Hometown: Miami, Okla.
Family: Husband, Chad; step-son, Landon (12); daughters, Burkley (6) and Brittyn (6 months)
In Town: Nikki Evans is a loan officer with Oklahoma AgCredit in Vinita, Okla.
“We are an ag lending institution and we do farm loans, equipment loans, cattle loans, basically any kind of rural financing.”
Nikki has been with Oklahoma AgCredit for seven years. She began her role as a loan officer four years.
In the Country: Nikki grew up in the rodeo world, and rodeoed herself. She said she has been around horses and cattle, “pretty much my whole life.” Her husband Chad is a competitive team roper.
“We have roping steers and horses,” she said. “The last few years, we’ve had a small cow/calf operation, and hayed our leased ground.”
They own 40 acres in the Miami area and lease an additional 160.
The couple recently liquidated their commercial cow/calf operation, which varied between 100 to 300 head, because of the continued drought.
“We have been haying everything,” Nikki explained. “We didn’t want to overgraze our pastures because we wanted to be able to get good hay from it. We plan to buy back, but the market isn’t good for that now.”
The family’s cattle operation may be hold, but the Evans family continues the cowboy way of life. Raising their children in a rural lifestyle has been important for Nikki and Chad, and they are passing on the tradition to the next generation.
“Burkley is getting into rodeo now,” Nikki said. “She’s worked cows with us and she is riding horses now, and my step-son is roping. It’s great to see them get into it now.”
Nikki said she still competes, when possible, but having a 6-month-old can make that difficult at times.
“Chad still ropes every weekend and we go with him,” Nikki said.
They have six horses, roping and barrel horses, as well as Burkley’s pony, but they are not horse breeders.
“We’ve worked with some young ones, but we typically acquire what we need at the time,” Nikki explained.
Future Plans: They couple has no timeline on reestablishing their cattle herd, and Nikki said there will likely be several junior rodeos in their future.
“All of the kids really love riding, so I think that might be the course of action for the next couple of years,” she said.
