GROVER, COLORADO , A GRASS ROOTS RODEO FOR 83 YEARS

            On the high plains of northern Colorado , just twelve miles south of the Wyoming border, sits a small town, Grover,  that has existed since the 1880s.   The main roads tying this hamlet to the rest of the world are covered with gravel.    For miles you can see the trees that identify the town as a sentinel to all on this vast prairie land.

.For the last 85 years the people of  this community have been holding a rodeo as an annual celebration and fund raiser..  The town, with a population around one hundred and serves a rural area in a fifty mile radius, participates whole heartedly in the endeavor.  The crowd that attends this event would astound and amaze most people.  The mid-June weekend includes a parade, a rodeo in the afternoon on Saturday and Sunday, a Bar-B-Q after the rodeo on Saturday, and a dance, Sunday morning breakfast at the Fire Hall, and Cowboy Church .  There are no hotels, motels or campgrounds in Grover, or any where near, but the cowboys and cowgirls keep coming year after year to this outstanding rodeo weekend.  Back in the 1970s, and before, it was normal for the competitors to camp out or sleep in their pickups and trailers.  Nowdays, however, some rush to Evergreen, Colorado , and compete in a rodeo there or some other near rodeo, then rush back to Grover for the next days event. 

This rodeo defines as closely as a rodeo can in 2006 how rodeo started, over a hundred years ago.  Simply, the rural community getting together, and everyone pitching in to hold a gathering that would allow camaraderie, competition and a chance to stop their every-day routine and have fun.  Everyone in Grover is a volunteer for the event..  Some volunteers paint, some weld, some sort cattle, some open the gates during the rodeo for the competitors, some run the concessions.  The rodeo program, full of articles of early community leaders and cowboys of the past, is chocked full of 68 pages of advertisements from all throughout northern Colorado , as well as Wyoming and Nebraska .  The Grover Community Club ramrods the weekend   The present volunteers have seen the efforts of their mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts and uncles working toward the success of  this affair so it’s no surprise to them as to what is required.

            Grover boasts a general store/café combination, a newly opened day spa with a hairdresser and masseuse, a post office, two churches, and a semi-retired local who works on and makes custom trailers.  The local school has an enrollment of 135 students.  The prairie lands boast good grass for  cattle and horses.  Pawnee Buttes, that jut toward the sky from the flat prairie ground to the east, is an state attraction and the Rocky Mountains are a mere forty or fifty miles to the west.  The hardy people that chose this land know how to get the best from it, and the importance of a strong community spirit.

            The Grover rodeo began in 1921.  In 1928 Earl Anderson, a local horse man, who was well known for his good bucking horses, began working the rodeo.  Early on he trailed stock to Greeley for their annual rodeo.  It is remembered that the women residents in Greeley used to stand out in their yards when Anderson herded his stock through their neighborhoods, to prevent them from crushing their flowers and trampling their bushes.  He also put on rodeos in various other locales including Livermore .  It has been reported that in the early days of the Anderson rodeos the hands that trailed stock to various places were fed out of an old school bus by Mary Anderson, Earl’s wife.  Earl and son, Jack, continued to be the ramrods of the Grover rodeo until they sold their bucking horses in 1959.  Earl died in the fall of 1960 and the members of the Grover Community Club renamed the rodeo the Earl Anderson Memorial Rodeo. 

The Earl Anderson Memorial Rodeo at Grover June 17 and 18, this year, was a huge success.  They paid $500 for each event and had 32 saddle bronc riders; 33 teams of team ropers; 32 calf ropers and 32 steer ropers; as well as fourteen bareback riders; eleven bull riders; and 35 barrel racers.  They also held an old-time wild horse race that kept everyone in the stands until the last gate was closed.  J. R. Olson, of Sheridan , Wyoming , came away as the All-Around winner.  He is #3 in the PRCA World Standings in Steer Roping presently.  Burns Rodeo Company, headed by Hal Burns, furnished the stock.

            Although this rodeo doesn’t fill the pockets of the competitors or have the best facilities it is a favorite for many.  License plates on the pickups and trailers boast many Colorado , Wyoming and Nebraska people, but you will also see them from Arizona , Texas and other parts of the country.  Some of the past winners have been Bobby Harris, J. D. Yates, Stran Smith, Troy Pruitt, Rocky Patterson, Guy Allen, Larry Sandvick, Ike Lambertson, Jim Wise, Ross Loney, Frank Thompson, K. C. Jones, Walt Woodard and Doyle Gellerman – just to name a few.  All are well known names in the rodeo game.

            Several local residents set out to see what would help better their annual rodeo.  They asked competitors what they would like to see Grover provide for them, that wasn’t being provided.  The answer they got was fairly standard, “You just keep having the rodeo and we’ll keep coming.”  Grover you can’t get much better than that!  Hats off to this outstanding rodeo community – we salute you!  You are the solid foundation of our sport.