COMPANION PASS: Cassidy Davis

Ten years ago, while dancing the night away with my cousins, I found my companion pass dead center in the middle of the dance floor. It was a girls night out where you are oblivious to what’s happening around you, you are enjoying every minute of the night, singing, dancing and laughing the night away UNTIL … I saw a handsome cowboy! Little did I know, after that night I would be holding Jessy Davis’ companion pass for the rest of his rodeo career! Life hasn’t slowed down since. Six years ago we got married; four years ago we added another piece to our ranch and built a beautiful home to welcome the most precious gifts into our lives, Cru J and Quincee James, and Jessy has gone on to make another 4 out of his 7 National Finals Rodeo appearances. With making the National Finals Rodeo comes a lot of time on the road, dedication, hard work, and a lot of time away from home, especially when you live in North Central Montana! But that never slowed Jessy down! It just meant I, Cassidy Jo, would be cheering on his rodeo dreams from the ranch, and that was OKAY! I was never going to pack up and head down the rodeo road with Jessy, anyways. Now, don’t take that the wrong way, I would do anything for Jessy. Like get trampled by a cow, barely able to walk, and get in the car to drive 6 hours to pick him up in the middle of the night.

I had a dream and a promise at home on the ranch that I wasn’t going to give up. I came home from college a couple short years before I met Jessy, begging my dad to let me stay home on the ranch and help him. Dad, at first, wanted me to finish college; I had no plans of doing that, I just wanted to be HOME! Life wasn’t always easy at the ranch, and dad wanted me to know - if I was coming home it was a commitment, and we were going to build this place bigger and make it work better for the both of us - so there was no way I was leaving home to chase a rodeo cowboy! So, Jessy and I made our life work; there was no other way. Jessy would be gone rodeoing 11 months out of the year as I stayed home and kept things going on the ranch, and I always kept at least two jobs in town. I was taught at a very young age to be independent, so this was nothing new to me. The only thing new to me was how to manage someone else’s schedule and mine at the same time. And to be very truthful, it wasn’t the easiest, but I knew it would be WORTH IT! Jessy always seemed to be living the life – like being in Texas out fishing in the ocean – while I was freezing my ass off in Montana calving cows, staying up all night and day! I felt like every other girl holding a companion pass was enjoying the bigger indoor rodeos while I was home cleaning stalls for cows to just make them dirty again; every scoop of poop I put in the wagon only made more tears flow down my face wishing I was with Jessy. Sometimes I would go three or four months at a time without seeing Jessy; imagine having 1-year old twin girls during calving season and not seeing your husband for 3 months! IT WAS HARD at times, but it was our life, and without family, friends, and a very understanding business partner (my dad!) we wouldn’t have made it through. Jessy and I had late night conversations, millions and millions of text messages - a lot of ‘GOOD LUCK daddy, we love you!’. On nights when I should have been sleeping, I would wait up “patiently” for that text seeing how he did at the rodeo. No time in my life has ever gone as S L O W L Y as it did waiting to hear how Jessy rode! The girls and I watched more rodeos on the internet (thank goodness for streaming) than we ever did in person, and they were his biggest fans! Everyone always asks, how did you make it while Jessy wasn’t home, how can you go not seeing your husband for months out of the year, and how do you do it? Truthfully, I don’t know how I did it – I just kept going! You would think that I would have all my ducks in a row, my schedule for the days all lined up, and dinner planned out every night, but I am here to tell you I am FAR from that! Nothing is ever planned – EXCEPT - when I need a vacation! While Jessy was gone, we fed cows, we calved cows, we irrigated, we played with cousins, we harvested our crops, we brought cows off the mountain, we doctored calves, we sold calves, we – Cassidy, Cru & Quincee – did A LOT while Daddy was rodeoing. But we didn’t know any different, and we also knew Daddy would love to be home helping us, but he was out doing what he loved; he had a dream, and we supported him every step of the way! There was NEVER going to be a time when I would make him stop to come home and help – NEVER. As a matter of fact, Jess would call home and say, “Maybe I should just come home, there is a lot going on.” No, Jessy we have it handled. You stay on the road; we will take care of it!

After I had the girls, my dad’s schedule and my schedule had to change a bit! We had to plan accordingly. We couldn’t always just go jump in the baler in the middle of the night and bale all night long, or we couldn’t just decide to go sort the old cows out of the younger ones any time we felt like it– I actually had to plan for someone to come be with the girls! My family is so close, I knew just a phone call and I would have someone to help take care of the girls if we needed to get a lot of work done. Other than that, the girls spent their days tagging babies, they spent countless hours playing in their pack’n’play in the calving shed or slept hours in the tractor or swather. The girls and I would pack up and go watch Jessy when we could. We knew the winter rodeos would be watched from home, but summer would come, the hay would be put up, and we were off watching Jess! When Jessy’s busy season would slow down a bit, it would turn into my busy season at the sale barns. This left Jessy home with the girls and all the chores to take care of. We worked hand in hand through those rodeo years not giving up on each other’s dreams because we both knew rodeo wasn’t going to last forever, and we wanted to make sure our bigger dream of a family ranch was going to be here when Jessy decided to hang up his spurs.

And ten years later … here we are – the thrill of bareback riding is about to be in our back seat. All those years of Jessy being on the road are about to come to an end. He will be able to enjoy every minute at home with us girls! Even though he is retiring, each one of those companion passes holds a story – a story of how our life has been shaped for the last 10 years whether I was on the road with Jessy or I was cheering him on from the ranch. Like the time I showed up in Houston, TX to spend Jessy’s birthday with him (I think in 10 years I have spent 3 birthdays with him) Jessy had no clue. I flew to Houston, got in an Uber, prayed that he didn’t leave the Crawfish Shack he had been at for an hour since I landed and SURPRISED HIM! Little did he know, when he shared his location on his phone with me one night driving late, he had shared it FOREVER!

Now, I have gone the last 10 YEARS doing what I wanted when I wanted. Having a clean house, knowing I was the only one making the mess, drinking my coffee every morning with no TV on, and NOW you are telling me I have to LIVE with my husband EVERY SINGLE DAY! Wait a second, no one told me about this! I make a plan now and forget that I need to tell Jessy because guess what - HE IS HOME! After 20 years of being on the road, Jessy will finally hang his spurs in a safe spot in our home come February. His life is taking a new path of wanting to be home with his girls, and us wanting to enjoy new things together as a family. Now, I can take a deep breath! I feel like a lot of weight has been lifted off, I actually never leave my house some days! I don’t know if I could really actually ever slow down – it just means I am learning how to let Jessy take care of the daily chores, and I am learning that I don’t always have to be working and helping dad to make sure all the cows are taken care of or the fence is fixed! I have found the meaning of NAPS – I have never napped in my LIFE – but now that Jess is home to help and to take care of the ranch work, I find myself every once in a while curled up snuggling with my girls, NAPPING! We often find ourselves still on rodeo time, which drives my Dad crazy! Dad likes to get up early and get the work done - we like to sleep in and work later in the day. It all balances out, and we are learning to adjust to life at HOME now!

Rodeo has been such a big part of our lives, and we are so very thankful for what it has brought to us: friends, fans, and most importantly MEMORIES! My dad worked hard to build up our farm/ranch, and it is very important for us to keep this place alive. Not many come back to their family farm/ranch anymore; they do not have the desire or the work ethic it takes to keep up with the daily life, but that is what we are trying to show our girls - with a little hard work and effort you can achieve anything. I hope one day they will want to come back to the place and take over just like Jessy and I are doing. Because what would the western industry be like without the ranching way of life. What would we eat, what would we drink, and what would life really be like without our farmers and ranchers? Not everyone does it the same – but we all have one concept and that is keeping agriculture alive. We truly don’t do this for the recognition or the glory - we do it because it is our way of life. It is a tough way to live but you get so much fulfillment out of it. Like seeing your calves hit the ground when they are born and watching them grow into nice feeder cattle and selling them or watering your hay fields during the summer to cut them and turn that hay into feed for your cattle. I can only hope our hard work and determination will be passed down to our girls and onto the next generation.

Cassidy Jo