Fundraiser big draw for VFD
NORTH WASHINGTON — On Wednesday night rodeo fans poured into the North Washington Rodeo Arena to see an award-winning bull and dozens of athletes bent on taking home some of the thousands of dollars in prize money this week.
Last year was a record-setting year for the rodeo. A combination of weather and promotional changes drew more than 10,000 people to the five-day event — the most since 1991.
The influx meant good things for the North Washington Volunteer Fire Department, which relies heavily on the rodeo to raise money for its budget each year.
“This makes or breaks us,” said Bruce Confer, who was the company's chief for 25 years and retired several years ago. “It tells us whether we can buy a new truck or new equipment, or if there's a (spending) freeze.”
The rodeo continues through Sunday.
Confer and his wife, Sue, who manages the rodeo's concession business each year, have been among the hundred or so volunteers who have kept the rodeo running for decades. Their daughter, Sarah, who took over managing the rodeo's website and social media last year, is partly responsible for the event's breakout year in 2015.
For the Confers, the rodeo is a family tradition and a community responsibility.
Sue Confer can remember taking walks to the grounds as a child with her parents and visiting the animals on the Sunday before opening day. As an adult, she's managed the rodeo's concession operations for years, coordinating as many as a hundred volunteers each night.
“It's hectic, it's fun, it's draining — and yet we do it year after year,” she said. “We enjoyed it as a kid, and we just want to pass that on to families today.”
It takes a mountain of food to feed the hundreds of athletes and thousands of visitors who fill the rodeo arena each year. Last year Confer's concession operation went through 1,500 hot sausages, 2,200 hot dogs and hamburgers, and more than 3,200 pounds of french fries, which probably is the most popular concession item, she said.
With the Confers and other volunteers out front serving food, parking cars, taking tickets and making the event's wheels turn, even further behind the scenes are the administrators responsible for managing finances and planning the rodeo. Some of the work — this year the arena got a new fence — will go unnoticed by many visitors.Some, like the decision this year to add a bonus day on Sunday featuring 25 bull riders, bareback bronco riding and barrel racers will be on the tip of everyone's tongue. The gates will open at 4 p.m. that day with the rodeo starting at 6 p.m.Other tasks, like managing the event's finances and coordinating its advertising, will go unnoticed almost completely.Administrators are surrounded by the rodeo — indeed, said Dave Hazlett, the head of the planning committee, they live it year-round — but they're also isolated from it while it's occurring.“I haven't seen a rodeo in 15 years when I last took my kids,” said Colleen Benson, the wife of former rodeo secretary John Benson.But there's a sense of purpose among planners, the Bensons said, to uphold a tradition that's been observed by their families for years. There's joy in being part of a banner year like 2015, but there's also a drive to make sure they aren't the ones who let the rodeo fall by the wayside during lean years.“Our parents, our grandparents, have done it. It's like a family,” said Renee Dunmire, who took over for John Benson as the fire company financial secretary for special events this year.The people in charge of putting on the show in the arena say they are hard pressed to find a better rodeo in the Northeast than North Washington's event.
Danna Gann, the rodeo's secretary in charge of animal-rider pairings, was born in Arkansas and brought up in the rodeo business. It's all she's ever known.She said North Washington's event is the one she looks forward to most each year. When she first came six years ago, she was taken back by its crowds.“It's one of my favorite rodeos to work all year long, and I work rodeos all across the country,” she said.It's those crowds that make it possible for Gann to manage excitement over high-profile appearances like this year's big draw: the prize winning bull Jalapeno, the 2015 IPRA Bull of the Finals and two-time bucking bull of the finals.Jalapeno's owner, Dave Waltz of Jersey Shore, Pa., has been coming to North Washington for nearly a decade. He said he was excited to see Jalapeno, a 6-year-old bull who has only been successfully ridden twice by the top 15 ranked bull riders in the world, go up against what he said was an unusually strong field of riders at North Washington year after year.Waltz said, “I'd say all in all, the riders here are better than other, bigger rodeos we do across the country.”Waltz said Jalapeno was bucking Wednesday night, and would buck again either Friday or Saturday .
