The Ravalli County Fair is this week and with the Fair comes the Northern Rodeo Association (NRA) rodeo. The rodeo will be Friday night and Saturday night. Thursday night will be the Bull-A-Rama and Wednesday night will feature the Youth Invitational Rodeo with Little People’s Rough Stock.
Over the years, the rodeo has been selected as the top rodeo of the season. With $2,000 added money in each event, this is the richest rodeo of the NRA circuit. And, with only two rodeos remaining, this is one last chance to earn a trip to the finals.
The circuit finals will be held in Butte this year after being in Billings for 36 years. The venue will be the Butte Civic Center. The finals have also been moved up to Sept. 29 – Oct. 1. By having the finals only three weeks after the end of the season, the cowboys, cowgirls, broncs and bulls should still be fit and ready to compete. In the past, the finals were held in February.
There are a few local cowboys who are currently in the top 15 of their events. Corvallis’ Duston Stephens trails Tyler Holland of Bozeman by only $650 in steer wrestling. Following Stephens, Stevensville’s Bridger Chambers is sitting in sixth place in that event. Both Stephens and Chambers are in the top 15 for the all-around title as well. Damon Ward of Darby is in 10th place in team roping (heading). Corvallis newcomer Billy Hendrickson is in 14th place in the saddle bronc event. He is originally from Arlee. In the junior events, Victor’s Jack Pederson is sitting ninth in junior breakaway roping and Jackson Stephens is in 14th place.
There is no extra admission charge for the rodeo events, just the gate charge. The performances are at 7 pm each night and slack will be run at 8 am on Friday, Sept. 2.