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OUR HOMETOWN: Family, rodeo and work keeps Virgil Poffenroth’s life full

The tie-down roper grew up with a rodeo family from Riske Creek
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Chilcotin cowboy and tie-down roper Virgil Poffenroth grew up in a ranching and rodeo family.

His parents Bryan and Raylene Poffenroth were living at the River Ranch, west of the Fraser River and Highway 20, when he was born.

For as long as he can remember, the family went to rodeos.

“Dad calf roped and mom barrel raced. We put lots of miles on the truck.”

As for Virgil’s name, it was inspired by the movie Tombstone, which he said his dad liked.

From kindergarten to Grade 4, Virgil attended Riske Creek School.

After the school closed he and his sister Bailey, who is a year and a half younger, rode the bus to attend Chilcotin Road Elementary School in Williams Lake.

“It was an hour and a half bus ride each way,” he recalled. “We used to have to sit at school for an hour after we were done to wait for the high school students to get the bus home.”

Halfway through Grade 9, he switched to homeschooling and did that until he completed Grade 12.

After graduating from high school, he went to Western Oklahoma State College for six months, but left because it was too expensive to be there during the recession of 2008.

At 17 years of age he started working in the bush for Ilnicki Brothers’ Logging, something he still does today. He also works running cattle, which he did over the last month for his uncle Kenny Ilnicki at the River Ranch.

“It’s something I did since I was a kid, whether it was chasing cows out in the trees or in the open.”

Virgil met his wife Caterina Poffenroth, who is originally from Calgary, when she was working at a radio station in Williams Lake.

”She interviewed me after I won the Williams Lake Indoor Rodeo and then we had lots of the same friends in town” Virgil said.

For five years they lived in Alberta when Virgil was doing the pro rodeo circuit full time.

Today they live at Top Ranch with their three children: Rino, 9, Gracelynn, 6, and Blayke who is 15 and a half months.

Top Ranch is the home place where his grandparents Tommy and Donna-Rae Ilnicki and Virgil’s cousins live.

“We call it the Top Ranch because the River Ranch is the bottom Ranch. I worked at both ranches growing up.”

Originally from Alberta, Tommy Ilnicki moved to the Cariboo Chilcotin to work in the mill yards. Eventually he started his own logging company and later got into ranching.

Carrying on the family rodeo tradition for a third generation, Rino and Gracelynn are getting into rodeo.

“They both got onto bucking steers last night,” Virgil said. “Rino wanted to try and Gracie wanted to too. We were at my dad’s. He’s got chutes in the big arena.”

Virgil is slated to compete at the Williams Lake Stampede on Saturday, July 2.

He is also registered to rodeo in Ponoka, Alta on Thursday, June 30, and Airdrie, Alta. on Friday, July 1.

“If I make the circuit then I’ll have to drive back to Ponoka for the Sunday. It will be an all-night drive.”

Rino was travelling with him to Ponoka.

“We’ll drive out Tuesday so we can get a day out there. Rino’s got some friends still from when we lived there. Hopefully we can go see them because he has not seen them since we left three years ago.”

Depending on how he does this weekend at the Stampede and rodeos in Alberta, he could be hitting at least 15 more pro rodeos this season.

With the price of gasoline so high right now, he said it can be “hard yah.”

When asked if there was something else of interest about himself he’d like to share, Virgil responded, chuckling, that his life is mostly “family, rodeo and work.”

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