CLEARLAKE, Calif. – In terms of the animals he rides, Raymond Mayo's progression toward his objective of becoming a professional rodeo bull rider has evolved from baaa to baad.
At age 7, the Clearlake youngster was riding sheep. A half-dozen years later, having turned 13 only a month ago and graduating from seventh grade at Pomo Elementary School, Raymond is riding bulls.
In fact, he's riding them so well that later this month he will be among approximately 160 junior high school students competing in the bull riding segment of the National Junior High Finals Rodeo in Gallup, New Mexico, the world's largest junior high school rodeo.
The event is scheduled for June 23-29 and will be televised online at www.nhsratv.com . The final round can be viewed on RFD television.
Raymond will be representing Lake County and California by virtue of his status as the California State Reserve Junior High School Champion bull rider for District Two for two years running. District Two stretches from Marin to the Oregon border.
Two other qualifiers from California also will compete in bull riding at the national event.
The National Junior High Finals Rodeo in Gallup will not be Raymond's first national rodeo. His riding has taken him all the way to Ft. Worth, the “Cowboy Capitol.”
Since 2007, he has been a steady top-10 rider in his age group at the national level. Last year, as a sixth grader, he graduated from riding steers to riding adolescent bulls at the California Junior High Rodeo Association.
“He has been in the world bull riding finals in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011,” according to his father, Pat, who said it all started when Raymond asked his permission to ride one of his next door neighbor's sheep.
“I said, 'Sure,'” said Pat.
“My sister told me my neighbor was riding a calf,” as Raymond recalls it. “He was about my age and he wanted me to come ride with him. I rode one of his sheep and told my parents about it.”
His parents at the time had no idea that from sheep Raymond would soon graduate to calves, then to steers and finally young bulls.
By then it was too late for Pat and Diane, Raymond's mother, to heed Willie Nelson's and Waylon Jennings' admonition to not let their only son grow up to be a cowboy. Perhaps even the whole nine yards – a career cowboy.
“That's his goal,” said Pat.
“Well, maybe not the whole nine yards,” said Raymond. “I would probably leave out calf-roping and stuff like that.”
As an age-group bull rider, Raymond competes on bulls ranging from 900 to 1,200 pounds. But that's all relative: small cowboys are thoroughly challenged to cowboy up on these twisting beasts.
Pat estimated that Raymond has a 90-percent success rate of staying on his bulls for the qualifying ride of eight seconds.
What attracts him to bull riding is the excitement. “Whenever you ride you get an adrenalin rush,” Raymond said.
Has he been injured?
“Just minor,” said Pat. “He's been stepped on a few times. He's had his bruises. He knows that's inevitable.”
Raymond said his worst spill was when “a bull went head over heels. Broke my helmet and bent my face mask sideways.”
Pat, who works in telecommunications, has been a supportive dad.
As Raymond's coach, he video records his performances, and father and son go over the video together to spot flaws, and – on the rare occasions when Raymond gets bucked off – why.
Diane, a kindergarten teacher for 17 years at Pomo Elementary, in turn, has been a supportive mom, not only for Raymond but for her 11-year-old sixth-grade daughter, Emily, the youngest of three Mayo siblings, who is a barrel racer and pole bender.
“In the beginning it was more fun,” Diane said of Raymond's bull riding “Then when we started stepping up to calves he got a little nervous. We started seeing him not do so well – he was afraid in the chute. So we entered him into a couple of bull riding schools, which I think really helped him. He came out a more competent rider. If he gets into a situation he knows how to get off.”
Still in all, being a mom, she admits she has qualms about his ascension to full-sized bulls, which can weigh as much as a ton and have a fully justifiable reason for being given names like “Gunpowder,” “Abominable,” “Execution,” “Bloody Sunday,” or “Bodacious,” a bull who it is said to have allowed only six of 135 riders to stay mounted for eight seconds.
“When he steps up to full-sized bulls” – which will be August, 2014 – “I'm going to be worried,” Diane says. “I think he has a little bit of fear, but I think he uses that to his advantage. He doesn't let it overtake him.”
For his age, Raymond has had a significant amount of experience. Last year he participated in 20 rodeos, Pat said, most of them local events in towns like Red Bluff, Corning. Potter Valley and Fortuna.
Raymond – or “Ray” as his parents call him – hopes to compete in at least as many this year, including the Middletown Days Rodeo in which he rode this weekend and placed first.
The Middletown event serves as a preliminary for Gallup, where Raymond will ride in two go-rounds.
If he's successful in the preliminary rounds, he'll be among the top 20 to advance to the finals on Saturday night. The national champion will be determined by combined time and scores in the three rounds.
The 1,000 qualifiers – four each from 41 states, five Canadian provinces, Canada and Australia – will be competing for $100,000 in college scholarships.
“I think my chances in Gallup are pretty good,” said Raymond, whose immediate goal is to finish among the top 10.
Editor's note: The Mayo family wishes to thank Shannon Ridge Vineyards and P&L Auto Body for their sponsorship of Raymond Mayo's bull riding. Anyone interested in sponsoring Raymond or donating to cover his expenses should contact Pat Mayo either by phone at 707-701-1615, email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or via Facebook, or sending donations via U.S. Mail to The Mayo Family, P.O. Box 723, Clearlake, CA, 95422.
Email John Lindblom at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .