Colorado-based rodeo will make third Pahrump trip

Put on your cowboy boots and dust off the cowboy hat, here comes the rodeo for the Fall Festival. This will be the third trip that the Rocky Mountain Professional Rodeo Association has made to the valley.

The chief executive officer for the Pahrump Valley Chamber of Commerce Salli Kerr said last year's rodeo had come a long way.

"The attendance was better, the sponsorship was better and the halftime show was better. People were happy with it," she said.

This year the chamber has worked even harder to bring a good rodeo to Pahrump.

Kerr said the Rocky Mountain Rodeo Association will return and so will the same halftime show, the Ehcapa Bareback Riders. The riders come from Idaho and Ehcapa is Apache spelled backwards. The club has a 25-year history performing with the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association.

Kerr said people thought these riders were amazing. The group is made up of riders from ages 8 through 19 and the riders control their mounts with their legs, voice cues and a tack rein which goes around the horse's neck.

This year's rodeo will be a two-day event with tickets selling on Friday and Saturday for $10 for adults. On Friday there will be a special where if an adult purchases a ticket, one child gets in free.

Of course having a rodeo has always been the way cowboys proved who was the best horse rider in town.

Flash back in time to the first rodeo events at the Fall Festival. The original Fall Festival back in the day in 1963 was called the Harvest Festival and was centered around rodeo events, but it was not a true organized rodeo. Instead it was a gymkhana-style event where there were events like pole bending, stake racing and barrel racing. These events took place over two days. There was also the crowning of a queen and a huge Western-style barbeque.The great thing about this was it was all locals putting on a show and showing off what they could do on a horse. The whole point of the gymkhana was to see who was the best horseman in Pahrump.

The town still throws gymkhana events and they are put on by the Pahrump Valley Rough Riders on the third Saturday of the month. There will be one on Aug. 15 at 7 p.m. at the McCulloch Arena.

Tickets for the rodeo will be on sale soon at the Pahrump Valley Chamber of Commerce, located at 1301 S. Highway 160. For more information call 775-727-5800.