A small crowd gathered south of campus Friday night to watch the second night of the Cyclone Stampede Rodeo competition, part of a series of events put on by the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association. Each region’s first- and second-place winners in each category receive a scholarship from U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company.

However, Iowa State’s only contestant in this round, Joshua Foutch, junior in liberal studies and member of the ISU Rodeo Club, did not manage to catch his assigned calf in the tie-down roping event, and received a mark of “no time.”

“Sometimes the calves still have a little energy, and then we have a little extra rodeo with the members of our Iowa State Rodeo Committee,” said ProRodeo announcer Blaine Partridge of Nebraska, as a calf kicked out of its bindings and temporarily avoided being herded through a gate.

About an hour into the show, lightning started to the north of the arena, and it soon began to rain heavily. By the time the rain stopped a few minutes later, half of the audience had retreated to their cars.

The announcer teased them a little, saying obviously it needed to rain to settle the dust, and turned the music’s volume

up to invite them back to the stands.

The events of the night included bareback bronc riding, in which the riders lean back on the horse to put their legs up and give the horse the advantage; breakaway, with the object being to lasso a loose calf and have the rope come loose from the saddlehorn; tie-down roping, when the cowboy must rope the loose calf and tie three of its legs together; team roping, with the first rider catching the calf around the horns and the second getting the back legs; goat tying, the women’s version of tie-down roping – but with the goat already captured; steer wrestling, with a cowboy catching a calf without a lasso then flipping it to the ground; and the barrel race, a women’s event of riding a cloverleaf pattern around three barrels.

The two signature events of rodeo—saddle bronc and bull riding- drew cheers from the crowd as the increasingly belligerent animals were let loose.

Of the four riders in the saddle bronc competition, only three stayed on for the full eight seconds, one getting thrown off so close to the line that the judges had to decide it. There were only two contestants in bull riding, and both were thrown before the eight-second mark.

David VanTienhoven, from Dickinson State University in North Dakota, said he has been doing rodeo since he was 16, but his assigned bull flung him loose quickly.

“I had a bad get off the first one,” VanTienhoven said.

The other bull rider, Joshua Zimmerman of Mitchell Technical Institute in South Dakota, joked about having to be special to stay on the kicking animal.

“He’s more special,” he said, pointing to VanTienhoven. “He beat me in the first round.”

The competitors went to Iowa Central Community College to compete Saturday and Sunday, and will go to North Dakota State University to finish Oct. 20 and 21.