The Cambern family has been involved with the Top O’ Texas Rodeo for decades, with Jared Cambern spending his first year as the first vice president of the board of directors.
“This is my first year as vice president. I have been off and on with board for the last ten years. Our president is Travis Smith and our second vice president is Chase Bowers,” he said.
Jared’s family history and rodeo history have been entertwined since its’ beginnings, and so the outcome of the event is sentimental to both him and his family.
“My family has had box seats there (at the rodeo) since my grandparents were young and that’s what got us involved. I want to make sure it stays around. It’s our 76th year,” he shared.
“It sounds cliche, but what I’m hoping for this year is to have a rodeo that gets put on professionally, timely with no headaches, no wrecks and with good weather. (I’m hoping for this) So that the crowd will be entertained, our competitors get to show off their skillset and we get to show what we’re capable of doing; entertaining Pampa and the surrounding communites.”
“I also look forward to Sunday morning when it’s over,” he laughed.
The rodeo will mostly be the same this year with the exception of one new event being added.
“This year we’ll have mini bulls and mini broncs for the younger kids, which we haven’t done before,” Jared said.
Of course, the annual staple events will commence as per usual.
“We’ll have saddle bronc, barrel racing, team roping, tie down roping, breakaway roping, ranch bronc, bulls, and mutton busting. It’s going to be a full slate.”
“We’ll also have local bands and we’ll have Sarge, which is our rodeo clown- he’s been here before. We’ll have Barrel Man, he’s our funny man; he puts on random act and its different every year, so we don’t know exactly what we’re going to see quite yet- which is fun,” he added.
There will also be a free bar-b-que on Friday to open the events of the evening, which will happen alongside the mutton-busting event.
“Friday at around 5:30 p.m. we’ll do a free (with the purchase of a rodeo ticket) bar-b-que with Milton Davis cooking and Hoover Volunteer Fire Department serving plates. We’ll have brisket, applesauce, potato salad, beans, pickles & onions and bread,” Jared said.
Vendors will be set up on the west side of the arena which will include axe throwing, boutique trailers and more.
Jared shared his appreciation for the sponsors and volunteers:
“We are so dependent on our volunteers and our sponsors. We appreciate them very much. We have a board of 30+ members, but that’s just our board. There are hundreds of volunteers that branch out behind that board that brings this thing together. There is absolutely no way we could do this without our local community and our sponsors.”
The Pampa News asked Jared if he had ever competed in a rodeo himself.
“Back when we still had covered wagons, I did some roping and a little bit of barrel racing, but that was back when I was a kid,” he said.
As it turns out, his wife Leslie and daughter Taylor Ramming are the performers of the family as both of them are barrel racers.
“I have a long line of wins and a long line of losses. You have to learn and grow,” Leslie said.
“Last year (at the Pampa rodeo) I was out of the money, I was 6th (place). At the White Deer rodeo this year, I came in 4th (place) again. I can’t seem to get past that 4th place.”
Leslie is looking to turn that around this year and is aiming for her best time yet.
“The judges set the pattern different every year. It’s always a clover pattern, but the distance between barrels can range . It could be a standard pattern, or it could be broken down and made a little shorter. If it’s a standard pattern, I’d love to be a low 17. If it’s shortened, I want to be a low 16. Everybody hopes for a low 16,” she said.
Leslie will be racing with Annie this year, a Frenchmans Guy mare.
“She’s now my go-to. I have owned her for five years now. I started her on the pattern and she picked it up real quick,” she said.
The story of how Leslie ended up with Annie is likely not unusual.
“My husband tells my I’m the worst horse owner in the world because I never get rid of anything,” she started off explaining.
“I was supposed to take her in, put her on the pattern and sell her for a gentleman. I was told she had some quirks. She would bite, show her teeth and try to squish you against the trailer when you tried to saddle her. She also doesn’t like men.”
“I kept her because I decided one day that I didn’t want to sell this horse. I didn’t want her to go to a bad home because they think she’s a bad horse. She still has some of these quirks, but she’s my quirky horse. We make a team,” she said proudly of her less-than-well-behaved mare.
Despite being a more seasoned competitor, Leslie doesn’t let her age stop her from starting new horse-related projects.
“I’ve decided to start over and raise my own babies, start my own younglings. I don’t know why I started to do this at my age. I’m talking about horses, of course,” she laughed.
“I have a whole group. I have a Frenchmans Guy and I have Dash for Cash blood, they’re real big in the barrel racing world. The new baby is an oil wagon horse which goes back to Paint Your Wagon, a stud owned by Wade Helton here in Pampa that also ropes. He’s racing blood.
All that said, it’s clear that Leslie has some top-notch stock on her hands.
“I have big plans,” she said.
Leslie’s youngest daughter, Taylor Ramming, lives in Amarillo- but that doesn’t stop her from coming home and sharing in the fun with her mom.
“My youngest daughter is my hauling partner and she runs barrels with me. Her name is Taylor, and she’ll be running this year. Her horse only has one eye, his name is Shredder. He’s a big chestnut quarter horse. I keep her 19-year-old one-eyed horse at home with me, and she will come home and practice during the week and on the weekends we’ll haul.”
“The weekend after the rodeo, she and I will be traveling to Oklahoma City for the Summer Shootout,” she shared.
However, barrel racing with her daughter isn’t the only thing Leslie is looking forward to this year.
“I’m excited this year because I’m actually the first woman on the board of directors in the 76 years of having the rodeo association. But I’m also from a long line of directors. Currently, my husband (Jared) is on the board, my brother is on the board and I have an uncle on the board. My grandfather served over 30 years on the board before he passed away. My dad also served, so it’s kind-of a family thing,” she said.
“I’ve been there with Jared all these years, and now I have a vote. I get to be in the arena rather than just working behind the scenes. I get to have a voice. The only thing is now that I don’t get to choose what I wear to the rodeo,” she laughed.
The Pampa News certainly shares the Cambern’s excitement for the upcoming rodeo, and we wish Leslie and Taylor the best of luck this year in the barrel racing competition.
If you are interested in volunteering for cleanup after the rodeo, you can call Jared Cambern at 806-662-6311 or Cindy Kemp (rodeo secretary) at 806-662-0838.
