May 22, 2024 – The Clovis Rodeo Hall buzzed with the excitement of Association members happy to see one another, a month after the annual Clovis Rodeo. Like a family reunion, and far removed from the post-rodeo Sunday dinner.
Everyone’s wearing their best hats, not their dusty work hats, sunburns have faded, and everyone’s had a good couple of weeks to rest and recoup before seeing one another again.
Before any club action takes place, the numbers for the year are presented. Thanks to the new pavilion, which increased sponsorships, funding for rodeo was way up for 2024.
More money in the Clovis Rodeo Association means more money for the contestants, a better show, and better television coverage.
After the presentations, the voting for Directors begins.
The Directors of the Rodeo Association run everything in sections. Somebodys’ in charge of the pavilions and sponsors, somebody else is in charge of the roughstock area, someone else is in charge of making sure the grounds are clean and tidy and well-maintained, there’s a director for security, for concessions, and anything else that needs workers and oversight.
All of that, and the President for the year, is decided at the Directors’ meetings throughout the year.
At the general meeting, always held on a Thursday in May, all members are invited to nominate and vote on the Directors. The process is informal, the ballot is a piece of long cardstock with lines printed on it, and nominations are done by raising a hand and shouting a name.
If you’re well known enough to be nominated, the people you work with every year think you’ve got the right stuff.
After a good steak dinner, and some dutch oven peach cobbler, the tallied votes are put on the projector screen for everyone to see. The people with the top ten votes get to sit on the Board of Directors and make decisions, and organize the volunteers and members to put together another rodeo.
The meeting this year was shorter than usual, and with less talk from the podium members filled the silence with camaraderie, and invitations for barbecues over summer, updates on travel plans and such.
After this meeting, a lot of Association members are likely to not see each other again until January, for re-introductions and work assignments anew.