Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home Rodeo drew lived up to its expectations this year as crowds flowed in.
“Excellent,” Dave Butler, a member of the rodeo committee, said. “We had a huge turnout for the Loggers’ Olympics, biggest turnout I’ve ever seen here.”
The front parking area was full with another four rows from Long Street to the wetlands on the rodeo grounds at the east end of Long Street.
Butler guessed there were at least 500 cars parked for the Loggers’ Olympics.
As far as the rodeo, “I think it was probably one our best nights ever for a Friday night,” Butler said. It pretty much filled the front parking lot, and the bleachers seemed full.
Entering the rodeo grounds, sponsor Chinook Winds was busy giving people a free spin on a wheel promoting the opening of a hotel linked to the casino. Nearby, Dodge representatives showed off the latest models.
“Wonderful,” Dave Kem, a committee member, said as he watched the bleachers fill Saturday night. “The crowd’s still coming in. We’re looking great.”
Not only was the number of spectators apparently up, so was the number of cowboys entering events.
In rodeos, the number of cowboys competing changes, Kem explained. They sign up by contacting the stock contractor and pay their entry fees. Individual cowboys tell the contractor which events they will compete in. If they win the event, the contractor sends them a check in the mail.
Friday night, the rodeo had 75 cowboys, Kem said. Saturday night, it had more than that.
“Friday night, we had twice the amount we normally do, and it looks we might get filled up tonight,” Kem said of the bleachers.
Sue Johnston, a committee member, expected that Sunday’s turnout would be pure profit for the rodeo.
The rodeo turns the money back into the event for next year, making improvements as it can to the arena.
With slight cloud cover and mild temperatures, Kem thought the weather made a difference.
“People don’t want to go when the weather’s hot,” Kem said. Last year’s rodeo was hot, and as a result, attendance was down for all rodeos.
“The cowboys seem to like our arena as far as the dirt’s concerned,” Kem said.
“It’s an incredible rodeo put together by an incredible committee,” J.J. Harrison, the rodeo’s new clown, said. “From top down, there’s not one flaw in the whole thing.”
The fans were the number one reason it was so good, Harrison said. After seeing Friday’s crowd and their screaming at just half the size of Saturday’s, “I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight. If I had a small child, I’d lock him up.”
Harrison said the stock contractor, B-bar-D, went way out for this rode, providing the best.
Entering the arena to start the show, Harrison asked the announcer, “Are we going to run a horse into the fence again tonight?”
He explained to the spectators, “We wanted to test the elasticity of the fence” so they ran one of the first horses out of the chute into the fence.
He pointed out the area where the fence was knocked over and apologized to a man sitting there and explained that it just had to be done.
“My job is to entertain the crowd, make sure everybody is not sitting on their hands,” Harrison, a seventh-grade teacher from Walla Walla, Wash., said. He does it for the kids. “I love kids, anything you can do with kids. If it weren’t for the kids, rodeo would die.”
Johnston managed to get a small break after the rodeo started.
“We have been at this booth for an hour and half without moving,” Johnston said. Her niece and nephew were busy stamping hands.
“I was bored,” niece Hailey Johnston said, so she agreed to stamp hands as people entered. She has never been to a rodeo and still hadn’t seen events except on TV. She thought she would enjoy rodeo, “not riding in it ? but watching it.”
“It looks real good,” Rodeo Committee President Dick Coffin said as he prepared to release sheep for the mutton bustin’ competition.
Looking over the bleachers, he said, “that’s perfect. I love it. I think this is going to be a very, very good weekend.”
Disaster loomed for a couple of minutes as two sheep slipped away from their corral, but the fugitives were captured just in time for the young children to try their hand at rodeo riding.
Zachary Brinkley, the 6-year-old son of Tom and Kandi Brinkley, won the buckle for the event.
“When I fell off, it scraped my hand,” Zachary said. “The sheep went around and stopped, went around and stopped. Finally it stopped. I was touching the ground and picked my feet up.”
The sheep went a little farther around the arena before it flipped over.
“I even saw the clown guy when I went around,” Zachary said. “I was hanging on around the throat. My chin kept hitting the sheep’s head. I think I was going to fall off before anyone fell off.”
Pretty soon, he was one of about three who was still riding. One girl’s, Kandace Steele, sheep never stood up. Another girl held on but slipped sideways before Zachary.
“I thought she was going to get it,” Zachary’s brother, Levi, said.
The event was his first time riding a sheep, he said. He saw it Friday night while at the rodeo with his father, who was representing Dodge at the rodeo.
Levi was planning to compete in the calf scramble. He thought he had a pretty good shot because he can run fast.
“You’ve got to try to get the ribbons off the tails,” Levi said. “Each one represents a different amount of money. I might win because I’m a fast runner.”
Brian Hanson provided music for the dances Friday and Saturday night. He previously had performed at the Oregon Jamboree volunteer appreciation dinner last year.
“It was kind of mellow for a Friday night,” Hanson said, but they were a big hit in the parade and Saturday night.
Hanson and members of his band joined Harrison on the rodeo float where they discovered the clown had even more talent. When Harrison started singing a song, Hanson and his band ended up learning a new tune as they started accompanying him.
The group enjoyed riding in the parade. The only problem was they were on acoustic instruments, and had to keep playing harder and harder to be heard.
“Everybody here has been making us feel pretty cool,” Hanson said. “Everybody comes up and talks to us just like they know us.”
Information on the Bend band can be found at http://www.briansfiddle.com. The band appears in Sweet Home again at the Oregon Jamboree at the end of the month.
“We’ve been trying to get into the Jamboree for about four years,” Hanson said, and he’s looking forward to returning to Sweet Home.