The Star - News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area

While on the newspaper staff at the Idaho Free Press, they always gave me the assignment to cover the local rodeos.

The two big ones were the Caldwell Night Rodeo and the Snake River Stampede.

They both lasted the better part of a week, and the rest of the staff shied away from getting involved. I was the youngest reporter, so it always fell to me.

The Snake River Stampede was the worst of the two.

It involved covering a parade through the streets in downtown Nampa each of the days of the event.

I had to write a parade story four different days and then spend my nights out at the rodeo arena for the cowboy events.

The parade was the bad part. How many times can you write about the same event and keep the story interesting for readers. That’s why the rest of the reporters gave the event a wide berth.

But I tried.

The rodeo arena events were much more interesting.

I sat in the announcer’s booth along with the celebrity, whoever it was that was brought in each year.

I was able to interview the celebrity and just visit with them each year while we watched the cowboys compete. 

I remember one year it was the Cisco Kid. I think the requirement was that the celebrity could ride a horse and circle the arena and wave and shake hands.

For the celebrity, who usually built up his name as a cowboy movie idol, it was a nice payday, built on a name that was slowly dimming.

So I had three stories each day, the parade, the celebrity and the cowboys. I understood why the rest of the staff was willing and eager to let me do the work.

It was at the Snake River Stampede that I met roper Harry Charters, who was from Melba, Idaho, a small town south of Boise.

Charters was liked by the crowd and hated by his horse. The Melba cowboy was 6-6  and weighed 200 pounds.  

He was known for getting off his horse while competing in roping on the right side, I guess one of a kind.  

He rode a horse bareback to school as a kid and taught himself as a roper and bulldogger.

I always enjoyed talking to him. He was both entertaining and fresh with a story or two.

He started winning immediately and won at all the major rodeos. In 1959 he was named the “Rodeo Cowboy of the Year.” 

Charters was highly successful, and after 10 years he retired and built his cattle ranch up to 1,000 animals.

There were a lot of famous and colorful cowboys at the time, including the area’s Deb Copenhaver of Creston.

The Caldwell Night Rodeo was considered by some as the armpit of the Boise Valley. Caldwell was and is the county seat of Canyon County and only about a dozen miles from Nampa.

That rodeo was easier to cover than the Snake River Stampede because there was no parade.

The two rodeos were close together, and it was a real relief when they were over.