When Dominic Romero was alive, he would tell his mom, “All I want to do is rope in Las Vegas. I can’t wait until I turn 21.”
As we detailed in our November 2019 story “A Mother’s Love,” Michelle Arbizo’s youngest of five sons was already 13 when he decided he wanted to become a team roper after watching a perf at his local rodeo, Tucson’s La Fiesta de los Vaqueros.
So, she’d bought him his first horse and he’d spent a year learning to ride in the desert every day after wrestling or football practice. Then she’d gotten him a job working at Rudy Clark’s Arizona ropings, pushing up steers. He began practicing and, with Clark’s help, eventually began entering…