In The Arena
Bob Feist
May was a very busy month with many roping and rodeo events including the Rancheros Visitadores Ride. This month the weather has been like all four seasons, and many of the spring rodeos have had to deal with some adverse conditions. All in all, the events have been great with better than average attendance and entries.
The Rancheros Ride saw many ropers from all over the world come to rope in the many events. It is always good to see some of these ropers that you only see once a year.
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A lot of Spring ropings are being covered in this issue of RSN. Always one of my favorites is the Broc Cresta Memorial Roping held at the Four Star Ranch in Cottonwood, Calif. This year the weather was great right up to the last steer run. A short time afterwards, the sky opened up with a thunderstorm, which is unlikely weather in those parts. It was as if Broc was looking out for everyone until the last steer was roped and the winners were crowned.
This past month has been saddened with many losses in our circles of Ropers Sports News. Don Reynolds, father of long-time General Manager of RSN, Stephanie Anderson, passed away at age 87. Don was such a big help to us here at RSN over the years in times of emergencies, even offering us an office within his packing business, M&R Company, Lodi, Calif. In 1986 during a big flood in our area, he helped us move in and out of town and let us use his office as our homebase until it was safe to come back to our office location. He was always a great one to confide in whether it be fun or business. I owe him much for loaning me his daughter over the years to run my businesses. He trained all his daughters well. Don enjoyed duck hunting and fishing. He had been in the packing business with his cousin Rocky since the 60’s. Rocky passed in 2013. The Reynolds cousins were very generous to youth organizations including FFA, 4-H and high school rodeo.
The rodeo industry has been in the news a lot lately with discussions regarding the Elite Rodeo Association (ERA) and PRCA. The PRCA prevailed in a case February 4 when a judge ruled in favor of the PRCA. This in turn disallowed the cowboys of the ERA to compete in PRCA rodeos. This dispute might go on for some time and I hope some type of happy medium can be reached by both organizations. There is so much talent involved in the rodeo world that I hate to not see them compete any chance they get. I have tried not to take sides on this issue but I have always liked it when something new comes along in the world of rodeo and team roping. I think back to all of the now existing organizations that came into being with much controversy in the beginning and later made it better for the competitors or they failed and went away.