Long-running Strawberry Days rodeo still going strong
Katelyn Evans rides a sheep while competing in mutton busting at the Strawberry Days Rodeo in Pleasant Grove on Thursday.
Sheep run to their herd after mutton busting finished at the Strawberry Days Rodeo in Pleasant Grove on Thursday, June 19, 2014. GRANT HINDSLEY, Daily Herald
Presli Miller jumps out of the gate clutching a sheep while competing in mutton busting at the Strawberry Days Rodeo in Pleasant Grove on Thursday.
The Pleasant Grove Strawberry Days Rodeo is one of Utah’s longest running rodeos, and one of the only still run without big corporate sponsors.
“We’ve had big corporate sponsors come in and offer to run it for us, but we are dedicated to keeping it family-oriented. With those sponsors, we’d lose a lot of that,” said Deny Farnworth, assistant chair of the rodeo.
The rodeo is completely separate from Pleasant Grove City and fully volunteer-run and self-funding.
“It takes a quarter million (dollars) to run this for four days, and that’s with unpaid volunteers putting in the prep time, running the concession stand and ticket booths,” Farnworth said. “No one makes money running it.”
Still, because of its reliance on volunteers, the rodeo commitee has been able to fund small projects for the rodeo grounds from the money earned each year. In Farnworth’s time on the committee, he’s overseen the installation of new bleachers, a cement walkway laid around the rodeo section by section, and now the new cooler room.
“That room will save us so much time,” Farnworth said. This will be the first year that volunteers topping strawberries for the concession stands will be onsite. Prior to this, volunteers met at the Lion’s Club Building on 600 East. Farnworth and his group would truck the thousands of pounds of strawberries to the building, unload them, wait for them to be topped, and then load them back in the truck and ferry them back to the rodeo. This year, the strawberries will simply be delivered to the rodeo site, topped there and stored directly in the cooler.
The cement walkway project started a few years ago after Farnworth saw a mother pushing her disabled son in a wheelchair through the mud and rutted dirt to find a seat. He put in the first section of cement on the north end, and when the same mother and son came back they were so excited and grateful, it reminded him why he volunteers for this every year.
“I haven’t actually sat with my family and watched the rodeo in 12 years. My kids are here, my wife is here, but we’re all working. We don’t get to watch it,” Farnworth said.
The rodeo is famous in the western region of the U.S. and brings in big names on the rodeo circuit each year. The bleachers currently hold 6,500 spectators each night. On Kids Night, held Wednesday, June 17, the place “will be packed,” Farnworth said. That’s the night when each paying adult can bring four children under 12 for free.
“There is a new generation of Pleasant Grove residents, our culture here is changing. Kids Night is about the families, it’s getting the kids and families back in,” Farnworth said.
Getting the newer Pleasant Grove residents involved, when they don’t have a history here, has been difficult for Farnworth and the rest of the Strawberry Days committee.
“When this was started in the 1920s, Pleasant Grove was just agriculture. It was strawberries, that’s it. That’s what brought this here. Our forefathers had the insight to see what it going to be for the community, to draw them together,” Farnworth said.
But the rodeo needs about 200 volunteers each of its four days for about six hours each. That’s a lot of man power and time.
“We need volunteers we can rely on, ones that will come when they say they will come,” Farnworth said. “Without reliable volunteers, we won’t be able to keep it in-house, we’ll have to move to letting the big corporations come in. And then we’ll lose some of our family feel.”
Where: Pleasant Grove Rodeo Grounds
485 W 220 S State, Pleasant Grove
When: June 17-20
7 p.m. – Pre-Rodeo Entertainment Mutton Bustin’
8 p.m. – PRCA Rodeo
Prices:
Wednesday:
$11 adults, kids 10 and under free (up to 4 per adult)
Thursday:
General Admission $11 for adults, $5 children 10 and under
Reserved Seating $13
Friday:
General Admission $13
Reserved Seating $15
Saturday:
General Admission $13
Reserved Seating $15
Tickets can be purchased at the Pleasant Grove Maceys or Smith Rexall Drug in downtown PG, or at The Strawberry Days Rodeo site: