By Ed Knockne
5/7/08 Dallas Morning News
Team ropers Boogie Ray and Chance Kelton decided earlier this year they would get together and rope close to their respective homes. Just compete in small local events. Nothing big, like trying to make the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, the sport's world championship in Las Vegas.
"We both have families, so we didn't really want to go on the road that much," said Ray, who lives in Mabank. "We were mostly going to be weekend cowboys."
Ray, 37, had been to the National Finals in 2003. Kelton, 32, who lives in Mayer, Ariz., went to the NFR from 1998 to 2000. In 2004, Ray and Kelton finished one spot shy of qualifying for the NFR.
A funny thing happened this year. Since a large number of the major Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association events in the winter were in Texas, Ray and Kelton ended up competing in most of them. And they started to win money.
This week, they decided to branch out a little. They decided to enter the Guymon, Okla., Pioneer Days Rodeo, one of the top events on the spring PRCA tour, an event neither had ever won.
They won the aggregate title worth $4,253 each. Now Ray ranks 12th ($20,396) in the world standings for heelers and Kelton is 13th ($20,634) among the headers.
"It was pretty neat to go out there and rope against all of the real cowboys," Ray said. "It's one of the big-time cowboy rodeos. I always wanted to do good there, just for that reason."
Now the two face a quandary. Do they want to continue on the major tour and give themselves another shot at the NFR? Or do they want to remain close to home and participate in the Heartland ProRodeo Series, a tour the PRCA just installed this year for weekend cowboys?
Ray is leading the Heartland standings with 6,614 points, and Kelton is third with 5,546 points. The top 30 in each category qualify for the National Heartland Finals in Waco in October with a purse of $500,000.
"We've got a whole bunch of Texas Heartland rodeos this weekend, so we're going to go to a lot of them," Ray said.
But, making the NFR has once again moved into the picture.
"All of the sudden we got to winning, so we definitely are going to go to Reno and some of the big July rodeos just to give ourselves a chance," Ray said. "We are not going to hit the road the next week and stay gone for two months. We just want to see how it works out."
