We should have seen it coming. With technology penetrating all aspects of modern life, it was bound to envelop the cowboy world too. What no one suspected is that cowboys and cowgirls, being the resourceful types they are, would be right out front in the revolution. Nowhere is that more true than in rodeo.

It’s true not just among competitors but on the organizational side as well.

Gone are the days when rodeo event times were decided by a judge with a flag to start the hand timer and secretaries with pencils. Today’s rodeos are wireless and high-tech.

Haley Schneeberger has been a rodeo secretary for more than 10 years with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, and in years past, secretaries “older than her” would show Haley a thing or two about keeping rodeo records. But today, Haley (20- something) finds herself sharing technology related frustrations with the older secretaries (70-something), as they work their way through the PRCA’s updated computer system.

Even though the technology has been available for some time, it’s just recently that the PRCA upgraded from the IBM AS/400 server program to a Microsoft SQL Server program that’s compatible with most operating systems and can be downloaded from Colorado Springs to a computer in any state in minutes. The secretaries have the whole rodeo—contestants, slack, event times, stock contractor’s information with names of the rough stock, performance timeline, accounting system, and more—at their fingertips. If there are problems with the download, or if information is missing, or if mistakes are incorporated into the information, all the secretary has to do is call tech support at the PRCA office, get the changes made, and download the corrected version—again, within minutes.

While that scenario might be business- as-usual for some sports organizations, it’s a revolution for the PRCA, whose smaller rodeos (these being the majority of the 700 PRCA rodeos that are sanctioned yearly) used to require the secretaries to hand-tabulate scores, percentages, monies won, and checks written, then call in (or fax) the results, and then follow that up with an overnight package of everything sent to the PRCA office.

“It’s sort of like we are just in the office next door,” Haley said. “But we are in a different state and hours away from each other. It’s been easy for me to adjust, which some people chalk up to me being younger and being a bit more in touch with technology.”

The biggest issue for most rodeo secretaries now isn’t keeping track of the cowboys or the results, but the dust, the humidity, nature’s elements, and the overall austere conditions that most rodeo offices provide.

What used to be left up to family members (who can occasionally drop the ball without intending to) Haley now does online: paying bills, making house payments, checking bank balances, making reservations, updating their website/blog, and more. Haley would literally be lost without the conveniences of her computer. Jerome, Haley’s husband and a Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualifying calf roper, has to have his cell phone surgically removed from his ear on most days.

“Jerome is a fanatic. His cell phone is a like a pacifier to a 2-year-old,” Haley said. “If you were to take it away from him he’d be sorely hurt, and I’m the same way with my laptop, it’s really our lifeline to family when we’re gone and on the road.”

Ironically, technology enables the Schneeberger family to handle home affairs and keep in touch with friends on the road.

Traveling in a 30-foot motor home with a bumper pull horse trailer, the Schneebergers travel thousands of miles a year working their prospective rodeo jobs. “There are two different types of contestants: ones that travel with their spouse and children and the single ones that group up and travel together, and almost all of them pulling into the rodeos have satellite TV, and some have the games [Xbox, PlayStation] that their kids play a lot.”

Even with the rising gas prices, the couple is happy to be doing what they love while raising their family. “Recently we were in an accident where a drunk driver pulled out right in front of us, and we hit him broadside. If we’d been pulling a truck and trailer, like years ago, we’d have probably sent the horse trailer through the back glass, but we barely had a scratch on us or our motor home. The rigs are bigger, better, and safer.”

Brittany Pozzi-Pharr and her husband Doug, a PRCA calf roper, both have Qs, and Brittany says she would be lost without it.

Brittany is another member of the younger rodeo generation who has grown up with and around the newest technology. Even though her bread and butter has four hooves, technology makes her job easier while helping her keep in touch with her fans, sponsors, family, and the two rodeo associations of which she is a member: the Women’s Professional Barrel Racing Association and the newly formed Professional Women’s Barrel Racing, a subsidiary of the PRCA.

Brittany was one of the early rodeo contestants to jump on the website/ blogging bandwagon with her rodeo diary where she blogs about her progress toward the WNFR, the way her main mount, Stitch, is holding up, and life with a calf roper for a husband. Recently Brittany lost her website “goto” person, and she’s been playing “learn-real-fast-how-to-update-yourwebsite- for-the-fans,” something that rodeo contestants from earlier generations couldn’t have imagined in their job descriptions.

Brittany is more tech-savvy than her calf-roping husband, and her wireless laptop computer has a permanent place in her living quarters horse trailer, making life easier to live by checking her callbacks and rodeo schedules online. She’s hoping that the PRCA will further make her life easier by providing an online system of entering rodeos and bypassing the current call-in ProCom system altogether.

Bull riding, investments, three-way call conferencing, and MySpace aren’t normally words one person would put together to describe anyone. But L.J. Jenkins, professional bull rider from Texico, N.M., who competes on the Built Ford Tough Series, is just that guy.

Brittany Pozzi-Pharr tackles technology much the way she tackles the barrels—with confident agility.

On a three-way conference call with his stepmother, Maggie, L.J. talks about putting his money into his bull breeding business that he conducts mostly online. “I watch the auctions over the Internet and see what they are selling for,” L.J. says, “and then I’ll buy them in person when I’m in town or over the phone.” L.J. relies heavily on the software available through the American Bucking Bull Inc. statistics through their Bucking Bull Management Computer Program to research the pedigree of a bull before he buys. Via the software he can search for animals by pedigree or name and keep track of his herd. Some of his babies are just now hitting the ground, and he has a few bulls that he’s hauled to nearby rodeos, but at 19, he’s really just getting started.

While he used to travel with video games, he’s gotten out of that habit and mostly just utilizes technology for his website, which Maggie helps him update with results as soon as he’s done riding. L.J. enjoys keeping his website fresh for his fans, having the results posted as quickly as possible, and utilizing advertising space on his site as an added sponsor incentive. L.J. had his brother help him set up his MySpace, and he updates it himself, as time allows. Maggie reports that L.J.’s website gets hundreds of responses weekly and that the responses are then forwarded to her email so that she or L.J. can respond.

Of course, the cell phone is almost passé at this point, but L.J. has one too, with camera and video recording ability. While the technology aids the modern rodeo cowboy, cowgirl, and contract personnel to accomplish their jobs easier, faster, and more accurately, relationships are still at the heart of American rodeo, and it’s the technology that keeps the rodeo business person in touch with the people that matter to them most—their family, their friends, and their fans.