World’s Toughest Rodeo

Post by Brittney Garcia

Barrel racing. Mexican bulls. Horses. Cowboys.

Those few words summarize my weekend perfectly. If this post is a bit dramatic, I apologize.
It was THAT great of a weekend.

Let’s begin.

So the other day, I was waiting for the Wolfline bus to take me home and since I had just seen one leave (story of my life), I knew I would be waiting for a few minutes. I grabbed the Technician (for those that do not know, that is our school newspaper) and flipped through the pages. And then, my eye saw it. “ENTER THIS CODE TO GET FREE TICKETS TO THE WORLD’S TOUGHEST RODEO“. To put it simply, I love rodeos. The word love is probably an understatement. And even though I never really win contests, I figured it was worth a try. I entered through the NC State Student Media Facebook page and received a message later on; it was official, I had gotten 2 tickets for the event!!

Forward to a few days later and I’m sitting at PNC Arena (great seats too!), enjoying the view and ready for a show. I went with one of my best friends and we had a blast.

We saw cowgirls barrel racing (I was very surprised when only 1 ran into the barrels), cowboys get picked up and thrown by bulls (and yes, the crowd went wild), but the best part of all, was seeing little children ride sheep!
I assume that’s how most of the cowboys got started with rodeos. There were little girls and boys holding on for dear life and all I could think was: “Wow. Those children are brave.” I mean, they were riding sheep but I probably would’ve never done that as a child (okay, who are we kidding. I would have loved it!).

As you can see, one of the awesome perks about being a student at NC State is getting the opportunity to win contests and attend events…for FREE. Attending this rodeo, and the whole weekend in general is one that I will probably never forget and I will definitely be reading our school newspaper more often to find out about these great deals!