Friday night at the Clayton Rodeo: How a tiny Stevens County town preserves one of rural America’s oldest traditions
CLAYTON, Wash. – Just past the sea of sunflowers swaying along Highway 395, a cloud of dust hovered above the Clayton Fairground.
One might think the dust in the sky was from all the rowdy horses and steers kicking up dirt, but the rodeo hadn’t even started. The storm was actually from a long line of cars and trucks leading from the entrance of the fair, down the graveled Wallbridge Road and a mile or so down the highway headed south towards Spokane.
The annual event in this small Stevens County town serves as one of the best traditions to preserve a longstanding cultural heritage.
“This is about community,” spectator Thad Stenlund said. “That’s the beauty of this area, Stevens County in general, is that we’re all about a more rural lifestyle and maintaining some of our more historic roots.”
The nearly 1,100 cars and trucks that made it out of that long line belonged to eager rodeo fans excited for a chance to see bucking broncos, wild steers and determined cowboys and cowgirls compete in a variety of events.
Inside, four high school boys in the ticketing line took turns poking fun at each other and debating whether or not the cashier would take the stapled $100 bill resting in one of their palms. At one point, one of them flicked the ear of a kid in front of them that they recognized from school and asked him where his buddy was.
Hints of manure and kettle corn filled the air of an event where everyone seemed to somehow know each other. Brown leather boots, blue jeans and tall cowboy hats floated above an ocean of heads.
Eleven vendors provided everything you could need, from a gutter cleaning service to booths selling horse tack to clothing companies selling hats, shirts, pants and more.
Rayna Callaham is one such vendor at the Clayton rodeo. Callaham sells hand-crafted jewelry she makes at home. She started with earrings about four or five years ago and then slowly branched out to making matching necklaces. Even though she sells jewelry, potted plants are her biggest seller at the rodeo. When she’s not making or selling jewelry, Callaham works at WaFd Bank in Deer Park.
“I’m excited for the rodeo,” Callaham said before it started. “I get kind of good seats through the fence, so that’ll be fun.”
The aroma of sweet barbecue filled the air as the crowd stood in unison, first to pray and then to put their hands over their hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance and the Canadian national anthem.
Once both wrapped up, the rodeo announcer only had two words to say: “Let’s ride.”
The Tough Enough Drill Team took to the corral first. Weaving in and out and circling the pen, the drill team hoisted flags of all kinds, mostly military, high in the sky as fans in pink shirts clapped adoringly. Friday night was Tough Enough to Wear Pink Night, which is a nationwide campaign that promotes breast cancer awareness. The organization fundraises primarily through western events and rodeos.
For Haley Anderson, the drill team is her favorite event to watch. Being a former drill team member herself, she appreciates the event for the amount of coordination and memorization required . Fifteen cowgirls have to gallop around the arena in varying figure-eight forms and try not to crash into each other. Sounds easy enough? It’s not.
Anderson said she was surprised at the turnout for this year’s rodeo. Her hope was to find some people she knew and to snack on a cheeseburger once she got hungry.
A little ways up the steps of the stands sat Gabby Pack, 34, and her 9-year-old daughter Addyson. This was their first year at the Clayton rodeo, but Gabby Pack said it reminds her of the rodeos she used to go to in her hometown of Tonasket in Okanogan County.
“The experience of showing her how other people are raised, I’d say (is important),” Pack said. “The farm life, because that’s what I grew up with.”
Steer wrestling, known also as bulldogging, occurred not long after the drill team wrapped up. For this event, a rider chases a steer on a horse before leaping off and grabbing the steer by the horns to try and pull it to the ground. Getting impaled by a bull horn is never a pretty sight, which is why hundreds of screaming fans are needed to distract the steer wrestler from the impending danger of the situation.
And sure enough, people were hooting and hollering as different cowboys took a crack at trying to drag the raging beast down into the dirt.
A step below steer wrestling is chute dogging. Instead of starting on horseback, the competitor starts in the bucking chute with the steer. The animals weigh somewhere between 400 and 600 pounds, but it’s supposed to be a good way for less experienced wranglers to get a taste. The steer has to be wrestled to the ground with all four feet up in the air in under a minute, which, as you might be able to imagine, is a tall and exhausting order.
As the dying sun cast golden rays of light across the crowd and the watered-down soil of the fairgrounds, the bucking broncos whined excitedly from behind the bucking chute before being released.
The wild nature of the broncs and bulls attracts people like Stenlund. Stenlund has lived in Springdale for the last five years and works at Dragonfly Ranch with his mother. It’s a holistic environment where people can get therapy and work to raise their level of consciousness. Stenlund specializes in substance use disorder and works actively to get his clients to commit to growth. He says that while abstinence from substances is great, if a person isn’t willing to go beyond the surface level to find out what’s really at the center of their problems, then what’s the point?
As for the rodeo, Stenlund couldn’t be happier about how everything turned out.
“That’s what’s cool about this type of atmosphere, is you get to see like-minded folk that actually care about animals, nature, old-time ways of doing things, and so you embrace that culture, and that’s the only way to do it. You come out to things like this.”
As the sunlight slowly disappeared, the bright stadium lights at the fairground flashed on. Teams of two took to the pen to compete in what they called the business person’s calf tying. Several teams representing local businesses in the area had to lasso a calf and then tie its legs together while people in inflated bubble balls rolled around behind them. The scene was pure chaos as men in checkered shirts clung tightly to ropes attached to calves on a mad dash around the pen. It’s safe to say that it took the actual cowboys a lot less time than it took the business people, but the whole thing left the crowd amused.
The intensity of the crowd only increased with the barrel racing. In the blink of an eye, a cowgirl started at one end of the pen and raced around one barrel, then the next, then a third before returning to the chute. With each passing hoof, the crowd cheered, hoping that the next rider would be faster than the last.
George Cannata is a rodeo enjoyer who couldn’t help but notice just how cordial everyone seemed to be. Cannata lives in Spokane and got convinced by his daughter to come out to the rodeo last weekend.
“A lot of time you wind up going to places, they put a show on, but it’s just fake. You know, even the people watching the show are quiet; they’re not really involved. Here, everyone is involved. It’s good.” Cannata said.
This year was his first time at the Clayton Rodeo, but he said it won’t be his last. The event he enjoyed the most was bull riding. And bull riding, as it turns out, happens to be most people’s favorite, which is exactly why it was saved for last.
The time was pushing 9:30 p.m. by the time the bulls were set loose. All it takes is a simple nod of the head, and the chute doors fly open. An exhilarated tension settled over the crowd as they watched each rider try their best to stay on the back of a bucking, angry bull for the longest eight seconds of that rider’s life. Victory is only achieved when the buzzer sounds and the bull rider dismounts. It should be mentioned that dismounting comes with its fair share of weaving, dodging and running, so as not to get stomped, skewered or stabbed by a sharp horn.
Josh Whittekiend, 21, was a spectator at this year’s rodeo but hopes to one day be a bull rider, as long as his girlfriend lets him. But from the looks of it, that might not be happening anytime soon.
“One thing that’s always impressed me about rodeo is that they always stand firm on praying right before, thanking the military first thing, the Pledge of Allegiance and all that. And honoring Canadians even though sometimes we like to give them a hard time. But even honoring them too, our neighbors. Baseball, you don’t really do that. You’ll sing the national anthem, but prayer ain’t there. Football, same thing. Rodeo is really the last place you can find that.”