The first event of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association’s 2025-2026 season took place Oct. 3 and 4 at the Plumas-Sierra County Fairgrounds in Quincy. Hosted by the Feather River College rodeo team, the two-day event was the culmination of a week of fundraisers and celebrations around town.
Festivities commenced Oct. 4 with mutton busting, a perennial favorite in which children aged 3 to 6 compete to remain on a sheep’s back for eight seconds in an event analogous to a bull ride. Five-year-old Tatum Brown, the oldest child of FRC Rodeo Coach Zack Brown, took the victory, clinging to a sheep named Steel Wool as it charged across the arena. The 2025 rodeo was his first time competing. Other creatively named mutton included Wooly Booger and Lamb-ergedon.
Then it was time for the opening ceremony. Flags emblazoned with the logos of sponsors of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association were carried round the arena on horseback by members of the FRC team. FRC’s student athletes stood in the center of the arena as graduating seniors were introduced, and scholarships presented. Graduating senior Brendon Mendoza was awarded a $1,000 scholarship in honor of Danny Leonhardt; Desiree Mattocks received a $1,000 scholarship in honor of Linda Leonhardt. The American flag was then carried around the arena, and announcer Michael Dwyer delivered an opening prayer. Kelsey Johnston performed the national anthem.
By the time the competitors were in the chutes for the first event, bareback riding, the stands had filled to capacity, with children gathering at the fence line and small groups of adults congregating to chat on the embankment.
Joining Dwyer in the sound booth were judges Mike James and Tim Englehart, both professional cowboys with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Managing roughstock and providing professional services were the owner and staff of Rockin’ M Rodeo Productions, of Red Bluff. Between events, rodeo clown Clint Selvester kept up a steady stream of banter, entertaining the crowd.
The weekend “went great,” Brown said afterwards. In this job, there are always surprises — the rainy weather among them — but there was also “tons of community” and family support, Brown added.
Standings
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, swept the event, with both men’s and women’s teams in first place overall, and individual firsts in seven of the nine events.
The FRC men’s team stands in fourth place. Standouts included Ian M. Leavitt, who took first in bareback riding, James Hunter Maxwell, who came in second in bull riding, and James Victor Peterson, second in steer wrestling. The women’s team did not place.
The field was narrowed during rodeo slack to the top 10 competitors in each of the nine categories. They competed for final placement during the evening performances. Competitor order was determined by slack performance, with the longest qualifying times beginning so that the pace accelerated through each event.
First-place winners took a victory lap around the arena on the Smarty, a training machine for roping and tying, flinging T-shits, ball caps and other merchandise to the crowd. But their big prize is a belt buckle commemorating the win.
A lifelong love
“A lot goes into rodeo,” Dwyer told The Plumas Sun after the event. Once a competitor in saddle bronc, bull riding and bullfighting, he switched to rodeo promotion after an injury. He’s been the voice of FRC rodeo for 14 years. It’s just one of about 45 rodeo gigs he takes on each year. His son is in the same line of business, providing sound systems for rodeos, sometimes two in a weekend.
A professional rider might climb on a hundred bulls a year in competition alone, Dwyer said. That’s not counting all the practice and training rides. In the professional rodeo world, 10% of riders make a good living and 10% break even; the other 80% make that possible through their entrance fees, he said.
“These are the up-and-coming superstars of tomorrow,” he said of the student athletes.
At the final competition Saturday night, the continuum of college rodeo competition was evident: from the mutton busters to the college student athletes, to coaches, professional judges and pickup riders, to the veterans in the sound booth and providing the cattle.
Mattocks, FRC senior and winner of the Linda Leonhardt scholarship, will graduate from the four-year equine and ranch management program this school year. Originally from Mariposa, Mattocks grew up riding horses, but didn’t compete in rodeo until she joined the team at FRC. Now, it’s something she hopes to build a career on. Once she completes her degree, Mattocks plans to get her large animal and vet tech certifications and open a ranch coaching young rodeo riders. She said the mental aspects of the sport are the most challenging: it’s difficult to anticipate what a calf is going to do. Rodeo has taught her patience and encouraged her to take chances.
Saddie Grant, of Allen Hancock College in Santa Maria, competed in barrel racing and team roping. Rodeo is something she’s been doing her “whole entire life” and she has ambitious goals, she said. A freshman, she aims to win the Rookie of the Year award and to earn a place at the College National Finals Rodeo in Casper, Wyoming, in June.
Rick Moffatt, of Oakdale, is a pickup rider with Rockin’ M, responsible for riding alongside the competitor and the bucking animal to help protect the rider, and for removing the flank strap once the ride is over. He does 50 to 75 events per year — a career he got into “just by being a cowboy.”
“Rodeo was the most extreme thing to do and I got good at it,” he said.
Rockin’ M’s owner, Chuck Morris, has been a stock contractor for 25 years — “too long,” he joked. His company supplied all the bucking horses, bulls and roping cattle for the rodeo. He, too, competed in rodeo professionally. He said he saw contracting as a way to “stay involved in the sport I love.”
