Young Pro Programs

The Young Pro Programs offer a variety of events for all levels of students and for a wide range of ages.

Young Pro Training Camp

Our flagship event is the Y oung Pro Training Camp held annually in Texas. The current location is the Young County Arena in nearby Graham, TX. This camp is normally held the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday following the Denver National Western Rodeo short go (which is always on the last Sunday of their stock show). This usually places the camp during the last full week of January; the 2008 dates are January 29 th, 30 th and the 31 st.
This is an invitational only event. To qualify for an invitation the prospective students need to be a USTRC #5 young man or a #4 young lady and be sixteen years of age. Any Junior Pro ages thirteen through sixteen who has travel as a Touring Junior Pro during a summer mission trip is also eligible for attendance. Siblings of qualified students will also be considered based on age, roping abilities and traveling circumstances.
This Camp is very intense. Classroom sessions start at 7:30 A.M. and we wrap up the evening around 9:30 P.M. We mix classroom training with arena training each of the three days. The classroom instructors include ministers all connected to the roping world, pro ropers and Christian business men. The roping instructors are all NFR qualifiers and include many World Champions. The 2007 roping instructors included Clay Cooper, Allen Bach, Kory Koontz, Travis Tryan, Clay Tryan, Rope Myers, Patrick Smith, and David Key with Trey Johnson also assisting. The classroom instructors were Tom Underhill, Bonnie Underhill, Butch Bruton, Ty Bean, Trey Johnson, Tim Brooks, Allen Joyner, Randy Weaver, Dick Galley, Brady Cannon, Dave Simmons and Lonnie Gray. Other NFR level pros that have assisted in the past ten years include Jake Barnes, Rickey Green, Daniel Green, Matt Tyler, Paul Tierney, Monte Joe Petska, Jeff Medlin, Bobby Hurley, Speed Williams, Rich Skelton, Kevin Stewart, Martin Lucero, Jack Stephenson, Jacky Stephenson, Charles Pogue, Mike Beers and Dennis Tryan.
Classroom sessions include topics such as: the Bible, faith, character and integrity, life after the NFR, finances, sponsorships, being led by the Spirit, being a winner and finding your destiny. These teachings are combined with testimonies from the pro ropers concerning their lives, horses, victories and challenges they face as they pursuit their dreams and goals.
In addition to the classroom instruction and roping instruction there are also three ropings held during the camp. The first is the Draw-a-Pro jackpot where you get a pro roper drawn for you and compete in a three header with no entry fee. The winning Champion header and heeler along with their pro partners receive Carroll Leather Young Pro Camp Champion jackets. The next roping is a USTRC affiliated Young Pro Camp Championship roping open to any attendee or former attendees of our Young Pro Camps. The entry fee is usually around forty dollars per man and is an open with an incentive. There is no cattle charge so after the buckles and jackets are covered the remaining fees are paid back to the ropers. The final roping is a ten head match roping pitting the winners of the Young Pro Camp Championship, the Champion students from the Draw-a-Pro and a student team selected by the campers themselves. These three student teams go against three pro teams in a ten head match roping with the winners (student or pro) receiving $1,000 per man. The prize money has been donated by a business man to help encourage everyone to stay for the last event and not leave the camp prior to its completion.
The tuition for these Camps is free of charge, we do have a $25-$30 registration fee and each student must cover the cost of their stalls, shavings and hook-ups.

Junior Pro Training Camp

Junior Pro Training Camp is a mini version of our main Camp. It is designed for eight to sixteen year olds of any skill level. This Camp is held in March during spring break and for the first three years has been held at the Covenant Ranch near Caddo Mills, TX. Covenant Ranch is an outreach of New Life Family Fellowship Church in Caddo Mills, TX. This camp is not as intense as the Young Pro Camp. The classes are shorter; there are more breaks and free time to fit the age group that we are hosting. Nevertheless, the quality of roping instruction is awesome as Rickey Green is the anchor instructor and is assisted by different pro ropers that are free to make it (Allen Bach, Clay Cooper, Clay Tryan, Travis Tryan and rope Myers have helped in the past, but it is hard for them to commit due to the numerous rodeo at this time, especially Houston). The Young Pro Tour Team capably assist Rickey and others as well as conducts skits and dramas for the students. The same type of classes are also taught during this camp but usually in twenty minute sessions.
The tuition for these Camps is free of charge, we do have a $25-$30 registration fee and each student must cover the cost of their stalls, shavings and hook-ups.


Young Pro Family Retreats

Young Pro Family Retreats are fairly new to our programs, but our first one was very successful and we plan to return again to the Flying Cow Arena near Grove, OK next year. Tony and Kristi Small opened their hearts and their arena to us for our first Family Retreat over Easter week-end 2007. Tom and Bonnie Underhill from Russellville Christian Center in Russellville, AR and Wade Markham from Cowboy Junction in nearby Vinita, OK were our key classroom teachers. We had recreational roping (family fun with instruction) with pro roping instructors Keven Daniel and Travis Graves available for anyone needing help. The Young Pro Team was also there to assist anyone with roping needs. There was children’s ministry during each adult session along with a youth session featuring the youth leaders from Cowboy Junction ministering on Friday night. We started the Retreat on Thursday evening and continued through Friday (Good Friday) and dismissed Saturday afternoon so that families could be back to their home churches for Easter Sunday. This was a very relaxed setting and we fit in five roping sessions between the nine classroom settings over this time frame.


Young Pro Tour Team Clinics

The summer Tour Team program is beginning its ninth year in 2007. We put together a summer mission trip primarily for anyone who been to Young Pro Training Camp. To go on the summer Tour you need to need to be seventeen years old and have a desire to serve God in a unique fashion. We travel to ten to twelve states and two to three Canadian provinces putting on 25-30 clinics and programs in approximately eighty days. We are on the road from Memorial Day week-end through the first week of August. We travel in six rigs and we can sleep twenty Team Members in their own beds and haul nineteen head of horses. We have a capacity to haul 130 bales of hay and 160 bags of feed, as well as our roping equipment and dummies, sound and video equipment and our administrative office equipment. The ministry is blessed to own it own trailers and trucks to accommodate this convey of young people, horses and all the necessary equipment to minister across this nation and Canada! Thank you to our partners, supporters and sponsors that make all of this possible!
Our Clinics consist of watching training videos, roping dummies and hearing testimonies in the morning and roping live cattle along with our one hour ministry program in the afternoon. We are typically done in the 5:00 to 5:30 range each day of our one day clinics. The Young Pro Team is trained each year by Rickey Green to teach team roping. This 2007 season we have several instructors with three to four years experience with us in team roping instruction. This means that some of the instructors have taught in over eighty roping clinic prior to leaving on Tour this year! Rickey usually checks in on the Team during the summer to encourage them in their teaching.
The posters for these Clinics invite anyone of any skill level or any age to come and participate in these free roping clinics. Most of the students are youth, but anyone is welcomed. I truly believe that we can assist ropers up through and including USTRC number 5 & 6 ropers.
Many of these Clinics are held the day before a major USTRC team roping or a jackpot and then we stay and conduct Saturday and Sunday morning Cowboy Church services. The Team Members then compete in that event. We also assist with a dummy roping clinic prior to that event’s dummy roping.
This is a mission based trip and every opportunity we get to minister the Gospel of Jesus Christ we do so, all summer long!

Young Pro Tour Team Mini-Camps

Young Pro Mini-Camps will be in their second year in 2007. Mini-Camps are held where we expect large turn-outs and when we have an extra day to commit. These Mini-Camps usually averages 50-70 students. These are basically two-day clinics with us conducting them similar to Junior Pro Camp, except that our Tour Team Members are both the instructors and the speakers! This is a part of our Young Pro Tour summer mission trip and is conducted as we do the summer Tour.