Rodeo starts Thursday

The 49th annual Duncan Noon Lions Club Rodeo will take place this weekend at Claud Gill Arena, next to the Stephens County Fairgrounds, in Duncan.

Joe Henderson, who is in his 39th year as the chairman of the event is excited about the rodeo.

“I’m expecting us to have a really good rodeo,” Henderson said. “We’ve got three queen candidates who qualified, we’ve got bareback horse riding, barrels, bulls, a calf scramble, breakaway roping, a nickle toss and much more.”

The events begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

“It’s an open rodeo, so we don’t know how many competitors we’re going to have,” Henderson said. “They had 15 bull riders at the rodeo in Elmore City, so I think we’ll have about 20 of those. There aren’t as many of them as in the past. They are getting smarter at a younger age.”

He expects the weather to cooperate so he expects a good show.

“Last week in Elmore City, they had to close it down at 8 p.m. on Saturday because of the storms, but we’re not expecting anything like that this week,” Henderson said.

He said each year presents its challenge to get the rodeo going.

“It’s been a little bit of a challenge,” Henderson said. “The Lions Club is way off on our numbers and most of us are older. We don’t have all the younger volunteers that we used to have.”

Because of that, they will start the set up a day earlier than usual to give themselves plenty of time to make sure everything is ready to go come Thursday.

“Thursday is pretty much a dress rehearsal, but we get it right on Friday and Saturday,” Henderson said.

He emphasized that 100 percent of the money goes right back into the community with eye glasses and eye care.

“We want to help the community because it helps us,” Henderson said.