*Photo Credit FORT WORTH — Tana Poppino spent 20 years as a media and marketing executive for an Oklahoma utility company. She earned a steady salary. Good benefits. Lots of vacation.
And she walked away.
“It just wasn’t my dream, plain and simple,” she says.
Her dream was professional rodeo barrel racing, a future she first envisioned as a child competing in youth rodeos while growing up on her family’s ranch.
Since quitting her job four years ago, Poppino qualified in 2006 and 2007 for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. Her rodeo Web site says she has more than $300,000 in career earnings.
The 46-year-old is competing this week at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo.
“Most people thought I was really crazy,” she said. “But I just felt peace. If I hadn’t done it, I would have spent the rest of my life wondering if I could have made it rodeoing.” (read more)
