The energy builds quickly inside the Farm Bureau Pavilion on Michigan State’s campus.. A rider bursts out of the gate, the crowd rising to its feet as a horse rounds the final barrel at full speed.
It’s many spectators’ first glimpse of rodeo, and they clearly love what they see
For the Michigan State students behind the scenes, it’s the culmination of months of work.
That moment is what the MSU Rodeo Club spends the entire year preparing for.
February 13-15 marked the 56th annual Spartan Stampede, a long-running rodeo tradition that drew 6,500 fans over four sold-out performances in East Lansing. It’s a testament to the event’s enduring popularity, as over the course of the weekend, fans packed the stands to watch a full slate of rodeo events while students from the club worked behind the scenes to make sure every detail ran smoothly.
Students organize nearly every part of the event, even while the action in the arena captures the crowd’s attention.
“Basically, all the students put on the rodeo themselves,” said Andrea Torzone, the 2026 Miss Michigan State Rodeo Queen. “We coordinate with our stock contractors. We organize the entire weekend with setup security. We bring in all of our vendors. We bring in contestants. So pretty much everything that's run is run by MSU students.”
For Torzone, becoming part of the rodeo club was not something she originally planned when she arrived at Michigan State.
Torzone, a junior triple-majoring in animal science, zoology and fisheries and wildlife, transferred from the University of Maryland. She grew up in Crofton, Maryland, where she spent most of her life around horses, riding show jumpers and later galloping racehorses at the track. She started looking for a way to stay involved with horses after moving to Michigan.
“I grew up riding horses pretty much my entire life,” Torzone said. “When I transferred here, there wasn’t a racetrack nearby anymore, so I was trying to figure out how I could stay involved with horses and that world. I went to one of the involvement fairs and saw the rodeo club’s booth, and I decided to check it out. I went to a meeting and I absolutely fell in love with it from there.”
Now she plays a major role in the club not only as a board member but also as the current Rodeo Queen, a position that is part of the larger leadership and community outreach within the organization.
While the title comes with several formal responsibilities, it also connects closely to the club’s broader mission of welcoming newcomers and promoting rodeo culture. Contestants are evaluated not only on written tests, interviews, speeches, modeling presentations, and horsemanship, but also on how they engage with the public—a reflection of the club’s emphasis on education and involvement.
Torzone said the moment she was crowned was especially meaningful because it represented both personal achievement and her place within the club community.
“Watching Casey Hyde, the 2025 Rodeo Queen, throughout the year was really inspiring for me,” Torzone said. “She was always interacting with kids, going to community events and promoting the rodeo lifestyle in such a positive way. When she passed the crown down to me, it meant a lot because she’s someone I look up to both in the club and outside of it.”
As rodeo queen, Torzone’s work highlights the club’s efforts to introduce new audiences to the sport and educate them about Western heritage.
“As the rodeo queen, you are the face of rodeo,” she said. “Being that face of rodeo is really important for being a role model for younger kids, or for people who don't necessarily have access to rodeo or know much about rodeo. So if they had questions, they could come to you and learn about different events as well as, you know, understand what Western Heritage truly is.”
At the same time, club president Eliza Lafavers emphasizes that leadership in the organization goes beyond any single title, relying on the collaboration and dedication of all members to make events like the Spartan Stampede successful and educational.
Lafavers considers helping newcomers discover the sport one of the most important parts of the organization’s mission.
Lafavers is a junior majoring in animal science. She said she did not grow up around rodeo. Lafavers began riding horses at a young age at a dressage barn in Indianapolis, but she did not encounter rodeo until she arrived at Michigan State.
“When I first came to MSU, I honestly didn’t know much about rodeo at all,” Lafavers said. “One of the previous presidents actually spotted me at an involvement event and convinced me to come to a meeting. The club is really good at teaching people everything they need to know, so even if you come in knowing nothing about the sport, you can still become really involved.”
That welcoming environment has become a defining part of the club’s culture. Members come from a wide range of academic majors and backgrounds, but many say the organization quickly begins to feel like a family.
“We try to make it so that our club members know somebody personally on the board, because it can be kind of intimidating when you come in and you don’t know anybody,” Lafavers said. “We try to do hangouts a lot, dinners with each other and things like that so it really starts to feel like a big family.”
That sense of community is especially visible during the Spartan Stampede itself.
Throughout the weekend, club members take on dozens of responsibilities. Some help set up the arena and manage equipment, while others work merchandise stands, coordinate vendors or assist competitors. The level of involvement, Lafavers said, was especially noticeable this year.
“This year, I feel like we had the most involvement of our club members, with their eagerness to help out,” Lafavers said. “We had a lot of our club members doing the barrel truck, and they were setting barrels for us and T shirt tosses. Like, sometimes you don't always have club members who are so willing to do that. And this year, I just think that we were really blessed to have those people.”
The rodeo also introduces many spectators to the sport itself. Many longtime fans return every year, but a large portion of the audience attends the event with little prior knowledge of rodeo.
The club incorporates educational elements into the show to help bridge that gap. Short videos and announcements explain the rules of each event and break down what the competitors are trying to accomplish.
Barrel racing is the highlight of the night for many fans. In this event, riders race around three barrels in a cloverleaf pattern, trying to post the fastest time possible.
“Barrel racing always gets the crowd going,” Lafavers said. “It’s the loudest when we have barrel racing going. The women run around three barrels in a cloverleaf pattern, trying to go as fast as they can without knocking one down. Sometimes we’ll even have little kids running in the stampede, and the crowd loves it when younger girls compete because you don’t expect a 10-year-old to come out of the gate and really kick butt in barrels. The audience just loves the speed.”
But while the sport itself draws crowds, both Lafavers and Torzone say the value of the club is in its relationships.
Members regularly participate in community outreach events, including parades, nursing home visits and reading programs for children. Those experiences, they say, help connect the rodeo tradition with people who may never have encountered it before.
Torzone believes that spirit of connection is what truly defines the rodeo community.
“Rodeo is absolutely for anyone,” Torzone said. “It doesn’t matter where your background is, whether you’re starting late, young, or old. It’s a very welcoming community. Rodeo is not just about competition in the alleyway or that eight-second timer. It’s about family and showing up for each other when it really matters the most. Rodeo didn’t ask me where I came from, but it asks who I’m willing to become.”
The club is already preparing for the next step after completing the 56th Spartan Stampede. Board elections will soon bring new leadership, and members hope to continue expanding the organization while preserving the tradition that has lasted more than half a century.
“I hope [the next group of members] just have fun with it,” Lafavers said. “The sport of rodeo takes a lot of hard work, but you make lifelong friendships along the way. That’s really all I hope people take away from being part of this club.”