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News and Notes from the Rodeo Trail, Aug. 22

by ProRodeo.com | Aug 22, 2016

Steve Rempelos

The PRCA has hired Steve Rempelos as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Rempelos has extensive experience in Western lifestyle marketing, media and sponsorship. He started work at the PRCA office Aug. 22.

Justin Michael Luhr, a Columbia River Circuit steer wrestler who joined the PRCA in 2015, passed away July 30 as a result of a boating collision on LakeCoeur d’Alene in Idaho. He was 34. Luhr won the Eastern Oregon Livestock Show & Rodeo (Union) in 2015. He married Kalyn Bast on Aug. 5, 2011, and worked in the construction industry as an equipment operator and electrician. In his spare time, he could be found boating or on the rodeo trail with his wife and two daughters, Hailey and Laramie. Contributions to the family can be made at www.crowdrise.com/luhr-family-fundraiser/fundraiser/bradeeluhr. A charity barrel race was held for the Luhr family Aug. 13 in Deer Park, Wash., raising $12,151.

Louie Earl Torricellas, a former PRCA tie-down roper, steer wrestler and team roper from Eugene, Ore., passed away July 26. He was 85. Torricellas always had a love for horses, and at age 13 took a job feeding horses and cleaning stalls at the Lane County Fairgrounds until he had enough money saved to buy his first horse. At 15, he won his first saddle at the junior rodeo in Eugene. Torricellas also jockeyed at the bush tracks and participated in match races all over Oregon. He was a mentor to steer wrestlers in the Columbia River Circuit for decades. His son, Danny, was a nine-time NFR qualifier as a steer wrestler and tie-down roper.

Effective immediately, Keith Marrington will be taking the PRCA Stock Contractor Executive Council position of John Barnes. Additionally, David Morehead will assume the position of PRCA Stock Contractor Board Director, which was previously held by Barnes.

Former PRCA saddle bronc rider Jesse Segura, an adjunct instructor at Western Nevada College, is forming a rodeo team at the school’s Fallon, Nev., campus. Segura, 37, spent 12 years at Feather River College (Quincy, Calif.), and led the men’s team to the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association title in 2016. Now, he will start a team from scratch in Fallon. “I saw this would be a nice place to have a college rodeo team,” Segura said of Fallon. “There’s a lot of support in the community, a lot of people in the ag industry – farmers and ranchers – who would like to support it and be part of it.”

Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune sports columnist Scott Mansch – winner of the 2013 PRCA award for Excellence in Print Journalism – and KINX sports director Jim Sargent debuted their new radio talk show Aug. 18 on FM-102.7. The program, called “KINX 102.7 Sports Chat,” will air each Thursday morning from 8-9 and feature guests from the Montana sports landscape, including rodeo. The program will also be available on the Internet and archived at network1.sports.com.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
I used to go to the rodeo in Mesquite (Texas) with my grandparents. I remember sitting on my grandpa’s lap telling him I wanted to be a bull rider. Then when I was 8 my mom bought me a steer rope and I started practicing.

-PRCA bull rider Tanner Learmont – who finished 18th in the world standings in 2015 – telling the Cleburne (Texas) Times Review how he got his start in rodeo

Courtesy of PRCA

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