Brothers Have Good Stock

Rowdy Moon works as a bull fighter, distracting bulls so the rider can scramble to safety. Photo by Mo Foto.

Sargent, Neb. (April 30, 2012) –  For three brothers in Sargent, their lives revolve around stock.

Not the stock on Wall Street, but bucking stock, as in bulls.

For Buck, Cody, and Rowdy, bulls are what they love.

Cody owns them, Rowdy fights them, and Buck rides them.

Cody, age 17, has his own herd of bucking bulls. It all started when his brother Buck had a bucking bull for practice nine years ago. The bull got out into the neighbor’s herd, and, months later, there were four little bull calves who liked to buck.

Cody decided to keep them, and now he has his own herd of 26 bulls and 19 cows. He is hired by rodeo committees to provide his bucking bulls at high school and amateur rodeos.

His younger brother, Rowdy, who is 15, has a job with the bulls, too. He’s a bullfighter, the man at the rodeo with clown makeup on whose job is serious: to distract the bulls after the eight second buzzer so the rider can scramble to safety.

Rowdy is often hired by high school rodeos to work as a bullfighter.

Since he and Cody are high school students, and while they’re at high school rodeos, they compete, Rowdy as a bareback rider and the two of them as team ropers. Two concussions due to horse accidents when he was younger have forced Cody to compete in events less dangerous than bull riding.

Cody’s bull herd is turning into a business. He has his own business checkbook, and his dad, Casey, has required him to pay for nearly every part of his business: feed, fuel, equipment and repairs. “I don’t rely on him to help me out to pay for something, but if I run into a budget issue, he’ll help me out a little bit.” Right now, Cody’s breaking even on his bull business. He hopes to continue it beyond college.

The brothers are students at Sargent High School; Cody is a junior and Rowdy a freshman. Both are members of FFA; Rowdy is on the football team. Their older brother, Buck, is a bull rider at Dodge City (Kan.) Community College.

Buck was a Nebraska High School Rodeo Bull Riding Champion. Cody competed at the Nebraska State High School Finals Rodeo in Hastings last year, and he will bring his bulls for competition at this year’s finals in Hastings June 21-23. Both Cody and Rowdy hope to qualify for the finals again this year.

They are the sons of Casey and Sandra Moon.