By the time you read this, America
will have just celebrated her 237th birthday. Rodeo cowboys across the
country began a week or more ago observing the holiday in their own
traditional way called "Cowboy Christmas."
The summer holiday rodeo season is one of the
circuit's richest weeks of the year with at least 35 professional rodeos
and several hundred open rodeos held annually to celebrate America's
independence.
Cowboys and cowgirls will try to get to as many rodeos
as they can in a weeklong period by driving and flying (and sometimes
not in a plane) from one rodeo to the next, competing day and night for
more prize money than is offered any other time of year.
The name rodeo comes from the Spanish word "rodear"
which means to encircle or to surround. To the Spanish, when they
arrived in Mexico in the mid-sixteenth century, a rodeo was a cattle
roundup. The competition of showing off their skills in breaking broncs
and roping wild cattle eventually evolved into organized contests in the
mid-eighteen hundreds.
Annually millions of people from all walks of life go
to watch a rodeo. The sport ranks in spectatorship ahead of pro-golf and
tennis. Even more watch televised rodeo events and the cowboys that
"yusta ride'em" will record them and watch over and over.
In 1997, Texas named rodeo as their official sport as they would like to take credit for the
first ever rodeo celebration. In the early 1880s in the West Texas town
of Pecos, cowboys would get off work and come into town on the Fourth of
July. They would thunder down Main Street roping steers and then corral
them in the courthouse square. By some historical accounts, this was
the birth of rodeo in the United States.
Deertrail, Colorado also lays claim to the first rodeo
as does Prescott, Arizona. But it was a group of Texans that started
one of those earliest rodeos in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1872.
As the story goes, some Texas cowboys had arrived in
Cheyenne and decided to celebrate the Fourth of July with an exhibition
of their steer riding prowess.
The event was successful enough that the next year to
celebrate Independence Day, some local cowboys decided to do a little
bronc busting down the middle of one of Cheyenne's main streets. This
was the forerunner of the current weeklong Cheyenne Frontier Days.
You'll spot these die-hard competitors around the
country as they pull in to buy fuel -- both for their truck and for
themselves when they grab a "for the road- heartburn burrito."
By the end of the long drive, they wear a haggard and
weary look. But at each rodeo, they'll perk up when the National Anthem
is played signifying to the bareback riders that their event is about to
begin.
Rodeo is the perfect blend of tradition, competition
and showmanship. It is a piece of Western heritage boxed up and placed
in an arena on display year after year, bringing new generations to the
sport on both the spectator and the competitor ends.
When the rodeo cowboy lays his hat on his heart in
honor of the American flag, let us tip our hats to them for being an
enduring part of American history.
Ruidoso News columnist Julie Carter may be reached for comment at
jcarternm@gmail.com.
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