Guddats at the Ellensburg Rodeo!

This is Jon. Well, the Ellensburg Rodeo is complete for us. Five days of competition (if you include slack. Don't know what slack is? I described it in another post below). It's 1:30 in the morning on Monday night/Tuesday morning and I just got done with some stories. Great, great time like always. It rained and poured on Saturday and Sunday, first time ever it's rained at the Ellensburg Rodeo like that and probably the most rain I've ever seen here in my 13 years here. Still a great time with my beautiful rodeo queen, Brittany.

Brittany and I stand in the photo pit immediately adjacent to the roughstock chutes (where the bareback, saddle bronc and bull riding happens). It also gives us a great view of the timed events (barrel racing, calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling and steer roping). Brittany takes all my stats while I'm chasing cowboys and cowgirls around for interviews. It's a great system that we accidentally fell into when we were first dating. I didn't have a flippin' clue what I was doing in 2000, my first year covering the Daily Record, but knew I needed someone to do my stats, while I was interviewing. One of the many reasons why I married her, she makes my life in the rodeo arena easier (and many other places, too).

This is Josh Peek in steer roping. Josh is a all-around cowboy out of Colorado, which means he competes in multiple events (for him it's steer roping, calf roping and steer wrestling). Steer roping goes on during slack because the leftist wackos think it's inhumane, but it's totally the contrary. In fact, I've seen way more cowboys (and barrel racers sometimes) get hurt than the stock.

This is Ronnie Fields in bulldogging (a nickname for steer wrestling). Cowboys slide off their sprinting horse (sometimes as fast as 20-30 mph. Doesn't sound fast? Do it, then.) hook the horn under your arms and pin the steer. Great event.

This is the wild cow milking which isn't a sanctioned event, but certainly a crowd pleaser. The guy in the red shirt is Riley Minor, a local roper who is ranked #9 in the world this week in team roping with his older brother, Brady. For the fun of it, Riley competed in wild cow milking which is setting a cow free in the arena, roping her, having your partner try to subdue her while you milk her. As you can tell in this photo, the cow drug both guys around the arena. Awesome. I've tried to enter a couple of times, but haven't for two reasons: 1. I haven't tried hard enough to find a roper (because) 2. I can't justify paying the entry fee to do it because there's no guarantee I'd win the purse.

This is Brittany Pharr out of Texas. She's the 2007 world champion barrel racer and placed second in both 2006 and 2008, and is also the world leader this week. I like her for two reasons: 1. She spells her name just like my Brittany, and 2. She's nice to me every time I call her for an interview.

Keith Isley our rodeo clown the last couple of years. We've seen some great clowns over the years: Flint Rasmussen, JJ Harrison and Mr. Isley above. He's a character.

I believe this is Steve Woolsey out of Utah. He rode North Star (above) to an 87-point ride, winning $1,500 for the ride and $2,315 on the weekend. The largest payday this year at Ellensburg was almost $8,600. Not bad. I could do a lot with that money. The thing about it is, so many guys and gals enter a rodeo (540 this year at E-burg) but only a fraction of those actually win anything. You have to pay to play in this sport.

Me and Britty at the Ellensburg Rodeo. I refuse to have it any other way.