Roping is a way of life for Sean Schnabele.
"How often do you practice this," I asked him.
"Every day," he said.
The soon-to-be eighth grader at Syringa Middle School in Caldwell practices at his grandparents' ranch in Homedale.
Among other rodeo events, Sean specializes in breakaway roping.
"When you rope him it breaks away from the horn," Schnabele said.
The sport features a participant, riding a horse, trying to rope a calf as quickly as possible.
Schnabele says he's done it in 2.7 seconds.
Sean finished in the top four places at a rodeo in Pocatello, which qualified him for last month's National Junior High Finals Rodeo in Lebanon, Tennessee.
Fellow teammates Lan Larrison, Wes Ireland and Michael Babcock also qualified as well.
While some just want to get the job done, Schnabele wants to do it correctly.
"Sometimes you get lucky and throw a loop that is not supposed to go on and it will go on," he said. "But that doesn't mean you did it right. I always try to do as right as I can."
The National Junior High Finals Rodeo calls itself the 'world's largest junior high rodeo' and says it featured around 1,000 participants from 43 countries.
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