PBR

Camp of Champions XIII

/ Andy R Taylor / 2 Comments

The Camp of Champions is an amazing project. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s the most unique church camp you could ever find. It’s a Christian Rodeo Camp for kids ages 6-16. This year marked the 13th year for the COC. In the previous 12 years there’s been no less than 1000 boys and girls who’ve given their lives to the Lord during the camp. It’s the largest camp of it’s kind on the planet It’s a camp hosted by our church, Trinity Fellowship in Sayre, Oklahoma.

There’s been many Junior rodeo champions, High School champs, Collegiate champs and even a PRCA World Champion Bull Rider who  have been enrolled in The Camp of Champions. We’re proud of all the boys and girls who have attended and have gone on to success in the rodeo arena….but we’re more proud that we have been able to influence, in a small way, kids who learn to be successful in life due to their relationship with the Lord. We’re “Developing Champions in, and out, of the Arena”!

The Instructors at the COC are literally a “Who’s Who” of the rodeo world. But they’e not just great rodeo hands…..they’re great hands for the Lord! They’re men and women who understand what their career is/was actually about…..INFLUENCE! They don’t come here for the money. To be honest…it’s not all that much. They come here to help give these kids a ‘leg up’ in their rodeo events, and a ‘leg up’ in their relationship with the Father.

Unlike a lot of Christian youth camps we intentionally do not try to scare them with hell so they’ll make a decision for salvation. We don’t try to manipulate or coerce them in any way. We believe that the Holy Spirit is good enough at His job that we don’t have to resort to those funky, non-Jesus, tactics. If I were a parent of a kid in the COC….I’d really appreciate that.

It takes a lot of people working selflessly to pull it off each year. We’ve got the greatest bunch of volunteers around here that I’ve ever seen assembled anywhere! Many take their vacation to help with the COC.

Highlights of Camp of Champions XIII: 

* 50 + decisions to receive Jesus as Savior

* Young adults who have came up through the camp and are now top notch instructors…and great speakers in the tent

* A lot of tired, but extremely rewarded helpers who were instrumental in kids experiencing relationship with God

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Business = Finished!

/ Andy R Taylor / Leave a comment

If you’re not familiar with the Professional Bull Riders organization this post might not mean much to you. And if you’re not familiar with the PBR….maybe you should be. Bull Riding is the most extreme of all the extreme sports. If you have a disagreement on that thought, go get on a bull and, chances are, you’ll quickly change your mind. Bull Riding as a sport has evolved over the past 20 + years into a high-profile, spectator friendly sport that has made celebrities of the bull riders, as well as the bulls. Sports arenas around the country are filling up when the PBR comes to town much due to the overt, raw danger of the sport and the vanishing individualistic nature of the, authentic, American cowboy.

An event was held this past weekend in Decatur, Texas unlike any Bull Riding event ever before, and almost assuredly, will never happen again. “Unfinished Business” pitted eight of the most high-profile PBR Bull Riders in the organization’s history, all retired for a number of years, riding for a, winner take all, $160,000 payoff. Cody Custer and Mike White, PRCA World Champions; Tater Porter, J.W. Hart, PBR World Finals Champions; Justin McBride, Chris Shivers and Michael Gaffney all PBR World Champions and Ross Coleman, perennial PBR World Finals Qualifier.

To say that these men had ‘unfinished business’ in the arena couldn’t be further from the truth. These eight guys left it all in the arena every single time they ever competed, without exception. Their primary reason for coming out of retirement for this, once in a lifetime, event was in the name of charity. I don’t care who you are, you gotta appreciate that! *(consider that a couple of them are nearing 50 yrs of age!)

Shivers and Hart rode their bulls and split the $160,000. The other six didn’t complete their 8-second ride. But, just like always…..they gave it everything they had…..one last time! I care about Bull Riding; I’ve been directly involved with it in one way or another pretty much my whole life. I’d like to see Bull Riding continue to come to prominence as a sport. My reasons are personal. But I look at the field of bull riders today and I wonder who’ll take the place of these men. I don’t see very many out there on the radar screen, today, the caliber of these guys in the way of sheer effort….and the desire to be ‘ambassadors’ for the sport. The door’s wide open for some ‘young guns’ to step up!

Thank you Cody Custer, Mike White, Tater Porter, J.W. Hart, Justin McBride, Chris Shivers, Michael Gaffney and Ross Coleman….for showing unprecedented ‘class’ with every ride and every interview your entire career! Thanks from us older guys that never had the opportunity to ride for a million dollars.

Thanks for showing the rest of the world what the sport of Bull Riding is really about! You finished your business…..and you finished it well!!

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Avoid the Vending Machine, Microwave, Green Chile Burritos at the Albuquerque Airport at All Costs!!

/ Andy R Taylor / 3 Comments

Rodeo season was in full swing. In the spring of 1980 I was traveling with Gary Toole from Mangum, Oklahoma. We had ridden in Lake Charles, Louisiana then drove most of the night to Ft. Worth where we met a pilot from my hometown with our plane to go to Tucson to ride that afternoon. We made a routine stop in Albuquerque for fuel and to stretch our legs a little bit. Walking down the hall of the airport there was a strategically placed vending machine with several choices of food, none of which looked edible to me. One of the choices was the Green Chile Burrito! First time I’d ever seen that in a vending machine! We made a quick restroom stop and then headed back down the hallway toward the plane. Gary stopped at the vending machine and started digging in his pocket for some cash. He retrieved enough cash for, not one, but TWO of the Green Chile Burritos! As soon as he pulled them out of the machine I took one look at ’em and said, “MISTAKE”! (to which he paid absolutely no attention to at all) Well, he microwaved those burritos up just right and in nothing flat we’re back in the plane headed for Tucson.

I’ve always had a pretty strong stomach, not much makes me sick. In fact I’ve only thrown up 5 or 6 times in my whole life. But the one thing that will make me give it up…..is to be around someone else throwing up. Yep, that’ll do it for me every time. I don’t know, maybe it’s the sound of someone gaggin’; it’s the smell of it for sure….but nothing can get to me any quicker than that!

After driving all night we were both dead tired. As soon as we cleared the runway I immediately went to sleep. Gary, as soon as he wolfed down those burritos, was going to get him some sleep too. We were about 30 minutes from Tucson when ‘that’ smell I was just talking about filled the plane. I woke up and looked across at Gary. He’s found a small zip-lock bag, about sandwich size, that had a good size tear in one corner. He’s got the hole pinched off and he’s throwing up in this teeny-tiny zip-lock bag! (which by now is full …and running over!) The hole in the bag is too big to get completely shut off by his thumb and forefinger…..so the puke is running down his hand, down his elbow and dripping in the floor of the plane. Well, I guess you know what that means for me!! I immediately grabbed a denim jacket and pulled it over my head, and plugged my ears all at the same time. It’s gettin’ serious for me now! I’m not sure what I had to eat the night before but I gagged it all right up to my gizzard about 40 times before we FINALLY got on the ground in Tucson. I never did throw up but I was as close as you can possibly get for 30 minutes.

Why do I tell this story, you ask?? Just to give you a ‘heads up’. If you’re ever in the Albuquerque airport and a hunger pain hits ‘ya…….avoid the vending machine, microwave, Green Chile Burritos at all costs!!