One of Summit County’s major events every summer is the Oakley Rodeo. The 83rd annual edition is running this year from the 4th until Saturday the 7th. Oakley Mayor Wade Woolstenhulme said all the dates are sold out for one of the most renowned rodeos in the country.
Mayor Woolstenhulme said that at this point, they have plans for a professional firework show every night of the rodeo
“If a big windstorm comes up or something like that, we would make a judgment call at that point whether to do it or not.” Mayor Woolstenhulme says of the fireworks “but I think the forecast has good weather so we’re going to plan on shooting them off every night.”
Although the rodeo is sold out at this point, the Mayor said you might be able to get in, in the event of some no-shows.
He said that fans of the rodeo will reserve their tickets for next year before the summer is over.
“They’ll go on sale probably the 1st of August I believe. You can go online and get your tickets reserved, I would encourage anyone to go do that”
The Oakley Rodeo was founded back in the 1930’s. One participant in past years was Mayor Woolstenhulme’s father, former County Commissioner Ken Woolstenhulme.
“The first rodeo was held over in what we call Steven’s Grove, which is right across the road from where our new Steven’s Conservancy Park is located now. They just kind of put a snow fence around and brought the calves and horses out in the field. I think there’s some old footage of it.” Mayor Woolstenhulme explained “In 1983 it became a professional rodeo, went from amateur to professional. Ever since that it’s grown to be one of the biggest professional rodeos in the country.”
We also asked him about the criticism sometimes heard today that rodeos are cruel to animals. The Mayor said he doesn’t agree.
“I’ve been around the rodeo business for a long time myself. The contractors, or the owners of the stock, they took such great care of their animals. You’ll never see an ill-fed animal at a rodeo, they work for eight seconds maybe every twice a week.” Mayor Woolstenhulme has been to the ranch where the Oakley Rodeo animals come from. “I remember about 10 years ago I took my two sons to inspect their livestock. Man, it was such a beautiful sight to see all those animals and see how well fed they were and well taken care of they were”
