Prescott's One and Only Frontier Days

FRONTIER DAYS CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE IN Prescott

Our friend is a transplant from other climes, now happily calling Prescott home. How does she enjoy the nonstop Frontier Days celebration over the Fourth of July? "Oh, we just hole up at home and avoid the crowds." Well, that's one way. Another is to "immerse myself in it," as I was advised. That way lies sheer amazement at the scope of the action that started out 108 (no kidding) years ago as a "cowboy tournament."

Somewhere between avoidance and total immersion, 45,000 to 50,000 out-of-towners are added over the Fourth to Prescott's permanent population, all out for fun centered around the West's unique contribution to sports and entertainment: the rodeo. Our immersion begins with the final meeting of the Prescott Frontier Days Committee, our first clue that Frontier Days, like rodeo itself, is a family affair. Our seatmates are Weldon and Marie Hopman, whose immediate family includes the 1980 Frontier Days Queen, 1989 Queen, 1990 Miss Rodeo Arizona, 1991 Frontier Days Junior Court, and 1992 Senior Court. Not bad for just three daughters. "No one does the Fourth of July like Prescott," contends Frontier Days treasurer Bobbie Jo Cobey. No one argues. Prescott's is not only one of the premier events on the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) circuit but one of very few run entirely by volunteers. Some will get arena dust on their boots; others will oversee several dozen Frontier Days activities linked to the rodeo. And other Prescott organizations -service club, church, community theater, even the fire department - sponsor other Frontier Days events outside the committee's umbrella. Follow me, and we'll see. You've just got to like a sport with competitors nicknamed "Snuffy" and "Rope" and "Twister," along with the Darryls and the Kents, and with one event requiring a "shankman" and a "mugger," as well as a rider.

Listing rodeo "events" - bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, wild horse racing, calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling, barrel racing, bull riding - is like describing a hurricane as an interesting wind pattern. And they're by no means all there is to Prescott Frontier Days. Before the first steer charges from the swarming over the Courthouse Plaza downtown, checking out booths offering everything from tacos to T-shirts, homemade ice cream to handmade jewelry. The rodeo arena is one end of the Frontier Days axis; the plaza is the other. Other activities fan out from there, and on Friday, while cowboys are getting in shape for the second of eight rodeo performances, foursomes have hit the fairways early for the golf tournament added to Frontier Days back in 1968.

More spectators, though, are downtown awaiting the Kiwanis Kiddies Parade. Mothers and youngsters are prepping for prizes for the Best Cowgirl, Best Cowboy, Best Patriotic Entry, Best Costumed Twins, and on and on. Some of the entrants are too young to know it's a parade, but it's fun, and that's what counts.

The afternoon provides one of the most unusual weekend features, more than a dozen kids with severe physical problems participating in the Exceptional Rodeo. For them, there are events such as eight-second rides on Wimpy the hand-rocked "bull."

Each entrant is accompanied and cheered on by a professional rodeo cowboy taking time from the pursuit of glory to bring an ear-toear grin to a youngster who deserves it. For some folks, the day runs into night - the rodeo dance on a downtown parking lot or a performance of the Prescott Fine Arts Association (PFAA) melodrama. We opt for a night's sleep.

Saturday is Parade Day, but first there's the Pancake Breakfast offered by men of the First Congregational Church. Early appetites are already in line when serving begins at 6 A.M., and the griddles aren't turned off until 1,100 have been fed. Two shifts of five cooks each turn out 10 to 12 pancakes at a time, so there's little waiting, and the food is hot. Old friends and interesting strangers happen along, and the conversation is lively. For the 40th Pancake Breakfast, in 1996, Chairman Tom Nolan wanted to dream up "something interesting": "I thought we'd all grow handlebar mustaches, but some wives vetoed that."

Parade time is here. I usually ride (a flatbed trailer, not a horse) in the parade as a member of the Prescott Community Band, but this year I want to see the whole thing. This is a parade crowd already charged up. They even cheer the motorcycle policemen leading the procession. The Shrine Color Guard is still a quarter-block away, and folks already are on their feet in respect for Old Glory. Boy Scouts carrying United States and many state flags draw big cheers, and later win the Best Marching Group tro-phy. Unimpressed, a boy about five shouts: "I want the clowns!"

Ben Johnson is Grand Marshal, looking like he was born in the saddle, which he nearly was, and carrying impressive credentials as a former rodeo national roping champion and world record holder and an Oscar-winning actor. He's not the first genuine Hollywood cowboy to make it to Prescott. Tom Mix competed in Frontier Days' first bull-riding competition (in 1913), won third in bulldogging, and was Parade Grand Marshal. Will Rogers, Buck Jones, Tex Ritter, Slim Pickens, Chill Wills - all found their way to Prescott. (These and other reminiscences come from Danny Freeman, official Frontier Days historian. Without Danny's authoritative and readable World's Oldest Rodeo, published in 1988, no one has a firm handle on this celebration.) The first in an array of rodeo queens is Shasta Perkins from the White Mountains, Miss Rodeo Arizona, a true Western beauty on a horse named Home Made Gin. All the visiting royalty dazzles, as rodeo queens should. But none outshines Frontier Days Queen Jennifer Bricker and her Court,

Kenni Decker and Lacey

A showroom-spiffy, bright-red stagecoach drawn by four matched gray quarter horses and driven by by Darryl Hatch of Mesa is a favorite of judges as well as spectators. It wins the Grand Marshal's Award, equivalent to "Best of Show."

Antique and classic cars fit easily into the parade theme, "The Good Ole Days." They range from a 1937 Cord Model A-10, one of only 3,000 of the "coffin-nose" gems manufactured, according to owner Bud Leary, to a rare 1924 Dodge "Depot Hack."

After the parade is the Whiskey Row Boot Race. If you've never tried running flat out, on pavement, in a pair of Western boots don't. Adding new meaning to "political race," Yavapai County Superior Court Clerk Norb Wedepohl leads the "over55" field, edging out County Supervisor Gheral Brownlow. Clint Rusing cops the "under age eight" title, while his dad, Dr. Tom Rusing, takes the class among age 40 to 54 runners. Did I say Frontier Days is a family affair?

Meanwhile, the Western Holiday Classic fast pitch softball tourney is under way. (The hometown team was to become an unexpected champion, undefeated in six games.) And Saturday night winds up with another downtown rodeo dance.

Sunday begins way too early with a 10K race and two-mile "fun run." Fun and run rhyme nicely, but don't belong in the same sentence, so I take Chairman Philip Kuritzky's word that 150 entered the fray.

The annual Firemen's Hose Cart Race is another story. It's much more than a kids' water fight; teams from several fire departments see who can hook up first and blast the others with high-pressure hoses. Between that and a bucket-brigade competition, everyone spectators included gets as much drenching as they're willing to take.

Before the rodeo arena opens for Sunday business, there is Coy Huffman's Cowboy Church Service. Among other jobs, Coy is chute boss for rodeo stock contractor Harry Vold, but he preaches a good sermon as well.

The "annual" PFAA melodrama is the last for a couple of years, to be supplanted in 1996 by a comedy, Three Murders and It's Only Monday. For the "meller," booing and cheering are encouraged, the program notes, but "screams will be investigated.

Big-time professional rodeo is all action, and Junior Rodeo has its moments, too. Kids age five to 12 compete here in goat tying, calf roping, and more. Among the top barrel racers is Brittany Levine (from Laveen), a seven-year-old rider controlling a 24-year-old bay named Pony Boy. Brittany has been running barrels since she was four, but she isn't the youngest competitor here. Probably that's goat-tying horseman Wayman Trujillo, only six, third-generation Prescottonian, and up-and-comer in a rodeoing family that includes his uncle, former world bareback bronc riding champion J.C. Trujillo.

The rodeo show on the Fourth of July afternoon is preceded by the coronation of the 1996 Frontier Days Queen. Two weeks earlier, judges had interviewed, tested, listened to, and rated the horsemanship of 13 candidates. Meisha Townsend, 17, named Queen for 1996, will have a Court consisting of Biyanka Wilde, 13, and Crystal Killian, 11. It's guaranteed they can ride: 35 to 40 percent of the judges' decisions are based on horsemanship.

Is this the Frontier Days windup? Not quite. The real closer is the Fourth of July fireworks show at Prescott High School. Afternoon events include pie-eating and watermelon seed-spitting. The Prescott Community Band plays for 45 minutes before the first aerial bomb explodes, and announcer Harry Stevens once more pulls "oohs" and "aahs" from the fireworks crowd. Our stay-home friend doesn't know whatshe's missing. On the other hand, "total immersion" in Frontier Days is definitely for the strong. A third option is to be selective: pick the Frontier Days events that sound the best to you, go, and have fun. M