Wednesday, June 3, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
13
Sisters Rodeo creates lifelong memories
By Jim Cornelius
Editor in Chief
Sisters Rodeo is the high-
light of the year for thou-
sands of people. Many have
built lives around it.
Sisters Rodeo Association
President Curt Kallberg
lives in Sisters in large part
because of the Sisters Rodeo.
In the mid-to-late 1980s,
back when he was young and
limber as the Ian Tyson song
goes, he was a participant
in one of the most thrilling
4 and risky 4 events in the
<Biggest Little Show in the
World.=
<We lived over in the
Valley,= Kallberg recalled.
<And we9d come over here
and wild horse race.=
In the Wild Horse Race,
teams vie to get a wildly
uncooperative horse saddled
and get one of the team
aboard to race him bucking
and jigging around a barrel.
The Wild Horse Race opens
the Rodeo and it9s usually a
chaotic scene with far more
cowboys crawling up out of
the dirt to limp away than
there are in a saddle. And it9s
addicting.
<(Sisters) was about the
crown jewel of wild horse
racing,= Kallberg said. <We
never could win, but we9d
come year after year. It was
kind of a pilgrimage to the
Sisters Rodeo. If you did one
rodeo, you did Sisters. You9d
come and camp and it was
the best.=
Eventually, Kallberg
moved here and became a
member of the Sisters Rodeo
Association. He9s now presi-
dent, succeeding the long-
serving and greatly admired
Glenn Miller.
Tanya Jones is literally a
child of the Sisters Rodeo.
Her grandfather was Mert
Hunking, who was the stock
contractor for the Sisters
Rodeo for many years before
it became a PRCCA Rodeo.
<I grew up in that arena,
more or less,= she said. <I
started carrying the American
flag there in 1980.=
Jones started barrel racing
at Sisters in 1990, and has
had many memorable runs in
her home arena.
She also recalled the epic
challenge between the bull
Red Rock and champion
bull rider Lane Frost in 1988
(see related story, page 14).
Red Rock had not been rid-
den through his career, and
rodeo promoters staged a
Challenge of the Champions
series pitting the undefeated
bull and the young champ
against each other in an
exhibition.
Jones had a special con-
nection to Red Rock 4 he
was her grandfather9s bull.
And despite his fearsome
reputation for mercilessly
unseating riders, Red Rock
was a gentle creature. He
only turned on the power
when he went to work.
Jones used to sit on Red
Rock in the pasture when her
grandfather fed him hay. She
admitted that she had mixed
feelings about the outcome
of the challenge, when Frost
stayed on the legendary bull
for the full eight seconds of a
qualifying ride.
<That was a pretty cool
experience,= she said. <We
were all kind of sad, because
we really didn9t want him
to be rode, but it was pretty
amazing to witness that.=
The rodeo is entertain-
ment, and nothing adds to
the entertainment more than
a talented clown. For years,
JJ Harrison kept the crowd
in stitches with his antics
4 and with his athletic
dance moves and stunts.
Mike Biggers recalled a
moment in the 2010 Sisters
Rodeo when a bull treated JJ
like a soccer ball or hockey
puck. After a ride where a
tough bull had dumped a
cowboy, Harrison taunted the
bull into charging him where
the clown sat in his protec-
tive barrel.
The ensuing scene
can found on Youtube at:
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=r14atdJYpvY
Harrison ducked-and-
tucked into the barrel as the
PHOTO PROVIDED
Tanya Jones was raised in the Sisters Rodeo arena — and rode there as a
competitive barrel racer.
bull knocked it over, then
proceeded to head-butt it
over and over till it got a
good roll going 4 across a
third of the arena and right
through the gate into the
chutes. Gooooooaaaaalllll!
Such moments of hilar-
ity meld with significant
moments like raising record
amounts of funding for
Sara9s Project, a local non-
profit that fights breast can-
cer. Legendary Saturday
nights on the town in Sisters
meld into warm Sunday
mornings with family and
friends at Sisters Kiwanis
Buckaroo Breakfast.
It all makes for an event
that brings many people back
year after year, decade after
decade.
For many Rodeo volun-
teers, the camaraderie of
staging the event each year
is the highlight. John Leavitt
leads the Queen selection
committee and participated
in the Rodeo for many years
as a team roper. He can9t
separate out any one favorite
memory that stands out from
the others.
<After 40 years, I don9t
know what it would be,=
he said. <There9s so many
of them. I just love the
Rodeo and I love the job
I do.=