PRESCOTT ARIZONA REAL ESATE – RODEO TIME

Courier file

By Bruce Colbert The Daily Courier

Dust off your hats, pull on your boots and shine your spurs – it’s rodeo time in Prescott.

“We’ve got every top name in rodeo coming this year,” said J.C. Trujillo, general manager of Prescott Frontier Days World’s Oldest Rodeo. “You can go down the list of who’s who in rodeo and they’ll be here.”

The 123rd Prescott Frontier Days World’s Oldest Rodeo busts out of the chute Monday and runs through Sunday, July 4.

“It’s working really well and getting a little easier than when I first started,” Trujillo, the 1981 world champion bareback rider now in his seventh year as general manager of the rodeo, said from his office surrounded by memorabilia from a lifetime of “cowboying.”

Out-of-towners and some other towns may take it lightly when they hear Prescottonians lay claim to having organized the first, hence the oldest, rodeo in the world – but historians do not.

On July 4, 1888, a group of Prescottonians staged the first documented “cowboy tournament” complete with cash prizes. The event, later called “Cowboy Contests,” was a raging success with fans, and rodeo was born.

Around 1900, contest organizers adopted the name rodeo from the Spanish word “rodear,” which means to “go around” or “to surround.”

In 2008, the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo., inducted the Prescott Frontier Days Rodeo into its hall – an honor that Trujillo and others traveled to receive personally.

This year, 669 cowboys and cowgirls are competing for purses totaling $200,000.

“That’s the most contestants we’ve had in the seven years that I’ve been general manager,” Trujillo said.

Among the contestants is legendary seven-time all-around world champion Trevor Brazile; world bareback champion Bobby Mote; and saddle bronc champion Jesse Kruse.

Two years ago, Trujillo rearranged the schedule for the slack and competition rides to happen back-to-back, which he believes is responsible for the growing number of riders competing at the Prescott rodeo.

In a traditional timed event, competitors ride twice: Slack is the first ride, and the second ride could be days away. The rider with the best average of the two rides wins the purse.

In Trujillo’s method, riders do the slack ride in the morning and the second ride later in the day (back-to-back) which means cowboys can be in and out in one day and off to another rodeo.

“The cowboys love it,” Trujillo said.

But the weeklong event, which starts Monday, is not just about boots and spurs and cowboy hats and the roar of a happy crowd. It’s also about dances, food, children’s events, arts and crafts, rodeo queens, and of course the ever-popular parade.

This year’s parade theme, “Spirit of the Frontiersman,” is a celebration of the men and women who settled in Arizona Territory in the 1800s. Six-time all-around world champion Larry Mahan is the parade’s grand marshal.

The parade starts at 9 a.m. Saturday, July 3, and winds it way around the downtown courthouse plaza. Front-row seats fill up early.

Other events include:

• The Happy Hearts Rodeo for Exceptional Children at 5 p.m. this Monday at the rodeo grounds.

• The Rodeo Dance family night on Thursday, and dances Friday and Saturday for ages 21 and older. All dances are at the M&I Bank parking lot, 303 North Montezuma St.

• Kiwanis Kiddie Parade starts at 8:30 a.m. on Friday at Cortez and Goodwin streets.

• Phoenix JC Comancheros Pony Express riders deliver the mail by horseback to the Prescott postmaster at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

• Prescott Rodeo Days arts and crafts show at 9 a.m. July 3-5 at the courthouse plaza.

• Cowboy Church starts at 8:30 a.m. July 4 at the rodeo grounds. The City of Prescott‘s Fabulous Fourth kicks off at noon at Pioneer Park.

• Rodeo Queen coronation at noon, July 4, at the rodeo grounds. Chantel Miles is Miss Frontier Days Rodeo Queen, and Rebecca Johnson is Miss Frontier Days Senior Court.

• Specialty acts include John Payne, The One-Arm Bandit, which includes buffalo; Duane Reichert’s Comedy Barrelman act; and the returning Diamond Z English Shire Horses.

Fans attending a rodeo can expect to see team and tie-down roping, steer wrestling, bareback and saddle bronc riding, barrel racing, and bull riding. And, for every bull rider who launches into the arena, at least two bullfighters go in with him.

They dress like clowns and play around like clowns, but they have one of the most dangerous jobs in rodeo. Their job is to keep an angry bull away from a cowboy that just got thrown off it.

“The bullfighters are the most vulnerable athletes out there,” Trujillo said in a previous interview. “Their job is to protect and save the cowboys.”

Once again, Harry Vold’s Rodeo Company is providing the stock.

“Harry Vold brings in the best stock in the country,” Trujillo said.

It takes a lot of time, work and people to put together a rodeo the size of Prescott’s. The dust barely settles after the rodeo when Trujillo and the rodeo committee start planning the next rodeo.

“We couldn’t do it without the volunteers’ time and effort,” Trujillo said. “We’ve got 600 volunteers this year and we use every one of them.”

It’s time to cowboy up.