Cowboy Bash: Northern Rodeo fundraiser set for Saturday

After having to postpone their annual Cowboy Christmas fundraiser due to COVID-19, Montana State University-Northern Rodeo has re-imagined their fundraiser and some of its popular activities as the Cowboy Bash virtual event set for Saturday at 6 p.m. on Facebook Live.

Head coach Doug Kallenberger, who is now also teaching in the agriculture program at the Northern, said that they usually hold their major fundraiser in early December during the National Finals Rodeo. But Northern, like many universities, switched to remote learning between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so many of the team members couldn't be there for the event.

"The kids weren't even coming back after Thanksgiving, so we thought, well, let's just push this till next semester, and we'll kind of see where COVID's at," Kallenberger said. "Well we're still, y'know, living in a COVID world. We decided to move forward with it this way."

Saturday night, the team members and coaches will be at the Student Union Ballroom running a virtual event, presenting the team members "and just basically trying to do what we did at Cowboy Christmas, but everybody is going to be in the comfort of their own home," he said.

The live streaming event will be on the team's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MSUNorthernRodeo, and it's starting off with the traditional "horse race," Kallenberger said.

Six of the team members, riding stick horses, will vie for a first place finish in a race determined by the luck of the dice. Each "race horse" will have a number assigned and gets to take one step toward the finish line when that horse's number is rolled.

"We always do (the horse race), and we're going to do that on Facebook Live," Kallenberger said, adding that the race chatter always livens up the event. "We're going to talk about 'Look here. Here's horse number one. This is a thoroughbred from Box Elder, Montana – he's a sophomore this year.' That's something we do to have a good time with it."

Before the race begins, bidders vie for a chance to back a potential winner, and 60 percent of the purse goes back to the winning bidder on the winning horse, he said. People can place their bids on their online auction at https://www.biddingowl.com/Auction/home.cfm?auctionID=25965 .

The auction on Bidding Owl also has more than 100 donated items up for bid, and people can purchase raffle tickets can be purchased on the site, as well, if people can't get to Norman's Ranch and Sportswear, Western Trailer Sales or the MSU-Northern Athletics Department office in person.

The auction and raffle include artwork, tools, halves of processed beef and swine, home décor, a week's stay at ICE Performance Horses Roping Camp in Arizona, bead work, a Browning X-Bolt 6.5 Creedmoor, straws of bull semen for breeding cows, hay, western-style wine racks and a booze basket, horse tack, jewelry and more. Bidding is now open and will continue until 10 p.m. Saturday, except for the horse race bids which end at 6 p.m. before the race begins.

All the money brought in from the event helps to defray the travel costs for the team to haul horses and gear to college rodeos around the region, and take part in clinics or other training.

The women's and men's rodeo teams were able to participate in the full 2020 fall season, Kallenberger said. One team member tested positive for COVID-19, but it wasn't until after the last fall rodeo so when everyone quarantined they didn't miss competition or crucial training.

The women's team qualified for the College National Finals Rodeo at the end of the 2020 school year, but they didn't get to compete after the event was canceled because of the pandemic, Kallenberger said, but they are close to qualifying again, though.

"They're currently sitting third right now at halfway through the season," he said. "They're just 30 points behind the second place team, so we're right there – that's just one good placing."

Similar to wrestling, the team members have two different ways to qualify, he added. Each team member earns individual points for each event in which they place and those points are also tallied into a team total. At the end of the year, the top two teams in each of the 11 National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association regions qualify for finals as a team, but the top three individuals in each event can qualify for that event.

"The 30 points can be made up in one run," he said, adding that, with all the host schools committing to holding the five spring rodeos this year, starting in April, "that's so achievable. ... The women's team, when they won a championship this fall, they racked up, like, 400 points as a team in one rodeo."

Altogether, the two teams have five members qualified for the CNFR at mid-season, he said.

Unlike most other college sports, the college rodeo teams don't compete against universities of similar size, they compete against all the teams in their region. The Lights and Skylights, in the Big Sky Region, go up against six other colleges and universities in the state – from the small team at Dawson Community College to large teams at Montana State University and University of Montana.

While the team had relatively few problems with COVID in their participation, it has affected them in recruitment, Kallenberger said. The teams have had 20 to 25 total members in the past few years, but that number dropped to 17 this year. With a successful year underway, though, Kallenberger added, he is recruiting now, and it looks good.

Going up against the big schools in the region, he said, is a challenge.

"It's frustrating at times, but then there's times that you get a real big sense of accomplishment, kind of like the old David versus Goliath thing."