SWEETWATER COUNTY – Bringing some of the bigger events to the area has been a goal of local governments and the Sweetwater Events Complex. The complex has been in discussions with several major events and on Tuesday, the Sweetwater County Fair Board was given an update on some of these.

Several months ago, the Little Britches Rodeo reached out to the Sweetwater County Events Complex to discuss possibly hosting and bidding on the event. The events complex staff put a bid together and met with the leadership of the rodeo. The bid was for the 2016 and 2017 event.

Tuesday night, Complex Director Larry Lloyd said it came down to Sweetwater County and a community in Oklahoma. In the end, the Little Britches Rodeo decided to go with Oklahoma. Lloyd said the main reason was money. He explained the community in Oklahoma had more financial resources and they were willing to cover more of the costs to host the event than Sweetwater County could.

NHSFR

Last week, staff traveled to Denver to meet with the officials of the National High School Finals Rodeo. This summer’s rodeo is the last one on the current contract between the NHSFR and Sweetwater Events Complex.

Not only did they talk about the upcoming rodeo this summer in Sweetwater County, they also discussed the bid for the 2018 through 2021 rodeo. Complex Marketing and Events Manager Kandi Pendleton said this time around the NHSFR received 13 bids from all over the nation.

“There is a lot of competition out there now,” Pendleton said.

The NHSFR Board usually awards the bids during its winter meeting but Pendleton explained due to the large amount of bids received this time around, they will not decide who to award the bid to until July when the board meets during the rodeo here in  Sweetwater County.

Pendleton added the bid process is closed so there would be no other bids added for the rodeo. She also explained the reason why they moved the awarding of the bid to July was so their teams could go to each individual site and make sure they are adequate and able to host an event the size of the NHSFR.

Lloyd said all 13 communities who bid have been to the complex to see what they needed to upgrade to compete for the rodeo.

“We can’t rest on our laurels,” Lloyd said. “We have gotta get out there and keep improving.”

Recently, Gillette announced they were building a new arena that would be funded by the college so they can attract more college rodeo events as well as other events to the area. Lloyd said communities such as Gillette can do this because they have people and local businesses willing to invest in building new facilities.

There was one thing Lloyd said these communities will never be able to compete with and that was the volunteers in Sweetwater County and the staff at the Sweetwater Events Complex.

Pendleton also spoke to the Fair Board about the discussions between the complex and the NHSFR on this year’s rodeo. She said this year they will be adding a new event, the working cow horse event. The two sides talked about this event but really did not have a lot of details about what to expect. Pendleton explained that, since it is a brand new event, they do not know what kind of participation it will get over the season. She said they will have to wait and see to get an accurate number but the NHSFR Board is guessing it will add about 104 new participants.

Pendleton also said the NHSFR officials were very happy with the facility and the way the rodeo has ran the past couple of years.

Other Rodeo Events

The board was also briefly updated on talks with two other rodeos. Lloyd said the National Junior High School Finals Rodeo and the complex are still discussing possibly hosting its event in the future.

Pendleton also reported they are still in discussions to host the Women’s Professional Rodeo World Finals. She said the Women’s World Finals happens on the same weekend as the Mountain State Finals and they are looking at possibly linking them together but nothing has been decided yet.

Since the event takes place in October, Pendleton said the one big issue they are having with the Women’s World Final is they will need to add more indoor stalls to meet the needs of the rodeo.

Lloyd did report the complex is looking at the possibility of getting around 600 new covered stalls. He said they would be similar to the ones they have at the complex now and would bring the total number of covered stalls to approximately 800.