Heather Wright/The Independent

You can’t help but notice the giant belt buckle Emilee Langford is wearing.

It says Ontario Pole Bending Champion. The Petrolia woman won the high school competition last year after getting hooked on rodeo by one of the best competitors in the world, Alvinston’s own Tyler Foster.

“He started bringing me along and letting me saddle horses and warm them up and just ride around. And I got hooked. It’s a problem,” she said Saturday while at the Alvinston Pro Rodeo.

Langford’s parents helped her find two horses, Derby and Goose, and she started competing in high school. There weren’t a whole lot of students at LCCVI into rodeo and she admits she was known as the horse-crazy girl.

As she prepared for college, she started looking in at schools in Alberta, specifically, those who had a collegiate rodeo program. She landed a spot, packed up her horses and with her parents made the 36 -hour drive west.

College life is busy. Langford is taking agricultural courses at Olds College and competing in rodeo whenever she can. And of course, there is a lot of practice – about six hours a day, plus taking care of the horses. “I wouldn’t want it any other way, though.”

Langford knows rodeo will be a big part of her life for as long as she can compete, but it won’t be her profession. “It’s going to be a long-term thing for me, for sure but not the only thing.”

For now, Langford is spending her summer competing where she can. Over the weekend, she showed she’ll be around for a while, winning the Pole Bending competition with a time of 21.1 seconds and placing in the Top 5 in Barrel Racing.