{"id":6396,"date":"2014-09-04T20:38:23","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T20:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2014\/09\/04\/rodeo-offers-hope-for-kids\/"},"modified":"2014-09-04T20:38:23","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T20:38:23","slug":"rodeo-offers-hope-for-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6396","title":{"rendered":"Rodeo offers hope for kids"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"CAL FARLEYS BOYS RANCH RODEO\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vgLt5GhTGh0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Cal Farley&#8217;s Boys Ranch and Girls Town is a legendary institution in the Texas Panhandle.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve concluded that one of the things that contributes to that legend is a two-day rodeo held each year at the ranch, which is about 34 miles northwest of Amarillo in one of the prettiest regions of the Texas Panhandle.<\/p>\n<p>My wife and I took our great niece there this past weekend to watch some kids ride bucking horses, try to ride sheep, rassle some steers and &#8212; in one of the more charming events &#8212; take part in a hobby horse race.<\/p>\n<p>The late Cal Farley founded the ranch in 1939. It is celebrating its 75th year helping kids who, as the ranch motto says, find a &#8220;shirttail to hang on to.&#8221; The rodeo was the 70th. The link attached to this brief post was from the 2010 rodeo.<\/p>\n<p>It looks essentially the same today.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the most interesting element of this rodeo is that the children &#8212; all student\/residents at Boys Ranch &#8212; have gotten quite proficient on the back of a horse. It&#8217;s a very good bet that many of the kids, who come from troubled lives and who enroll at the ranch to get straightened out, never have seen a horse up close, let alone ridden one at a full gallop.<\/p>\n<p>Yet they&#8217;re out there competing and from what we were able to witness from our seats in the nearly full arena are having a great time.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s something else that deserves high praise. It&#8217;s the cost of the concessions.<\/p>\n<p>The rodeo&#8217;s mission is to raise money for the ranch. I&#8217;ve been to enough fundraising events to know how these things work: You go to support a worthy effort and then pay through the nose for concessions, given that you&#8217;re already there and the folks who are putting the event on know you&#8217;ll pay for overpriced food and drink.<\/p>\n<p>Boys Ranch&#8217;s prices for concessions are dirt cheap, which heightens the enjoyment for those who attend.<\/p>\n<p>All the concessions are donated, so every nickel spent on them goes directly to Boys Ranch and Girls Town coffers.<\/p>\n<p>It is a wonderful event that is worth seeing time and again.<\/p>\n<p>Good job, kids.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cal Farley&#8217;s Boys Ranch and Girls Town is a legendary institution in the Texas Panhandle. I&#8217;ve concluded that one of the things that contributes to that legend is a two-day rodeo held each year at the ranch, which is about 34 miles northwest of Amarillo in one of the prettiest regions of the Texas Panhandle. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6396\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Rodeo offers hope for kids<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[727,4668],"class_list":["post-6396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-boys-ranch-and-girls-town","tag-texas-panhandle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}