“The more I showed up, the more people showed up for me.” This sentiment was repeated throughout Morgan Young’s interview with The Daily Barometer.

Morgan Young is a cowgirl in Benton County. She was last year’s Rodeo Queen, currently serves on the rodeo committee and will be participating in this year’s Benton County Rodeo.

Young grew up on a cattle ranch in Colorado with her dad and grandparents.

“We were up before the sun. Our horses had to be taken care of before we got to go in and have breakfast; it was the real deal. But it was also an amazing experience,” Young said.

Young didn’t only grow up on a ranch but also within the 4-H Youth Development and rodeo community as well. 

“I was heavily involved in 4-H and rodeo when I was a kid because I just had my dad, and there is something about the community. They showed up for my dad when nobody else would,” Young said. “And everybody helped pitch in to make sure I got to my rodeos, and I got to my 4-H practices.”

Young referred to the community she found as a “blessing for my childhood” and cited it as the main reason she was so eager to join the rodeo scene in Corvallis when she moved here four years back.

“Moving to a new place is always really scary; it’s intimidating and I’ve done it a couple times, so by the time I got to Corvallis, I was like, ‘Ok, I can’t be scared; I just have to figure it out,’” Young said.

Young explained how she was nervous at first, but she started going to different horse events in the area on her own.

“If I showed up for this community, the people in it, they showed up for me. It was an easy give-and-take relationship,” Young said.

The rodeo scene in Corvallis shows up for its community in many ways. One way that Young emphasized is their diversification of events for women, mentioning that Benton County Rodeo is the only rodeo in the state that puts on an all-girls rodeo.

“It allows another opportunity for girls in our community or in surrounding communities—just girls throughout the United States—to come compete and run in all the events… [the events] have always been seen in the rodeo world as male-dominated,” Young said.

In the Benton County Rodeo, however, women of all ages—from young girls just starting out to older, more experienced riders—are all welcome to compete in a multitude of events, roughstock included, according to their website.

Currently, Young is a full-time student pursuing veterinary nursing; she works full time at the large animal veterinary teaching hospital at Oregon State and is training with her horse, Lena, for rodeo.

When asked about her position working with Oregon State students, she acknowledged the benefits the animal-loving community provides for student learning, as well as her own.

“It’s a pretty neat position for me because this was my livelihood; this is what my family did and has done for generations—working with cattle and horses. And now I get to work in a teaching position to help show them how to be safe around these animals, how to help them, how to handle them and how important they are to the agriculture community around them,” Young said.