By Brandon Bennett
STURGIS— South Dakota has a monopoly of sorts when it comes to its sons and daughters becoming rodeo legends. Names like Etbauer, Garrett, Miller, Fulton, Reeves and Lockhart. The next generation includes Arina Haugen. Haugen, you say? Yes indeedy.
Arina Haugen is 17 years old and a senior at Sturgis Brown High School. She is tearing up the high school rodeo standings in events like pole bending, barrels, cattle cutting, goat tying and reined cow horse cutting She performed well in the Harding County High School Rodeo in late June, taking five events and the All Around Cowgirl title. She is the daughter of Tyler and Dee Haugen and has two siblings, Landry and Blaisely who also rodeo.
How did this all begin? “I had this horse named Princess Sparkle Rainbow Lollipop and I remember riding her around and that developed into barrel racing and pole bending,” she said. She has five different horses for the events and her parents Tyler and Dee haul them around for her. Obviously a relationship needs to develop between horse and rider. “We have a rapport that involves roping and practicing and it benefits us both,” said Arina.
Her mom Dee stated that the horse is an athlete too and needs to be cared for so it’s healthy and can perform. “We’re trying to make their lives as as easy as we can do when it comes time to perform they can do it at the highest level,” said Dee. Breakaway roping and barrels are two of Arina’s favorite events. When she turns pro she’s going to focus on breakaway roping.
There are times when competition didn’t quite turn out for Arina, but she just dusted herself off and went on. She doesn’t get real excited when it comes to competition and doesn’t get nervous a lot which helps when competing, Both Tyler and Dee Haugen rodeod when they were younger and what was important to them was the connections with other rodeo contestants. They established their business, DeTye Veterinary Supply, from contacts with friends and colleagues.
Still..
“What we’ve strived to do is teaching our kids and giving them tools so that some point in the game their toolbox will be full, that they’ll have the tools to teach their animals the tools to handle pressure, because we’ve been there and we’ve done it,” said Dee. Both she and Tyler are doing this to promote the Western way of life, since they both grew up with it.
