SANDY TOZER of Cortez, a 2001 graduate of Montezuma-Cortez High School and past member of the Ute Mountain Rodeo Team, had a good summer. He qualified for the Silver State High School Rodeo (for those who missed qualifying for the National High School Finals Rodeo) and he most recently competed at the San Miguel Junior Rodeo in Norwood. Tozer took the male All-Around Cowboy title. He won five events and brought home six silver buckles.

BY JIM THOMAS
Journal Sports Editor

Sandy Tozer, a 19-year-old 2001 graduate of Montezuma-Cortez High School, recently won All-Around Cowboy honors at the San Miguel Basin Rodeo in Norwood.

Tozer, who was a member of the Ute Mountain High School Rodeo Team and a qualifier for the Silver State Rodeo in Fallon, Nev., earlier this summer, took home six buckles. He won five silver first-place buckles and the sixth for taking the All-Around title. That is the most buckles he has ever won at a rodeo.

The rodeo was sponsored by the Norwood Roping Club.

Perfect weather and tough competition made for exciting rodeoing.

"I had a good day. Everything seemed to go my way," he said.

Tozer won the Flag Race event with a time of 10.4 seconds. He captured first in breakaway roping with a very quick 3.3. He took first in calf touching in 5.25. He also won the Ribbon Roping with a time of 8.4. He finished tied for first in calf roping with a time of 13.7.

He knows how to throw a rope. His speciality is calf roping where he finished among the top 10 prep ropers in Colorado. Oddly, he nearly did not win the calf roping event.

"Two timers somehow didn’t get my time. I was the first one out and both timers didn’t get a time on me. I had a 12 (seconds) or so and it didn’t count. I ran right back and they gave me another calf. I was a little bit slower for that one," he said.

He has been calf roping since he was a small boy. He loved throwing the lariet and soon developed a talent for it.

Tozer plans to work and compete in amateur rodeo events until the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association season gets back under way next Spring. He wants to start working on getting his PRCA card and become a pro calf roper and team roper. One of his mentors is PRCA star Shane Hatch of Fruitland, N.M.

He also wants to go to college in the fall of 2002.