High school rodeo riders ready for state championships

For Tim Bingham, participating in high school rodeo will help him attain a college education and give him a way to make a living doing something that he loves.

For Jaimie Dannelly, high school rodeo has been a way to see the state and meet people she otherwise wouldn't get to know.

When the best high school rodeo athletes gather in Heber City on June 9, they will be competing for a lot of reasons. The most obvious goal is a chance to win a state title and a trip to the National High School Finals Rodeo

in July. As a team, Utah's rodeo athletes took second last year, and they won back-to-back national titles the two years prior to that.

Bingham, a senior from Fremont High, isn't just hoping for a third state title in bull riding in two weeks.

"I just want to go to Nationals," he said. "And, for me, I expect to make it to state."

It is especially rewarding competing this year because Bingham, who is currently in sixth place in the state's standings, missed 19 rodeos and six months after he broke his neck in August.

"I got bucked off and came down on an angle," he said.

He broke the sixth vertebra in his neck and miraculously never even suffered any numbness or tingling.

"I had a big headache," he said with a little laugh.

In fact, Bingham didn't even go to a doctor right away.

"My neck got stiff," he said. "I couldn't turn my head from one side to the other. That was the scary part. So I went to the doctor. The doctor was shocked."

Bingham waited three days to seek medical treatment because he said he didn't feel too bad after the fall.

"They said I should have had surgery that night," said Bingham, who ended up having surgery and wearing a halo to repair the broken vertebra.

The accident scared him, but it didn't keep him from a sport that has become his life's passion.

"I should have been toast," he said. "It kind of got me thinking a little bit. … It scared me. But then I just couldn't wait to ride again."

Despite missing much of the season because of the injury, Bingham is still in a position to earn a state title, as well as a fourth straight trip to Nationals. It is the latter that really gets him excited.

"It's been cool being back out there," said Bingham, who is the Utah High School Rodeo Association president. "After missing 19 rodeos, that'd be awesome if I made it to Nationals."