The Farm Kids Scholarship Fund is going buck-wild in support of rural youth education this April.

The Kamloops-based non-profit organization will is hosting the Young Guns Bullarama in Barriere on April 6 at the North Thompson Agriplex.

The event will feature novice riders competing against provincial and professional riders and will use a handicapping system to score the rides in a manner that will put the novices and the professionals on equal footing.

“The emphasis of this event isn’t a great big show, the emphasis is on the mentoring and the training of young bull riders,” said Steven Puhallo, president and founder of the Farm Kids Scholarship Fund. “It’s a great way to spend a weekend in the beer gardens or on the grounds, watching tomorrow’s champions against today’s.”

Puhallo formed the Farm Kids Scholarship Fund in 2012 after his uncle, Mike Puhallo, passed away.

Finding a way to fund higher education for rural students was a dream that Mike and Steven shared and Steven feels that the Farm Kids Scholarship Fund fills a void in existing post-secondary funding, which tends to focus on rural students heading into agriculture-based fields.

“If you want to go weld, if you want to be a hair-salonist, if you want to explore deep-space, if you’re a farm-kid needing a hand, that’s the void we want to fill,” Puhallo said.

The non-profit will host four events annually, all in Barriere at the North Thompson Agriplex. It hosted its first event last New Year’s Eve and raised $10,000, which will be used as seed-money for future events. They will hand out their first scholarships in January of 2014.

The stock contractors involved in the Young Guns Bullarama have donated their chute fees in support of the event and all net proceeds raised during the event will go towards the scholarship fund.

Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at The Horse Barn in Kamloops, the North Thompson Star/Journal in Barriere, or online at www.farmkidsfund.ca.