CHIEF JOSEPH DAYS
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
A9
Ocean or mountains? Not a hard call for one Joseph man
Chief Joseph Days
volunteer spent
much of life in
military service
By KATY NESBITT
For the Wallowa County
Chieftain
JOSEPH — In a tradition
stretching back 76 years,
volunteering at the rodeo
starts for many at childhood.
For Joseph native Max
Prout, his û rst involvement
started in Cub Scouts.
“My uncle Wick (Wil-
lard) Prout helped start the
rodeo,” Prout said. “We
would come down and
clean up the rodeo grounds
and in high school I worked
the gates for the bucking
chutes.”
For the û rst 12 years of
his life, he and his brother,
Gary, grew up in the dam
tender’s house at the foot of
Wallowa Lake. Their father
worked for the Associated
Ditch Co. The boys enjoyed
access to the lake, learning
to swim and boating.
“We had a milk cow,
pigs, chickens and a big gar-
den in front of the house —
Mom canned everything,”
Prout said.
Long retired from mili-
tary service, Prout said he
joined the Navy after grad-
uating from high school
during the Vietnam War.
After 10 years with the
branch, he moved over to
the Coast Guard and served
another 14 years.
“Growing up in Joseph
you could work for a mill,
go into logging or ranching
or go to college, which was
way too expensive. I had the
option to go into the military
and once you were there,
you could get a GI Bill for
education,” Prout said.
During his time in the
Katy Nesbitt/For the Wallowa County Chieftain
Max Prout is a volunteer who helps his brother manage the Chief Joseph Days Rodeo stagecoach that travels to some of the
rodeos the court attends.
military, Prout said he took
advantage of both military
education courses as well as
correspondence courses.
“I took courses wherever
I was stationed,” Prout said.
<I have credits from 13 or 14
diû erent colleges.=
Eventually, he said, the
credits added up to a bach-
elor’s degree in general
studies.
With the Coast Guard,
Prout said he had a variety
of experiences from drug
interdiction, turning back
Haitian refugees in Florida
and even protecting George
H.W. Bush’s family com-
pound in Kennebunkport,
Maine.
“When I was stationed
at Cape Cod our patrol
area was from the mouth of
Ambrose Light/New York
Harbor to the Maine coast
and out 200 miles into the
Atlantic,” he said.
A military career allowed
Prout to retire as a relatively
young man and he said good-
bye to the oceans where he’d
worked and moved back to
the West.
“The joke was when we
retired we would throw an
anchor in the back of a pick
up truck and drive until we
found a place where no one
knew what it was and that’s
where you would live,”
Prout said. “I saw so much
of the oceans I didn’t want
to go back — they aren’t as
beautiful as our mountains.”
Today, Prout’s medals
and commendations are lov-
ingly stored for family his-
tory with his daughter, Prout
said.
Since retirement, he’s
also gained a love of the
desert, spending part of
the year in Arizona and the
warmer months in the Wal-
lowa Valley. Prout also kept
very busy working for Ore-
gon Parks and Recreation
Department as both a staû
member and a camp host in
Southern Oregon, Wallowa
Lake and Minam state parks.
As he spent more and
more time in Wallowa
County it wasn’t long before
his brother asked him for
help managing the Chief
Joseph Days Rodeo stage-
coach that travels to some of
the rodeos the court attends.
“The stagecoach is the
best advertisement for the
rodeo,” Prout said.
For more than a dozen
years Prout helped manage
the team of horses and main-
tain the stagecoach, a labor
of love and adherence to a
strict checklist that details
how the horses are managed
and each piece of equipment
and tack is connected in the
precise order. Caring for two
large draft horses and a car-
riage dating from the late
1800s takes strength and
keen attention.
About two years after his
brother was handed the reins
of the stagecoach and team
by Dave Turner, he asked his
brother to help — and they
had very little time to learn
the system and train newly
acquired draft horses.
Local teens help on horseback during Chief Joseph Days Rodeo
By JACK PARRY
Wallowa County Chieftain
JOSEPH — There are
many volunteers at Chief
Joseph Days Rodeo that
help the attraction get up and
running during the last week
of July each year. Those of
all ages do various jobs from
moving cattle and horses
back and forth to waiting at
the gate and helping set up
stands.
However, some younger
volunteers during the after-
noon on the weekdays get
to help out not just around
the events, but on horseback
inside of the arena.
Tylee Evans and Lauren
McBurney spend a lot of the
time sitting idly by on their
horses during steer wres-
tling competitions, but when
they are called into action
they have a pretty important
objective.
“We mainly just chase the
cows to the other end of the
arena,” Evans said, “it keeps
everything going faster and
smoother so they don’t get
loose. Then you have to
have much more problems.”
So after the steer wres-
tlers tie up the cows and
û nish a round, Evans and
Jack Parry/Wallowa County Chieftain
Tylee Evans and Lauren McBurney lead a cow to the edge
of Harley Tucker Memorial Arena in Joseph on Thursday,
July 28, 2022.
Jack Parry/Wallowa County Chieftain
Tylee Evans, left, and Lauren McBurney just outside of Harley Tucker Memorial Arena in Joseph
on Thursday, July 28, 2022.
McBurney guide the cows
with their steeds away from
the action.
McBurney has volun-
teered at the event before,
but the 14-year-old from
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Joseph has just recently been
working inside of the ring.
<This is my û rst year
helping with slack, but I vol-
unteered other times just not
with slack,” she said.
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Having ridden a horse
since before she could walk,
Evans, who also is 14 but
from Enterprise, said her
favorite part of working the
rodeo is pretty obvious.
“Anytime I’m on my
horse in an arena (during) an
event,” Evans said.
McBurney’s favorite parts
about working the rodeo are
not just the connections, but
the ability to observe rodeo
workers up close on a major
stage.
“We all come to the rodeo
to watch the rodeo, so it’s
super fun to see all these pro-
fessionals do what they grew
up doing,” McBurney said.
For Evans, Chief Joseph
Days is more than just a vol-
unteer gig. Having worked
at the rodeo since she was
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about 5 or 6, her grandfather
Terry Jones is the president
of the Chief Joseph Days
directors, while her mom
Teah Jones is also on the
Chief Joseph Days Board.
Most of her relatives
attend the event, which
gives them a rare chance for
quality time together.
“My favorite part is
just getting to spend it (the
rodeo) with my family and
work together with my
brothers, my mom and my
grandparents … because
it’s the only time we’re all
together,” she said.