ALVA, Okla. – It seems Jacob Haren has no time to be bored.
He’s a graduate student at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and serves as the graduate assistant coach for Cali Griffin. When he’s not studying or at practice, he’s often shoeing horses.
Most importantly, though, he’s a cowboy and a competitor. He continued to prove that by winning the steer wrestling title this past weekend at the Fort Scott (Kansas) Community College rodeo. He placed in both rounds – his 4.7-second run was worth a second-place finish in the opener, and he tied for third in the championship with a 5.4-second run – to win the aggregate race.
The 145 points he collected moved him to third in the Central Plains Region standings. Teammate Emmett Edler of State Center, Iowa, placed in the short round and the aggregate to increase his advantage in the standings; Edler has a 300-point lead with four events remaining on the docket.
“This is definitely a good way to start (the spring semester of rodeos),” said Haren of Callaway, Nebraska. “It lets you not be as worried as much, and if you get a good start, then you can get on a roll.
“I drew two really good steers, and the horses my teammates are letting me ride are both nice.”
Haren rode Easy, a talented bay gelding owned by Logan Mullin. Edler serves as Haren’s hazer, and Haren returns the favor when Edler competes. That type of comradery is what makes college rodeo so special. For his part, Edler also earned points in tie-down roping, where he earned a fifth-place finish in the opening round.
Northwestern, which placed fourth in the men’s team race and third in the women’s at Fort Scott, also scored a victory by team roping-header Colter Snook of Dodge City, Kansas. While roping with Cale Morris of Western Oklahoma State College, the tandem stopped the clock in 7.1 seconds to finish out of the money in the opening round, then posted a 5.3-second run – the fastest time of the rodeo – to win the championship round and the average title. Snook extended his lead in the region’s heading standings.
“We were at the first slack and not a lot of teams were catching, and I saw a couple of barriers break,” Snook said, referring to contestants’ not allowing the steers an adequate head start, thereby being accessed with 10-second penalties. “My goal is to stay away from barriers. I got one during the short round in Durant (Oklahoma last fall), but other than that, I haven’t hit any. I just wanted to stay clean, but I definitely saw too much (on the start).”
Cowboys start their runs by what they see in anticipation of the cow’s start. Sometimes they want to leave the back of the timed-event box at the same time as the steer. Sometimes they want to see the animal’s head or its shoulder before leaving.
“I saw the full shoulder, so I was about six inches off the barrier, which put us behind a little,” Snook said. “The first steer kind of stepped left after I roped him, and it took longer for my heeler to get around. He roped him about the fourth hop.
“I saw middle of the shoulder in the short round, so I was closer. My partner also got to rope him on the second hope in the short-go.”
That made all the difference, but Snook has some aces up his sleeves in the horsepower he keeps. His benefactor in southeastern Kansas was a 5-year-old bay gelding named James Bond, which is named after a close friend, Colton James Bond, who was killed in a car wreck in May 2023.
“That horse likes me,” Snook said. “He always wants to learn. When I first got him, we had some issues and weren’t as far along as I wanted to be, but he wants to do better, and he’s easy.”
Snook wasn’t the only Ranger team roper in the championship round. He was joined by the tandem of header Kyler Altmiller of Canadian, Texas, and heeler Sage Bader of Kim, Colorado, who scored a 7.6-second run to qualify for the short-go.
The women were paced by Savannah Greenfield of Lakeview, Oregon. She placed in both rounds of breakaway roping – she was 2.4 to split second four ways in the opener, then stopped the clock in 2.0 seconds for third in the finale – and finished second overall. Fellow ropers Brylee Zook of Garnett, Kansas, was also 2.4 to finish in a tie for second in the opener, while Payton Dingman of Pyror, Oklahoma, and Morgan Poust of Hughesville, Pennsylvania, were 2.5 to finish sixth in the long round.
Poust also finished sixth in barrel racing after posting a 13.56-second run. Dingman won the first round of goat-tying with a 7.1-second run, while Dale Lee Forman of Highmore, South Dakota, was third in the final round with a 7.7-second run; her two-run cumulative time of 16.0 seconds pushed her to a fourth-place finish overall.
Seeing so many Northwestern athletes find success in Fort Scott was good for Haren as both a contender and a coach.
“We had quite a few kids in the short round, which was really good to see,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll have the same amount and maybe finish a little better over these next four rodeos.”
Only the top three finishers in each event and the top two teams in the regional standings for both the men and women advance to the College National Finals Rodeo in June, so there’s some building yet to do.
“We need to really do good at these next four rodeos, but we’re capable of doing that,” Haren said, noting the teams’ next rodeo is the first weekend in April at Garden City, Kansas. “We need to be really aggressive and get as many points as we can.”