College student comes home to family traditions

REPORTER’S NOTE

(ROCKWALL/HEATH, TX – June 24, 2015) Coming home after a year away at school is a strange experience. In a lot of ways, everything has stayed the same. Your family still loves you and everything probably still looks the same. But so many things have changed, too.

While you were off surviving on your own for the first time, life at home went on without you. Your family has established new routines since you left and have, in many ways, rearranged their lives to compensate for your absence. And you should fit right back in; they’re your family, after all. But it feels like trying to force a puzzle piece that’s slightly too big into place: you and your family have changed and grown, and the hole you left behind won’t quite hold you anymore.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. You still love and get along with your family. But it is different, and sometimes it feels like your family just needs some glue to stick the missing puzzle piece back together again.

For my family, that glue is our family traditions. When I participated in traditions that my family had been doing since I was little, the changes around me felt smaller. Some of the traditions were simple, like weekend walks with my dad or shopping with my mom. But one of our best family traditions was going to the Mesquite Rodeo. We went together every year from the time that I was just a little kid.

I recently had the opportunity to return to the Mesquite Rodeo to cover a media event. As it turns out, it was just was as exciting to go to the rodeo as a journalist with a love of writing as it was to go as a 7-year-old with a love of horses.

As I mentioned, life goes on even when you aren’t around. I’ve seen the Mesquite Rodeo go through a lot of transitions as I’ve grown up. It’s gone through several owners and a complete remodel of the facility since I first started going. This year has brought its own changes under the new ownership of, among others, Terry Dickerson and Doug Bland.

The changes they announced are exciting. According to Dickerson, “It won’t just be a rodeo arena anymore.” The new ownership plans to bring in events like professional boxing, Hispanic events, and circuses to add to the traditionalMesquiterodeo that has been around for 58 years. They also announced two TV deals with ESPN3 and WFAA News 8 to bring the rodeo to a wider audience.

But above all, according to Bland, “the rodeo has spanned generations, and we will continue the tradition.”

Life goes on. But often it changes in a way that brings new opportunities and experiences. And if you can hold on to your family traditions, even the biggest change might not seem so terrifying Even though the Mesquite Rodeo will grow and change in the coming year, they hope to be able to hold on to the traditions that made them a constant in the Mesquite community. And I hope my family will be able to do the same.

By Abbie Killian, Blue Ribbon News reporter and rising junior at the University of Missouri, working towards a Bachelor in journalism with an emphasis in Strategic Communication and Public Relations.