NATCHEZ — If it’s a weekend, it’s probably a rodeo for Fredrick Mayberry and his 9-year-old daughter Rearnne.

Rearnne Mayberry, a McLaurin Elementary School student, won her first belt after placing first in the Solomon’s New Year’s Rodeo New Year’s weekend in Brenham, Texas.

“It was good, fun and exciting,” Rearnne said. “I was a little nervous, but I stopped being nervous when I caught my first calf.”

Her father is more likely to have the butterflies in his stomach, he said.

“I think I’m more nervous than anything,” Fredrick Mayberry said. “I don’t think she gets nervous. She likes competition and likes to win. She’s not the nervous type.”

But Rearnne said that isn’t always the case.

“I get nervous sometimes,” she said.

Rearnne competed in the 15 and under junior breakaway calf roping division at the rodeo. There were approximately 15 to 20 contestants, many whom were older than her.

“She’s young, but she’s starting to get a little size on her,” Fredrick Mayberry said. “She’s growing a bit.”

Fredrick Mayberry said Rearnne has been competing in rodeos since she was 5, and is a member of the Dixie Riding Club.

“We’ve probably been to a million rodeos,” he said. “We go every weekend in the summer. In the winter it slacks down a bit.

“We rodeo all over. It’s interesting racking up all these long miles. It’s just fun, and it’s fun having kids involved in it.”

And doing rodeo events is something that runs in the family for Fredrick Mayberry, he said.

“I always competed, but I never had the chance to travel like she has. It’s a good experience,” he said.

And now that Rearnne has her first belt, Fredrick said he hopes it’s the first of many.

“This year, she really turned it on and started roping well,” Fredrick Mayberry said. “I’m hoping it goes a lot farther and conceives the ultimate goal.

“They do have scholarships in rodeo. I’d like to get her into barrel racing too. We’ll work on that this summer.”

Barrel racing would not be totally new for Rearnne, she said.

“I used to do it when I was little, and I can do it, but I fell the last time I was barrel racing,” she said.

Of all the places she’s traveled, her favorite so far is Biloxi, she said.

“That’s because she can swim,” her father joked.