4 res ItfD dTtrtmJ LJ-m I- III. I IN) SUSHI 0mM The Tucson Rodeo has attracted many types of Western entertainers. Old-time trick riders Buff Brady and Dick Griffith amazed the crowds in the early days. Acclaimed trick roper Montie Montana appeared in a number of the performances from 1936 to 1974. In 1965, Leon Adams exhibited "Roman trick riding from the days of Ben Hur on performing Brahma bulls." And Willcox, Arizona, native Rex Allen was featured in 1956 and 1957.
In 1954, the Tucson Rodeo served as a backdrop for the movie "Arena." The 1994 rodeo was featured in scenes for "8 Seconds." You can see portions of the 1 996 rodeo in the Showtime movie "Ruby Jean and Joe" starring Tom Selleck. associate degree in liberal arts from Pima Community College. While at Pima, Skyla was a member of the Southern Arizona Barrel Racing Association (SABRA) and the college's rodeo team. During her free time, she enjoys dancing, fishing, trail riding, and riding quads. Skyla won both the Horsemanship and Private Interview portions of the queen competition, elevating her scores above those of the other contestants and earning her the title of 2001 Tucson Rodeo queen.
Skyla is the daughter of Bill and Becky. Strahle. She is 22 years old. 2001 TUCSON RODEO ATTENDANT: LACEY SHIRA Lacey Shira grew up on and around horses on her family's ranch. She has been riding horses since she was 2 years old.
Throughout her life she has helped out on' her aunt and uncle's ranch near Phoenix during roping events and was actively involved with 4-H throughout high school. Lacey life involves more than just horses. She is a full-time student at Pima Community College and is a member of the Arizona Air National Guard, where she works part time as an operation resource management specialist. She enjoys modeling and playing basketball. Lacey also holds a purple belt in AKKA karate.
High marks in all categories plus a win in the Impromptu Question portion of the queen competition earned Lacey her title as the 2001 Tucson Rodeo attendant. "I had such a great time during the competition and made so many wonderful new friends. I am looking forward to riding in the rodeo, the rodeo parade, and representing the Tucson Rodeo throughout the year." Lacey is the daughter of Mike and Sherry Shira. She is 18 years old. The 2001 Tucson Rodeo queen, Skyla Strahle (at right), and attendant LaceyShira.
2001 TUCSON RODEO QUEEN: SKYLA STRAHLE Skyla Strahle has been involved with rodeo since she was 5 years old. Growing up, she competed in barrel races and was actively involved with 4-H. Rodeo is a very important part of her life, and the Tucson Rodeo holds a special place in her heart. Skyla literally grew up at the Tucson Rodeo. Her family has had box seats for the past 27 years and when Skyla was born took her to each and every rodeo, rain or shine.
Skyla is thrilled to be the 2001 rodeo queen and is "looking forward to representing the best rodeo in the world." She knows that as this year's queen, her role in representing the Tucson Rodeo will allow her to continue the many volunteer activities and appearances promoting the sport of rodeo she enjoyed doing as a member of the 2000 Tucson Rodeo royalty. As a 2000 Tucson Rodeo princess, she enjoyed visiting schools and meeting patients at the VA Skyla is a student at the University of Arizona majoring in communications and minoring in journalism. She has an "r-T 3 A A headline in the Arizona Daily Star in 1925 reads: "Cowboys are asked not to shoot up the town. Tucson in 1925 was a frontier town: The first Tucson Rodeo was held in the middle of Prohibition. With so many visitors expected, a decision was made to clean up the town.
Arizona State Prohibition director Frank Pool led a force of federal officials to town two weeks before the rodeo. The Arizona Daily Star reported that 25 stills were captured and an estimated 3,000 gallons of moonshine destroyed. T-bone steaks sold for a pound. A Stetson hat cost 58. Prize at the 1925 Rodeo Parade included a 750-pound block of ice, 100 pounds of potatoes, and a "Big Cactus" ham.
Leighton Kramer conceived the idea of La Fiesta de los Vaqueros to draw visitors to Tucson during the mid-winter season. Kramer was a winter visitor himself, and president of the Arizona Polo Association. In 1925, Kramer and the Arizona Polo Association created La Fiesta de los Vaqueros and the Tucson Mid-Winter Rodeo and Parade. The event would give visitors a taste of cowboy range work and glamorize Tucson's Wild West notoriety. Kramers idea continues to flourish, 76 years later, as an important community event.
The first Tucson Rodeo was held at Kramer Field, now a neighborhood called Catalina Vista, east of Campbell Avenue between Grant Road and Elm Street. It was preceded by a parade, with costumed entries including Lone Wolf, a Native American artist, in full regalia and flowing feathered headdress. Lone Wolf also provided the artwork for the first rodeo program. Local ranchers were represented on horseback, mounted polo players wore their white helmets and bright silk shirts, and the 10th Cavalry and 25th Infantry Bands from Fort Huachuca provided rousing music. The city leaders and the University of Arizona declared February 21, 1925, a city holiday.
Tucson's first rodeo featured four events: steer wrestling, steer tying, calf roping, and saddle bronc riding. The purse was a fabulous $6,650 in prize monies. Special events included a wild horse race, lady bronc rider Tad Lucas, and Jack Brown bulldog-ging a steer from a Packard automobile. As a result of rapid growth, a larger La Fiesta de los Vaqueros moved to the abandoned municipal airport field at S. 6th Avenue and Irvington Road.
The 1932 Tucson Rodeo opened the grounds, with seating for 3,000 and parking for 59 cars. An added event of the 1 932 rodeo was jackrabbit roping jackrabbits were released in the arena and contestants attempted to rope them. Due to sellout crowds, the rodeo was extended to four days in 1948. The rodeo arena and grounds were continually enlarged; local hotels and dude ranches were booked solid during rodeo season. WE EEMER li APPY ALLEW The rodeo was broadcast coast-to-coast in 1962 on ABC's Wide World of Sports, and was seen in 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998, and 1999 on ESPN.
The 2000 Tucson Rodeo was featured on TNN. The 2001 Tucson Rodeo will be broadcast on TNN as well. This year, the Tucson Rodeo began its weeklong celebration with the Women's Championship Rodeo, sanctioned by the Professional Women's Rodeo Association (PWRA). The five-day Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) event began on Wednesday and is one of the top professional rodeo events in North America, with prize monies exceeding $275,000. Leighton Kramer's vision of creating an event to attract more tourists to Tucson has certainly been realized.
But the residents of Tucson adopted La Fiesta de los Vaqueros as an honored tradition from the very beginning. Area schools still close on Thursday and Friday of rodeo week, local citizens are thrown in the hoosegow (in fun, of course) for not observing Western dress, businesses advertise rodeo specials, and almost 200 organizations participate in the Rodeo Parade, now viewed by over 200,000 spectators. La Fiesta de los Vaqueros is planned and operated by the Tucson Rodeo Committee and the Tucson Rodeo Parade Committee, both nonprofit, volunteer corporations committed to preserving the Western tradition and heritage of Tucson. For information on the next Tucson Rodeo and Parade, write to the Tucson Rodeo Office, P.O. Box 1 1006, Tucson, AZ 85734, or call 741-2233 or 1-800-964-5662.
WORLD CHAMPION Maybe it's the crisp desert air. Maybe it's the water. Maybe it's the limelight. Whatever it is, Joe Beaver is a different cowboy when he rides into the Thomas Mack Center in Las Vegas. The National Finals Rodeo (NFR) setting always seems to bring out the best in Beaver, who, in fact, is at his most dangerous when he's a decided underdog.
When the 42nd annual NFR got under way at the Thomas Mack Center, Beaver sat 12th in the world all-around standings, a distant $62,000 behind saddle bronc rider Scott Johnston. "The more they count you out, the more you see what you're made of and see how much you can win," said the 35-year-old eight-time world champion from Huntsville.Texas. Stepping up his game as he always seems to do at the NFR, Beaver demonstrated why the Thomas Mack Center is known as "the House that Joe Built." He won an NFR-best $123,356 the second-best total ever by an NFR contestant and rallied to overtake Johnston and claim his third world all-around crown. Beaver closed out Johnston and the rest of the field when he and Bret Gould stopped the clock in 4.2 seconds to win the final NFR round of team roping. To the surprise of many, it was Beaver's team-roping skills that paid off at the NFR.
Beaver and Gould placed in 7 of 10 rounds and finished with an event-best $68,845. His team-roping total for 2000 reached $106,598. At the NFR, Gould said he never felt the pressure of his partner's all-around fate. The pair's goal coming into the rodeo, according to Beaver, was to win $60,000 (each). "When I backed in there today, I had it laying on his lap," Beaver said after round 1 0.
"Then when I got out of the barrier and got it on that steer so quick, it was really in his lap. "A guy steps up and first he's your friend then he's your partner. When you rope the other way I don't think you win as much." In the calf roping, Beaver placed six times for an NFR total of $54,5 1 1 which included a fifth-place finish in the average race. For Beaver, the victory was extra sweet. He ended up winning $225,396 in 2000 to Johnston's $200,726.
"I think it's because I came from so far behind," Beaver said. "They didn't even count me with a chance. When you don't count a guy with a chance, it makes them fight harder." WORLD CHAMPION "i When attorney Kappy Allen, of Austin, Texas, arrived in Las Vegas for her second NFR competition, she never considered a world title as a goal. "It absolutely never crossed my mind as there were too many great horses and talented riders ahead of me," the 42 -year-old Allen said. Her road to the title began three years ago, when she made a "risky" financial decision and bought an AQHA-registered gelding her sister had found in Oklahoma City.
Through a combination of preparation and opportunity, she and Risky Chris became the dominant team at the 2000 NFR. Allen said she just had hoped "to make a better showing at the NFR this year than last year. I wanted Chris to be able to show what he could do, if given the opportunity, but I never dreamed of winning the World." Their prize money of $95,1 1 1 was $45,000 more than their regular rodeo season earnings of $50,092, which qualified them for 9th place going into the NFR. With total earnings for the year of $145,203, Allen overtook 10-time World Champion Charmayne James for the 2000 world title by only $2,856. The new world champion credits Add Waddell of Ruby, S.C., without whose help, she believes, she would never have gotten the crown.
"None of what I've done on Chris would have been possible without Adds help," she said. "I called Add after every run. He would watch my runs on television and he coached me through the NFR long distance as he was in Oklahoma City at the futurity most of the time." Allen described Chris's basic disposition during the NFR as happy: "He got a little tired toward the end just like everyone else's horse did. But he was good in the alley and didn't freak out like he did (in 1999). He let me handle him the few times I needed to without shaking his head.
He stayed relaxed and supple the entire week. Everything simply fell into place for us." After it appeared that Allen would win the NFR average if she had a clean run in the 10th go-round, her husband, Austin attorney Bob Roller, their two sons, Kenny, 8, and Christopher, 3, and her parents traveled to Las Vegas to watch and cheer her on. Allen's mother said she had a feeling her daughter was going to win the world title, and she told her that she wanted to be there to see her do it. Allen says she is "blessed beyond measure" for having had the opportunity to compete with "a classy group of ladies with some tough, tough horses. I was honored to be among them." 5 j.
i -S if iyoM Sal HOW TO SPEAK RODEO LIKE A REAL COWBOY A half-hitch knot used to tie a calfs legs together in calf roping. buckaroo A cowboy who does ranch work for a living. In contrast, a professional rodeo cowboy's occupation is rodeo competition. in i A small wheel with radiating points that forms the extremity of a cowboy's spur. In rodeo, rowels are required to be free-wheeling and blunt.
UlLiEitljLi A horse that leaps high into the air when bucking. CHOW Mild bucking motions. When a bronc rider holds on to any part of the saddle. This disqualifies the rider if it is done before the 8-second ride is completed. The slang term for a steer wrestler.
A it. A Mi The rodeo official who signals the end of time elapsed in timed events. DAYLIGHT When a rider leaves the seat on a bucking horse. WW A cowboy who rides along beside a steer on the opposite side of the steer wrestler. His job is to keep the steer running in a straight line and close to the contestant's horse.
An expression bull riders use to describe a large, not-agile bull that is not considered a good draw..
