GREAT FALLS — You have to be a little big brave to compete in a rodeo. But on Saturday night at the Big Sky Pro Rodeo in Great Falls on Saturday, the bravest person in attendance was in the grandstands.
Great Falls resident Hope Good has a passion for rodeo and you can usually spot her and her husband Tim in the arena wherever horses are bucking and folks are riding. She’s usually there to watch - but on Saturday night she was unknowingly about to become the center of attention.
“Right before barrel racing my husband said he needed to show me something,” Good said. “And then all of a sudden the grandkids come out and I thought, ‘oh, we're going to do something with the grandkids’. So I had no idea.”
The Goods went to the dirt and met with family friend Lorell Heckman. Next thing you know, Hope was climbing aboard a mule hitch and entering the arena to applause. Then a video played on the arena screen and Heckman’s voice came over the PA:
“It is an honor to present the 2024 Perseverance, Character, and Hope memorial buckle to Hope Good. Her name says it all.”
Good received the Rocky’s Road Continues award named after the late Rocky Heckman who lost his battle with brain cancer in 2017. It’s given annually to an individual who espouses the traits that made Rocky such a beloved figure in the rodeo community and beyond.
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“I knew Rocky and this is a tremendous honor,” Good said. “And, I love the family. Rocky fought a tough fight, and he gave hope to a lot of cancer survivors out there.”
Hope herself is a cancer survivor. She was initially diagnosed in 2014 and underwent a double mastectomy and months of chemotherapy. Her cancer returned in 2016, and after more treatment she went into remission once again.
But it’s not her fight alone that distinguishes Hope. It’s her response and her message. She regularly organizes annual fundraisers through her charity “Breast Cancer Awareness” and publishes a free booklet on cancer risk factors, testing and therapies.
The book is distributed across the state and included in Treasure State Lifestyles, the magazine that Good owns, operates and publishes.
“It’s free. It's 16 pages and has a lot of the basic things that patients and families need to know to make it a little less scary,” Good said. “I’m a writer, so I wrote a book. That was my way of dealing with my cancer journey.”
To the Heckman family, Hope Good was a perfect recipient for the annual award.
“She's been through a lot but she always has such a strong, just positive attitude about her life. And when she was dealt a bad hand with cancer, she said, ‘I’m not going to just take that. I'm going to turn it around, and I'm going to figure out how to make this easier on other people that have breast cancer going forward’,” Lorell Heckman said. “And that's the epitome of what we want this to be. Somebody who doesn't just let the bad things of life get you down, but they turn it around and make good out of it.”
Put simply - Hope wants to spread hope, and make sure anyone fighting cancer is not alone.
“We just don't want women to feel that they gotta hide. There are people out there that will help them, and there's strength in numbers,” Good said. “And we got a big team and we'll keep growing with our team.”
And that team now includes everyone in attendance on Saturday night.
