Lowcountry cowboys saddle up

Ladson Championship Rodeo gives ropers, riders chance to compete

Ladson Championship Rodeo gives ropers, riders chance to compete

Alan Hawes
The Post and Courier

Ronnie Heid of Ridge Spring helps assemble the chute Thursday afternoon for the Ladson Championship Rodeo. The rodeo takes place today and Saturday starting at 8 p.m. at the Exchange Park Fairgrounds in Ladson.

Jami Marchant was just 8 years old when he began practicing roping on his dogs while growing up on his parents' Harleyville farm.

Even then he seemed to have a knack for it, much to the dogs' dismay.

"Broke a chocolate Lab out of chasing a Frisbee," he said.

Twenty-two years later, Marchant is one of a handful of Lowcountry cowboys who enjoy the rodeo life despite being a Frisbee's throw away from the ocean.

"It's all we've ever done," Marchant said. "It's all we know."

He and about a half-dozen other local cowboys and cowgirls will compete in the Ladson Championship Rodeo at the Exchange Park Fairgrounds tonight and Saturday. Proceeds will benefit the Omar Shrine Temple in Charleston.

Most of the local folks will compete in the team roping contest, in which teams of two riders compete to see who can rope a steer's horns and heels the fastest.

Dink Wiggins, whose company Diamond W Rodeo Productions in Holly Hill is producing the event, said the secret to good roping is practice and having a good horse.

"Your horse is 90 percent of your run," he said. "If you don't have a good horse, just leave it home."

Other events include bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, calf-roping, break-away roping, steer wrestling and barrel racing.

Bull riding is the main event.

"Bull riding is like NASCAR," Wiggins said. "Nobody wants to see anybody get hurt, but if a wreck happens, they don't want to miss it, either."

Dick Cory, the rodeo's announcer, said there will be plenty of rodeo clowns, cowboy singing and trick roping to entertain those who don't know a lot about the rodeo.

"We kind of supply the frosting on top of the cake," Cory said.

Wiggins estimates that only about 75 true cowboys live in the Lowcountry and another few hundred within a 90-minute drive. Many gather weekly at Marchant's farm to practice roping and travel across the Southeast to be in rodeos.

Marchant shoes horses and fixes their teeth as his day job. While many riders compete for money, he does it because he loves it.

"I just do it for the fun," he said.

Reach Andy Paras at 745-5891 or aparas@postandcourier.com.