I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
July 2, 1999
By Devlyn Brooks
The annual Park Rapids Headwaters Rodeo and its sister event, the Headwaters Pro Bullride have each received individual honors, making them some of the top events in the nation.
The Headwaters Rodeo was recently selected as one of the top 10 rodeo's in the nation by Western Horse magazine, while the bullride was sanctioned for the first time ever this year by the Professional Bullriders Association.
The rodeo kicks off today at 6:30 p.m., with two more performances at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
While the bullride will be held at 6:30 p.m. both July 9 and 10.
Gates will open one hour prior to the show each day at the Double J Rodeo & Auction Grounds, located 1 1/2 miles east of Park Rapids on state Highway 34.
"These are the elite riders," Producer Randy Jokela of Jokela Prowest said about both the rodeo and bullride. "The winners earn points, and these are the guys you see riding in the championships on TNN and ESPN."
Jokela said about 200 participants have registered for the rodeo that starts today. Riders will be representing 20 states and the countries of Canada and Australia.
Each of the participants are scheduled to perform in just one of the three days of competition, meaning each show will be different, Jokela said.
"That's what sells rodeo -- the unpredictability," Jokela said. "There's nothing rehearsed at a rodeo."
This is the 22nd year that Park Rapids will host the Headwaters Rodeo and Bullride, with it gaining in popularity every year.
Jokela said between 25,000 and 30,000 spectators will see the rodeo and next weekend's bullride.
The event is so popular that it even attracted a Western Horse writer to pen: "It's the best rodeo in the country to attend on the Fourth of July."
"That's really a feather in our cap," Jokela said. "That writer is the guru of rodeoing."
About 100 contestants are registered for the bullride scheduled for next weekend, with 50 competing each of the two nights.
Although this year's bullride isn't the first, Jokela said it is the first time that it has been sanctioned by the PBR.
"As a producer, this is the ultimate, what you aim for," Jokela said in a story published in the Park Rapids Enterprise. "Both sanctions (for the rodeo and the bullride) are the highest attainable, so the caliber of competitors is up there too."
The bullride is the only sanctioned PBR event taking place in the world next weekend, Jokela said, so the number of past world champions attending has also increased.
Also, a first for both events this year is that Dell Hall of Rafter H Rodeo Co. of Tahlequah, Okla., will provide the stock, with additional bulls contracted from Montana and North Dakota.
Hall has been in the rodeo stock contracting business for more than 35 years, Jokela said. He has won the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association's highest bucking bull/bronc award 18 times.
Pro bullride caller Zeb Bell of Montana will take the microphone for the bullride performances. He was selected three times as announcer at the National Finals Rodeo and also announced the American Quarter Horse Association Exhibitions at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996.
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