Little Britches Rodeo returns next year

By Gloria Tucker

Nevada Daily Mail

One of the Vernon County Youth Fair's funniest events, noticeably absent this year, should return to the arena next year.

Doug Johnson announced Dale Snead's offer to run the Little Britches Rodeo at the Youth Fair Board meeting Wednesday.

"He's got the equipment and everything," Johnson said. "He'll provide the vests, helmets, rigging and stock. If there was a total rain out and he didn't make any money at all, he'd take $300 to cover his costs."

The board members agreed to hire Snead to manage the event next year.

In other business, the board discussed several repairs to be addressed before fair season returns.

The $14,900 electrical repairs are still having the kinks worked out -- the plugins in the sheep and goat barns need to be on separate breakers and more hang down plugins need to be installed.

"All the plugins at the beef barn are on a separate breaker," he said. "We are going to put drop down plugins for fans and heavy breakers outside for blowers. People will have to watch to make sure two blowers aren't plugged into one plug. That's why the breakers were blowing in the beef barn before. So far we have $5,000 raised to pay for the electrical work."

Other repairs included replacing rodeo bucking chutes with pre-made chutes, putting a new roof on the rabbit barn, painting the metal roof of the beef barn and fixing the livestock scales.

"The livestock scales didn't appear to be weighing equal on both ends," he explained. "We found out the problem. It had got shoved forward and wedged against the front gate, and the scales couldn't move."

The members agreed to fix the scales after the meeting.

Replacement of the bleachers around the arena also came up for discussion.

"On the west side where there are metal Ts, we could get composite boards to replace the wooden boards," Johnson suggested. "You'd still have to come up with money for the other side. We could buy new bleachers for the south end, or tear them out and make more of the Ts with composite boards."

In closing, nine nominations were made by 4-H groups for the five open positions on the Youth Fair Board (four are two-year positions and one is one-year).

"If you take your nomination, be prepared to be here to help and attend meetings," Charlie Comstock said. "You're going to have to work."

In other business, the members agreed to pay Deerfield Fire Department $100 and Milo Fire Department $200 for providing EMT services at the arena.

In the treasurer's report, Jenny Dunckley reported the beef barn shows a balance of $5,882, the geld show account is negative $125, the horse barn account is $1,591, memorials are $5,990, poultry and rabbit barn has $3098, sheep and goat barn is negative $83, the swine barn is $1217, and total assets equal $75,907.

"We have no outstanding bills from the fair or auction," she added.

The board members also agreed to talk to the city of Nevada to figure out the inconsistencies in water billing during fair week.

"The last three years, the $900 deposit before the fair took care of our water bill," Johnson said. "The day after the fair ends, we switch back to county water."

Dunckley reported she had paid three separate bills for water, and the county received a water bill as well.