2024 Annual Fundraiser

JR Vezain grew up in Cowley, Wyoming where his passion for sports, rodeo, and everything cowboy flourished. He began wrestling as a child and went on to wrestle through high school where he won two state titles. Also, as a kid, through his role model, his uncle Duncan Vezain, he got to spend the summers in Montana where he learned to do leather work and train horses. This led into his passion to rodeo. Through high school and college, he competed in all three rough stock events and began to excel in the bareback riding. He won the high school finals, college finals, rookie of the year, and ended up rodeoing professionally for 10 years. While rodeoing he qualified for 6 NFR’s 2012-2014, 2016-2018. While rodeoing he met his wife, Shelby Newman. They married in June 2016. JR moved to Melstone, Mt where he still resides on his in-laws’ ranch. On September 22, 2018, he was in a rodeo wreck, that involved his bareback horse flipping over on him in the arena. This resulted in breaking his T-9 and T-10 vertebrae leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. Although, there has been a lot of challenges and changes he and his wife still run a small cattle operation in Melstone, JR reps and trades cattle, and runs a leather business. They partner on raising their 5-year-old son Ryatt. JR’s truest dreams and passions have been the horse. Since he was a kid, he trained colts and always wanted to get into the higher levels of horsemanship and training. Since his wreck that was his biggest struggle, the horse-riding side of his life being different. He always envisioned after rodeoing he would get into the reined cow horse world and making bridle horses. Well, from the results of a podcast interview and a random phone call he and his family are making that dream a reality. The past three years he began working with a trainer, competing in NRCHA cow horse shows, and chipping away at chasing his dreams, desires, and passions of becoming a better horseman. JR is a man of faith. He credits his successes and where he is at in life to the Lord. Along side his amazing family, he continues to overcome the obstacles of life from a wheelchair, striving to walk again, and chasing his dreams. He hopes to inspire and encourage those he comes in contact with to not allow the setbacks of life to keep them from chasing their dreams, desires, and passions!