Rodeo Competitors Fight Smokeless Tobacco Use at Laramie Jubilee Days

Source: www.y95country.comAuthor: Nick Learned Two professional rodeo contestants will ride exclusively for the Oral Cancer Foundation this weekend as part of Laramie Jubilee Days with a goal of preventing young fans from using smokeless tobacco. Cody Kiser and Carly Twisselman each aim to show rodeo fans, particularly the younger ones, chewing or using other forms of smokeless tobacco isn’t what makes them who they are. They promote the Foundation’s campaign which uses the slogan “Be Smart. Don’t Start.” Their approach is anything but confrontational or aggressive. Rather than encouraging people to quit, they hope to encourage young fans to never pick up the habit in the first place. And where some rely on statistics to make the point, Kiser and Twisselman take a different approach. Simply giving attention to young rodeo fans is a big part of getting their message across. “Its not the facts that they’re going to take home,” Kiser says. “Everybody knows that tobacco’s bad; you can get cancer and you can die. But the biggest impact that I see is just acknowledging those kids or acknowledging those people in the audience that want to know more, and you can show them what you can do without tobacco.” “I’m not out there to tell anybody how to live their life or preach to them about needing to quit,” Kiser says. “It’s not our place to do that,” Twisselman says. “People most of the time aren’t going to listen when you tell them something like that anyway.” The pair will be wearing Oral Cancer Foundation gear [...]

2016-07-08T11:15:42-07:00July, 2016|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Rodeo outreach program fights oral cancer

Source: www.olivesoftware.comAuthor: Stewart M. Green Carly Twisselman, a spokesperson with the Oral Cancer Foundation’s rodeo outreach program, and her horse Chanel travel the Western rodeo circuit and talk with kids about the dangers of using spit tobacco. Photo by Stewart M. Green Carly Twisselman brushed her horse Chanel outside a stall at the Norris-Penrose Event Center, home of the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo, which will roll into town July 13-16. “I’ve been rodeoing my whole life,” she said. “Now I do it at the professional level. This is my rookie year so I’m going really hard. I want to win the rookie title.” Summer is the busiest time of the year for cowgirls and cowboys. “We call it Cowboy Christmas, the 4th of July run,” she said. Twisselman and her travel partner have recently competed in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and just drove up from Pecos, Texas, to Colorado Springs for qualifiers. “It’s a crazy time,” she said. “Lots of traveling, but lots of money to be won.” Twisselman, a 30-year-old barrel racer, grew up on a ranch near San Luis Obispo on the central California coast. “My family’s been ranching there for seven generations,” she said. “I was on the back of a horse all the time. I was riding before I could walk.” While growing up in the Western ranching and rodeo culture, Twisselman was aware of the widespread use of spit tobacco by cowboys. “I’ve been around it my whole life and seen a lot [...]

2016-07-06T17:39:17-07:00July, 2016|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Rodeo Competitor Speaks to Youth to Spread Anti-Tobacco Message

  Source: www.prnewswire.comAuthor: Oral Cancer Foundation  Cody Kiser prepares for competition while sporting the Oral Cancer Foundation's message - Be Smart. Don't Start.   NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Aug. 14, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The traditional image of the American cowboy is one of strength, rugged determination and courage. In the world of professional rodeo competition, that image is no different. Cowboys—and increasingly so cowgirls—are held in esteem and looked at as heroes by young and old alike. The power of the cowboy as a compelling figure has not gone unnoticed by the tobacco industry, whose marketing campaigns have sought to tie the ideals of the cowboy with the use of their products. The western/rodeo environment in the US has had a long-term relationship with tobacco, and until 2009 The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) and the rodeos that they sanctioned had a lengthy history of tobacco money funding the sport. While that has ended at PRCA events, tobacco use and smokeless/spit tobaccos are still popular within the sport. The Oral Cancer Foundation (OCF) believes that in order to solve problems you must engage the problem at the source. As a small and growing non-profit, OCF is not afforded the luxury of relying on conventional methods of outreach utilized by larger, more established charities. To enact meaningful change and bring awareness to the public, OCF must employ ingenuity and creativity to address the problems at hand. Within the world of professional rodeo, that problem remains to be the glorification and pervasive use [...]

2015-08-14T10:51:59-07:00August, 2015|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Giving chew the boot: Rodeo riders lead oral cancer awareness campaign

Source: mohavedailynews.comAuthor: DK McDonald LAUGHLIN — Rodeo professionals Carly Twisselman and Cody Kiser are bringing something extra to their competition at the Avi Stampede PRCA Rodeo this weekend. They are bringing a message to kids. The public faces of the “Be Smart, Don’t Start” tobacco use awareness campaign, Twisselman and Kiser are sponsored by The Oral Cancer Foundation. “We’re the first charity to ever be the exclusive sponsors of any rodeo competitors,” said Brian Hill, founder and executive director of The Oral Cancer Foundation. “We go to the rodeos with Carly and Cody to get the word out to kids.  “As in most things, if we can catch kids early and can show them good role models like Carly and Cody, who are fierce competitors and great people, they can see that tobacco doesn’t have to be a part of being a great cowboy or cowgirl.” The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and tobacco have a history; until 2009 the PRCA accepted tobacco sponsorship money to fund the sport.  “Now, the PRCA disassociated itself with spit tobacco companies back in 2009 and they’re no longer financial sponsors of rodeo,” said Hill. “It was really a great thing for PRCA to do. That being said, the people who attend and the competitors themselves still tend to be heavy users of tobacco, spit tobacco and cigarettes.” Spit tobacco, which can refer to smokeless tobacco, dip, snuff, chew, and chewing tobacco, according to the OCF, can cause gum disease, tooth decay, and white patches and [...]

2015-03-13T11:00:58-07:00March, 2015|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Cowboy becomes advocate for Oral Cancer Foundation

Source: Idaho Press-Tribune/www.idahopress.comAuthor: Kelcie Moseley Brian Hill was a self-professed health freak. He was an outdoorsman who had never used tobacco. He was a fit 230 pounds with 8 percent body fat. But a lump in the side of his neck changed his life in 1997. Hill is the founder and president of the Oral Cancer Foundation, a small national nonprofit organization based in Newport Beach, California. He is an oral cancer survivor who contracted the disease through human papillomavirus, or HPV, which happens more often than people think, Hill said. He is now a fierce advocate for more awareness of the disease, which is also often caused by smoking or chewing tobacco — and those two forms of tobacco are about as common with the rodeo crowd as Coors and Budweiser. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 14 percent of boys ages 12 to 17 use smokeless tobacco nationwide, and the rates are higher in rural states. The newest effort to achieve more awareness and early detection of oral cancer starts with Cody Kiser, the new rodeo representative for the foundation. Kiser, 23, is a bareback bronco rider who competed in the Snake River Stampede this week on his rodeo circuit. He graduated in May with a civil engineering degree from the University of Nevada-Reno, not far from his hometown of Carson City. “We’ve wanted to (have a rodeo representative) for about five years, we just never found the right person who was the right voice [...]

2014-07-21T14:28:55-07:00July, 2014|OCF In The News|

For the first time in nearly four decades, smokeless tobacco has no hand in sponsoring the College National Finals Rodeo

Source: Billings Gazette CASPER, Wyo. — The once steadfast coupling of chewing tobacco and the collegiate cowboy extravaganza is no more. There are no Copenhagen banners, there are no Skoal flags. There are no free samples. For the first time in nearly four decades, smokeless tobacco has no hand in sponsoring the College National Finals Rodeo. “It’s a tremendous and tragic loss to college rodeo,” National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association Commissioner Roger Walters said during the weeklong 2011 CNFR, which ended Saturday night at the Casper Events Center. “Who lost? Our students.” For 37 years, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in the form of scholarships to college rodeo. While the presence of the company’s banners and flags at the CNFR ceased in 2009, the company — acquired by Altria that same year — continued giving scholarship money through last year. Walters said the company, in a time of economic hardship, gave roughly $250,000 in scholarships each year to college rodeo performers. The sponsorship pullout by the company, he said, constituted an 80 to 85 percent loss in money available for the performers. “I understand the reasons (for their departure), but in the long run, it hurts our students,” he said. “And that’s what this rodeo is for, first and foremost.” Health officials, however, applauded the move. “It is never a good idea to promote a product that is a deadly killer,” said Niki Mueller, the program director of Wyoming Through With Chew. “Rodeo is a family event, [...]

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