Sheridan, WY, Lodge Rodeo Is Still Going Strong C
ONTESTANTS CAME TO SHERIDAN, WYOMING, from eight US states and the Canadian province of Alberta to attend the Sheridan Lodge’s 18th annual Elks Youth Rodeo and try for the
event’s more than $72,000 in prizes. The two-day event attracted 158 contestants ages 4 to 17 who competed in 26 racing and roping events in four different age-groups.
The winner of the All Around Youth competition is determined by combining each competitor’s scores in up to five events, all of which need to be completed on the same horse. This year’s winner, 13-year-old Rickie Engesser from Spearfish, South Dakota, won a three-horse slant-load trailer. Second place and a $2,000 scholarship went to Kristi Steffes, a 16- year-old from Vale, South Dakota, while the third-place winner, who received a $1,000 scholarship, was 13-year-old Brooke Howell, of Belle Fourche, South Dakota. In addition to taking second place in the All Around Youth competition, Steffes also won the Senior All Around award and a one-year lease on a new truck. The award goes to the competitor in the senior division (ages 14 to 17) with the most accumulated points in ten events. Steffes followed in the footsteps of her older sister, Nikki, who won both the trailer and the truck lease in 2004, before going on to win two all-around women’s titles at the College National Finals Rodeo. The elder Steffes is one of several Elks Youth Rodeo alumni who have gone on to success at the college and professional levels.
Robert Strauser, the event’s organizer, credits the level of competition at the Elks Youth Rodeo to the attractiveness of the prizes, which include
more than $12,000 in scholarships and more than $60,000 in other awards. He says he is proudest of the scholar- ships, “But it’s for a shot at the truck and the trailer that kids’ parents will haul them across three states.” Strauser emphasizes that the competition is designed to appeal to young people without a lot of resources to devote to competing in rodeos. By not allowing wealthier competitors to use a different, specially trained horse for each event, the rules for the All Around Youth competi- tion test the contestants’ skills rather than their resources. In addition to the contest itself, the lodge holds a Family Dance and Taco Party the night before the con- test, which about 200 people attended this year to enjoy the food and live music. Registered contestants attended the party for free, while everyone else paid a small fee. By including information about the Elks in every contestant’s information packet, the lodge also uses the contest as a way to spread the word about Elkdom. Since the rodeo was featured in a cover story in The Elks Magazine in February of 2006, says Strauser, the lodge has received a lot of inquiries from other lodges interested in running their own rodeos. “But many lose interest when we tell them how much time it takes,”
and private elementary schools in four counties. The lodge also donated about 350 pieces of men’s clothing, 150 pieces of women’s clothing, and 50 small household items, worth a total of $3,000, to the Lutheran Services of Georgia’s Refugee Services Program.
T H E E L K S M A G A Z I N E
All Around Youth winner Rickie Engesser poses before her new trailer with ER Steven Cox (left) and Ken Balkenbush, one of the event’s sponsors.
Fourteen-year-old Josee Vogel, from Pavillion, Wyoming, casts her rope as she competes in the Senior Steer Stopping event.
Strauser says. Strauser found himself spending so much effort on the rodeo that he sold his accounting practice in 2002 so he could devote all of his time to it. Still, the lodge has helped other lodges to get their own rodeos set up. This year, it helped sponsor a rodeo held by the Loveland, CO, Lodge by providing a full set of Elks Youth Rodeo entry fees as a prize.
Tifton, GA, Lodge members and ladies auxiliary members sent two packages containing coupons worth nearly $5,000 to US troops serving at a US Army base in Italy. The lodge also sent two boxes of supplies to one lodge-sponsored serviceman and one
box of supplies to a second lodge- sponsored serviceman, both of whom are serving in Iraq.
In other news, the lodge donated two large boxes of notebook paper and spiral-bound notebooks to the Georgia National Guard to be distributed to
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PHOTOS: STAN WOINOSKI
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