David W. Smith/ Daily NewsLyndsey Beckner, 15, a rodeo contestant is a sophmore at Warren Central.

Nikki Richmond, the queen of the Kentucky High School Rodeo Association, is hoping a big crowd will come out this weekend to see teens rope, ride and wrestle steers in a rodeo at L.D. Brown Agriculture Exposition Center.

“To see kids doing what world champions are doing is pretty cool, I think,” said Richmond, a Nicholasville resident and West Jessamine High School senior.

The rodeo, in which high school students from Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee compete to build points that will hopefully qualify them at the end of the rodeo season for the National High School Rodeo Association finals next year, will feature performances at 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

Admission is $6 for adults, $3 for 6- to 14-year-olds and free for children younger than 6. Refreshments will be sold at the event.

James Beckner, one of the rodeo’s organizers, said the rodeo will feature nine events, including bareback riding, barrel racing, pole bending, goat tying, team roping, breakaway roping, calf roping, bull riding and steer wrestling.

Beckner’s daughter Lindsey, a sophomore at Warren Central High School, will be competing in barrel racing, pole bending and goat tying this weekend.

Hunter Davis, a home-schooled high school junior from Butler County, is looking forward to competing in calf roping.

“It’s really the adrenaline rush,” he said.

His brother, D.D., a home-schooled sophomore, is excited about bull riding.

“I’ve been doing it ever since I was little,” D.D. said, “and it just stuck with me.”

Gidget Davis, Hunter’s and D.D.’s mom, said those not familiar with the rodeo “would probably be amazed at the amount of talent they’ll see in such a dangerous sport” this weekend.

“Sometimes people think anybody can do it,” she said, “but when you see kids at this age competing, it takes a whole lot of talent and skill to do this.”

Strength training, endurance training and more play a part, Gidget Davis said.

Such training can pay off for the kids in a big way.

According to Beckner, youth who compete well can get college scholarships for rodeo.

“It’s something a person can have a dream and follow,” he said, “and it can carry them through college and possibly into a profession.”

And winning a competition is fun for the teens.

Kristen Hancock, a home-schooled Union County senior who will compete in this weekend’s rodeo, was thrilled when she became the 2007 national champion breakaway roper in the girls division, she said.

She was even more excited when she and a teammate were named national champions in the team roping division that included girls and boys.

“We beat all the boys,” she said. “I love ropin’ and rodeoin’.”

Richmond thinks a love of rodeo by competitors and a great announcer will help make this weekend’s rodeo fun for everyone.

“We try to put on a good rodeo,” she said.

The major sponsors of the rodeo this weekend are Martin Dodge and Sante Fe.

Other sponsors include Alliance Corp., Contractors Corp., Farmers National Bank, Friendly Tractor, Frint’s Nursery and Landscape, Green River Rental, Hunts Bend Equine Facility, Jim Johnson Pontiac, Morningside of Bowling Green, Nationwide Sign and Letter Co., Southern Kentucky Team Penning Association, South Central Bank, Stan Snodgrass, Warren Rural Electric Cooperative Corp., Western Kentucky Crane and WGGC-FM.