Hello ropers,

Summer is finally making its appearance! I don?t know about you but temperatures are rising here in Oklahoma. I am sure those of you with lights (and those of you with friends that have lights) are thankful so that you can practice at night when it is cooler! Ropers in Arizona don?t know how good they have got it in the summer! If we brought them to Oklahoma or Texas for about a week at the end of July I am afraid they wouldn?t make through the first pen of steers! Oklahoma and Texas are not the only hot places I have found out! Southern Louisiana likes to heat things up to! June 1st and 2nd we had our first AATRC roping in Deridder La. My horse learned what real humidity was! And I am not sure he liked it. But the facility in Deridder was wonderful. This place is set up to run a roping! A nice covered warm-up pen (That you could rope in) and a big cover roping arena (for those of us that like to utilize the whole pen) lots of hook ups, stalls and southern hospitality! Thanks to Mrs. Denison Buddy and I experienced out first boiled crawfish! She cooked them right there at the roping for us. And to our surprise they were good! I can now crack open my own crawfish but I will still not suck the juice out of their heads!!! I have my line and it stops there.

Along with the weather the roping heated up to! I think some of these boys came out of the mountains to show us Okies how to rope! The winners were Darryl Pardue from Natchitoches La and Lindsey Whisenhant from Woodville TX. These guys were the 6th high call back and roped a nice steer at 7.96, which gave them a total of 26.27 on 3. 2nd in the average was the 2nd high call back John Nerwich and Terry Riley they roped their call back steer clean with a 9.88 and missed first by 81 hundredths of a second! But they still won some beautiful Running P Saddles! Also winning saddles was 9th call back Tyler Crawford and Ed Lopinto with a 28.27 on three. A fast time was paid in the short round and that went to the 42nd call back Dakota Klein and Jeramy Gill they roped a 7.01(that fast time moved these guys to 6th in the average) and won 2 nice Hy-O-Silver buckles. 6 Running P Saddles, 13 Hy-O-Silver buckles and $5000 in cash was given away in Deridder La. Plus the 30 top teams won shoot outs to our finals in Guthrie Dec 6th, 7th & 8th. Where there will be 100% payback and 1st is guaranteed $40,000 in cash and prizes!

We are allotting each member ½ of a shootout with your membership. This will let you enter the finals by entering with another member. But be sure to make plans to attend our other ropings to gain more. Remember if you place in the top 5% of any of our ropings then you will win a shootout with that partner. If your partner gets raised or cannot come then we will draw you a run. There will also be preliminaries the weekend of the finals to gain more shootouts! Please note a new rule we are enforcing is that you may only win 1 saddle per roping. We want to spread the prizes out as much as possible.

Fort Smith Ark is the place to be July 13th and 14th! This will be one of our bigger ropings so don?t miss it. 1 Exiss bumper pull trailer, 10 saddles, 16 buckles, 8 breast collars and lots of $$. Plus at this roping only, double the shootouts!! Must I say anymore? Also Glenrose, TX will be July 27th and 28th. This is a nice air-conditioned facility! Mark your calendars for the whole family!

For the past two years Buddy and I decided to buy our Gold Plus cards. We enjoy the Gold Plus ropings. (You have to be 21 to have a GP card so that makes those young guns stay out!) There are also many benefits with your GP card. Say for instance stalls. If we are going to a USTRC roping and the stalls are scarce then we could call 7 days in advance and reserve a stall. Now only GP members can do this. I learned this by going to Athens and when we got there the stalls were all taken. Then someone asked me didn?t you read your GP handbook? Well NO!! I just bought the card to enter the ropings I didn?t know that there were special benefits to it also. Well then I read the handbook and saw that with that card there are several special benefits (promises) that go along with it. But I didn?t know, therefore, I could not claim them. Many of you may see where I am going with this story. If you want to enter heaven you only have to ask Jesus Christ into your heart, ask him to forgive you of your sins and believe that he died on the cross for your sins and you are a child of God. Now there is a handbook (with all the promises) that goes along with this and it is called the bible! If you so choose just to be saved so you can enter heaven and do not read the handbook you miss out on its benefits (promises) on earth. You see if pay your tithes (10% of your money to God) and give then he promises to take care of ALL your needs! Philippians 3:14-19. If you cannot pay your bills then let us look at this promise and see how we can have it! The bible is full of promises for a successful, joyous, victorious, healthy life. But if you don?t read it and OBEY (follow the rules) it then you will miss out on your benefits on earth! I hope you will read the handbook and not only get to enter but know that you can reserve the stalls too!

See ya at the next roping, Kelly Norman Fear Not Productions