By ERIC VICCARO
sports@bowienewsonline.com

There was a generational absence of rodeo at North Central Texas College, but the sport has returned to the Gainesville campus.
“We’ve been able to grow different programs including horticulture and equine science,” said Steve Keith, head NCTC rodeo coach and agriculture department head.
“We have the rodeo facility, the arena and the stalls,” Keith continued. “I thought it was a good fit.”
NCTC hadn’t fielded a rodeo team since the late-1990s.
Keith coaches the team alongside Curt Donley and Tiffany Hammett, a barrel racer who won at the Saint Jo Riding Club Rodeo last year.
Montague County has its fingerprints all over the program already.
Bowie’s Erika Ashley signed with the team, and will compete in barrel racing. Taylor Shipman of Nocona is set to run both barrels and compete in breakaway roping.
The Saint Jo tandem of Dalton Parker and Garrett Parker, a former multi-sport athlete for the Panthers, will form a team roping duo. The Parkers also will perform in calf roping.
There are 16 competitors on the first-ever squad, with one from as far away as Coweta, Okla., a southern suburb of Tulsa. Read more in the Aug. 13 Bowie News.

North Central Texas College will have rodeo for the first time in a generation beginning this fall. Nocona’s Taylor Shipman (middle front row) will be competing in both barrel racing and breakaway roping for the school. (News file photo)