Even the ominously gray clouds couldn’t put a damper on the excitement bursting from the arena floor of the Kimball/Banner County Fairgrounds Saturday night for the first annual Kimball Ranch Rodeo.
"This is what rodeo used to be like," said Cody Smith, team captain of Carpenter’s Versatile Ag. Systems’ team, one of 10 teams competing in the rodeo.
"This is your average guy out there doing what we do on the ranch everyday," Smith said. "You don’t have to be a professional, you don’t need a $10,000 horse or a bunch of equipment, you just get out there and do it."
Unlike the Friday night rodeo’s in Pine Bluffs, ranch rodeo doesn’t contain events like barrel racing or bull riding. Ranch rodeo is defined by its name with five events — saddle bronc riding, calf branding and doctoring, team roping, trailer loading, and wild cow milking — each having practical application on a working ranch.
Ranch rodeo board member and member of the Magaritaville team, Doug Provance, was pleased with the outcome both in the numbers of teams that participated and the crowd that watched.
"The turnout really exceeded our expectations, I was just tickled with how things went," Provance said. "We were turning teams away all the way up to the last minute."
Provance said he and other members of the board were so pleased that talks are already in the works for next year’s rodeo.
"Hopefully we can make it bigger next year," Provance stated.
To that end, Provance said the board is considering increasing the number of teams, starting earlier and adding more to the whole event. Depending on future success, Provance added they might consider having the rodeo more then once a year.
"Obviously we’ve got to get all this worked out first but if we can keep this going, we’ve talked about holding a ranch rodeo more than once a year," Provance said.
Adding that they were "walking into the great unknown," when they conceived the idea, Provance said many little things came together to successfully pull off the night.
"We had an idea of what we wanted to do when we first started this and it all came together really well, from our sponsors, who really stepped up, to all the other things that had to fit to make this work," said Provance.
"They did a really good job," Smith added. "There were a couple of rules issues that needed worked out, but we (Versatile Ag. Systems) usually compete in several of these a year and this was by far the most fun we’ve had at a ranch rodeo."
Taking top honors at the rodeo was the Rope and Choke Cattle Company and Faden Ranches of Banner County, Neb. For their efforts, the team was awarded the Rodeo buckle produced by Gist Silversmiths.
In order of placement from second to tenth was: Worth Ranch of Springview, Neb.; Al ‘dente Ranch from Kimball; Diamond Little H Bottle Feeder of Sidney, Neb.; Bad Medicine of Alliance, Neb.: Belman Ranch from Brule, Neb.: Versatile Ag. Systems of Carpenter; Margaritaville Tequila Team from Kimball; Beaver Ranch of Burns; and the Flying "D" Ranch from Seneca, Neb.
Taking top hand was Patrick Chester of the Rope and Choke Cattle Company and Faden Ranch. Chester was also the owner of the top horse.
Supplying steers for the rodeo was Loyd Gilbert and Bruce Nelson of Pine Bluffs. Bucking broncs were supplied by Ryan and Lonny Graves of Pine Bluffs and cows and calves were supplied by Par Terre Maines’ Dave and Clint Schnell of Bushnell.
