Eugene Pro Rodeo - KIDS CLUB

To start off our rodeo festivities at the Eugene Pro Rodeo, one of our fabulous volunteers named Larry Wicklund puts on our annual Kids Club a few days before the rodeo. The Kids Club is an opportunity for kids to come to the arena and tour the shoots, learn about rodeo, and meet rodeo "celebrities" like myself.
This year Kids Club was held on June 29 and we had over 400 kids come tour with us! We had groups bus in from summer camps and things like that and we also had kids come from the general public.

As far as celebrities go, we had myself; Wayne White, our announcer; Jesse Tennant, our Bull FIGHTER; and Tyler Gorham, a Bull RIDER. Wayne told the kids about the history of rodeo and even set up a game where a fast kid would pretend to be bull and chase Tyler while Jesse (being the bull fighter) would try to catch the "bull". It was a lot of fun. Some kids took it pretty seriously and even came up and head-butted me and one of our other helpers, Miranda. Then Wayne took them out back and explained where the cowboys enter the rodeo and then we toured the chutes. Wayne even offered the kids to take home a "rodeo souvenir" AKA dried horse poop. Then the kids were shut in the bucking chutes and released to go bucking through the arena and back to the beginning for ice cream and face painting.

I had a great time helping out. Meeting kids and sharing rodeo with them is one of my ultimate favorite parts of being the queen and the Kids Club was definitly the place to do that!