Rodeo

Cowboy PRCA Rodeo, history and what it doesLISTEN to the INTERVIEW:   PRCA interview with Sherry, What is it about?   Karen Riedl: Good afternoon! This is Karen from County Fairgrounds out of Denver. We’re going to talk today to Sherry Compton of the PRCA rodeo, Pro Rodeo. Hi, Sherry!Sherry Compton: Hi! How are you, Karen?Karen: Oh, I’m fine. I have a question because I didn’t recently really know too much about rodeo. I’ve often had a curiosity as to exactly what some of these rodeo associations do. So can you tell me a little bit about the history of the PRCA first?Sherry: Sure. Absolutely. The PRCA is the largest, oldest sanctioning body of professional rodeo. We’ve been around for a long, long time. I think in our infancy, a lot of roping and riding contests happened at the end of trailheads and trail drives. A lot of ranch outfits got together and had contests. They would have their best hands compete. So it was loosely organized for a long time, but they became anticipated events. In 1936, that was our first organizational effort when contestants rebelled against some promoters and demanded their fair prize money, consistency in judging, and honest advertising. So this group banded together. I think there were probably 61 of them. They started the Cowboy Turtle Association. They called it the Cowboy Turtle Association because they stuck their necks out, and they were so slow to organize.Karen: That’s funny! The Cowboy Turtle Association.Sherry: That was their original name because they stuck their necks out and they were so slow to organize, which is something they felt they should have done earlier. But from 1936 that was their name. In 1945 they changed the name to the Rodeo Cowboys Association. They had a permanent home in Colorado Springs. We moved down here in 1979, but in 1975 the Rodeo Cowboys Association became the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. So we’ve had a long history. We keep stats of all of our world champions and files on all these cowboys throughout the year, so we’ve got a lot of information here housed.Karen: I know that there’s a lot of rodeo associations. How do you fit in with all these rodeo associations, because there’s a lot of them around?Sherry: They’re all over I think within every state, just like there’s the Colorado Pro Rodeo Association. But we’re not affiliated with any other of those. We do work in cooperation with The Canadian Professional Rodeo Association. We are a [...]