For La Plata teen, rodeo is the path to keeping her agricultural ties

LA PLATA — For La Plata’s 15-year-old Kail Wood, a junior high rodeo athlete, chores are the baseline of a lifestyle that merges professional aspiration with family tradition.

“You can’t just be like, ‘I’m not going to feed my horse this morning.’ You have to,” Kail said. “Once you pick it, you’re stuck in it.”

Kail Wood, 15, runs with her horses Kail Wood, 15, runs with her horses, Skeet, left, and Rico, right, after the Missouri High School Rodeo Association Junior High State Finals on May 9 at Lucky J Arena in Carthage, Mo. Kail let her horses run freely in the arena after a long day of rodeo events.

The dedication Wood feels is the heartbeat of a $93.7 billion industry in Missouri, a state home to nearly 88,000 farms, according to the Missouri Department of Agriculture. Behind the billion-dollar statistics is the reality that farms in the state have been consistently decreasing since the mid-1990s. In the next two decades, 70% of U.S. farmland will likely change hands.

Kail and her mom said the future of farming across the state and country could depend on the younger generation and their ability to work hard.

To maintain her competitive edge, Kail transitioned out of public school and into homeschooling in sixth grade.

This transition is common among rodeo families, specifically because Missouri public schools generally do not recognize rodeo as a sanctioned high school sport, meaning it isn’t sponsored by the Missouri State High School Activities Association. This makes the traditional Monday-through-Friday schedule a barrier for athletes who often travel for competitions that can keep kids out of state from Thursday until Monday.

Kail strategically uses the freedom of her homeschooling schedule to be ready for weekend competitions. She gets her classwork done quickly so she can use up daylight hours for practice.

“I feel like during the day, I get a lot done,” she said. Without homeschooling, she said she would struggle to balance homework with the hours needed to tie goats, feed horses or do other chores.

Libby Wood, Kail’s mother and a college and career readiness advisor at La Plata High School, said balancing four daughters and all of their activities is a family affair. Preparation for rodeo weekends is a precision operation. Kail has to shoulder the responsibility of her accredited schoolwork and management of the horses while her mom orders the groceries to the front door to ensure they don’t lose time or money eating on the road.

“We left here at 8 o’clock and rolled in at 1 o’clock in the morning, and it was like a pit crew,” Libby Wood said, recalling a recent competition. “Everyone has their jobs. We unhook, we set up, we take care of horses. It takes a village, for sure.”

The path Kail chose for herself reflects her family history. Her dad grew up around horses, too, and her grandparents gifted a pony to Kail and her cousins when she was little.

A couple hours east of La Plata, Adria Palmer, a counselor at Mark Twain High School in rural Center, Missouri, sees the shifting landscape of kids and their ag-related involvement firsthand. She said it’s true that some kids feel encouraged or excited to follow in the agricultural footsteps of their family, but others instead feel the weight of expectation.

“I think the pressure is sometimes unspoken,” Palmer said. “It’s like, well, that’s just what you’re supposed to do.”

Palmer said she’s noticed over the years that male students tend to go straight to the farm or business after high school, but female students often pursue degrees in ag-business or management before returning to support the family operation.

Kail said that for her, the pressure is the motivator. The goal is to eventually go pro, and maybe even make it to the NFR, or the Super Bowl of rodeo as she called it, held in Las Vegas.

However, Matt Freese, president of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association, said the odds of turning pure dedication into a professional career are steep.

“You don’t have a team,” Freese said. “You can only rely on yourself and your animal, and sometimes animals have bad days.”

Freese paralleled the competitiveness of the NFR to baseball’s World Series, and he added that the cowboy or cowgirl is like a baseball pitcher. They act as the leader every time they step in the box, and there’s no one to catch their mistakes.

Freese emphasized that the sport is expensive, too.

Libby said that a single horse can start at $7,500, and bills are constant. She said her daughter and other kids like her involved in agriculture-related activities have to find ways to make the lifestyle pay for itself. Every Wednesday, Kail charges local girls $10 a pop for them to bring their horses over and practice goat tying in the arena behind her house.

After she finishes high school, Kail hopes to rodeo in college. Then, her eyes are set on “where the cowboys are” — Texas and Oklahoma — where there’s opportunities to rope or goat tie more often than in Missouri.

“We want our kids to go,” Libby said. “We’ve raised our kids to leave, to go explore. We’ll always be there for them, but the intention is not for them to stay here with us.”

Kail said that even if she doesn’t make it pro, she’ll stay in the world of rodeo. She’ll keep up clinics like the ones she does with local girls in La Plata.

It’s Kail’s entrepreneurial spirit that her family believes will keep Missouri youth like her involved in rodeo, or FFA or whatever other agricultural activity it may be.

“I know I’ve put in a lot of hard work,” Kail said. “I’ve just got to trust God, because He’ll get me through my runs.”