Rodeo Club prepared for 70th Annual Lincoln Open Rodeo

With the busiest weekend of the year on the horizon, members of The Lincoln Rodeo Club have been hard at work preparing the rodeo grounds for the 70th Annual Lincoln Open Rodeo held every year during the weekend closest to Independence Day.

Sharla Lewenight, the club's secretary/ treasurer, said the work to get the rodeo grounds up to speed this year has gone better than it has in the past.

"There's been less work. I don't understand why, but it's actually been pretty easy," she said. "Not so many hours out here, which has been great."

In the last five years the Rodeo Club has been able to make several improvements to the Rodeo Grounds, including improved bucking chutes, new roping and stripping chutes, updates to their bathrooms and new picnic tables.

The rodeo grounds today are a far cry from the days before the club, when the local ranch rodeo was held at what is now known as Hooper Park, something Eddie Grantier talks about in a recollection published in this year's rodeo program. Grantier will be recognized during the rodeo as the last surviving charter member of the Lincoln Rodeo Club, which formed in 1952 when Grantier was just 17.

Lewenight said this year the rodeo will feature two food trucks. One, called Two Broke Girls, will sell hamburgers while a second will feature tacos. The food trucks are a relatively recent addition. A few years ago, the health department mandated that, instead of the handmade burgers they'd sold for decades, the club's concession stand could only sell pre-cooked burgers.

"It's like eating cardboard," Lewenight said of the patties. She said having the food trucks does help take some of the stress off the club, which had to find enough volunteers to man the stand. This year, the concession stand will be used for beer sales and Lewenight's daughter Jaylin will handle the sale of pop and water.

This year will also see the return of the vast camo nets on loan from Jake Geary of Helmville. The net debuted last year to provide shade for guest enjoying a meal or partaking of a beer or two. "Everybody loves it," she said.

In the arena, the chicken chase will be back again for the kids, and there's a new event to provide entertainment for the adults. The kid's boot race has long been a popular event for children at the rodeo and a suggestion by Jonathon Frisbee prompted them to add an adult boot race between the Calcutta for the Ring of fire and the event itself.

"We've always had a 10-to-15-minute lapse waiting for the money to get to the office, so we decided to do the adult boot race," she said. "Kinda breaks the monotony."

Kittson Rodeo Company will be back as the stock contractor again this year. They took over as the contractor in 2019, but Lewenight said all the contractors they've worked with over the years have been great.

Though there has been concern that record high gas prices and inflation might mean less business for Lincoln this summer, Lewenight isn't worried about the impact on the rodeo.

"I think it's gonna go good," she said. "I've seen a ton of campers out; gas prices do suck but people are still out. They're tired of being held up."

"A lot of the rodeos I've seen, the contestants seem to show up," said Al Brewer, who was helping get the rodeo grounds in shape last Saturday.

"I've had tons of phone calls again this year." Lewenight said. Some have been about camping at the rodeo grounds, which isn't allowed under their insurance, but others have been asking about when the rodeo starts and when they can enter.

"I think it's gonna be another good one. Hope and pray for that," she said. "With the Fourth being on a Monday, they get that day off, so they're gonna stick around. I think it will definitely be good."