Dear Ropers,

Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year! It looks as though 2004 will be another great year for roping! Our finals show to prove that! 2258 teams is what the finals count was for the weekend. Our #4 shootout was down from last year but reasons were we included a #6 this year and part of our shootout numbers went there. We have had a lot of people asking if we will be doing more #6?s this year and our response is we had to see what the finals looks like in the #6. And we were very please with the response. Although (as expected) the #4 was considerably larger. With the USTRC raising lots of numbers this year, it might enable our #6 ropings to be a little bigger than in the past. And to all of those with questions on what we will do when the USTRC changes their numbering system: We will just simply change the number of our ropings to be able to suit all our customers.
Our 2003 finals were held in Shawnee, Ok Dec 5th, 6th and 7th. We started the weekend out with our #6 preliminary. In this roping you could pick one and draw one or draw 2. We had about 480 teams and took the top 20% back to the shootout. In the money round of the preliminary 86 teams came back to rope their 3rd steer. 1st place received $5000 and two beautiful Running P saddles. After all was said and done only 34 caught in the short round. With high call back winning the roping. Dale Wilkins from Ok and Robert Brewer from Texas started their weekend off right with the #6 preliminary win. These guys were high call back and roped an 8.14 for a total of 23.62 to secure the win by over 1 second. 2nd place was the second high team back, Mike Mcintosh and Brett Young. Money went thru 8th place with last hole going to the 32nd call back with time of 30.72 on three. One hour after the #6 preliminary we went into the #6 shootout. The #6 shootout had a total of 263 teams roping for 100% of their money ($39,450). With first place paying $10,000 and only 263 teams in the everyone had their eyes on winning! Only 20 teams came to the fourth round to rope their call back steer. And once again high team back took the win! Robert Morman from Ark and Gary Cox from Ok were the winners with a 29.84. They received $10,000 and 2 fancy Running P ostrich seated saddles. This was a pretty special win! Robert Morman took the AATRC #4 shootout win in 2002 as a USTRC #2. Then in about August Robert was raised to a #3 with the attitude that he would be successful as a #3 and he was! This win couldn?t have gone to a nicer guy, Robert always keeps our attitudes right and reminds to be happy we get to go roping (even if the ropes don?t fall right)! The champion heeler in the #6 was Gary Cox. Gary burned his hand pretty bad earlier it the roping on one of their runs. But this ?tough cowboy? didn?t let it stop him. Two feet was all he was thinking about! Congratulations to each of you and your families! One thing I want to mention is last hole in the #6 shootout was 46.39 on four. So to you lower numbered guys who don?t get in the 6. Take a look at the times and you will see not much of a difference!
After getting in bed about 2 am the alarm clock came too early at 6:00. But we arose and headed to the Shawnee expo for the #4 preliminary. 855 teams ran on Saturday with 120 coming back for their 3rd steer in the money round. This time the win went to (two guys who roped well all weekend long!) the 3rd high team back Rufus Hendricks and Kasey Hunt with very respectable time of 24.49 on three. They won $6000 and 2 Running P saddles. Second in the preliminary went to 6th call back Roy Brown and Drew Garvin. Roy and Drew were not far behind 1st! Their total on 3 was 24.56 seven hundredths of a second behind first. On this day seven hundredths of a second cost them $1500! We also took 20% from the #4 preliminary to the next days #4 shootouts.

Earlier in the day we held a dummy roping for the kids. The entry fee was free and they roped for over $1300 in prizes. In the 5 and under 1st went to Bryan Caudle (5) winning a jakesteer and buckle and second was Caleb Norman (4) receiving a saddle blanket, rope and cap. In the 6 to 9 1st was Zane Murphy (8) and 2nd was Brady Norman (6) then in the big boys 10 to 12 first was Kolby Miller (11) and 2nd was Chad Waide (10). All these kids are champs and roped very well!

Sunday started off at 8am with the sponsors challenge. The top 10 of each of our ropings throughout the year were eligible to rope in this roping. We had 105 teams in it and 16 came back to rope their 3rd steer. With only 8 catching! 2nd high back was Rusty Waide and Tim Lee these guys ended up 28.22 on 3 and won the roping. $2800 and 2 saddles went to first! (only 105 teams in the roping) Rusty Waide roped well all weekend long! Rusty is a vet and is a blessing to us and the ropers. A roping usually doesn?t go by when his services are not needed! Several horsed coliced bad this weekend and Rusty was there to help. We want to thank him for his service to others!
After the sponsors challenge was church. Dennis Aaron preached and Lenora Miller along with Blake Smith had the special music. About 400 attended church and many were blessed by God that morning! After church we had a catered banquet giving out the awards from the sponsors challenge along with a few others. Most improved woman went to Marsha Pittman and most improved man went to Dave Brown. Both of these ropers roped well all weekend long! There was another very special award. The most eligible bachelor award! Tim Huddleston (one of the finalist) has some very good friends who campaigned for him this weekend! Pictures with signs of his credentials were posted all over the facility. Which clenched it up for him. I think the bachelor show will be calling him soon!

After the banquet we started the #4 shootout. 549 teams were entered in this roping which made the payout $82,350. The big daddy of the weekend! 43 teams came back for their 4th steer in the short round. Only 18 caught and 10 moneys were paid. Winning the biggest roping of the weekend was the 5th high team back. Tim Huddleston (most eligible bachelor) and Kasey Hunt roped their call back in a 9.60 for a total of 36.03 on 4. Taking home $22,000, 2 saddles, 2 buckles, 2 breast collars and 2 saddle blankets for a total of $28,000 in cash and prizes! Congratulations to our good friends! 2nd in the average was Larry McGee and Robert Brewer (4th high back) winning $10,000, 2saddles, 2 buckles and 2 blankets. Over $200,000 in cash and prizes was awarded in the 2003 AATRC finals. God has blessed us tremendously and we want to thank everyone for a great year. Our ropings have the best people in the world!! We appreciate everyone and hope to see you at many more in the future.

AATRC
Buddy and Kelly Norman