It’s been a rough few months for Northwest College freshman and rodeo team member Cole Biggers.

In early June, while the Sweet, Idaho, resident was living with a friend, their house burned down — taking his rodeo gear along with it.

Friends raised funds and contributed items to replace the gear lost in the fire, helping Biggers arrive at the NWC campus ready to rodeo. But that work was quickly undone. On Labor Day morning, sometime after 1 a.m., someone got into Biggers’ truck while it was parked in front of Simpson Hall and they stole his newly replaced gear, which Biggers estimates was worth around $1,500.

“Most of it that got stolen was actually just borrowed or gifts,” he said. “So I was just getting set back up again to be able to ride.”

He wasn’t the only victim, either. As it turned out, a total of four vehicles in the dorm parking lot were apparently burglarized in the early morning hours of Monday, Sept. 7.

“Four in the same night is outside of the norm,” said Powell Police Chief Roy Eckerdt.

Items were stolen from three of the vehicles, he said, while someone entered the fourth without taking anything.

A small amount of cash was taken from one vehicle and a jacket was stolen from a motorcycle, which also was dealt hundreds of dollars worth of damage, Eckerdt said. Then there was the gear stolen from Biggers.

With the theft occurring just days before the Trappers’ season-opening rodeo in Cody, “it put me in a tight spot,” the saddle bronc rider said, “but just a lot of the rodeo team came forward, let me borrow some gear and stuff like that.”

Back at a rodeo in Idaho, a friend also organized a benefit. The loaners and assistance will get him through the fall season.

“It does feel different and you definitely get used to the gear you were riding in,” Biggers said. “It’s kind of tough to change things up once you get in a groove, but [I’m] definitely still able to move forward as of now.”

At Friday night’s season-opening rodeo at Cody Stampede Park, Biggers was bucked off, but he covered his horse on Saturday with a “pretty cool ride.”

Biggers is still holding out hope of finding his stolen gear. He took to Facebook last week to ask for help in identifying the culprit or culprits. He’s been asking friends and community members to keep their eyes out for his red and white NWC gear bag, yellow straw hat, brown chaps (featuring a black clover on each leg), spurs, halters, boots, a vest, a pink bronc rein “and everything else I needed for bronc riding that was in the bag.”

Although Biggers’ Facebook post was shared nearly 900 times — and led to him connecting with a couple of the other students who’d been burglarized — it hasn’t resulted in the identification of a suspect or the return of Biggers’ gear so far.

Eckerdt said Friday that the four burglary cases are “all still open and under investigation.”

There’s also been another theft: Biggers said that this week, another member of the rodeo team had tools, horseshoeing equipment and other items stolen from his vehicle while it was parked in the Simpson Hall lot.

“It seems like they just keep doing it,” Biggers said.

Chief Eckerdt encouraged people to lock their vehicles and to leave valuables out of sight. Auto burglaries can be difficult to solve, particularly when a vehicle is unlocked and the culprit can slip in and out; for instance, no arrests have been made in connection with a string of 16 burglaries committed in Powell over the course of a week-and-a-half in late April and early May.

Anyone with information about the recent thefts at NWC can contact Powell police by calling 307-754-2212 or by leaving an anonymous tip on the department’s Crime Tips Line at 307-764-8400.