Photo courtesy Julie Poulsen
Derek Ostler, a freshman from Pleasant Grove, Utah, gets into position before the gates are opened for his bull ride at the I-Rodeo Friday night.

BYU-Idaho students run — and participate in — semiannual I-Rodeo

Amy Barrus BAR04050@BYUI.EDU Campus Asst. Editor

Smells of manure, sounds of bull bellows and sights of bull riding filled the Madison County Fairgrounds as the seventh annual No Bull Rodeo was held Nov. 11.

The night started at 7:30 p.m. with the national anthem playing and a horse and rider carrying a flag around the arena, increasing in speed as the end of the song neared.

The first set of many bull rides was the first event, and that’s the reason Haley Simonson, a sophomore from Salem, Ore., came to the rodeo.

“I’m watching Hollan Harper kick some butt riding a bull,” Simonson said. “I expect to see some good bull riding and to see if we have any real men on BYU-I campus.”

The bull riding was followed by a cow-dressing contest. Oversized Apex shirts and sweats were wrestled on cows after they were roped. One girl was dragged through the dirt after roping a leg of the cow.

Cows weren’t the only ones wearing Apex Alarm shirts.

Brittany Holm, a sophomore from Roberts, Idaho, explained that she got her Apex shirt from a manager friend. “He gave us the shirts so we could get in for free,” Holm said.

There was an eggnog chug to win an iPod, and then more bull riding. This time there were a couple of riders in shorts and a bull stepped on one of the rider’s helmets.

The chicken chase was the next event. Girls went running rampant around the arena to catch three of them. Amber Schanz, a freshman from Idaho Falls, was one of the lucky winners of the DVD Rat Race. Schanz said her strategy was “trying to find the slow one.”

A digital camera was the prize for the next game called Cowboy Challenge.

Couples were the competitors, with the girl throwing darts at a large dart board to determine what their husbands or boyfriends would get in their shake: dog food, mustard, sauerkraut, pig’s feet, margarine or baby clams.

Contestants for the clown chase were females, fighting to get two yellow flags from a fast-running clown, who outstripped them all at first but eventually got cornered.

One of the most interesting events was horse vs. motorbike, a contest with a barrel race. Although the bikes were spitting up dirt and the bikers were popping wheelies while entering the arena, the horse beat both bikes with a time of 15.9 seconds against 24.28 seconds and 16.81 seconds for the bikers.

One of the bikes stalled twice while trying to get around the barrels. The crowd booed after it ran into a fence and got caught there.

Drew Barton, a senior from Powell, Wyo., was one of the organizers for the event, and said it went pretty well. He did this event last semester for Integrated Business Core, and said it was a success then.

“We decided to do it again because we made a lot of money,” Barton said. “We said, ‘If we can make it better, we can make some money.’”

They made it better by getting a sponsor, Apex Alarm, who advertised the event. The best form of advertising was word of mouth, though, Barton said.

“That’s the number one seller,” he said.