Long ago, some bored farmer decided it would be worth his time to try hopping on the back of every animal in the barnyard to see what happened, and someone else decided that that was worth watching, and thus the sport of rodeo was born.

OK, that’s not really how that happened, but reading through a list of rodeo events can make it seem that way. There’s goat tying and sheep riding and don’t-let-the-bull-send-you-flying, as well as about a dozen or so others that don’t fold into a neat rhyme scheme — and two of Humboldt’s junior high schoolers managed to qualify for this year’s national championships, going down in June in Des Moines, Iowa. 

Bull riding is simple: stay on the thrashing 2,000 pound monster trying to get you the hell OFF for eight seconds, and look good while you’re doing it.

“You gotta just keep your feet down,” advised Ferndale’s Layne Avelar, 15, winner of the event at the Junior High State Rodeo in an interview with the Outpost. “Keep them next to your rope. Don’t throw your arms all over the place, or else it’s just gonna throw you off center and stuff. Try to stay square.”

Avelar comes from a rodeo family. His sister competes, and his mom used to as well. His stepdad also used to ride bulls.

He started his high-speed adventures with livestock when he was a little kid. Avelar flung himself onto a sheep one day and hung on as tight as he could while it sprinted as fast as it could. He managed to stay on, and apparently the sheep didn’t mind all that much. 

Besides just riding cows, Avelar trains by using a bucking barrel, a spring-loaded 55-gallon drum that simulates the experience. Getting bucked off and hitting the ground can hurt if the rider is chucked around a bit, said Avelar, but usually it’s not too bad. Sometimes he even manages to land on his feet.

Arcata’s Isabella Brown, 13, took second in the breakaway roping competition, where horse-mounted competitors attempt to snag a calf with a 28-foot-long rope as fast as possible. They’re ranked by the average time of their three attempts. 

Brown also competes in a few other rodeo events: barrel racing, pole bending, ribbon roping, team roping, and goat tying, where athletes simply attempt to tie three of an ornery goat’s legs together as fast as possible after running it down on a horse. Brown has managed to accomplish the feat in as few as 10.3 seconds — but there’s no score awarded if the goat kicks the rope off. Brown practices by taking turns trussing up two nameless goats at home.

It took a ton of literal time in the saddle for her to get to her level of ability. Brown’s stepmother (and rodeo coach) Brandy Brown said Isabella spends most of her day training on her four horses, but neither Isabella nor Avelear really think of the time expenditures as a sacrifice. 

“I like to go to win,” Isabella said. “Because you’re having fun when you’re winning, not really when you’re losing.”