Staunton River High School athletic director Neal Mustard was preparing to hold a signing ceremony for a dozen or so of the school’s seniors in early May.
The Golden Eagles had football stars, wrestling champions, track and field athletes, and softball and baseball players on stage to celebrate their decisions to continue their careers at a variety of colleges and universities.
Senior Emma Bays then asked Mustard if she could join the party.
The Staunton River AD was somewhat taken aback.
He did not have Bays’ name on any of the school’s official eligibility lists. Despite being a longtime teacher and coach at the Bedford County school, Mustard could not recall Bays having played any varsity sports for the Golden Eagles.
So he basically asked, “What are you doing?”
And she could have said what Garth Brooks sang:
It’s boots and chaps.
It’s cowboy hats.
It’s spurs and latigo.
It’s the ropes and the reins,
And the joy and the pain.
And they call the thing rodeo.
That’s right, 18-year-old Emma Bays will load up her two horses — Soldier and Louise — and head off to Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, to be a cowgirl.
The recent Staunton River graduate has signed a letter of intent to join the rodeo team at Kansas State, one of 137 two-year or four-year schools that compete as a member of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association.
Bays’ journey to the “Little Apple” will continue a lifelong love of horses, beginning when she was barely old enough to walk.
“I got my first pony for my first birthday,” she said. “I guess I rode it then, but I don’t remember it.”
Bays hopes to make more than memories in Manhattan. A National Honor Society member at Staunton River, she plans to major in finance at K-State, with an eye toward professional rodeo and a career that would support her lifestyle.
“A lot of people want to go straight out to pro and not go to college,” she said. “They want to make that their career. A lot of people want to rodeo their whole lives and not do school anymore. I’m going to need a backup.
“I’m hoping to make some money. Then I can buy the nice horses and compete at the higher level.”
Bays has not quite wrapped up her high school career. On May 25 in Chatham at the Virginia High School Rodeo Association state finals, she finished second in breakaway roping and third in team roping to qualify in both events for the National High School Rodeo Association championships July 13-19 in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
The event draws a field of nearly 2,000 competitors from 40 states along with Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. Unlike some national qualifiers who turn down the opportunity to go to the national finals because of the time, distance or expense involved, Bays plans to saddle up for the challenge.
The NHSRA championships are just another step for the Bedford County teen, who did not begin “rodeoing” until her freshman year in a sport where kids can begin competing in the Virginia Peewee Division as early as age 4.
The late bloomer has blossomed. 
Bays grew up in Huddleston riding English style with her mother, Beth. When Emma got serious about roping and riding, she and her mom hired Franklin County resident Julia Beaty as a private coach in the speed events — barrel racing and pole bending. They also lined up roping lessons with local expert Pepper Thompson.
Beaty, a Pennsylvania native and still a competitor on the professional circuit, is married to former professional bull rider Austin Beaty. She has been impressed with her young charge’s commitment to the discipline.
“I’m personally involved and very competitive with it, so I don’t take kids that don’t want to do it,” Beaty said. “I used to give a bunch of riding lessons, and I got burned out because I wasted my time trying to teach kids that really and truly don’t want to be here. So I only take a select few.
“I say this nicely, but there’s also not a lot of kids around here that take it seriously. So people are like, ‘Ha, ha. It’s just horseback riding. It’s a hobby.’ But you have a few, like Emma, who don’t want it to be a hobby.
“Gosh, that kid has just taken off on this is what she wants to do.”
That puts Bays among a select few in Virginia, where rodeo is not affiliated with the Virginia High School League or otherwise connected to the high schools like sports such as baseball, basketball and football.
VHSRA student officer coordinator Aimee Mann estimated that approximately 25 high school students statewide competed in the association in 2024-25. Only four participants in the state finals at Olde Dominion Agricultural Complex in Chatham were seniors. All but three of the competitors were girls.
Those numbers are dwarfed in comparison to rodeo participation in a state such as Texas, which alone is divided into 10 regions. In the upcoming Texas state championships, most of the various individual girls events include 100 or more entrants.
“If you go out to Texas, it’s normal to be a cowboy or it’s normal to be a cowgirl,” Beaty said. “Everybody has a horse. It’s how they make their living.”
While Bays has been a student at Staunton River and is required to be academically eligible to ride under VHSRA rules, she competes independently from her school’s athletic department. Many of the competitors in high school rodeo are homeschool students, including Bays’ partner in team roping, Hailey Blackstock of the Richmond metro area.
“A lot of the rodeo kids are home-schooled just because it’s easier to hit the road and do all the classes online rather than missing a whole bunch of days of school,” Bays said. 
Qualification for the national finals is based on season-long points standings in each event, culminating with the state finals. To build up points, Bays left the state this year to compete in high school events in Georgia, Delaware, North Carolina and West Virginia.
Riding her mare, Louise, Bays finished second in the VHSRA in breakaway roping, an event where a calf is released from a pen slightly before the rider starts the horse. The rider attempts to lasso the calf, and a good rider can complete the task in 2 to 3 seconds.
Bays and Blackstock were third in team roping, a two-person event where one rider lassos the calf’s head and the second rider, known as the heeler, ropes the hind legs.
Bays also competed in goat tying, which involves dismounting a moving horse, running to the goat that is tied to a stake and tying three of the animal’s legs together; barrel racing, which is riding a cloverleaf pattern around three barrels spread out in the arena; and pole bending, a slalom-style event where the horse and rider navigate their way in, out and around a set of poles set up in a straight line.
Bays plans to compete in breakaway roping and barrel racing while perhaps adding team roping at Kansas State. Her days tying up goats are over. She’s leaving that to her younger sister, Charlie, who placed first in the event in the VHSRA’s Junior High Division.
“I will not be doing that in college,” she said. “I’m not very good. My sister does that pretty competitively. She flies in the arena. I just like to go slow, tie my goat and call it a day.”
Bays will join a Kansas State rodeo program that not only is not affiliated with the NCAA, it is not part of the university’s athletic department at all.
“We’re a sports-recreation club with student government, and we’re also departmental organization with the animal science department,” K-State coach Casy Winn said. “The animal science department, we’re housed on their property and they help, and I’m the faculty partner.”
“We raise our own funds. We have a really good alumni advisory council. They’ve raised money over the years. They have accounts with the foundation that helps us with scholarships and some of the stuff we need.”
Bays signed a letter-of-intent with Kansas State and will receive some scholarship money based on her high school academic record along with some financial aid to help with barn and stall fees to board Soldier and Louise.
She will join a Kansas State program that has been in existence since 1946 but is still trying to establish a solid foothold in the collegiate ranks.
The NIRA includes 11 regions, and K-State is one of the 18 schools in the Central Plains, where women are currently 13th and the men are 15th.
Almost half of the rodeo schools in the Central Plains Region, and many nationally, are community colleges. The reigning national champions of the reins — Montana State’s men and Treasure Valley (Idaho) Community College’s women — are far from household names. Ditto for the second-place and third-place schools in the 2024 NIRA women’s finals: Gillette (Wyoming) College and Blue Mountain (Oregon) Community College.
Perhaps just 10% of the 137 NIRA members are NCAA Division I schools in other sports, including a handful of other “Power 6” schools such as Oklahoma State and Texas Tech.
Kansas State’s program had approximately 70 participants this season, counting the men and the women.
“We can have as many [athletes] compete as want to,” said Winn, who spent 20 years as a high school wrestling coach in his native Utah and 15 years on the professional bull-riding circuit. “We have a team and a club, so about 40 of those are the competing members and the other 20 or 30 are just part of the rodeo that want to learn about rodeo or for whatever reason they’re not competing.
“K-State’s had rodeo for almost 80 years. We’re one of the original college rodeo teams, but over the years it’s just been a part-time coach and smaller numbers. I’ve been here 10 years. My first year it was about 15 kids. Next year we’ll be over 40 that will be competing on the team.”
In the fall, Kansas State will debut a new rodeo arena — the Bilbrey Family Event Center — part of the university’s $220 million agriculture innovation initiative.
“That building will be a university/college of ag building,” Winn explained. “It won’t be just for rodeo. It’s also for the livestock departments, other events for the university. It is here on animal science property next to our practice arena. We’ll be able to use it, but it’s not specifically for rodeo.”
Don’t think Bays hasn’t seen the architectural renderings of the new arena, a 250-by-130-foot arena which will seat 3,000 for a rodeo.
“The stalls are super nice,” Bays said. “I’m like, ‘I can put two of my horses in that stall.'”
Bays said she became aware of Kansas State through a friend who had attended school there and from watching videos of Winn’s wife, Wendy, a renowned saddle-fitting expert.
“I follow his wife on social media,” she said. “Me and my mom ‘fan-girl’ over her because she’s really knowledgeable about these really obscure horse muscles. We watch her videos on saddle fitting all the time. It’s really cool.”
Bays said she began the recruiting process by reaching out to the KSU head coach, followed by a visit to the Manhattan campus with her parents. She also spoke with Winn earlier this year at a Junior Youth national event in Fort Worth, Texas.
“I’m not sure why I decided on it,” said Bays, who also visited Oklahoma State. “It just seemed like a good school, great coaching staff. He was the first one to talk to me. Also, I just want to go to a big school for the experience, and go to a four-year [college] for my major.”
Bottom line, the Staunton River graduate isn’t just showing up on Winn’s doorstep.
“We recruited her,” Winn said. “I think Emma’s got potential to compete at the college level. She’s spent a lot of time working on getting better. We’re planning on her coming in and being a positive addition to our program.
“She’s what we’re looking for here at K-State: really good grades, she knows what she wants to go do. She’s spent time to learn from professionals in her events, get good horses and be ready to compete.”
First come the NHSRA finals, and the Bays family hopes to rope more than one national honor this summer.
Charlie not only qualified for the National Junior High finals in June in Des Moines, Iowa, by placing first in the state in goat tying, she also earned a national berth with a second-place showing in breakaway roping.
The family plans two trips across the Mississippi in the next two months.
It requires barely more than an cursory introduction to rodeo to understand that this sport is not cheap.
A good breakaway horse easily costs five figures up to the $20,000 range. Top professional barrel racing horses can double or triple that price. And that’s not to mention all the tack for the animal, equipment, farrier fees, insurance.
“Buying the horse is the cheapest part,” Beaty said. “You’ve got to buy a truck. You’ve got to buy a trailer, and a barn and property. Then there’s [a fee] to enter all the events, stalls, a [hotel] room if you don’t have a living-quarters trailer, fuel to get there, food while you’re there.”
Beaty believes Bays can make her mark at the collegiate level at Kansas State, with one caveat.
“If she goes out there, and all she has to focus on is rodeo and school I think she’ll be competitive,” Beaty said. “At the same time, you’re going to have girls that … their wallets are bigger, if I’m being honest.
“To be successful it takes a bit of financial backing and horsepower. The more money you have, the more horsepower.”
Just like NASCAR drivers need top equipment, riders need top equines.
However, horses are not machines.
“Horses are like us. They have good days and bad days,” Beaty said. “The one thing that stands out with this sport is we have to deal with an animal that has a mind of its own. That makes or breaks it for us in this sport.” 
Staunton River has had a few horses in its sporting history. Two of them are Emma Bays’ cousins: Ashley Bays, who set school scoring records in basketball and starred as a softball pitcher; and football legend Grayson Overstreet, who still holds VHSL career rushing and scoring records.
Emma Bays also is finishing her Staunton River career in style.
She served as the VHSRA’s student vice president along with student president Kellen Hamm of Roanoke County and student secretary Kay Bradner of Franklin County.
At last week’s state finals, Bays and the other three graduating seniors in the VHSRA took a ceremonial last lap around the arena in Chatham. While Bays rode Louise around the ring, a recording of her voice played over the public address system:
“When I joined Virginia High School Rodeo three years ago, I never expected this day to come so quickly. For all the late nights and early mornings, the good and bad runs, this is an experience I will carry with me forever.”
