{"id":64638,"date":"2022-04-14T10:04:13","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T15:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=64638"},"modified":"2022-04-14T10:04:14","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T15:04:14","slug":"rempe-back-in-the-saddle-for-final-home-rodeo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=64638","title":{"rendered":"Rempe back in the saddle for final home rodeo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gary and Stacy Rempe traveled many a mile watching their three sons play sports throughout the year at Centralia High School in northeast Kansas. So they wouldn\u2019t think of missing this weekend\u2019s Fort Hays State University rodeo to watch their youngest son, Nathan, compete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nwill be the last FHSU rodeo for Nathan, and it\u2019s his first competition in\nseveral weeks after being sidelined with an injury. His family won\u2019t have long\nto wait to watch him compete this weekend. He will mount his horse at Doug\nPhillip Arena for Thursday evening\u2019s first public performance of the 56th\nannual event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan\nwill compete as the heeler in the team roping event along with the header,\nHoracio Holguin from Northwestern Oklahoma State University. The top 10 scores\nand times in each event from the first four rounds of competition advance to\nSaturday night\u2019s finals at 7:00. The first two public performances are 7 p.m.\nThursday and Friday with slack performances at 9 a.m. Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan\nhas high hopes that Thursday\u2019s competition is not his last go-around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d\ndefinitely like to go out with a bang at my last home rodeo in college,\u201d Nathan\nsaid. \u201cThis being our hometown rodeo, I\u2019m pretty excited to set the pace for\nthe team roping \u2013 and for our entire team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting\nthe pace was something that became old hat at tradition-rich Centralia High,\nwhich has won state championships in multiple sports. But success in rodeo\ndidn\u2019t come as easily for Nathan, who didn\u2019t compete in that arena until\ncollege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nhe lived just an hour from two other state universities, Nathan decided to\nfollow some friends to FHSU after his high school graduation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen\nI came and visited Fort Hays State, I loved the campus and the atmosphere,\u201d he\nsaid. \u201cI was from a small town, and FHSU has a small-town atmosphere. I\nrealized I could get the same education, if not better, at Fort Hays State and\nat a more affordable rate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His\nfriends happened to be part of the rodeo team, so Nathan started hanging out at\nthe arena. He joined the FHSU Rodeo Club his freshman year and used that year\nto gain valuable experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodeo\nwas new to the Rempe family, but Nathan\u2019s parents vowed to follow and support\nhim in his new venture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\nhave thoroughly enjoyed the rodeo part of it,\u201d said his mother, who has\nattended every rodeo that Nathan has competed in during his college career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\nadded that they were pleased that Nathan chose FHSU because Hays \u201cfelt like a\nsecond home.\u201d The Rempes had visited Fort Hays State numerous times when\nCentralia qualified for state high school sporting events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHays\nwas our home-away-from-home when the boys were in high school,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\ngot to know the town, which is so welcoming, and the campus is just as friendly\nas the community. So we knew Nathan would fit in well here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nRempes gave Nathan his first horse when he was 8 years old, and he had worked\nat a feed yard back home during high school. So riding horses was nothing new\nfor the youngest Rempe sibling. But roping a calf\u2019s hind legs sure was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNathan\nwas pretty green when he first started here,\u201d said Bronc Rumford, one of the\nFHSU coaches. \u201cBut he has worked really hard to get to where he is today. He\nbought into things we have tried to teach him, and he\u2019s a kid we\u2019re proud of\nfrom a coaching standpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan\nstarted entering competitions his sophomore year and plans to continue\ncompeting in rodeos after graduation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nlooking back, Nathan said that choosing Fort Hays State was one of the best\ndecisions of his life. While in school, he met his future wife, Bailey\nMcCaughey, an FHSU rodeo team alum. Nathan and Bailey will both graduate from\nFHSU in May and are engaged to be married Sept. 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailey\nis good friends with T.J. Watts, a rope horse trainer in Colorado. Nathan\nstarted training colts for Watts and plans to continue that job after\ngraduation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nall started with the rodeo team, an experience of a lifetime Nathan said he\nwill never forget.\n\n\u201cOur club is tight-knit. We all work together as\na family, so we are a really close group,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard not to improve\nwith support like that.\u201d\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS Gary and Stacy Rempe traveled many a mile watching their three sons play sports throughout the year at Centralia High School in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11722],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64639,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64638\/revisions\/64639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}