CASPER, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) –

For the first time ever, Central Wyoming College in Riverton is having a Rustler Rodeo in their hometown with no cost to attend. And with all fall sports canceled except cross country and rodeo, the CWC Rodeo Team is more excited than ever to get back up on that horse.

“It’s pretty humbling to think the world right now is shut down, but here we are still rodeoing. It’s a good positive atmosphere to be able to do what we love. There are some rules that go along with it, but it’s been a great opportunity and super grateful I think, amongst the whole team,” emphasized Dustin Thompson, freshman CWC rodeo team member from Idaho.

“Yeah, I’m pretty excited to be going this fall, because I wouldn’t have anything else to do but schoolwork, and I’m not a big fan of that,” joked Idaho native and freshman Gage Gregersen, another CWC rodeo team member.

A couple differences this year are that the rodeo booster club wasn’t able to host their BBQ benefit, and elementary school students didn’t fill the grandstands to watch the Friday daytime rodeo as they usually do. However, the biggest difference is the free admission, that may allow for a bigger audience for the college students.

“For the kids it’s fun to have people in the stands no doubt, and then I’ve got to really hand it to CWC, they’ve handled themselves through this whole deal really well. We’ve always kind of ran light on our budget and so when all this hit, it didn’t hit us as hard as maybe it hit some of the other institutions,” noted Drew Schrock, CWC Rodeo Team Head Coach.

Schrock went to college at CWC, and has been the head rodeo coach at CWC for nine years. He and the athletic director, Steve Barlow, made the decision to make this year’s home rodeo a free event for the public.

“For a couple reasons, times are hard for everybody, and the other thing is we kind of wanted to eliminate as much exposure as we could. The coaches are all testing their teams, we’re testing all the contract personnel through our athletic department here. For everybody else it’s just free admission this year, and hopefully next year we can get back at it and be able to raise some money for our program,” Schrock stated.

Freshman from Saratoga, Aubrey Berger, said her goal for this weekend is, “Just to have a good time, all of us are thankful to actually be having rodeo. Like they said, be positive and just use what we draw.”

Slack events were held tonight at the Fremont County Fairgrounds at 5 p.m. Rodeo events will continue on Saturday and Sunday. Schrock encouraged people to follow the CWC rodeo team on Instagram and Facebook for any updates to their schedule.

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