{"id":454886,"date":"2025-05-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=454886"},"modified":"2025-05-22T19:11:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T19:11:06","slug":"buck-up-soldiers-families-from-the-great-place-show-out-for-military-appreciation-night-at-killeen-rodeo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=454886","title":{"rendered":"Buck up: \nSoldiers, families from The Great Place show out for Military Appreciation Night at Killeen Rodeo"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Cooper Lane, a saddle bronc competitor, rides a bucking horse in the saddle bronc event during the Killeen Rodeo May 15, 2025, at the Killeen Rodeo Arena in Killeen, Texas.
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\n Cherokee Bengtson, a nurse, pediatrics, Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, dances with her 1-year-old daughter Cody at the Killeen Rodeo May 15, 2025, at the Killeen Rodeo Arena in Killeen, Texas.
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\n Tyler Taylor, a bull rider, holds on as he is bucked and bounced during the bull riding portion of the Killeen Rodeo May 15, 2025, at the Killeen Rodeo Arena in Killeen, Texas.
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KILLEEN, Texas<\/strong> \u2014 Soldiers and their family members watched bulls and horses buck and cowboys wrangle at the 78th annual Killeen Rodeo for Military Appreciation Night May 15 at the Killeen Rodeo Arena.<\/p>\n

The event began with a demonstration from Soldiers with the 1st Cavalry Division\u2019s Horse Cavalry Detachment, shooting and wielding sabers all from horseback in a series of maneuvers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really fun to come out to these demos we do, especially like within the community, because they practice every week; every Thursday we do a demo at Fort Cavazos,\u201d said 1st Lt. Zachary Denning, executive officer of Horse Cav. Det., 1st Cav. Div. \u201cSo coming out and being able to interact with the community and show everything that the troopers here work really hard to do is really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the demonstration, Lt. Gen. Kevin D. Admiral, commanding general of III Armored Corps and Fort Cavazos, spoke to the crowd, thanking the rodeo for the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say thanks so much to Killeen Rodeo Committee for inviting us out,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s great to serve in a community that loves Soldiers and loves Army families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then it was off to the events, with saddle bronc, calf roping, mutton bustin\u2019, barrel racing and bull riding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the biggest year that we\u2019ve had, as far as number of contestants, and some of the best riders we\u2019ve seen in years,\u201d said Brett Gordon, cochairman of the Rodeo Killeen Committee. \u201cWe have like 18 world champions competing this week here, which is pretty
significant. We\u2019ve moved up into the large rodeo category.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Weston Roach, 4, this was his first rodeo. He said he had a lot of fun coming with his mother, Sarah Roach, Army spouse and veteran, and father, Sgt. 1st Class Taylor Roach, 3-393 Brigade Engineer Battalion, 120th Infantry Brigade, and friends.<\/p>\n

Weston\u2019s favorite part was watching the bull riding, but he would like to try his hand at mutton bustin\u2019 next time, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I got (a score of) 6,000, that would be good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

1st Lt. Zack Bengtson, 1st Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment, and his wife Cherokee Bengtson, a nurse in pediatrics at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, also have a mutton bustin\u2019 hopeful in their 1-year-old daughter Cody.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a big fan of mutton bustin\u2019 even before I had kids,\u201d Zack said. \u201cI think mutton bustin\u2019 is great. It\u2019s a great way to get kids in outdoor stuff. And it\u2019s silly, you know? It\u2019s a lot of fun watching them hang on for dear life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cherokee said events like this are great for Soldiers to meet people and explore.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing involved in (Zack\u2019s) unit\u2019s SFRG (Soldier and family readiness group), I really like these events getting advertised on Facebook, Instagram, the radio, whatever, because it\u2019s important to get the guys that live on post out of their rooms,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Zack agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys that just joined the Army, they\u2019re not making a whole lot,\u201d he expressed. \u201cSo, being able to go to events like this (is great). Anytime we see any kind of military appreciation nights or, like the Phantom Warrior Center through the DFMWR (Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation) hands out free tickets all the time to rodeos \u2014 because of these opportunities, I\u2019m always pushing this out to my guys and being like, \u2018Hey, here\u2019s a great opportunity to get out of your barracks and go experience Texas.\u2019 So these are a lot of fun. These are really worth it to especially junior Soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gordon, also a retired lieutenant colonel, talked about the impact of the military on the city of Killeen and its growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout the military, this town wouldn\u2019t be what it is today,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cIt was originally just a small farming cattle town, and then they brought in Camp Hood and Fort Hood, now Fort Cavazos, and this town has blown up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up here,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s changed quite a bit. I was stationed here three separate times, and it just keeps continuing to grow, and it\u2019s all because of the military. \u2026 As many Soldiers as we have here, we want to introduce them to the Western culture, Western lifestyle, and try to get as many of them out here to see a rodeo and see what our culture is about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 \/ 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption \u2013 Cooper Lane, a saddle bronc competitor, rides a bucking horse in the saddle bronc event during the Killeen Rodeo May 15, 2025, at the Killeen Rodeo Arena in Killeen, Texas. (Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Ayumi Davis, Fort Cavazos Public Affairs) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 \/ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454888,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-454886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=454886"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":454892,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454886\/revisions\/454892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/454888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=454886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=454886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=454886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}