Williams Lake Stampede Association vice-president Kayla Jasper is counting down the days until Stampede - June 28 to July 1.
"I love rodeo," she said. "I love how it brings out the community and how everybody looks forward to the weekend. Now that cowboys are cool again, everybody is getting excited."
As a director, her portfolios include sponsorship, entertainment and the dinner, dance and auction, plus she helps with advertising and social media.
Back in August 2023, she started inquiring about possibilities for entertainment and put out a call for proposals early October because bands' schedules fill up pretty quickly, especially around long weekends such as Canada Day.
"We got some great feedback," she said. "We were looking for something different and ended up getting BC/DC, who cover AC/DC and Bad Moon Riders, a CCR tribute band. I'm really excited that we are offering something different."
She is also excited the Global FMX Freestyle Motocross Show will take place every day as its own standalone event in the grandstand.
Tickets will be sold separately for people who just want to attend the show, not the Stampede.
Jasper grew up on the Cotton Ranch in Riske Creek with her parents Connie and Mike Jasper and her younger brother Ryan Jasper.
Her family was involved with rodeo and from about the age of five on she was competing in Little Britches Rodeo and gymkhanas, doing barrel racing, goat tail tying and pole bending.
Later, she did barrel racing and breakaway roping in Chilcotin Rodeo Association and BCRA events.
"When I got into high school rodeo, team roping, it really opened up a lot of opportunities. I was taught some leadership skills and became student president when I was in Grade 12," she said, adding being president taught her to be better organized and overcome her fear of speaking in public. "Every weekend I would have to get up and talk about everything everyone needed to know.
Jasper went on to attend the Canadian High School Rodeo Finals in Medicine Hat, Alta. and Williams Lake.
In Grade 12 she qualified for the National High School Rodeo, in breakaway roping and team roping, which was held in Farmington, New Mexico.
For that competition her family leased horses from a family in Texas.
She attended Chilcotin Road Elementary and Columneetza Secondary School, graduating in 2009.
Jasper spent lots of time with her maternal grandparents, Roy and Gwen Mulvahill, who live at Chezacut.
The first year the Mulvahills drove horse and wagon for the Xeni Gwet'in Youth Wagon Trip, which travels into the Williams Lake Stampede each year, she met them halfway through after finishing her exams.
"I drove one of the wagons," she said, adding she is a member of Xeni Gwet'in First Nation.
Another time she and her brother helped their grandparents on a trip into the Itcha Range, northeast of Anahim Lake.
"Someone hired our grandparents to do a horse-pack trip and we went along too, she said, recalling it was July and the bugs were thick.
After high school she pursued kinesiology studies at college in Lethbridge for one year and Red Deer for two years.
From there she went to work at Three Corners Health Services Society in Williams Lake as a health educator, where she stayed for almost nine years.
When the All Nations Healing Centre opened in Williams Lake November 2022, she started working there as a wellness navigator and has been there ever since.
"It's pretty steady," she said of the work. "I connect our clients with resources and am building relationships with both the communities and all the partners in town that might have important resources for our members who might be coming in."
There are two doctors working at the centre, nurses, and a traditional wellness coordinator who takes people out for medicine picking or brings them in for cultural activities.
Her own relationship with the Williams Lake Stampede Association began at the age of 16, when she was volunteering at the Williams Lake Stampede office, assisting her aunt Genevieve Jasper.
A few years ago she was approached by WLSA director Pauline Smith and asked if she was interested in becoming a director.
"I attended the AGM in the fall and that was it. I have been a director since 2021."
Recently she started barrel racing again, but only for her own pleasure, not to compete.
"It's been fun to get back into it because I quit after high school. I've kind of got the bug again."
Today she lives in Riske Creek.
"There's something about being out on the wide open spaces," she said. "I don't think I'll ever be able to give it up."
