Bucking the trend

By Jessica Coleman

Contributing Writer

     “You feel like you’re on there forever, but it’s really a few seconds.”

     Time stands still when you’re on the back of a giant bucking mammal with hooves, horns and a deep desire to not have a human on his back.

     17-year-old Edna High School senior Katelyn Dodds does a lot of things. She participates in track. She is an accomplished martial artist, although she isn’t currently competing. She took first runner-up in the Miss Golden Crescent pageant. She is also a bull rider.

     She was around 14 or 15 the first time she climbed down into the chute with 800 pounds of get-off-me. While at an event, she casually mentioned to her father Leo Resendez that she’d always thought it would be cool to ride a bull.

     “He said ‘I can get you on right now,’” she recalled, “Because he was good friends with Marlin, and that day, we rode.”

     Who is Marlin? Marlin Galloway is the owner of S/M Bucking Stock in Hallettsville. The bulls are his, as are the sheep for the smaller kids’ mutton busting events. He not only provides the livestock and arranges the events for the youth, but he also serves as a kind of paternal figure for many young people who need him, Katelyn included.

     Shortly after her start as bull rider, Katelyn faced some things that kept both of her feet on the ground for a while.

She found out she needed hip surgery after a track-related injury, and then her father passed away. It was a lot to face for a teen, and it kept her out of the arena until recently.

     Now, Katelyn is back in the saddle, figuratively, of course. There are no saddles in bull riding. Just a rope to hold onto for dear life, and some good people to help her up afterward.

     “Everyone just treats you like family,” she said.

     Finding healing by participating in a difficult, sometimes dangerous sport (Galloway calls it “the toughest sport on dirt”) may seem odd to some, but for Katelyn it is just the way it is. Maybe it’s a combination of adrenaline and chosen family. She is healing in more than one way – from surgery, from the loss of her father, and currently from a pretty gnarly hoof- shaped bruise.

     “Two weeks ago I did get stepped on,” she laughed. “I didn’t even feel it until I got home.”

     Just getting back out there has been a victory for Dodds, but a trophy doesn’t hurt either. On August 12 she took the championship in the Jr. Mini Bull Riding event in Port Lavaca.

     “I did it, Dad,” she posted on Facebook afterward. “I’m getting there. I love and miss you.”

Photo by Jessica Coleman-Dodds rides a bull who is NOT named Marlin.