It has been a very wet January for the West Coast and incredible flooding which meant the moving of a lot of livestock and people to higher ground. We hope that all of you involved are doing all right and getting somewhat back to normal. The Mokelumne River, which runs through the ranch where the Ropers Sports News office is located, has been right at flood stage for some time now but is staying within the levees as of this writing. We welcomed the rain to help with the drought but weren’t quite ready for this huge onslaught at one time. Our great staff has entered up and have been doing a great job working through all the negatives of these winter storms.
This month has been saddened by some losses in the roping world. Stan Sanders passed away after a bout with cancer. Stan was a big supporter of roping and rodeo events. He also competed at a professional level and had won many outstanding awards during his roping career.
Dale Smith of Arizona also passed this past month after a long illness. Dale was a world champion team roper and past president of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Dale was a big supporter of team roping and had a lot to do with team roping becoming a standard event in today’s rodeo world.
Read their obituaries and also that of Dayton Silva, who passed in December, on page 18 of this issue.
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Long-time professional photographer Brenda Allen has retired from the arena. Brenda goes back a long ways with Ropers Sports News and has been providing us photos for many years from the roping and rodeo arenas. She started out way before there were any individual roping associations and later became the official photographer for the USTRC. Over the years it was always great to see Brenda and her husband Carl at the many ropings throughout the year. Carl was with the airline industry for many years and after retirement joined Brenda on the road. Brenda was the official photographer for the Bob Feist Invitational for many years. A great talent who will be missed in the industry. Have fun in retirement, young lady.
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January always finds me in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for the Cowboy Downhill. John Shipley and I have the privilege of announcing this great event each year and it is a blast. Steamboat Ski Corp takes such good care of the cowboys and has made this the best out of the arena social event for years. Bareback Rider Grant Denny of Minden, Nevada had the fastest time to capture the title for the second straight year.
This year they had a legends division and many of the great names in rodeo came back to have some fun in the the snow. Among some of those were T Bone Clark, Tom Newley, Chris Downey, Todd Fikes, Fred Boettcher, Jed Moore, Kris Newman, Mark Gomes, Clint Corey, Dale Haskins, Jim Helzer, Jeff Chadwick, James Boudreaux, and David Motes. It was a great time as always and it was good to have some fun in the snow with some of our old buddies.
David Motes was inducted in to the “Legends and Founders” which is a Hall of Fame for the event. David has been to many of the past 43 events and is always good for a fun time. Congrats to David and all the others who placed in this year’s event.
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Many of the named cowboys and cowgirls, who were out of the PRCA action last season because of the ERA conflict, are back on the roster at most of the winter rodeos. Big dollars have already been recorded by some of those contestants and you can catch up with them in the PRCA standings in this issue.
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The Timed Event Championships are coming up next month at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, Oklahoma, so make your plans now to attend this prestigious event. Twenty contestants compete on 25 head in five go-rounds over three days. It will be great and this year there will be a Junior Competition each morning of the event. See page 8 of this issue for details.
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Start making your plans to attend this year’s BFI in Reno, Nevada. Call now to book your rooms at the Silver Legacy, 1-800-687-7733 and ask for the special rate for the BFI. A full week of roping sponsored by Wrangler. Please see ads on pages 22-23 in this issue for details.