saddle Story and photoS by Jeri Chadwell jer i c@ n ew s r ev i ew . com
Mike Torvinen is the 2019 reno rodeo president.
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he very first Reno Rodeo was advertised as the city’s “First Annual Carnival of the Range.” Behind it were many of that era’s prominent citizens, including George Wingfield—for whom Wingfield Park is named—and Charles Mapes, Sr., of the once famous Mapes Hotel (demolished in 2000). For the inaugural year, Mapes paid former convicted cattle rustler Will James—who went on to fame as a popular author and illustrator of many Westerns of his era—the princely sum of $20 to illustrate a poster to advertise the rodeo. That was 100 years ago. In years since, posters commissioned for the Reno Rodeo have become something of a collector’s item. (Locals know the walls of the Gold ’n’ Silver Inn are lined with them.) This year’s poster depicts a man named A.H. “Hippy” Burmister, the bucking horse champion of that first 1919 rodeo. It’s one of the ways the Reno Rodeo Association—officially founded back in 1935—is marking the event’s centennial. “We had a hundred horses in the Nevada Day Parade—a hundred riders for a hundred years,” said Mike Torvinen, the 2019 Reno Rodeo president. “That turned out very spectacular. I kept hearing that it was just something to see. I was at the front of the group, so I couldn’t really see what was going on. But I did turn around a few times, and we stretched out two or three blocks down there in Carson City.”
The “100 Years—100 Stories” project, produced by native Nevada photographer and filmmaker Jessie LeMay, is another way the association is commemorating the anniversary. “She is very good at what she does,” Torvinen said. “She interviews people and gets them to tell their stories. And she videotapes that.” The filmed stories have been shared on social media and during a series of live events and will be released on disc as a collection. They’ll join a large archive of already existing materials from the rodeo’s history—many of which have been collected over the years by Guy Clifton, who spent 22 years at the Reno Gazette Journal and is now a public information officer for Nevada’s state museums. “I think, unofficially, he’s probably our official historian,” Torvinen said. “He did his book on the first 80 years [Reno Rodeo: A History—the First 80 Years]. I’ve used that extensively in my research. We have a newsletter, and I try to put a trivia question in there every month. I go to Guy’s book to find some little factoid about Reno Rodeo.”
Curating cowboys “Reno Rodeo: 100 Years of the Wildest Richest Rodeo in the West” debuted on May 15 at the Nevada Historical Society, 1650 N. Virginia St., and will remain in place through August. Clifton is its curator and, with the help of NHS staff, has worked over the last year in his spare time to create the exhibit. It’s a pet project of sorts, dedicated to the event for which he provided some 19 years of RGJ reporting. “It became my beat, and I wanted to do it as well as I could—so I just really got into it,” he said. With a book and two decades of reporting under his belt, Clifton’s challenge with the exhibit was not in gathering information but in parsing which information to share within the museum’s limited exhibition space. “You know, you can’t tell a full 100-year story,” he said. “There’s just so much that has happened in that time. So, what you do is try to pick out little vignettes Former Miss reno rodeo Selena of people, places and things that have significance Ulch lent a dress, along the way.” saddle and chaps These vignettes are comprised of archival docuto be used in Guy ments and photos from the historical society and Clifton’s exhibit at the Nevada artifacts Clifton and the staff there have gathered historical Society. from past rodeo contestants and their families. One wall in the museum is dedicated to Nevadans who’ve won championship titles in different competitions at the rodeo like saddle bronc riding, steer wrestling and team roping. “ ” “The rodeo has always attracted the top competicontinued on page 12 tors from around the country, and it’s actually pretty 06.20.19 | RN&R | 11
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