Fair continues rodeo search

Who should put on the rodeo at the annual Hill County fair still is undecided, with the Great Northern Fair Board Tuesday discussing options including talking with the group that pulled out last month or possibly talking to other local groups.

A representative of the local association that has put the Great Northern Fair rodeo for free the last two years — three years ago the board gave it $10,000 as seed money for its first rodeo — announced last month that the association was done. Clint Solomon of the association, who was not at Tuesday’s meeting, in July cited problems working with the fair board and management as the reason.

Board member Chad Murnin, who also is associated with the rodeo group, said Tuesday that he believes that decision still stands.

Board member Gus Sharp said at the meeting Tuesday that with shrinking budgets, he wants the board members to give some thought on how they could keep the group putting on the rodeo.

“I wouldn’t think we would want to go back to having to cough up 10, 20, $30,000 dollars to put on a rodeo,” he said.

The board, and fairgrounds manager Tim Solomon, have regularly praised the rodeo that the association has put on the last three years, which has consistently been top-rated by the rodeoers.

Board Chair Bert Corcoran said Tuesday he has gone to other rodeos in the area this year and the Great Northern rodeo was 10 times better.

“There was no comparison to the rodeo we had,” he said.

Audience members Karla Vaughn and Stacey Waid suggested talking to other groups who might be interested in putting on the rodeo. Waid asked if the board has contacted the Montana State University-Northern rodeo team to see if it would be interested.

Solomon said he was waiting to see what happened with the rodeo association, but he can talk to other groups.

“We can definitely research it,” he said.

Corcoran said he is willing to discuss how to solve the problems the rodeo association has, but the discussion has to be civil.

“Every damn meeting we had we get beat up. I don’t want to live with that for another year … ,” he said. “I guess the statement that was made is that the board doesn’t do anything. We bend over backwards to work with people. It just seems like we never do enough.”

LaVoi agreed that the complaints were not well-presented.

“I was at the meeting that you’re talking about,” he said. “The presentation was pretty negative, I agree with you there a hundred percent. … I turned my ears off and I was upset.”

But, he said, the board should talk to the association and find out exactly what it wants, maybe getting a written list of complaints.

“Because if you think you’re doing a good job, and they think you’re doing a lousy job, there’s a gap there somewhere,” LaVoi said.

Board member Chad Murnin, who also is associated with the rodeo group, echoed Clint Solomon from previous meetings.

“The rodeo group is one of the few groups in town that has the guts to come and make their complaints,” he said. “They might not make it in the best manner, but everybody else makes their complaints behind our backs. … At least they made it to our face.”

Vaughn said it seems like the association wants funding from the fair board.

“The only thing I ever got out of what he complained about it was the fair board didn’t put any expense into the rodeo, but then, on the other hand, the rodeo took all the income,” she said.

“We should have thanked them for that,” Murnin said. “They lost $6,000 this year.”

Sharp said no fair rodeo in the country makes money, and the board needs to do what it can to help groups with events like the rodeo. Those events are what draw people to the fair, he said.

“If they lost money doing it, we need to help them every chance we can, so we keep having more things coming,” he said. “It’s impossible to make money. People are going to have to give up a lot of time and a lot of effort to keep these things going.”

Corcoran said he is willing to meet with the association.

“(They can tell us) what we’re doing wrong and we’ll make an attempt to correct it,” he said.