RIDING high
The North Texs State Fair and Rodeo focuses on the sport of real cowboys.
alented ropers and riders from North Texas have been working and competing for generations. What used to be an essential lifestyle is now mostly done for sport and family entertainment.
For the last 80 years, Denton and the North Texas State Fair and Rodeo have annually celebrated the ways and heritage of the Old West on the city’s fairgrounds, just north of downtown Denton.
The rodeo, music, carnival, and other attractions drew a record 120,000 guests last year. For 2008, event organizers have paid special attention to every detail of this yearly celebration of Western culture.
For the 80th annual fair, the nine-day festival T is well-stocked with music, midway attractions, livestock shows, barbecue cook-offs, creative arts (chain saw carving demonstration, anyone?), plus fast horses, ornery bulls, big-shoed rodeo clowns, and brave cowboys.
“We’re really going to try to make this one special,” says Glenn Carlton, executive director of the North Texas State Fair Association. This year’s theme: “Celebrating the cowboy way since 1928.”
The rodeo and other activities are run by the North Texas State Fair Association, a volunteersupported non-profit group dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Old West heritage and values. The association’s mission is to support youth, agriculture, and community. All revenue is reinvested into the group’s programs, scholarships, and facilities. For instance, organizers will hand out more than $8,000 in scholarships this year to deserving youths.
While for the younger kids there are pony rides, petting zoos, and bounce houses this year, more adult rides are close by at the carnival midway, now run by Fort Worth-based Talley Amusements. Tom and Mary Brown Talley are renowned for providing safe and professionally run carnival midways. (The family also co-owns the Texas Star Ferris wheel at Dallas’ State Fair of Texas.)
For more amusement, check out the little cowboys and cowgirls in a mutton busting competition. Kids get a little protective gear, mount a sheep, and hang on. Finalists from two days of preliminaries can compete again during the bull riding at the main rodeo arena on Aug. 22 and 23.
Live entertainment from popular names in country music is a mainstay at the North Texas State Fair and Rodeo. And this year is no different. Live music is spread over two stages. This year’s featured singers and strummers include Stoney LaRue, The Electric Cowboys/Grupo Vida, Randy Rogers Band, Reckless Kelly, and Restless Heart.
LaRue is up first on Aug. 15, and he’s sure to leave that trademark bandana sweaty while working the Budweiser Stage, where the national artists perform. He tirelessly works up to 300 dates a year, sometimes splitting bills with names like Lee Ann Womack.
The fair also features local beauty and poise at the NorthStar Bank Miss Rodeo North Texas. The pageant selects a winner who will go on to qualify for Miss Rodeo Texas.
Of course, all of that is decoration for the featured attraction: nightly rodeos inside the Miller Lite Rodeo Arena. The traditional exhibition of cowboy skills remains the steady anchor that keeps everything in place.
Up first (Aug. 15-17) is three days of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Rodeo. The PRCA has injected professionalism and marketing muscle to the traditional skills and showmanship of the great American cowboy since 1945.
On Aug. 18, the North Texas State Fair features its first Invitational Ranch Rodeo. In keeping with the tradition of western heritage, six North Texas ranches will compete in wild cow milking, team penning, branding (with paint), loading, and bronc riding.
The next few days (Aug. 19-20) features the Sonic 21 & Under Rodeo, where up-and-coming athletes perform bareback riding, barrel racing, and team roping.
Finally, the Miller Lite Bull Blow-Out fills up the 3,000-seat outdoor arena over the event’s final three days. Since the rodeo is free with admission to the grounds, spectators tend to be a happy mix of rodeo devotees, casual fans, and complete newcomers (who are there for the music and the other entertainment).
The North Texas State Fair and Rodeo is still quite a bargain. One $12 adult ticket gets you all the music, shows, and rodeo you can pack into one day. (Children ages 6 to 12 pay only $5. Kids under 6 are free.)
“That kind of value for all that entertainment is unheard of these days,” Carlton says. “We can do that because of our wonderful sponsors and volunteers.”
BY STEVE DAVIS