Tuba City cowgirl wins first buckle

WINDOW ROCK

Shilah Williams knew this day would come.

The Tuba City Boarding School eighth-grader captured her first buckle in the Arizona Junior High School Rodeo Association.

Williams won the aggregate race in the girls’ breakaway, roping two draws in 7.02 seconds during the two-day rodeo in Camp Verde over the weekend.

“This feels awesome,” Williams said.

When asked about what clicked for her, the Tuba City cowgirl said she switched horses as she used her trusted 11-year-old buckskin, Sissy

“I was riding one of my older horses,” she said.

Her dad, Brandon, said Sissy made a huge difference.

“That buckskin horse is more experienced,” he said. “It played a role in giving her an opportunity at getting a better shot.”

Brandon said Sissy was unavailable the past two rodeos in Buckeye and Wilcox due to an injury so Shilah had to used her other horse, Jewels.

“We’re still training that horse,” Brandon said.

As for her first-place finish, Brandon feels that his daughter is starting to come around in her debut season.

“She’s been working pretty hard at it, practicing on the dummy and live cattle,” he said. “With the hard work that she’s putting in it’s going to pay off.”

At Camp Verde, Shilah opened the two-day rodeo with a second-place finish in the first round with a 2.990 run. On Sunday, she added a third-place run of 4.030 seconds.

Those two top finishes earned her 17 points in the season standings as Shilah has amassed 30 points this season after eight rodeos. She is tied for fourth place with Casa Grande, Arizona cowgirl Nita Bennett. The association will send the top four contestants to next year’s finals in Des Moines, Iowa in late June.

“My goal is to make nationals this year,” Shilah said.

“We have to keep moving forward,” her dad added. “We have to work even harder now for her to make it.”

In addition to Shilah, Shiprock cowboy Tyler Jim had one of his best showings of the year as he earned 57 points in four events.

Jim won the boys breakaway title and he was the reserve champion in both the boys goat tying and chute dogging events.

In the breakaway, Jim took second on the first day with a 3.54 run and on Sunday he roped his draw in 3.58 seconds for a 7.12 aggregate.

With those two runs he narrowly won the average title over Ryker Sarchett (7.35) and Sean Bastin (7.65).

In another close race, Jim battled event winner Travis McBride of Kayenta, Arizona in the chute dogging.

McBride won the title with a two-run total of 8.45 seconds while Jim finished a close second with a 9.89 aggregate.

McBride place second (3.51) on the first day and he later added a third-place finish (4.94) on the final day of the rodeo.

Jim, meanwhile, took fifth (5.25) and second (4.64), respectively.

In the goats, the Shiprock cowboy placed second on the first day with an 11.180 effort before adding a seventh-place effort of 13.61 for a two-run total of 24.79 seconds.

In the high school division, Casa Grande, Arizona cowboy Brad Moreno won the average title in the steer wrestling with a two-day total of 18.40 seconds.

The Diné cowboy placed second on both days with a 10.71 and a 7.69 effort.

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