Kylee Johnson’s Barbie doll collection has been gathering dust while Kylee, an 8-year-old who lives at Crooked River Ranch, has been competing in junior rodeos.

But according to Kylee’s mother, the Barbies would probably be gathering dust even if Kylee wasn’t so busy.

”I tried to get her into the Barbie thing,” Wendy Johnson says almost apologetically, ”but I don’t think she was ever really interested.”

Kylee is this year’s reserve all-around champion in the junior category of the Central Oregon PeeWee Rodeo Association. But whether she’s throwing her hands triumphantly in the air after a good goat tie, riding a volatile calf to the bell, or making quick time running the barrels, Kylee is just doing something it seems she was born to do.

In a word, she’s a ”natural.”

Twenty-year-old Jessie Palmer of Redmond is Kylee’s aunt, coach, and a seasoned and successful rodeo competitor who, like Kylee, started in the sport at a very young age. Palmer is watching her niece’s progress with delight.

”We try to make sure she stays positive no matter what. Even if she doesn’t have the best time we encourage her to look at the positive side of things,” Palmer says.

But according to Wendy, Kylee is her own most strict judge.

”She’s way harder on herself than anyone else is,” Kylee’s mother observes. ”If she makes a run and we’re happy with it, but for some reason she’s not happy with it, we can’t talk her into the fact that she did a great job. She already has it in her mind that it wasn’t as good as she wanted to do, and that’s it.”

Kylee, a blond-haired third-grader at John Tuck Elementary School in Redmond, started riding at the age of 3. Soon thereafter, she was riding in PeeWee rodeo as well as in a few parades.

”The first time she got on a horse we wanted to lead her and help her, and she really wanted to do it by herself,” Wendy recalls. ”We were going to try and let her realize that she couldn’t do it on her own and that she did need our help, but she never did need our help.

”She did it all by herself. At that time, her horse, Hank, was 18 and pretty well broke, but he was also a pretty big horse.”

Wendy guesses that Kylee probably weighed 35 pounds when she got started.

”Her feet didn’t even reach the middle of Hank’s stomach,” she says.

Even for someone so young Kylee was considered petite. Since then, she’s done a lot of growing. Now an athletic 60 pounds, Kylee can rope a goat and throw it. When she first started in goat tying she couldn’t flip the animal, and she would get frustrated. But that didn’t last long. Kylee, as both her mother and aunt observe, is pretty quick on the uptake. She watches until she understands, then she tries to do it better the next time.

”When she was little at the rodeos she did nothing but watch,” Wendy remembers. ”Kylee soaked everything in … nothing gets by her. She absorbs whatever she needs and then she takes it to apply at that area of her life.”

At age 6, Kylee won her first all-around champion belt buckle. That was when she moved up into the junior division and expanded her expertise from pole bending and barrel racing to include goat tying and calf riding.

Kylee practiced on only a couple of calves before she was ready to compete on them.

”I don’t think about anything except for staying on,” she says. ”I have to lean back, put my head in a certain position, keep my feet and chest up, and just have to try to stay on.”

Calves in Kylee’s age division weigh about 250 pounds. In her first season, Kylee rode seven out of eight calves to the bell, or the required six seconds.

The fact that Kylee is a bit of a peewee prodigy surprises no one in the immediate family. She’s descended from rodeo achievers, but it just so happens that she reached out and took a firm grip early on.

Though she enjoys riding four-wheelers and snowmobiles, playing soccer, and art in school, rodeo is her passion.

Family ties and cooperation have helped Kylee tremendously as she’s worked her way around the circuit.

”She has a huge support team,” Wendy observes. ”We call it her entourage. When we go to a rodeo we have somebody who leads her into the gate. We have somebody who stands at the gate, someone who videos her, and then someone who helps her get out of the arena and ready for the next event.”

Kylee enjoys being with friends at the rodeos. A pre-ride ritual involves getting together with her buddies and decorating their horses with special glitter for the events.

Once the rodeo starts, Kylee is all focus.

”I like weaving between the poles in pole bending,” she says. ”I like going faster between the barrels. I like tying the goats and I like trying to stay on the calves.”

Though there are occasional moments when she falls off the calf the wrong way or doesn’t make her time in a speed event, the good days far outweigh the bad.

Kylee is known to her friends and family as a kind and sharing person. She’s shared her horse when a friend lost hers for competition, and she has been known to hunt up ice cream money for those in need.

According to her mother, Kylee rose to a special challenge this year when her promising mount, Kangaroo, had to be withdrawn from the circuit early on and Kylee was faced with scratching or riding a more difficult horse.

”She was faced with learning how to ride harder on a harder horse or not riding. Because of that, her riding skill improved 100 percent,” says Wendy. ”And she learned how to adjust her style to the new horse in a matter of two or three weeks.”

Pictures in Kylee’s scrapbook show a little girl who’s hard at work and happy at the same time. For her birthday this year gifts included a totally new outfit, including purple and black chaps and a protective vest. She also wears a helmet and protective mouth gear when she rides calves.

Last winter she competed in the Prineville Barrel Racing and Pole Bending series. She wears a shiny belt buckle for her victory in the PeeWee division for barrel racing. And she also came in second in pole bending in the women’s open division, where she competed against approximately 50 women.

Kylee’s come a long way from the time when everyone used to say Oh my gosh, look at that tiny little girl on that great big horse,” says Wendy. And though the family has no intention of pressuring Kylee in any way to stick with PeeWee rodeo, it looks like their biggest problem may well be holding her back.

Dana Burnett can be reached at 548-1409 or dana2@quik.com.