ProRodeo Sports News, June 1, 2018

GIVING BACK Ellsworth, 37. “I’m like, ‘We’ve got our red shoes on for you today, buddy,’ or ‘Karl wanted to wear his red shoes today.’ …That’s kind of our thing. He’s a good little kid.” And it’s one small way to remind Parker how special he is.

“We get to do a lot of fun stuff and travel around. It’s pretty minimal (what we do). If you can brighten their day at all, I mean, shoot, they do so much for us.” -– OLIN ELLSWORTH

“I try to always get a picture of Karl, because Parker’s just a little boy and he relates to that,” Ellsworth said. “I talk to his dad and his mom and they say he always looks forward to that with the red boots.” But the Warrensburg, N.Y., cowboy is quick to deflect any praise. “I wouldn’t even call it charitable,” he said. “To me, it’s something we do as cowboys. I love kids. I don’t have any of my own, but I do love kids.” THE EXTRA MILE Marissa Faust has been going to the exceptional rodeo at the RAM First Frontier Circuit Finals Rodeo the last five years. She can’t speak. But there’s one cowboy she gravitates to annually at the circuit finals, and that’s Ellsworth. Every year in Harrisburg, Pa., at the circuit finals, the rodeo puts on the exceptional rodeo for kids with physical or mental disabilities. Every child who attends gets to spend about an hour with their own cowboy or cowgirl. “The first year I got Marissa, the first year I moved home and went to our circuit finals, was when she was 5,” Ellsworth said. “Now she’s 10. Everybody gets somebody different every year, but I get her every year. She looks for me and I look for her. It’s an hour long, but we spend longer than that together.” Marissa helps Ellsworth saddle his horse. He also puts her on his hazing horse and hands her the reins to ride them around the arena. Over the last couple years, Ellsworth has gone out of his way to take classes in American Sign Language so that he can communicate with Marissa. “By no means would I say I’m an expert in ASL, but we communicate,” he said. “It’s not even so much the sign language, I know what she wants to do … I know what she likes. So, every year we look forward to that.” Ellsworth helped coordinate with the rodeo committee and some vendors to get kids with special needs and their families into the rodeo at Marshfield. He and several other cowboys who are businessmen in the region volunteered to help defer costs just to make sure the kids would have a great time. “By the time the kids got there, they stole everybody’s heart,” Ellsworth said, adding that the committee and vendors who helped told him not to worry about any costs. “…We had to have a few more guys and everybody helped out because the kids required a little more assistance.” Cowboy Cody Miller has traveled with Ellsworth this season. He’s quickly learned about Ellsworth. “He’s a good person and his heart is in the right place,” Miller said. RODEOA PART OF LIFE Ellsworth is a third-generation cowboy. His brother, Lee, is a calf roper and his cousin Jake Edwards is leading the PRCA Resistol Rookie Standings in team roping heeling with $9,853 and leading the First Frontier Circuit in the same event with $3,070. Ellsworth leads the First Frontier Circuit in steer wrestling with $1,480. When he’s not rodeoing, Ellsworth works full time as a project manager for a civil construction company. “My entire family rodeos on both sides,” he said, adding that his dad is a PRCA official. “…That’s just what we do, that’s what my family enjoys. We all work. We’re not full time (in rodeo), but it’s a full-time part of our lives.” And for Ellsworth, some of that rodeoing includes dedicating it to those who need a little light in their lives. “We get to do a lot of fun stuff and travel around,” he said. “It’s pretty minimal (what we do). If you can brighten their day at all, I mean, shoot, they do so much for us.”

Olin Ellsworth’s horse, Karl, has red splint boots ready to go for Parker Sullivan, a 5-year-old with leukemia who wears red Chuck Taylor Converse shoes. Photo courtesy Olin Ellsworth

ProRodeo Sports News 6/1/2018

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