Jesse Andrus & Mike Hillman Memorial

The Jesse Andrus & Mike Hillman Memorial Pro Rodeo is an annual event in memory of these two senior high-school students whose lives tragically ended. The memorial raises funds to support local charities.

Jesse Andrus and Mike Hillman were fun-loving all-American boys—cowboys—and the best of brotherly friends. The popular Goddard High School seniors, who were 18 and winning up a storm in the New Mexico High School Rodeo Association when they headed to Heaven together, were so close to being brothers that they took their senior pictures together. The super sad irony is that the boys did the responsible thing that we as parents ask them to do—when they were too tired to drive, they pulled over to get some sleep instead of risking falling asleep at the wheel.

Jesse and Mike went to bed on Cloud 9 that Saturday night, after riding at the Fiesta Days PRCA Rodeo in nearby Cave Creek, Ariz. Mike won the bronc riding—and his first PRCA check—with a 79-point ride on Honeycutt Rodeo’s Painted Sparrow. It was bull rider Jesse’s first-ever PRCA rodeo, and he too got his first check as a ProRodeo cowboy.