items of interest

with contributions from Andrew Mills, Eileen E. Flynn, Rosanne B. Wickman, Maureen Sieh

"Buried Somewhere deep behind the chutes at the Calgary Stampede, there is a place where rodeo cowboys go to pray. Illuminated by rows of fluorescent lights, the dressing room smells of sweat, dirt, and the sweet odor of well-used saddle leather. In the hours leading up to the rodeo, the long plywood benches are crowded with cowboys, who have just arrived from rodeos all over the West. They unpack canvas bags filled with the gear they'll use in this afternoon's rodeo—saddles, chaps, muddy boots, adhesive tape, and gloves.

"Amid the noisy melee of cowboys greeting old buddies, Dean Knox is kneeling on the concrete floor, eyesclosed. with a dogeared Bible and taupe cowboy hat cradled to his chest.... The quiet, smiling pastor from Brush, Colo., spends most of his time on the road, going from rodeo to rodeo to pray with cowboys as they prepare to climb on the back of bucking horses or bulls.... Here, in the dressing room, the cowboys are lined up to pray with Knox....

" 'I say that rodeo is like being in a foxhole,' says Heath Ford, 25, a bareback rider from Greeley, Colo. 'You know how they say there are no atheists in a foxhole; it's like that here. I pray for safety for me and the animal, and I ask God to let me use the abilities He gave me to do well,' he says. 'I also pray for forgiveness—if things don't go all right out there, and something happens to me, I want to end up in the right place.' ...

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