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BENTON — With $4 coming to him, Justin Sands contemplated how to spend it.
The temperature pushed toward 90 degrees as the sun climbed toward its noon position and Sands thought of buying an ice cream for his horse, Pistol. They took top prize and only prize as the sole entrants in the calf roping event that ended the Keystone Junior Rodeo Association’s competition Sunday morning at the Benton Rodeo grounds.
“That calf there was a little bit like work,” Sands said afterward in the open area next to the arena.
He raced atop his American Quarter Horse out of a chute at the opposite end of the arena after the calf bolted from an adjacent one, lassoed the moving target, dismounted and picked it up and turned it upside down and tied its legs in a little bit over 35 seconds. The rope had to hold for 6 seconds in order to qualify for a time.
The cowboys on the rodeo circuit do it in under 10 seconds, but Sands, a 15-year-old sophomore at Penns Valley High School in Centre County has no ambition to go that route. The 6-foot plus Sands wants to play quarterback on the school’s football team. He and the other age group contestants raced and roped to nearly empty stands, earning some prize money. The main attraction and entertainment would come later and bring a crowd to see the Bull-A-Rama professional bull riding competition capping off the rodeo that started on July 14.
“It was fun,” Sands said.
He and his brother Colton, 12, traveled with their family from Centre Hall for the rodeo that featured five events, pole bending, barrel racing, goat tying, break away roping and calf roping.
“I competed in everything except the calf roping,” the younger brother said.
Pat and Holly Manns and their daughters Alyssa, 7, Susanna, 10 and Hannah, 19, made the trip from Cortland, New York.
The youngest of the girls was going home with some prize money that could be used for new sand in their arena. She echoed Justin Sands’ summation of the rodeo, saying “It’s fun.”
Parents and family members made up the 40 or so spectators and cheered and shouted instructions.
Lisa Poust of Hughesville watched from the viewfinder of a camera when her daughters Morgan and Madison competed.
Madison, 14, rode two different horses, Smarty, a Quarter Horse, and Shadow, an American Paint Horse, in the events. Atop Smarty, she won the break away roping and successfully lassoed a calf.
The teenager attested to her mother’s ability to be heard. “She yells loud,” Madison said.
From the bleachers Peggy Arbogast of Hughesville rooted for her daughter Jackie, 16, in the barrel racing. The mom noticed that her daughter let up and knew why.
“She had knee surgery in March. She couldn’t kick any more,” said Arbogast.
Still the effort on the part of her daughter and all the other participants was laudable, considering the time they spend training and preparation.
“Just watching all the children ride, that’s what it’s all about,” Arbogast said.