There’s a certain understanding about compulsive roping disorder within the rodeo community.

You can see this sickness infecting the youth at just about every Idaho High School Rodeo event. Kids pulling plastic dummy steers around while their friends practice header and heeler throws.

They’re there when you walk in, and chances are they’ll still be there when you leave.

Overheard near the exit gate at the Idaho High School State Finals in Pocatello last month: “Just a couple more throws, Mom? Pleeeeeaasse???”

It’s a sickness that infects just about anyone who’s successfully tossed a lasso. It’s a little like the first time you set that hook in a speckled brown on the Fall River, said North Fremont senior Dan Reynolds.

“There’s nothing like the adrenaline rush you get after the first time you rope in the big rodeos,” Reynolds said. “When you grab your dalley and hold on, it’s like, ‘Oh, that was good.’ You know that rope you just threw was right on.”

“Addiction” is probably the wrong word, considering the positive energy when Reynolds and teammate Taylor Sessions hit the arena. The pair spends hours and hours every week working on their game, both with live animals and practice dummies.

And it’s hard to argue with the results, considering Sessions and Reynolds are representing North Fremont High School, Idaho District 7 and Idaho itself at the National High School Finals Rodeo (NHSFR) later this month in Lincoln, Nebraska.

“I mean, who would think it?” Sessions said. “Who would think two of us from a little, tiny, tiny high school in a tiny area, and we’re headed to nationals? District 7 is really tough, and every single one of those ropers deserves to be going to nationals as much as we do.”

For the roping team of Reynolds and Sessions, perhaps a better description for this so-called addiction is “healthy habit.” Or maybe “beneficial preoccupation” or “wholesome fascination.”

Regardless of what they call it, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of snapping that rope and stopping the clock.

Sessions, a former basketball and volleyball star for the Huskies, agrees there is an addictive quality to roping. She loves the challenge of a moving target, which is a big departure from the games she plays in the gymnasium.

“The basketball hoop doesn’t move, right? And neither does that [volleyball] net. They’re always in the same spot,” Sessions said. “A cow, it could move right or left or duck. Or maybe your horse is running fast or slow. I found out roping was really hard and I love a challenge. It was really addicting. I wanted to keep getting better and better. That’s just me.”

Sessions knows what she’s talking about when she talks about accepting an athletic challenge. She is a four-time Nuclear Conference basketball first-teamer and was even named Nuke Player of the Year as a junior.

Reynolds was also an all-conference football player for the Huskies. He brings that same tall, sturdy frame to Lincoln.

And don’t forget about the other athletes in this stable. Reynolds fires his heeler rope from the back of 11-year-old Quarter Horse Boomer, and Sessions sits tall in the saddle of her pal Marty.

Records are spotty, but it is Reynolds’ understanding that the Reynolds-Sessions tandem is the first roping team to ever represent North Fremont at the NHSFR.

Reynolds said it is of no consequence whether they are the first or not because rodeo is a community. Dozens of people helped get them to this place, he said, and he and Sessions are just lucky enough to be in the saddle.

Like Sessions, Reynolds believes rodeo at the high school level is a community of excellence not limited to any individual qualifiers. They certainly didn’t earn that trip to Lincoln on their own.

This is just their turn. Their turn to represent their people, and their people’s turn to cheer them on.

“I wish more of them could come with us, but it’ll still be a lot of fun,” Sessions said.

Marty, Boomer, Taylor and Dan all head east later this week to join some 1,700 cowboys and cowgirls in Lincoln, with events scheduled from July 19-25.