Two-day rodeo will kick off four days of Septemberfest 2009 fun, activities

RANGELY I You don’t have to be a cowboy to take part in this weekend’s rodeo, part of the Septemberfest activities.
“We’re trying to have things anybody can do, even if they don’t ride a horse,” said Rangely rancher Wade Allred, who along with his brother Hank, started the rodeo, now in its third year. “If they just like to have fun, we’d like ’em to come out and have some fun.”
Like last year, this year’s rodeo will start Friday night at 6 at Columbine Park and then resume again at 10 Saturday morning. After the first year of the rodeo — when the event was held during the day — the scheduling change was made to take advantage of cooler weather.
“Everybody liked the two go-round aspect, and having it Friday night when it was cooler was definitely a bonus out here in the desert,” Allred said.
The two-day schedule also helped with the turnout for the rodeo, at least from the townsfolk.
“I think it was better as far as getting more participation out of the community,” Allred said. “We didn’t actually have as many teams for the ranch rodeo itself, but the other stuff we did, people had a lot of fun with.
“So we’re trying to do more of that sort of thing, and trying to get more teams in the ranch rodeo, too,” Allred added.
The members of last year’s winning team from Meeker will return.
“They’re coming back,” Allred said. “But they’re not coming back as the same team, but the people are coming back.”
There will be prizes awarded for all events, “and we’re giving away four saddles again to the top team in the ranch rodeo,” Allred said.
New this year will be a barrel race on Friday night and Saturday, as well as a pig chase “for the younger kids” and a calf scramble for older kids, again on both days.

“And we’re adding a new twist to things on Saturday,” Allred said. “It’s called a ranch sorting event. We’ll have three-person teams. We’re trying not to have it just be three tough guys out there beating up on the kids, so we’re trying to get more people involved. We’re trying to keep it a family thing, so we have at least one female and one kid on the team.
“We’ll have a herd of cattle with numbers on ’em, one through 10,” Allred added. “When you call out the number, you ride the herd and bring out five cattle, in numerical order. It will be a timed event.”
Other ranch rodeo events include a rescue race, hide race, pony express race and cowboy steeplechase.
For information or to reserve a spot in the rodeo, call Wade Allred at 675-8642 or Hank Allred at 675-2559.