23 minutes before 9 o’clock. Good morning. I’m Alec Creighton and it’s time for this Thursday edition of Northeast Colorado Talks. We have two guests in the studio with us this morning. We have David Sharman, the president of the Brush Rodeo Association, and we have the rodeo queen, Rebecca Boone. Good morning. Appreciate your both coming in this morning.

So David, no offense, I’m going to start with the queen. That’s all right. So you started your reign as the rodeo queen at Oktoberfest and it’s a project, a multi-month project. What sorts of things do you do throughout the year as queen? So after I got crowned queen at Oktoberfest, I went and did my fall photo shoot to get all my autograph sheets and then I continued on to stock show. I also did the Christmas parade here in Fort Morgan and then after stock show, things have been kind of slow. There’s not a whole lot of rodeos, but things are starting to pick up. I was going to say, this is the time of year it probably gets busy, right? Yes, it has been crazy this past month. We’re getting everything ready for the 4th of July rodeo and along with the 4th of July rodeo, I will be attending other rodeos with other local royalty. So that’s probably kind of a fun process. You travel with your horse as well and participate in the parades and actually in some of the rodeos as well? Yes. So I know for sure I’ll be going to the Sterling Rodeo, probably the Yuma one, and most likely I will be bringing my horse along with me to all of those as well. So and then the queens of some of those other rodeos, they reciprocate and come to your event as well? Is that kind of how that works? Yes. So do you kind of, you probably kind of develop a camaraderie with the other royalty from around the state? Yes, at Stock Show I became pretty close with some of them. I went for probably about five days this year at Stock Show out of all the days there. So I got pretty close with a few of them.

The rodeo queen, it’s a great tradition and part of the, kind of the fiber of having a rodeo, especially the small town rodeos and that sort of thing. What will your duties be during the Brush Rodeo the first week of July? So I will be doing the hot lap. I’ll carry the American flag and then I’ll help turn back steers after team roping and everything like that. And then I will help with mutton busting. And then after that I will walk around and I will be signing autographs for all the kids. And then I’ll just continue on and repeat. And then during the day I help with slack and everything else. So that’s a pretty busy time it sounds like. Yes. And then I do have my queen luncheon for all the other queens on the day of the Fourth of July right after the parade. So it is quite a busy day. Yeah. All right. We’re looking forward to that. And so we’ll get into some more of the particulars of the schedule. Also in the studio with us this morning is David Sherman, the president of the Rodeo Association. And you’re kind of doing a reboot, so to speak, for the rodeo this year it sounds like. I’ve had rodeos and brush since 1925 and we went Colorado Association PRCA I think in 1965. And the numbers were down as far as the contestants. And I looked at where we could improve it and we discussed it and come up with going PRCA. And we’re real excited about going that route. So in the history of this rodeo you’ve had PRCA but it’s been a while and this will be the first year with PRCA competitors for at least for quite a while it sounds like. Well see we had Colorado Association. And then this year we’ll start PRCA. We should bring in some big names. So what all events are part of the PRCA that will be part of the brush rodeo this year? Okay we’ll have bull riding, we’ll have saddle bronc, bareback, tie down. There should be six of them. Rebecca you can tell us if you know. I should have wrote them down. Is there team roping as part of it? Yes. All right. And so with the PRCA as you say that will bring in a lot of the top cowboys. That’s what we’re hoping. We’ve got a good announcer and a good clown coming. And that makes it a lot of fun too doesn’t it? Oh yeah. It’s going to help us a bunch. And so let’s kind of talk about what the schedule is so people know. It’s always the second, third, and fourth of July. So what are kind of some of the particulars for people that want to come and watch? Okay you’ve got rodeo July 2, 3, and 4 starting at 7 p.m. You’ve got slack July 3rd starting at 9 a.m. and then the rodeo will follow. Some of the things that we’ve got, I should have wrote most of this down. We’ve got mutton busting ever. Is that on all three days? All three days. Okay. And we’re going with 20 contestants per performer. Okay. So those kids probably need to get signed up in advance it sounds like. Okay. And they should get their sign up sheet at Brush City Hall or High Plains Cattle Supply. And there’ll be some other places around that we haven’t decided yet. Okay. Very good. Rebecca, were you a mutton buster back in your youth? No, unfortunately not. I never ended up getting signed up in time for that. I definitely do wish I was. So as part of the Queen duties, are you a mutton rustler on that day? Yeah. I catch the kids when they fall and then I’ll walk them back over to their parents on how good they did. And it’s always so much fun watching those kids run. Right. So that’s probably one of the favorite parts. What are some of your other favorite parts of the Brush Rodeo? My favorite parts are definitely mutton busting. Who doesn’t love mutton busting? And then I like walking around and signing autograph sheets for all the little kids. I like being around the kids. It’s so much fun. And then my favorite part is probably my hot lap. And that’s probably my highlight. Yeah. So will that be at the beginning or do you do more than one of those during the performance? So we’ll start off the rodeo with my hot lap, the national anthem, and then we’ll move on into all of the other events. Okay. And your horse, is that its favorite part of the show too? She does not necessarily love that part. She is her favorite. It is not necessarily her favorite thing with all the noise. Oh, okay. We get through it. She likes to have a buddy by her, but it’s okay. Right. Okay. Very good. David, do you have a particular favorite event in the rodeo or all of them? All of them. Yeah. Yeah. Were you a team roper back in the day? Nope. Okay. That looks really hard to me. I just, I admire the people that can, especially the healer. I think that’s just amazing. They do a lot of work with that. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot to that. So, so it’s a lot of work to put together a rodeo like this, isn’t it? Yup. We started out and I went door to door and my plan was to make this a Morgan County rodeo, period. And in doing that, we’ve got the two towns, Log Lane and Hill Rose, and the two cities of Brush and Fort Morgan as sponsors. And the County Commissioner’s also sponsored. So that kind of pulls it in. Right. Right. And that was my whole theory is I want to pull the thing in and make it the best rodeo in Colorado, 2023. That’s a small rodeo. Right. Right. Yeah. I don’t want to compete against National. Well, then there’s that. But this, and it has a great tradition, as you said, we’re going on close to a hundred years of having a rodeo in Brush on the 4th of July week every year. I mean, thousands of people have been here over the years, both competing and as spectators. It’s a great event for everybody to come watch, even those of us that have never participated ourselves in a rodeo. Right. Well, I’m hoping to get the fans more excited this year and get more of them there. I think we’ve got a good start on the third. I’ve got a trick riders. It’s called Shockwave Trick Riders out of Denver. And I haven’t put it in programming exactly where I want it, but it’ll be on the third during the rodeo performance. And they look pretty good. And a couple other things is we’ll have the balloon scramble on the second, boot scramble on the third and stick horse race on the fourth for the young kids. And there’s no sign up before. Just show up. They’ll go there, they’ll line up and take off and go. And they need to bring their own stick for the horse race. Okay. All right. Try to remember to do that. Right. All right. Again, we’re visiting with David Sharman, the president of the Brush Rodeo Association. Rebecca Boone is the Brush Rodeo Queen. So Rebecca, I mean, a rodeo night, I mean, it’s the whole thing is a performance with lots of aspects. I mean, it starts with the hot lap, but we’ve got, as Dave was mentioning, the announcer and the clown, and we’ve got some other things. So I mean, it’s a all encompassing show, isn’t it? Yes, it is for sure. And so did you, as you’re growing up, go to rodeos over the years or? Yes, I grew up here in Brush, Colorado, and it was my favorite thing to go watch the rodeo. And I was admired watching the Queens as they did their hot lap. I was hooked up to that. It was definitely my favorite. So for families and kids, I mean, what do you tell them? Why come and watch the rodeo? I mean, there’s the pageantry that goes with it, but a lot of other things as well. Well, there’s lots to see at the rodeo. It is honestly so much fun. You get to watch like the bull riding, the bronc riding, and of course, keep like the little kids entertained, because I know how it felt to be a little kid and kind of get bored really fast. There is those balloon scrambles, those boot races. So those kids can look forward to that and be a part of the rodeo as well. Okay, very good. And let’s, and either one of you can take this, the overall thing, there’s things that go along with the rodeo as well. I believe we’ve got an art show and of course, there’s the parade. An art show and a parade. The theme of the parade is Americana of the West. Okay, very good. It’s broad and it’s the whole area. So all of those things kind of go with it. And then the grand finale is the fireworks show again this year. Is that going to work to do that? They’ve got a good fireworks program set up. Brush Fire Department will set them all. Right. Okay, so I’m guessing a lot of the competitors are getting excited and to have it on the PRCA tour, that’s just going to add another level to what we get to see here this year, right? We’ve added $10,000 to the purse. That’ll get some people’s attention, right? Yeah. And then there’s a $2,000 bounty for anybody that can break the arena record. Ah, okay. Don’t ask me what it is. I keep forgetting it. Right, right. But yeah, so we’ll know what it is. So that’ll be exciting. It’s exciting for the fans too to see if somebody can do that and win those extra dollars. All right, very good. So can we find things on Facebook, webpage? How do we get the schedule? And we’ll post that on our 1010 KSIR Facebook page as well. So we’re a little over a month away, but it’s going to be here pretty quick, isn’t it? Yeah. All right. So Rebecca, what’s your schedule between now and then? You’ve got some other rodeos that come before Brush? Yes. I’m not really quite sure which rodeos yet, but I do know there’s a few rodeos coming up here in June that I’ll probably end up going to. And honestly, just preparing for the 4th of July and getting ready for our Queen Contest for our next Rodeo Queen as well. Right. And is that during the rodeo? Yes. Okay. And I will have a Queen Contestant with me that will be running for next year’s Rodeo Queen as well. So I won’t be by myself. And I will also have my sweetheart, which will, she’ll do her tryout on July 1st, and then she’ll come and she’ll be our sweetheart and she’ll follow me around as well. And she’ll get to sign autographs with me. Okay. Sounds like a lot of fun. And we’ll be looking forward to the Brush Rodeo, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. That’s the dates every year. Right. And that’s, is that a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday this year? I don’t have that memorized yet. Or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I think. So the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th of July. All right. Well, very good. We really appreciate your time coming in this morning. Rebecca, good luck on all the things that go on this summer as the Rodeo Queen. And David, to you and your association, good luck in the final preparations as we get ready for the Rodeo. Go ahead. You had one more thing to say. You bet. Can I mention the corporate sponsors that we’ve got? Yeah, absolutely. I’ve got to give them credit and the gold sponsors. The corporate sponsors was $5,000. City of Brush, they jumped in. Buildings by design of Brush. Centura, St. Elizabeth Hospital at Fort Morgan. The Maverick and Comfort Inn went together and wanted to be a corporate sponsor, but yet wanted to recognize the Mav a little bit about- The Mav restaurant and the hotel right there with them. Okay. Yep. And then Champion Oil Field at Wiggins. And I want to give them credit because they come out and we needed the support. And also on the gold, there was RMS Crane out of Windsor, Brush Meat Processor, McDonnell Toyota and Wilson Trailer in Fort Morgan here. All right. And it takes sponsors like that to put on an event like this. Yeah. And they’re all excited. We’ve got sponsors from the $5,000 clear down to $100. But it gives everybody an opportunity to help us and they can pick the area that they feel that they can afford to go. Right. Okay. And that’s something new we’ve never done before. All right. And if anybody wants to jump on board, I’m sure you’d be glad to visit with them. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, very good. We’re looking forward to the rodeo, July 2nd, 3rd and 4th. David Sherman, Rebecca Boone, thanks very much for being here this morning. Thank you. Thank you.