Article & photos by Nancy Brannon
The Mississippi Classic, a USTRC National Finals qualifier, provided three full days of non-stop team roping action at the Tunica Arena, Tunica, Mississippi, December 11-13, 2015.
And if you wanted to see the Best of the Best team ropers, Tunica was the place to see them. “The cowboys who come here to compete are some of the same guys you see on TV,” said producer Kevin Hall. “A lot of them are professional ropers and may go almost non-stop, traveling to competitions. We also get some PBR Bull riders, like Ryan Dirteater, Chris Shivers, Mike White, and Silvano Alves. These bull riders thrive on competition, but they know they can only ride bulls for so long. Then what are they going to do the rest of their lives? Team rope! You can team rope all of your life, even into your 80s. Because of the USTRC handicap classification system, ropers know they’ll always be competing against other ropers at their own skill level. We had some ropers come all the way from Brazil to this event.”
Rope the Ozarks produces the Tunica event every year and is an independent producer for USTRC, covering six states. “Out of the six states, Tunica is our favorite place to go,” said Hall. “We like the arena. Security is good, the arena is in good shape, and we had zero issues at this event!”
The Mississippi Classic attracted 1100 teams. “We had a good weekend with good weather,” Hall said. “We hosted NFR parties in the evenings at Sam’s Town and had several hundred cowboys attending.”
Two trophy Cowboy Gold saddles were awarded to the high money winners on Saturday and Sunday. Thirty-one Trophy Gist Buckles were awarded to the Average winners in the #11, #10, and #9; to the Incentive Average winners in the #12, #11, #10 & #9; Average & Incentive Average winners in the #12 Gold Plus & #10 Gold Plus; first through third place Average winners of the #8 Pick/Draw; and to Winners of the Junior Looper Divisions. The Average winners of the #15, #13, and #12 received Trophy Gist Knives. This was the seventh/last event of Rope the Ozarks 2015 season.
Full results are available at www.ustrc.com/Results
Photos courtesy of C Bar C Photography, Val Ford Photographer