Taking the Reins

Summer 2022

Taking the Reins: At the Madison County Championship Rodeo, North Carolina’s oldest event of its kind, cowboy culture passes to a new generation

WRITER:

Jon Elliston

PHOTOGRAPHER:

Jack Sorokin

Bucking horse rider Bryson Woody poses before the action starts.

For more than 50 years, patrons of the rodeo have gathered to watch the rough-and-tumble events, such as bull riding.

Kenly Treadway, Kenny’s daughter, dons patriotic attire to ride Old Glory around the arena during the national anthem.

The rodeo gets underway as summer sunsets over the Madison County Fairgrounds offer a feast of light for the photographer.

In addition to the national anthem, the rodeo’s competition rounds are prefaced by a group prayer that asks for safety for the riders and animals.

Charlie Treadway, Kenny’s nine-year-old son, participates in calf riding as part of the family’s fourth generation of rodeo riders.

Garett Wilson—aka Cow Patty—the rodeo’s trusty clown.

A bucking horse rider tries his luck out of the chute.

Here, a father helps his son suit up in protective gear before a potentially bruising ride.

An organizer preps a list matching riders with their assigned bulls.

A friend helps secure a rider’s helmet.

Harold, a seasoned bucking horse rider, gears up in the tense minutes before his turn in the saddle.

A moment of solo prayer before a ride.

Sometimes, rodeo isn’t exactly what you’d call good, clean fun. Here, a chute dogger struggles to wrestle a bull to the muddy ground.

Of course, there are worse things than mud ...

Depending on the event, participants at the Madison County Championship Rodeo range in age from five to 60. But the rough stock categories like bronc-and bull-riding are braved mostly by 18 to 30-year-olds.

Bloodied but unbroken, this young bull rider knows what comes with the territory of authentic rodeo.

PHOTOGRAPHER:

Jack Sorokin

"I’ve been mashed and slammed and bammed my whole life,” says Kenny Treadway, rodeo practitioner-turned-rodeo producer, with a chuckle. “But if it’s in your blood, I guess you don’t care what happens to your bones.”

The rough-and-tumble sport of rodeo, born in the Old West, is indeed in Treadway’s blood. As CEO of Live Action Rodeo, he directs the Madison County Championship Rodeo, the direct descendent of an event his father and grandfather started with the Madison County Fire Department 57 summers ago. Back then, the rodeo was largely a July Fourth-only affair and took place on Marshall’s Blannahassett Island. Today, it’s staged at the Madison County Fairgrounds and draws hundreds of participants and spectators every other Saturday night from April to October.

Jack Sorokin, a Marshall-based documentary photographer, has frequented the rodeo for the past five years, conducting the most in-depth project of his career. “I’ve always been interested in photographing rites of passage and masculinity as a subject matter and cultural phenomenon,” he says. “This immediately felt like a really potent microcosm for that.”

As a New York native new to the South, Sorokin approached the rodeo with a true outsider’s eye and an open mind. He’s come to learn that the rodeo functions, yes, as competition and entertainment, but that its real essence is community and mentorship. “It’s a place where you can see kids growing up really fast,” Sorokin says, “and they do it because there are all these older role models around to show them what to do.”

For Treadway, the rodeo is predominantly a place for sharing history, skills, and thrills. “It’s more brotherhood than it is anything,” he says. “And that means a lot to me.”

KEYWORD TAGS:

History