Organizers to decide June 1
By Greg Seubert
COVID-19 is starting to take a toll on Wisconsin’s rodeo circuit.
A handful of scheduled rodeos for this year have already been postponed or rescheduled, but that’s not the case with the Mid-Western Rodeo, which Manawa has hosted each year since 1959.
Rodeo organizers plan to make a decision for the 62nd annual event – set for July 2-4 – on Monday, June 1.
“We need 30 days to prepare,” rodeo secretary Peter Ziebell said. “If the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) is up and running and on board, our entries will open on June 14. That’s when the contestants enter. The contestants have to call the PRCA headquarters and enter. They can’t enter in Manawa.”
Ziebell is also waiting to see if Wisconsin’s Safer at Home order – scheduled to expire on Tuesday, May 26 – is extended.
“We also are playing it cool to see what the governor does,” he said. “Everything plans on being open then, but if they’re open with restrictions, then it’s hard to have a rodeo. If they’re going to be demanding social distancing or anything like that, I don’t know how we could have our rodeo, to be honest.”
Two June rodeos – the Wisconsin River Pro Rodeo in Merrill and the PRCA Ram Rodeo in Stanley – have already been canceled, while another, the St. Croix Valley PRCA Rodeo in Glenwood City, has been rescheduled for August.
The Heart of the North Spooner Rodeo, set for July 9-11 in Spooner, is still on.
“A lot of the rodeos that canceled are either too early or if they’re financially strapped where they need all the sponsor money to have one, they can’t make that commitment,” Ziebell said. “The thing we have to be very careful about is we have a really nice nest egg, but we can’t gamble with the Lions Club money. We have to have a pretty sure bet that we’ll be open for business and then take our chances with the crowd showing up. I know we’ll suffer as far as our small sponsors, the ones that spend $250, $300. Our major sponsors, they’re all pretty good. They’re behind us 100%.”
Community benefits from rodeo
The Mid-Western Rodeo is a volunteer-driven fundraiser for the Manawa Lions Club, which helps fund school programs such as Senior Banquet, Post Prom, athletic programs and college scholarships, as well as eyeglasses, wheelchair ramps and other individual community needs.
The rodeo also benefits area nonprofit groups.
“Last year, we gave out over $37,000 to nonprofit organizations that worked the rodeo, so this is their fundraiser as well,” Ziebell said. “The 4-H clubs, the churches, the snowmobile clubs, the youth football and Weyauwega wrestling, we pay these people man hours to work. It’s a heck of a fundraiser for them and the really make a lot of money off of it. This year, they’re going to need money, too. If the rodeo doesn’t happen, their biggest fundraiser is gone.”
Rescheduling the event is not an option, according to Ziebell.
“We have Three Hills Rodeo and (announcer) Roger Mooney,” he said. “These guys are players in the PRCA, they’re the best there is. If we cancel our date, they’re not waiting around for us to have another date. If we moved our date, we’d have to find a clown, a specialty act. If we couldn’t get Three Hills or Roger Mooney, we’d have to get another announcer or stock contractor and that is just a mess.”
The rodeo books it contracts two years in advance.
“All our contracts have been booked for a couple of years,” Ziebell said. “We’re a Fourth of July rodeo. If they’re not working the Fourth of July, they’re not worth having. All those guys are booked with contracts, but this year, I don’t think anybody’s going to make you honor your contract because there’s not anything we can do about it.
“I sure don’t want to cancel the rodeo, but I think we could survive that easier than a real catastrophe,” he said. “To put this rodeo on and it turns out to be a disaster and we wind up spending all that money and not having anything to start next year, that would be a bigger tragedy than skipping a year.”
Canceled rodeo would affect local business
“Matt and Jenny at the bowling alley, they’re really hurting right now with all this going on,” he said. “With their location to the rodeo, they have a huge weekend. They open up early in the morning and people don’t care of they’re eating hamburgers at 9 o’clock. They’re busy nonstop for four days.”
A business like Remington’s Quality Foods benefits from the parade held in conjunction with the rodeo.
“It’s his biggest weekend of the year,” Ziebell said. “We’re going to do all we can to have it, but we have to be very careful because we’re dealing with other peoples’ money and we can’t spend that recklessly or on a whim. So far, everybody that I’ve talked to in the Lions Club is pretty much on board going if we can. That’s where we’re sitting right now.”
The rodeo has never been canceled since the first one was held in 1959.
“We don’t want to be the first,” Ziebell said. “This is my opinion: if we have this, I think we’ll blow the roof off the place. People are itchy, they’re done with this, they’re ready to go. I’m assuming they’re tired of being cooped up and they want something to do. I have to believe that.”