Alum of the Month February 2007

Colt Sleaster ’04  What do the culinary arts and bull riding have in common? 

Most of us think that we’re supposed to know what we’re going to do and what we’re going to be by the time we graduate high school. But life can take us in directions that we never expect. When it does, we realize that few of us really do know what we’re going to do and be “when we grow up.” Colt Sleaster ’04 is a great example of how life’s direction can change in a very unexpected way. 

For those who don’t know Colt, he’s a tall, lanky, and very friendly guy. While at Erskine he played baseball, wrestled, and prepared for a career in the culinary arts. He worked at the CATC in their culinary arts program and learned all the basics of cooking, food storage, shipping and receiving, catering, and banquets. He wanted to follow this path because he had taken one of those career-decision-making tests and it indicated that culinary arts would be a good fit for him. But after a year at Johnson and Wales College in Rhode Island, he felt he was not getting the satisfaction out of the field that he had hoped for, and he decided to make a switch. 

He had always had a fondness for horses. In fact, he had learned to ride and do ranch chores at a nearby horse farm thanks to Jennifer Whitney, mother of our own Carley Edgar ’07. So when a friend at college told him about a ranch he’d worked at in the Adirondack mountains, Colt decided to check it out. He applied and was accepted there as a cowboy, ranch hand, and trail guide. 

While at the mountain ranch, a friend and mentor encouraged him to ride a bull at the Painted Pony Rodeo at Lake Lucerne. His ride only lasted five seconds, but he was hooked and began participating in more rodeos throughout the state. Now, Colt has been invited by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA http://www.prorodeo.org/) to ride in the Oklahoma circuit, so in early February he will move to Oklahoma (his mom’s home state) and begin his career as a professional bull rider. 

Colt is happy and proud of his success and reminds us that you never know where life might take you after Erskine.