While students milled around at a recent fair on West Campus, munching on cotton candy and discussing weekend plans, Katie Toney, a junior in animal science, was hard at work helping to teach shy volunteers proper lassoing technique. 

Toney was on hand to promote State’s rodeo club, and even though most of her pupils appeared terrified of the mechanical sheep they were charged with roping, she stayed patient and encouraging. After all, she’d had plenty of experience.

“The main thing [club members] do is go to rodeos and have people that participate in them,” Toney said. “We’ll also pull up roping dummies, go to places like tractor supply and attend events like that to raise awareness.”

Even though the club is made up of a group of people who like to “grab life by the horns” – literally or figuratively – Toney, who serves as the club secretary, said the rodeo enthusiasts are a pretty relaxed bunch. They often use meeting time to share stories or just enjoy each others’ company.

“We recently had a meeting where we all somehow got to talking about the worst injuries we’ve had,” Toney said. “Not surprisingly, a lot of them were horse or bull related.”

This common bond unites members of the club with all levels of experience. Some have competed in rodeo, barrel racing or bullriding for years and some have just started. Even more have never picked up on the sport, but grew up around it and enjoy going to events and supporting their friends.

“I’ve never actually been involved in rodeos myself. I just like to watch them,” Toney said. “It’s fun hanging out with that kind of crowd.”

Club president Amanda Smith, a junior in animal science, has also never competed professionally but is carrying on the work of her aunt and uncle, who attended State four years ago and were active members of the rodeo club.

“I grew up around it,” Smith said. “Word of mouth got me involved.”

Smith said the club will continue to be a good place to network for people who want to get started in the field of rodeo because members have contacts all over the state and are frequent visitors to Carousel Farms in Raleigh.

Smith said some of the members have floated around the idea of setting up a new activity for the club – goat roping. They would need for an organization to donate goats for the event, find an enclosed area and lasso as many willing participants as possible.

“It’s pretty common, but we’ve never tried it before,” Smith said. “We haven’t put anything in motion yet, though.”

Some of her long-term goals include providing sponsorship opportunities.

“We wish we could help sponsor some of the contestants,” Smith said. “It’s kind of our goal, but we don’t really have the funds right now. Someday, we’d like to be able to pay entry fees and hook people up with some gear.”

For now, though, Toney said the atmosphere is enough to keep club regulars coming back. 

“I really enjoy the club, to be honest, it’s one of the most relaxed clubs at N.C. State,” Toney said. “We do a lot of just hanging out. We pretty much provide a place for people who are interested in the same thing to get together and talk about it.”