with me, and then afterward, I’d get down on the floor ... and I’d buck and he’d go,” Tim Kasel told Miller. “Little turd was hard to buck off back then.”

PBR reported Dalton Kasel’s birth family does have a rodeo background, including uncle Harve Stewart, a six-time qualifier for the PBR World Finals.

“The whole nature vs. nurture thing is kind of interesting,” Tim Kasel told Miller.

The selection to Team USA was a first for Dalton, whose rise to stardom began in summer 2019.

A PBR news release said he was unranked in the standings on June 1, before “completing an incredible five-month surge up the world rankings.”

He was ranked No. 8 by Nov. 10.

Kasel had three PBR event wins last year — in Nampa, Idaho, Big Sky Mont., and Williston, N.D. — and earned $204,000. He finished 12th in the PBR World Finals event Nov. 5 in Las Vegas.

He underwent groin surgery following the finals, but is expected to be recovered in time to compete in the Global Cup set for Feb. 15-16 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

His success is proof that rodeo is still our best sport.

— David Stevens

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