The Greatest Show On Dirt
They ride, they rope and they race, but you’d better tip your Stetson to these rodeo stars, podner, because they’re ladies. Yee-haw!
By .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
E-mail this story | Print this page | Archive | RSS |
Del.icio.us
Jessica Keawe-Reuter works with Cassidy
On Saturday, about 30 competitors will enter an arena on their horses, ride hard and fast, do incredible turns and rope tricks, hoot and holler, kick up a lot of dust, and exhibit amazing feats of speed and agility.
If they’re careful, they won’t break a nail. Ya-hoo! It’s time for the annual roundup of gutsy wahines who rule the rodeo circuit. It’s the 2006 season opener of the Hawaii Women’s Rodeo Association (HWRA) competition at Kualoa Ranch. Pack a picnic, take the family, and have a country hoedown in Kaaawa Valley. The rodeo starts at 10 a.m. and is free to spectators.
Hawaiian-style country rodeos are a bit laid back, but the competition is keen. It’s fun for all ages and showcases Hawaii’s talented riders and ropers who represent the paniolo heritage of our islands.
British sea captain George Vancouver brought the first cattle to the islands in 1793. In the mid-1800s, Spanish vaqueros from the California missions were brought to the islands to teach the natives how to handle cattle.
From left, Sandy Van, Lu
Faborito, Jessica
Keawe-Reuter aboard Zip
Today, there are residents throughout the Islands who are home on a range. It’s a lifestyle that’s the envy of city slickers who dream of open spaces and riding into the sunset.
For those who have honed cattle ranching skills to an art, rodeos offer a stage for flaunting their stuff. At Saturday’s HWRA rodeo, women will share the arena with men and keiki riders. While the organization was started 14 years ago by women, its membership today includes men as well.
That’s a good thing, because someone’s got to rig those heavy trailers to the truck, drag those bulky hay bales for the animals, set up the arena grounds for rodeos, and yell out words of encouragement to wives and kids who are competing. Heck, it’s nice to have a man around the horse.
Actually, the heavy work of staging and participating in a rodeo is equally shared by men and women. After all, the rodeo sport - yes, it’s a sport, not hobby - has involved cowboys and cowgirls from as early as the 1800s.
Shucks, ma’am, you can’t go to a rodeo without some historic perspective.
Rodeos began in the mid-1800s as an informal contest among working cowboys in small towns in the American West. To break the boredom of cowboy life and to celebrate the end of a cattle roundup, men competed to test the skills they used every day: roping, tying steers and riding bucking horses.
Lisa Marie Adkins aboard Starburt Silver
Before long, there were traveling rodeos or bronco shows throughout the West. Rodeos moved east in the 1920s to New York and the great Madison Square Garden. Participants then were no longer working cowboys but men who considered rodeo a professional sport.
Hawaiian cowboys got into the act in the early 1900s. Honolulu’s first Wild West show was held in 1907. At that event, a paniolo named Ikua Purdy defeated champion roper Angus McPhee of Wyoming. McPhee, a top competitor in his day, was reportedly stunned by the loss. Purdy made rodeo history before 12,000 spectators the following year when he won the single steer roping championship in Cheyenne.
Two other paniolos, Eben “Rawhide Ben” Low and Archie Kaaua, also won top honors. The Cheyenne paper reported that the performances of the dashing Hawaiians, in their vaquero-style clothing and flower-covered slouch hats, “took the breath of the American cowboys.”
HWRA past-president Lu Faborito expects many tributes to Hawaii cowboys this year, particularly with the 2006 Aloha Festivals themed “Year of the Paniolo.” Her 50-member organization will join the festivities with a mounted unit in the Aloha Festival parade.
HWRA stages six contests a year, culminating at the state championship All-Girls Rodeo in September. Top competitors from each island gather on Oahu to test their skills at barrel racing, pole bending and calf roping. A beautiful embossed saddle and engraved belt buckle are the prized
Page 1 of 2 pages for this story 1 2 >
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
