ProRodeo Sports News - February 3, 2023

PRORODEO COWBOYS

Photo courtesy Jace Angus

Jace Angus back to rodeo after serving in United States Army Call to Serve Jace Angus was deployed overseas to the Horn of Africa for nine months while serving in the United States Army.

BY TANNER BARTH T he city of Fallon, Nev., lies in the northwestern corner of the state, just an hour east of the bright lights of Reno. It’s an agricultural and ranching community that laid the groundwork for Jace Angus’ life, one that shaped him into a hero. Angus, 35, is a fifth-generation saddle bronc rider. His whole life he was surrounded by the western way of life. He grew up with the dream of one day riding inside the yellow bucking chutes at the National Finals Rodeo, but there was always that feeling of serving for a greater purpose. “I grew up in the sport of rodeo. My whole family was bronc riders all the way back into the 1920s,” said Angus. “I grew up in northern Nevada with my whole family being bronc riders and ranchers. But I always had the dream of being in the military growing up.”

The latter was always in the back of his mind as he began his rodeo career. A late bloomer, he didn’t start riding until he was 19 years old, and it wasn’t until 2012

that he began his journey in ProRodeo. Over the course of the next five years, he climbed on the back of 142 horses in the PRCA, most of those coming while competing at the circuit level. During that time, Angus qualified for the PRCA First Frontier Circuit Finals Rodeo and became the First Frontier Circuit year-end champion and average winner in the saddle bronc riding in 2015. The success he was finding inside the arena was mounting, but he admits his heart was being pulled in a different direction. “I rodeoed for a long time, while my friends were over there fighting for our country,” he said. “After a few didn’t make it back home I felt kind of guilty that I was playing for a living. That’s what made me really get after it

ProRodeo Sports News 2/3/2023

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