Behind the scenes of the 87th annual St. Paul Rodeo

The thousands of people who come to see each performance of the St. Paul Rodeo are there to watch the cowboys ride bulls and bucking horses, rope calves and race around barrels.

They likely never think about the effort that goes on behind the scenes to put on one of the largest rodeos in the world each 4th of July holiday.

More than 400 people volunteer as members of the St. Paul Rodeo Association, the nonprofit that puts on the rodeo. Those people, many of whom live in and around the small community of St. Paul, are committed to making sure their rodeo is special.

These are a few of the behind-the-scenes stories from the 87th annual event.

The Tack Room: The most popular bar on the Fourth of July is in St. Paul. And there's a rodeo, too

Retiring, but not leaving

Over the past two decades as secretary and historian of the St. Paul Rodeo, Kevin Smith has met every notable cowboy who has competed at the rodeo.

He stood at the counter in his office as every cowboy checked in. He stands in the announcer’s booth at each performance and makes sure announcer Justin McKee got his local history correct. And he’s the director of the rodeo’s hall of fame.

But this will be his final year on the board of the rodeo, Smith said.

“Now, never fear, I don’t plan to move away. And I’ll still be the historian and the hall of fame guy because I’m the old guy and I like that stuff,” said Smith, grandson of rodeo co-founder Carl Smith.

He said once he is no longer on the rodeo board, he will have time to make a new edition of his father’s book, "St. Paul Rodeo: My Labor of Love," which tells the history of the rodeo.

Smith has his own colorful history.

As a student at Willamette University in 1973, he and a classmate at 4 a.m. on a Sunday stole a plane at the airport in Salem and crashed it in front of the city's police station.

Smith and the pilot survived, and he said he was fortunate to avoid jail time by being sentenced to a lengthy probation and a hefty fine. And that was the end of his time at Willamette.

“But due to the issue involved in that story, when I went back to school (at Chemeketa Community College), I became an addiction counselor, and worked for Serenity Lane for a dozen years,” Smith said.

Smith still owns his family farm outside St. Paul, but leases it to family members.

He credits the rodeo to him surviving the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said after it became apparent the pandemic wouldn’t go away quickly, he came to the rodeo office every day to work, even if it was at a distance from everyone else.

He would get fast food and have a tailgate party with friends. It allowed him to get out of his house for five or six hours each day.

Smith hopes retirement means he'll get to still spend time at the rodeo, but focus more on enjoying it as a spectator.

“I’ll be 70,” he said. “Is that about time to retire? I think it is.”

Remembering one of the greatest

When Ray Weisz was in fourth grade at Nellie Muir Elementary School in Woodburn, his uncle came to his class one day. He brought along some cowboy friends and they signed autographs for the kids.

The uncle was Larry Mahan, one of the greatest rodeo cowboys of all time.

“The kids just went nuts over him, just being able to meet somebody like that,” Weisz said.

Mahan, a native of Brooks and graduate of North Salem High School, died May 7 at age 79 in Texas.

Mahan rose to fame and fortune in rodeo by earning five All-Around championships and in the mainstream after starring in the Oscar-winning documentary "The Great American Cowboy," and acting on TV and in the movies.

Many in St. Paul knew him as something other than just the local cowboy who won the rodeo’s bareback riding championship in 1971 and was a first-ballot rodeo Hall of Fame inductee.

He was part of their family.

Mahan’s first wife was Darlene (Weisz), a native of Gervais.

Cole Weisz is Darlene’s great-nephew. When he met Mahan about 20 years ago, Mahan was no longer his great-uncle. But he still made an impression.

“He was a great guy. Awesome,” Cole Weisz said. “When I met him, I was a young kid.  He was kind. He didn’t have to be nice to me.”

Known as the Elvis of rodeo, Mahan left his mark on more than just the people he met. He left an impression on the rodeo community as a whole.

“He made an impression everywhere he went,” Ray Weisz said.

Is the rodeo sold out?

Before Friday’s first performance of the St. Paul Rodeo, tickets for all but one of the six performances – the July 4 matinee performance – were sold out.

Well, that’s sort of true, said Karen McKillip, first-year general manager of the St. Paul Rodeo. They're sold out on the rodeo's website.

“We have a lot of third-party ticket buyers, unfortunately, that are purchasing them,” said McKillip, who formerly ran the ticket sales at the rodeo. “It’s happening to a lot of rodeos.”

Tickets for the rodeo cost $22-$60 each, depending on the section and performance, when purchased through the rodeo’s website.

McKillip said ticket resellers are asking three to four times the face value of each ticket.

The rodeo is still selling out of its supply of tickets and making money off those sales, but the resellers are charging fans far more than they are supposed to cost, McKillip said.

She said fans should verify from whom they are purchasing tickets.

“That part is tough because the seats we don’t want to be empty if they don’t sell because they are selling for exorbitant prices,” said McKillip, granddaughter of two rodeo founders.

Nearly all the seats for Friday’s opening night performance were filled, with the exception of a few of the front rows in one of the newly replaced north grandstands.

That entire grandstand was replaced with an elevated metal grandstand, with seating for a beer garden under it. The rodeo intends to replace the other north grandstand in two years with a similar elevated one.

Getting enough water for everyone

Most people who walk by the grey building the size of a coat closet surrounded by metal fencing on the St. Paul Rodeo Grounds don’t realize how important it is.

About eight years ago, the city had to curtail the use of municipal water days before the rodeo because of its inadequate pumps and storage.

The rodeo association jumped in to help.

In the span of two years, they had a new well drilled on association-owned land just south of the Tack Room.

The 330-foot-deep well cost about $150,000, including the pump and electricity.

“A third or a quarter of the money it would have cost if it had gone through the municipal bid process,” said Mike Dolan, a former city councilor and long-time rodeo association member.

It provides a flow of 450 gallons per minute, compared with a combined 325 from the city’s two existing wells.

The rodeo association designed the well with the idea of allowing the city to use the water from it. That costs more money.

Dolan said former State Rep. Bill Post helped bring an allocation of $600,000 to run a water line under the rodeo grounds to tie in with the city’s water system, which was completed in 2022.

As part of its agreement to let the city use the water, the rodeo association extended the agreement to use the city-owned arena for another 50 years at the current rate of about $15,000 per year.

But the city also got $1 million of American Rescue Plan funds from Marion County and another $700,000 from the state Legislature through their current State Rep. Rick Lewis to add water storage capacity.

So there’s plenty of water for the rodeo each year, and soon the city’s water problems will be solved.

“It’s essentially been no cost to the city,” Dolan said.

Memorializing a fallen son

The rodeo this year paid tribute to Austin Smith, a native son who died at age 30 in January 2022 while fighting a fire outside of town.

Friday night was Austin Smith First Responders Night. The rodeo donated 50 cents from every ticket sold to the Austin Smith Foundation. Last year, the foundation raised enough money to give out a $10,000 college scholarship.

“Tonight is a representation of a small town with a huge tragedy. But thanks to not letting evil, not letting evil take over their hearts, they turned to God instead,” announcer Justin McKee said. “They turned a tragedy into triumph.”

Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Behind the scenes of the 87th annual St. Paul Rodeo