Burke Moore permanently resides in Marana, Ariz., but the explosive southpaw heeler leads a fiery lifestyle outside the roping pen, spending his days as a blasting engineer for M.C. Donegan—a company based out of Bluffdale, Texas. Moore covers mostly Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas, but has done some blasting work in other states as well.
Although he attended high school in Flagstaff, Moore fell in love with the Sonoran Desert lifestyle a ter spending time in the Phoenix and Tucson areas when his company sent him to the Catalina Mountains. There, he was assigned projects like lattening a mountaintop to allow for a new Ritz- Carlton hotel as well as preparations for the Stone Canyon Golf Course in Oro Valley.
“Controlled blasting is all about math,” Moore said. “We know exactly what it's going to do before it happens. We have done blasting in between highways and railroad tracks, where we can't damage either one. We can blast right up next to structures without vibrating the foundation of that building. It's all very precise.”
Outside of his normal territory, Moore has worked on projects like Wolf Creek pass in Colorado and Beartooth pass in Montana—which even earned his company industry awards.
Not long a ter relocating to Arizona, Moore met Erika Barre', a school teacher who had made her way to Arizona to escape the high cost of living in her home state. The two are scheduled to tie the knot this June.
“We're getting married in a little town called Tubac, Ariz., which is a golf resort,” Moore said. “It's an old cattle ranch between Tucson and Nogales, Mexico. We've only been engaged for three years, so we figured it was time to go ahead and get married.”
Growing up, Moore was o ten horseback alongside his dad who was a horse broker in the West Texas and New Mexico areas. However, his true passion through high school and college was on the back of a 1,500-pound bucking bull. A ter competing on the rodeo team at Howard College in Big Spring, Texas, Moore decided to try his luck on the professional circuit. Soon a ter he started he was involved in a wreck that resulted in a severely broken right arm. Following the injury he began team roping more o ten and focused on heeling with his le t hand.
“I'm le t handed naturally and I had tried roping with my le t hand all my life,” Moore said. “I had always played with ropes with either hand but I didn't make heeling le t handed a true habit until I came to Arizona in 2009, and really started roping a lot more.”
While Moore doesn't see any challenges in his le t-handedness personally, he does think it is a little more difficult to find partners to rope with. Lamenting that many ropers see it as a disadvantage. But he's always managed to find his way to the pay window. One of his most memorable wins was at Yost Events’ Arizona Bowl roping in 2011 when he and his header, Kerry Black, won $10,000.
“Arizona is the greatest place to live because we get to rope year-round,” Moore finished. “In the summer we rope at night and we can literally rope all winter long. When I went to Texas for college I thought for sure I would stay there. Now, being back in Arizona, I think this will always be home.”
