DRUMMOND – Drummond’s 75th official rodeo welcomed coming cowboys and cowgirls from all across the state on Sunday to ride on a nice sunny day.
The time-tested Drummond PRCA Rodeo is organized by the local Kiwanis who use the rodeo to fund raise for non-profit charity meals in and around the town.
This year’s rodeo sideshow featured artists who worked on their pieces live and then auctioned them off after the rodeo.
"And just and just the way it worked out, we have a large variety of media that they are using," Drummond Kiwanis President Darcy Schindler said. "We have oil and acrylic. I’m not an artist but we got a metal worker and then we got some on a moose horn, painting on a moose horn and painting on a saw blade.
"We are trying to expand our day to where we have art, we have rodeo — and we’re hoping maybe we can even do a quilt show or something like that, to where it’s kind of a family fun day for everyone," Schindler added.
The most important thing about the rodeo for the riders is the sense of unity and community that they create in order to give back.
"The whole thing is that you have everybody coming together to put this thing on. People see what we do and all the sudden they say ‘I wanna join that group’," Drummond PRCA Rodeo co-chairman Ron Wetsch said.
"And we try to do so many things in this community to help people and everyone realizes that period it’s us. We have six or seven different people that come here and say I wanna be part of that. And Drummond America is not very big," Wetsch added.
The money raised from the raffles, art and rodeo tickets allows the Kiwanis Club to fund their Thanksgiving and Christmas charity events that feed hungry families throughout the year.
This was the first year that the rodeo has hosted live artists, adopting a practice that began in the Stanford, Montana rodeo.
