February Is Rodeo Month

February is RODEO MONTH in Arizona

FEBRUARY is rodeo month in Arizona. From the thirteenth through the sixteenth of the month the World's Championship Rodeo will be held at the Fairgrounds in Phoenix, and from the twenty-first through the twenty-third that colorful western cowshow, "La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros" will take place in Tucson. These two shows rank with the finest in America. They have been long established, they are clothed with all the color This doesn't look like a very pleasant way to make a living nor is it. But it is all a part of one of the most exacting of all sports.

No sport ever devised for the entertainment of mankind has the action and the drama of a topranking rodeo. The performers are skilled and trained experts, specialists in a highly specialized sport. When every ride may be a life or a limb, only the best and the strongest can survive. Two essentials are necessary to stage a major rodeo-good stock and good performers. Phoenix and Tucson show the best whether broncs, brahmas or riders. (Photos by J. Robert Burns.) and excitement of such traditional events, and each brings together the finest stock and the finest performers in the business. Champions and nearchampions, bright-eyed beginners and old timers who have been through the mill, the great and the near-great of the most exciting and exacting sport of all -they'll all be in the competing lists at the Phoenix and Tucson shows. Having the endorsement of the Rodeo Association of America and the Cowboy Turtles, the World's Championship Rodeo at Phoenix and "La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros" at Tucson are top-flight, professional shows, classic events in a classic sport.

The cow show is no place for a softie. This is the sport that requires iron nerves and muscles of steel. Most rodeo stars got their start on cattle ranches, grew tough and strong from hard work in the open for mere spectacle and daring, few events of the rodeo business have the appeal of bull-dogging. These events are against time and a second gained or a second lost may mean the winning or losing of prize money. The bulldogger in this excellent study by Max Kegley is one of the all-time greats of the rodeo game-Everett Bowman of Hillside.