With a noble surname like “Dansie,” you almost have to know how to dance.

After all, Dansie is a perfect marriage of “dance” and “fancy.”

It would almost be like carrying the surname Carpenter while not knowing the difference between sandpaper and a coping saw.

Blackfoot’s Porter Dansie has heard this all this before, of course. So has just about any member of the greater Dansie family.

But Porter can dance if he wants to. He can leave his friends behind.

Cuz your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance, well they’re no friends of Porter Dansie.

All ‘80s bubblegum music references aside, Porter Dansie can indeed dance. Given all other options, however, Dansie would rather be wrestling.

A three-time state medalist for the vaunted Blackfoot High School wrestling team, Dansie will use your missteps against you on the mats.

He’s that steely-eyed ranch kid from out in the county. You know the one — tall, wiry and tough as he is soft spoken.

As much as young Porter Dansie loves him some people wrestling, his true love is steer wrestling — or as the old timers call it, “bulldogging.”

Some even describe modern bulldogging as a semi-scripted dance of sorts, with an opening, an exchange, a takedown and an (optional) encore. A bulldogging dance, if you will.

“There’s so much going on with the horse, the steer and even your hazer,” Dansie said. “There’s just nothing like it, waiting in the chute. It’s that adrenaline rush for sure. That’s why I love it.”

Dansie graduated from Blackfoot High School a couple weeks back and has answered a call of faith that will take him to South America for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Before that happens, however, Dansie cruised through the District 4 rodeo steer wrestling championships and landed at the state finals this past week in Pocatello.

Dansie posted an East Idaho-best sixth-place finish in the field of 30 at state, narrowly missing out on the four automatic berths to nationals.

But that’s OK, because Porter Dansie got his adrenaline on and put on a show. It’s OK because he understands the sport he loves. That understanding comes with acceptance of those rodeo things you can and cannot control.

“There’s so many variables going into it, but no matter how hard you practice or how good you are, you’ll never be able to control every variable,” he said. “You just kind of have to do everything you can and let the cards fall.”

From time to time, Dansie would drag his Blackfoot wrestling buddies out to the corral to try their hand at bull dogging. As he puts it, steer wrestling borrows several techniques from the Greco-Roman style, but throwing a steer isn’t even the half of it.

“Yeah, I got some of my wrestling buddies out there, and they give it a good try,” he said. “A lot of times they’re pretty good at throwing the steer, but it’s the riding of the horse that’s the tricky part.”

Dansie will serve two years in Chile before returning to the home place in Bingham County. Where it goes from there he can’t say, but Porter Dansie knows he’s got a special thing going out in the county.

“It’s the best lifestyle. So much joy and peace,” he said. “There’s just so much fresh air and good people around. This sport kind of just evolved from the ranching lifestyle, and that’s the best lifestyle you can live.”