A Platte City resident will head to Rock Springs, Wyo., this upcoming weekend for the National High School Finals Rodeo.
Koltin Hevalow, 15, will be part of the bull riding competition in a rodeo that will run from July 15-21.
The former Platte County student, now homeschooled, is entering the finals as the Missouri state champion. In a season that ran from Aug. 2017 to May of this year, Hevalow went to Carthage and won the state title last month.
“I’m pretty excited,” he said. “My biggest goal is to walk out as a world champion again.”
Last year, Hevalow won the National Junior High Finals Rodeo bull riding title in Lebanon, Tenn. He added a senior steer riding title in Abilene, Texas last year, giving him four gold buckles over the past two years.
Submitted photo
Platte City resident Koltin Hevalow is shown riding a bull earlier this year in Osceola, Mo. He is set to compete this upcoming week in the National High School Finals Rodeo in Wyoming.
He has won titles in mutton busting, calves, senior steers and bull riding.
He will look to add his first high school title in Wyoming.
“The bulls are a little tougher (in high school),” Hevalow said. “Really it isn’t another guy, it is eight seconds on a bull. You do your job that is all you can ask for.”
Hevalow started riding sheep when he was three and has moved up the ranks ever since. His father, Kevin, rode bulls for 11 years, while his mother, Jenn, competed in the National Little Britches Rodeo.
After a week in Wyoming, the family will return to Platte City — they live six miles east of town off Highway 92 — before going to Abilene, Texas the first week of August for another competition.