The History of Rodeo in Sedro-Woolley

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 Compiled from Betty Antone’s notes, rodeo entry lists, and the files of the Courier-Times
By Kathy Peth

For  rodeo fans, it all looks familiar, their regular Fourth of July  landscape at Sedro-Woolley.  Arena, chutes, announcer’s stand,  bleachers, grass, mud…  But the grounds have gone through a lot of  changes in its years.  The bucking chutes remain much as they were when  sited in the ‘40s when the Sedro-Woolley Riding and Racing Club first  developed their new home on Polte Road, but the surrounding race track  they built has disappeared; the roping chutes used to be at the  concession end of the arena; there were contestant stands (a little  stretch of 3-high bleachers) between today’s announcer’s stand and the  bucking chutes.  And the announcer stand has gone from a platform with  half-hearted railings above the bucking chutes to a little house with  steep steps to today’s stand near the timed events area.  The fence  itself has been updated and up-painted many times.

The weather  has always been dicey on the 4th.  Sometimes the neighbors complain of  the big clouds of dust, sometimes it’s dry but rain at the end of June  has made the arena into a morass that feels as if it could drown entire  cowboys, and their horses. Too often, the last rain of the summer comes  on the first days of July. Many an arena manager has turned gray by July  2, coordinating loaders hauling out mud and graders smoothing new sand,  only to worry again the next year.  Sometimes S-W is the start of  summer, sometimes it’s the end of winter. The fans, equipped with  sunblock and blankets, turn out anyway.

The history of rodeo  here is the history of rodeo itself. The blending of Sedro with the  rival town of Woolley was barely 15 years old when, in 1912, local  businessman Charlie Bingham saw the third-ever Roundup in Pendleton,  Oregon.  That spectacle fired him up and by 1914 he was promoting a  local wild west-type show, with as many horses – tame and otherwise – as  he could talk folks into bringing to town. 

Rodeo itself was in  its formative stages, moving from the “I can ride longer than you can”  dare of an event, with an open-field arena fenced with Model Ts, to a  series of contests with standard rules. In 1929, the Rodeo Association  of America was formed for rodeo producers, and by 1936, after some  accusations of rodeo committees putting prize money into their own  Levis, the contestants themselves organized the Cowboy Turtles  Association, the precursor of the Rodeo Cowboys Association (1945) which  in turn became the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Assn (PRCA) in 1975.

Back  in Skagit County, Bingham was still promoting rodeo play days, John  Peth held unofficial rodeos at his ranch on D’Arcy Road in Bow, and in  1930 the first organized rodeo was held at the old Skagit County Fair  Grounds in Burlington, where Fred Meyer is now.  There were rodeos at  Puget Ball’s west of Mount Vernon (at the corner of Farm to Market and  Fredonia Roads) and for the cowboy who wanted to travel, there were  rodeos in Bellingham and Ferndale.

By 1930, Charlie Bingham and  Porter LaPlant were putting on the June playday-rodeo AND a 4th of July  rodeo, both at the Ball Field in Sedro-Woolley.  Bay View stockmen Art  Bell and Harvey Sorenson furnished the bucking horses and John Peth  brought the cattle stock – calves for roping, bulls for bucking, and  steers for bulldogging.  In 1931, the local newspaper reports more than  2,000 spectators for the “First Annual American Legion Roundup” held at  the “rodeo grounds near Allen” on Sunday, June 14.  There were races and  most of the timed and judged events that are common to rodeos today.   Local contestants included George and Archie Peth of LaConner, Bill  Walton of Clear Lake, Joe Antone of Sedro-Woolley, and 8-year old Rodney  Junquist of Bow, with his Shetland pony. 

The 1934 show included  “minstrels, midgets, and a Rodeo Parade,” and promised “some of the  finest riders and ropers in the west.”  Sixty wild horses and forty wild  steers were expected to be needed for the three-day rodeo, offering  “hundreds” of dollars in prizes.                                                                                                                                                                              There was trick riding, Brahma Bull Riding, calf roping, barrel races,  hide races, trick roping, and “tub riding” by the rodeo clown, O. K. Fox  of LaConner.  There was a 3-legged race, a shoe race, and a ladies’  nail driving contest.

In 1935, Jim Hulbert of LaConner was arena  director, Ben Boone of Seattle and John Peth of Bow were judges.  The  parade would have 75 saddle horses, and in the rodeo was a buffalo  riding contest (John Peth had buffalo for a time).  The fastest time in  the calf roping was “about 26 seconds.”  By 1937, the payout, including  added prize money, had grown to $2,500, and the rodeo was being promoted  as taking its place beside Ellensburg and Pendleton in presenting “a  great western rodeo.”  All three rodeos are still produced.
 

Tickets  cost 50 cents, the bucking horses were sometimes saddled in the arena  instead of in the chute, the committee bought oil cloth and safety pins  each year for the contestant’s shirt numbers, and there were still the  full complement of races: chariot, chuckwagon, pack saddle, and surrey  races, and there was a businessmen’s calf tying contest. In 1941 the  stock contractors were Howard Merrin, a former bronc and bull rider of  Seattle, and Glen Betts.  Californian Bob Hill came up to be both rodeo  clown, and trick roper.

The Sedro-Woolley Riding and Racing Club  formed October 22, 1943.  Bert Woodruff was the first president, and  Charlie Swett was Veep. They met above the club’s new director Sam  Henderson’s tavern on Metcalf Street, and soon the new SWR&RC was  producing both the June and the July rodeos.  In 1945, under President  Art Moors, the club bought 10 acres on Polte Road for $3,000.  The  membership loaned the club from $25 to $100 each and used proceeds from  previous rodeos (and donated sweat) to retire the land debt and build  the arena, race track, and chutes.  The club paid back its member-loans,  and has been self-supporting ever since.  In the next few years,  bleachers, a club house made from the old McRae School House, and a camp  building from Scott Paper serving as a caretaker house completed the  necessaries.  The club has been making improvements ever since.  

By  1943 the rodeo offered five regular events and five or six races – no  team roping or barrel racing yet.  Events changed according to the stock  and contestants available – steer riding was often substituted for bull  riding, steer roping occasionally cropped up as an “added event,” with  an all around paycheck offered for cowboys competing in at least two of  the main events: calf roping, bulldogging, barebacks and saddle bronc  riding, and some sort of bovine riding.

In 1946, LaConner’s  one-armed trick roper Red Jackson brought his “educated horse Jo” to  please the crowd, and there was live between-event music provided by two  singers, June Sharpe and Betty Lockhart, and Lois Extine, a yodeler.   Stock contractors were John Peth, of Bow, and Mack Woods of Everett.   Pickup men were Marsten Ball and Art Bell; Joe Antone and Del Gorrell  ran the chutes, while paperwork was handled by Mrs. Marguerite Moors,  Mrs. Betty Antone, and Mrs. Zelda Henderson.  The SWR&RC boasted 72  members, up from the 18 founders in 1943.

The first rodeo at the  new grounds on Polte Road opened to capacity crowds in 1947.  “Buzzy”  Peth, 10, put on a display of calf roping to the delight of the crowd.   Bud Botta of Olympia won the All Around title, and other winners were  Jerry Peth, George Brookings, Joe Antone, Norm Trapp, Buck Nordhorst,  Ted Peth, Willie Harmer and Oscar Peterson.

Nationally, the Rodeo  Association of America and the Cowboy Turtle Association had morphed  into the Rodeo Cowboys Association in 1945, and the 1948 S-W rodeos were  RCA sanctioned.  June 6 brought a Cowboys Play Day Rodeo with  contestants John Conrad, Ed Avery, Ralph Walter, Norm Trapp, Jerry,  Wick, Ted and John Peth of “Allen,” (now considered from Bow).  By this  time John Peth was collecting Brahma bucking bulls, so the bull riding  looked pretty western. 

The July 4th rodeo of 1948 was the first  combined with Sedro-Woolley’s logging extravaganza, and named the  LoggerRodeo, a term that has caused some fan-confusion over the years.   By 1950 the SWRC dropped racing and their June date in favor of spending  their energies on improving the 4th of July spectacle. 

Many  well known local and national rodeo champions have competed in  Sedro-Woolley’s arena.  The 4th of July is the holiday known as “Cowboy  Christmas” and contestants haul in from the U.S. and Canada to compete.   Hometown cowboy and S-W contestant Wick Peth is a legendary rodeo bull  fighter, having fought bulls at the National Finals Rodeo 11 times. NFR  bullfighter Karl Doering was also a S-W regular. Team roping champions  Bucky and B.J. Campbell cut their dallies in this arena. Buz Peth, Mike  Beers, Shane Proctor, George Aros, Leo and Jerald Camarillo, and Shane  Erickson, all rodeo champions, have strapped their spurs on behind the  Sedro-Woolley chutes. Eight-time world champion Dean Oliver roped calves  here.                    

Sidebar:  In 1946, the Skagit Valley Riding Club drill team, under the whistle of  Les Mayer: Vern Egbers, Murry Conn, June Sharpe, Betty Lockhart,  Melvina McFarlane, Bill Marlow, Yvonne Kerr, Viola Eitrem, Connie  Callahan, Ralph McKibben, Eugene McFarlane, Gloria McFarlane, Sam  McFarlane, Doris Vercoe, Jim Callahan, Milton Kalso, Shirley Kalstrom,  and Willard McKee.

Sidebar: Members of Skagit County Sheriff’s  Posse 1965:  Bob Galbraith, Keith Gordon, Dick Bargewell, Matt  Hesseltine, Del Berner, Sam Eaton, Keith Emerson, Henry Whitney, Jim  Beernink, Les Masonholder, George Osborne, George Taylor, Burl Seay,  Russ Thurman, Del Fox, Ed Fagan, Hank Ploeg, Bob Allen, and Ernie Dahl

Sidebar:  More contestants through the years:  Kirk Jefferts, Sonny Kelsey, Jim  Zumwalt, J.D. Sherman, Dick Morris, Lyle Moody, Terry Goodrich, Brad  Goodrich, Billy King, Wayne Marshall, Sherdy Wharton, George Prescott  (also the announcer), Billy Eggleson in the Saddle Broncs, Loren Dahl,  Jack Sullivan, Tuffy Morrison, JP Roan, Don Drake, Ed Knutzen, Earl  Peth, Danny Green, Knight Smith, Jim Posey, Bud Botta, Bo Longo, and Sam  Willis.