Jamie Slocum rodeo – AG INFORMATION NETWORK OF THE WEST

Jamie Slocum rodeo

Looking forward to rodeo: U of I’s new rodeo coach wants to raise the club’s profile

Coach Jamie Slocum knows her ambitions are bold and her team will work hard, but this isn’t her first rodeo.

As a student athlete in the spring of 2011, Slocum was on a meager budget and encountered one barrier after another as she somehow put together the University of Idaho Rodeo Club’s first home meet in more than a decade.

As the new coach of the club, housed within the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Slocum now wants to take the bull by the horns and repeat history. Next fall — if all goes according to plan — the club will once again host U of I’s first home rodeo in more than a decade under her leadership. Hosting a successful rodeo could also provide a jolt to the entire Northwest Region of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association, which includes mostly community colleges and has struggled with participation.

“We cannot recruit people for rodeo within our region because we cannot organize rodeos,” Slocum said. “A lot of people don’t even know the rodeo club exists, and if they knew you or I had a rodeo team, I think they would probably support it.”

Slocum, ’11, agricultural management and communications, works as a seed treatment agronomist at McGregor Co. In college she competed in goat tying and barrel racing.

Slocum contacted the club’s student leaders last fall and offered the 150-by-200-foot rope hall in her Palouse home for occasional training, along with the use of six steers and five calves.

The club accepted the offer and also convinced Slocum to share its expertise. She now coaches alongside Alan Chipman, who joined the club seven years ago along with his late wife Tammy.

“I am very happy that Jamie Slocum is coming, because she has so many contacts in the area that I am not aware of. That opened up a whole lot for us,” Chipman said. “She’s a great addition, and I don’t have to try to get oxen and cows to practice at my house.”

Slocum plans to have professional rodeo athletes work with the team during future practices.

The club’s advisor is Stacey Doumit, senior instructor in the Department of Animal, Veterinary and Nutritional Sciences.

“With Jamie as one of their coaches, they have good momentum, and I’m super excited for them,” Doumit said.

As an athlete, Slocum joined the club in 2008 when she transferred from Spokane Community College to U of I. She served as the club’s president during her senior year, in addition to participating in the Student Idaho Cattle Association. Her main goal as president was to organize a rodeo from home – something that had not happened in years and which she believed would reinvigorate the program.

Through her involvement with the Palouse Empire Fair, Slocum received a discounted rate to use the arena at the rodeo grounds in nearby Colfax, Washington. The team also found donors to provide hay for horses and cattle, and through a club member they got a good deal for a livestock farmer.

However, the weather did not cooperate. Before the event, they pumped fluid from a soggy hay field designated as their parking lot, but ultimately had to bring in tractors to pull out pickup trucks stuck in the mud. It was cold and snowy on the first day of the rodeo, and their crowd was small. Still, they achieved their goal of hosting a nationals qualifying rodeo.

“The amount of work that went into it is why I don’t think anything has happened since then,” Slocum said.

The spring season has ended and the club aims to host a home rodeo at the Lewiston Roundup Grounds next fall. In the meantime, the students will be active in fundraising and approaching companies in the area for sponsorship. Slocum believes raising the profile of the rodeo team would help attract students who are active in the sport to U of I.

About twenty years ago, U of I hosted a successful regional rodeo at the Kibbie Dome. Ultimately, Slocum would like to help restore a regional rodeo at the Kibbie Dome and make it the first competition of the season. The club has 13 members, nine of whom are registered for CALS. At the regional finals rodeo in Hermiston, Oregon, team members Katelyn Hurl and Lauryn Riney, both CALS students, qualified to compete in the barrel racing at the College National Finals Rodeo, to be held in June in Casper, Wyoming.

“Now that I get to watch them and coach them, they have a lot of potential,” Slocum said. “They are doing very well with the resources they have compared to the other schools that practice every week.”