I'm working on a feature of a local ranch kid --middle son of three boys, that has overcome some road blocks on his way to a top NM state FFA award, the State Star in Agribusiness award --this award requires about two years of pretty intense book and record keeping of an ag business managed/run by the kid and then a final interview before a committee to pick the ONE in the entire state for the year to get the award.
Kendal Wilson is 17, will be a senior next fall --won the award for his horse breaking and training business he's built over the past few years. Which doesn't sound like much unless you look at his medical records.
At the age of 8 he fell of the barn roof and broke his back --didn't bother to mention it for about 3 days until his dad threatened to not let him drag calves at the branding if he didn't tell him what happened --Kendal did, then quickly said, now can I rope? Not realizing the seriousness of the injuries his let him work all day -- only after the trip to the doctor to see what was ailing him, they found the broken vertebrae.
Kendal rocked along for the next few years, growing up, playing sports and managing with the back best he could -- then about 3 years ago he was on a colt pushing some cattle back to pasture and the colt decided to bog his head and buck while crossing gully ...Kendal, caught completely off guard went out the back door and on his way by, the colt nailed him the gut with his back feet. He felt punk, but got back on, finished his job, rode back the pens but by this time, opted to sit on the ground and lean against a post. He was hurting pretty bad in his belly but the pain would come and go --
The chiropractor had warned his parents that Kendal had a pain tolerance like he had NEVER seen and that if Kendal said he hurt, it was WAY beyond regular hurting. But Kendal continued to try to tuff it out ---back to the house...an neighbor EMT checked him out..vitals were fine, but to make sure his parents decided to have him checked out. They loaded him up and hauled him to town --70 miles to the ER --when they got there he was almost WITHOUT vitals. His spleen had been cut and he was bleeding out. Doctors told him he was within minutes of dying.
Last year --he took another beating from a colt he got on that he didn't know...was helping a neighbor on short notice and they just pointed to the horse and he got on him. He rode him about 4 laps of bucking around the corral and then it got ugly. That one broke his shoulder.
So in all this --he never let fear get in his way. He's turned out some nice quiet young horses that will work for anything you want to do on the ranch --and he does it with a quiet polite manner about him that makes you proud for ranch kids everywhere. He's truly the kind of kid agriculture produces on the back forty --we just need more of them.
If the value of his paperwork didn't win him the award, the substance of the young man surely should have.
Kendal Wilson is 17, will be a senior next fall --won the award for his horse breaking and training business he's built over the past few years. Which doesn't sound like much unless you look at his medical records.
At the age of 8 he fell of the barn roof and broke his back --didn't bother to mention it for about 3 days until his dad threatened to not let him drag calves at the branding if he didn't tell him what happened --Kendal did, then quickly said, now can I rope? Not realizing the seriousness of the injuries his let him work all day -- only after the trip to the doctor to see what was ailing him, they found the broken vertebrae.
Kendal rocked along for the next few years, growing up, playing sports and managing with the back best he could -- then about 3 years ago he was on a colt pushing some cattle back to pasture and the colt decided to bog his head and buck while crossing gully ...Kendal, caught completely off guard went out the back door and on his way by, the colt nailed him the gut with his back feet. He felt punk, but got back on, finished his job, rode back the pens but by this time, opted to sit on the ground and lean against a post. He was hurting pretty bad in his belly but the pain would come and go --
The chiropractor had warned his parents that Kendal had a pain tolerance like he had NEVER seen and that if Kendal said he hurt, it was WAY beyond regular hurting. But Kendal continued to try to tuff it out ---back to the house...an neighbor EMT checked him out..vitals were fine, but to make sure his parents decided to have him checked out. They loaded him up and hauled him to town --70 miles to the ER --when they got there he was almost WITHOUT vitals. His spleen had been cut and he was bleeding out. Doctors told him he was within minutes of dying.
Last year --he took another beating from a colt he got on that he didn't know...was helping a neighbor on short notice and they just pointed to the horse and he got on him. He rode him about 4 laps of bucking around the corral and then it got ugly. That one broke his shoulder.
So in all this --he never let fear get in his way. He's turned out some nice quiet young horses that will work for anything you want to do on the ranch --and he does it with a quiet polite manner about him that makes you proud for ranch kids everywhere. He's truly the kind of kid agriculture produces on the back forty --we just need more of them.
If the value of his paperwork didn't win him the award, the substance of the young man surely should have.