BULLS, BRONCS and BRAVADO!

By: Ann Terry Hill

Pendleton, OR comes alive annually the second week in September! The town with a usual population of 17,000 swells to over 50,000 as crowds converge from around-the-world to attend the Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon nightly pageant. The action is non-stop. Top cowboys and cowgirls compete in PRCA sanctioned events, hoping to get to the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. The cowboys call this the toughest and wildest rodeo in existence today, and the audience roars its approval .

The grass seeded arena and the Indian Teepee Village on the rodeo grounds add to the daily glamour. Here old West meets new, as the latest techniques for caring for livestock are employed. Still the show has many of the same events it had in its beginning year 1910.

Night time brings a change in tempo as Happy Canyon presents its unique version of the settling of the West, The Indian side of the story, with Native Americans who have passed their roles down from generation to generation since the inception in 1916 is the first half of the show. They don't need a script, they follow the music and whatever their forefathers did. The animals seems to know their parts just as well. The Frontier action in the second part of the show is funky fun, with reminders of what Pendleton was in the early 1900s.

Tickets sell out fast. And room accommodations are a priority. The Pendleton Chamber of Commerce coordinates reservations for this event. Contact them and become a part of this living adventure. Time to don your boots and hats and settle in for unequaled experience of the American West this September! So, as they say in Pendleton, "Saddle Up!"

Site: pendletonroundup.com