Yukon, Oklahoma
Words & photos by Ivan McClellan
It was a sweltering 100°F night in Boley, Oklahoma. The stands were full of cheering fans, and the stadium lights were swarmed by bugs at the annual Boley Rodeo. Riders were bursting out the chutes on bucking ranch broncos, waving their hats at the crowd and falling hard onto the dirt.
The announcer suddenly perked up. “Is that a girl down there?!”
Margey Givings hopped into the chute and mounted her bronco as the crowd roared in excitement.
“I couldn’t hear anything but the contractor. He told me to give the horse more headspace and that’s all I was focused on,” she said. The gate swung open and the bronco didn’t move at all. “That’s when I got nervous. My heart was pounding like BOOM BOOM.”
The gate closed and opened one more time and this time the bronco exploded out of the chute. “I held on for three bucks and then fell off. Whenever I came off all I could hear was my dad laughing from across the arena. That laugh made my heart happy. I knew I did good and I wasn’t injured.”
Being the smallest in the family she was always the first one to ride a new horse whenever they bought one. “As many horses as I’ve come off of I’m pretty good at falling now.”
Her father laughing is something she learned to love. She would spend her summers in Boley at her great grandma’s house jumping in creeks and ponds and riding horses.
“We didn’t have saddles, just lead ropes. We’d ride horses and cows and just do crazy stuff. We’d float the creek for five miles with a fishing pole and a BB gun. There was no TV, we’d just have to use each other and make the best of what we had.” Margey started barrel racing, and she was 8 when she raced in her first rodeo.
Margey will never quit rodeoing but she plans to venture into the racing world by becoming a jockey. “I started out at the bottom as a groom mucking stalls and dressing and cleaning horses. But that’s how you learn by working under a trainer.” She plans to get her trainer and jockey license next year.
Whether it’s rodeo, racing, or English, Margey loves horses and will work with them in some capacity forever.
