{"id":16796,"date":"2025-08-24T21:09:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T21:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-barber-places-fifth-at-cheyenne-frontier-days\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:01:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:01:22","slug":"cortez-barber-places-fifth-at-cheyenne-frontier-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-barber-places-fifth-at-cheyenne-frontier-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez barber places fifth at Cheyenne Frontier Days"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kyle
Kyle Polich, who owns KP\u2019s Barbershop in Cortez, placed fifth at Cheyenne Frontier Days. (Kyle Polich\/Courtesy photo)<\/span>Christopher Thompson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Corterz barber Kyle Polich, 50, made a triumphant return to Cheyenne Frontier Days this July after a 15-year hiatus, teaming up with T.J. Watts of Eads to clinch fifth place in team roping at Wyoming\u2019s premier rodeo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the most prestigious rodeos, and it\u2019s kind of like a dream rodeo,\u201d Polich told The<\/em> Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Polich, a lifelong Cortez resident, has been roping since childhood and shared that he grew up immersed in rodeo culture.<\/p>\n

His recent performance at Cheyenne, one of the nation\u2019s most renowned rodeos, came after his daughter\u2019s high school graduation.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter graduated high school, so it was a time to go and try one more time,\u201d Polich said. \u201cIt was a lot better than we expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polich and Watts delivered a strong showing, placing in multiple rounds, winning a performance, and ultimately securing fifth place in the average. But the road to that finish wasn\u2019t without its twists. After returning home at 4 a.m., Polich received an unexpected call summoning him back to Wyoming for the final round. With the help of friends, he made the early morning drive and was back in the arena that same afternoon, ready to rope.<\/p>\n

Polich also owns KP\u2019s Barbershop, which he has owned since 2018. After stepping back from the rodeo scene to be present in helping raise son Koby, a 22-year-old welder, and daughter Jori, a freshman at Lamar University, he pursued barbering, a trade he studied in college.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy kids were in school and I wanted to raise them instead of rodeoing and stuff,\u201d Polich said. \u201cI really enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The barbershop has become a community hub where he connects with local youths that he noted as the promising future of Montezuma County.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really enjoy the young people and the kids, the young men in our community, because they\u2019re overlooked a lot of times,\u201d Polich said. \u201cPeople tend to look down on younger generations, but I don\u2019t think they realize how good our young men are \u2026 I think our future in Montezuma County is really bright.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also spoke of his wife, Jackie, who has been his partner since 1998. Together, they ride and rope daily at their Cortez home.<\/p>\n

When asked if he has any plans to compete again soon, Polich said, \u201cI\u2019m going to appreciate whatever comes down the road to me. \u2026 I\u2019m just thankful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

owns KP\u2019s Barbershop in Cortez <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,21,28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-community","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20396,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16796\/revisions\/20396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16796"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}