Living the life of a cowboy is every young boy’s childhood dream. 2020 Garfield graduate Cameron King has turned that dream into a reality, having left college to live the life and has become a full-time cowboy.
“For me it was just a love of the horses and anytime people ask me since I work for a rodeo company, and they ask me why I do not rodeo?” King told The Weekly Villager. “When I was learning, I wanted to be the best horseman I could be. Everything I do is to try and get closer to horses and I love the horses.
Since moving to Montana after his sophomore year at Hiram College, King has taken to the cowboy lifestyle quite well, working as an extra on the set of the hit television series Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner, and also as a wrangler in its spinoff, 1923, starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren.
King now works as a pick-up man for Red Eye Rodeo, a traveling rodeo company that specializes in high school and college rodeos. His responsibilities include riding on horses during the rodeo and picking up the competitors that are riding on bucking horses or bulls, helping them get down safely.
“We are all very proud of him,” said King’s father, Aaron, owner of Sky Lane Bowling. “He is very focused kid. When he decides he wants to be good at something, he will work at it until he is. He made himself an outstanding drummer in high school, he was a really good basketball player and an outstanding hitter.”
While in high school, Cameron’s entire schedule revolved around athletics, competing in basketball, baseball, golf and football and also was a drummer in the marching band.
During his senior year, Cameron served as a counselor at Camp Fitch, in Springfield, PA for Garfield’s fifth grade students, and returned home with a desire to take horseback riding lessons.
Cameron took a job at Sand Hills Stable, a boarding stable in Shalersville Township, and took riding lessons from Mark Troyer, owner of Garrettsville’s Fox Hill Stables.
“He roped back in the day, and I knew that, so I just messaged him and went to his place and started to learn how to rope and ride,” Cameron noted. “I worked at a boarding stable for a couple of years and pretty much any chance I would get I would ask him if I could ride.”
After graduating from Garfield, Cameron studied at Hiram College for two years before deciding to pursue a full-time career working with horses and landed a job working at the Rock Creek Dude Ranch in Phillipsburg, MT.
“It is crazy that one of the handful that accepted me was the nicest one in the world and to me it just shows if you have the drive, people see that and they will give you chances,” Cameron said. “Someone could be way more qualified than me but if they do not show up every day, then it is not worth hiring them.”
Most of the people he worked with at the ranch were about his age, having left home for the first time to learn how to live independently.
“I was 2,000 miles away from home and I did not know anybody, but then I started to fall in love with the place rather than the people,” Cameron added. “It was the most beautiful place I had ever been in my life.”
Cameron applied to be an extra on Yellowstone through Facebook during the summer of 2022 and was accepted. During a day of shooting, he was approached by an assistant director and asked to be in a scene with some of the show’s actors.
King received a few seconds of screentime during a branding scene in the seventh episode of the show’s fifth season and parlayed that experience into becoming a wrangler on the set of 1923 in Butte, MT.
While filming Yellowstone, Cameron met Bobby Lovegren, a specialty horse trainer who had worked on several famous projects including Seabiscuit, Django Unchained and Return of the Lonesome Dove, and hired him to work on the 1923 set until November of 2022, when he left to become a pick-up man for Red Eye Rodeo.
“I had worked with a bunch of guys that are from Montana and they know the area and the people,” Cameron said. “I told them I want to learn to pick up and they gave me a name, Kaehl Berg, who owns Red Eye Rodeo. They gave me his phone number and I just called him one day and was like, “Hey Kaehl, I want to learn how to pick up and how can I do it?”
Cameron is entering his second year as a pick-up man for the company and is enjoying the offseason but still has his hands full. He works with approximately 200 head of cattle, 80 bulls and 100 horses and is only one of three workers that take care of the herd.
Once the rodeo season starts at the end of March, Cameron will be traveling extensively with the company until September.
