family Life on the Ranch
The Rodeo Road
Keeps Ranch Family Busy and Active
WRITTEN BY REBECCA COLNAR PHOTOS BY MEGED FAMILY
Juggling four children involved in sports, a livestock sale barn and a ranch keeps Miles City mom, Misty Meged, on her toes. The children are no longer young—Haven is 24, Hayes is 22, Harley is 18 and Holden is 16, but Misty has spent many years supporting their involvement in a variety of school sports.
Misty admits there were hectic times trying to balance ranching and four children but explained, “They just went with us. If we had to tag calves or bale hay, they would be in the tractor with us.” If the ranch and raising kids wasn’t enough to stay busy, Misty owned a clothing store in Miles City until a couple of years ago.
The boys wrestled and played football, while the girls played basketball, but the family’s main passion has always been rodeo.
As the children grew older, they became progressively more responsible for taking care of their animals, helping with calving and learning how to doctor a variety of livestock injuries or illnesses. What they learned when they were younger about livestock care and ranching just rolled into competing in the rodeo arena.
Rodeo and horses were new to Misty initially and, although she was raised in Miles City, her parents owned a rental and construction company, and she admitted that she was more familiar with running skid steers and backhoes than agricultural equipment. Her grandfather owned a ranch, but Misty explained “We stayed away from horses; we had motorcycles instead.” When she met her husband, Bart, he owned a ranch and was part owner of the Miles City Livestock Commission. It was then that ranching and the sale yard became part of her life. In 2015, Bart bought out his partner and the Meged family became sole owners of MCLC, a venue for marketing and selling cattle.
“High school rodeo has so many events for kids to compete in. The boys do team roping, steer roping, steer wrestling, reined cow horse and cutting. The girls compete in barrel racing, pole bending, goat tying and breakaway roping,” Misty explained. “Rodeo is not a team sport, so it’s very humbling, because it’s just you and your horse going into that arena and trying to win.” The Megeds praise the camaraderie of highschool rodeo parents and children. “What’s especially enjoyable is the rodeo family. When Haven won Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association (PRCA) World Championship
Tie-Down Roper in 2019, a lot of our rodeo family was watching.” Misty said the family would practice rodeo skills when the children got home from school and she and her husband would get home from work, as well as over the weekend. “As they got older, they could practice as long as there were two of them, just in case something happened,” she noted. As with any high school sport, being successful takes plenty of practice sandwiched between school work and, in the case of the Megeds, ranch work. She feels rodeo, sports or other school activities provide an admirable outlet for children. “Being involved gives them a sense of self-worth and challenges them. It gives young people a reason to be together and to be around different people. These days kids are so into electronics, it’s too easy for them to go home and sit on their phones. Sports enables them to be physically active. In addition, if they’re involved in after-school activities, including non-sports activities like speech and drama, they learn interpersonal communications, which are skills they will certainly need throughout their lives.” Rebecca Colnar is Director of Public Relations for Montana Farm Bureau and a freelance writer from Custer, Montana.
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april 2022
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