A Ropers' Reunion

It's like a family reunion.

Every year, the annual Elks Team Roping competition brings together family and friends from throughout the Central Coast.

Saturday's day-long event at the Santa Maria Elks Unocal Events Center was no exception. It was an opportunity for friends, old and new, to gather for a full day of team roping.

“This is a community event,” said Elks Recreation President Keith Barks. “There are cowboys and cowgirls here from all over Santa Barbara County and a good deal of San Luis Obispo County. Most everyone knows each other. You've got two or three generations from many of the families here - fathers and sons or daughters, even grandchildren out there competing.”

The ropers spend the day catching up with each other and giving each other a good-natured hard time.

But this is also serious competition. The best are rewarded with a few hundreds dollars in prize money and, more importantly, bragging rights for the next year.

“There are a lot of tough cowboys out here today,” said Barks. “A few of them are ranchers. A lot of them have non-ranch jobs but they grew up riding and roping. They still love it and are continuing their family tradition.

“This is real rodeo. This is ranch stuff here. It's how the rodeo began. Before there were rodeos, ranchers would gather their cattle for branding and doctoring. They'd have a bunch of friends come over to help with the herding - they had to go out roping to get it done. It wasn't long before they started having competitions to see who the best roper was.

“It's the same with the rough stock events. Ranchers would have to break horses to use them in their cattle business. Cowboys would work with them in the corral. People would come by to watch and, again, it wasn't long before they started having contests to see who'd be the best.”

There was one difference this year. Saturday's event was for all the marbles.

Because of a change to the schedule of this year's 65th annual Santa Maria Elks Rodeo, the handicapped team roping events went right through to the finals.

“What we have here today are the Elks team roping championships in all but the ‘Open' division,” said Paulette Teixeira, who organizes and oversees the annual event. “In the past, this would be the weekend that we'd have qualifiers in the 5.5, 6, 7 and 8 divisions. Then we'd have the finals during the Elks Rodeo.”

In the handicapped divisions, each of the ropers is given a rating. The total of the two-person team (Header and Heeler) cannot exceed the division's number. The higher the number, the higher the riders are rated.

Each team also gets two runs or go-rounds. The team with the lowest two-go total wins the title.

But this year, because the rodeo opens with a full night of bull riding on Thursday night, May 29, the Elks went from start to finish in the handicapped divisions.

“This is where they'll win the championships this year,” said Teixeira. “But we'll still have the ‘Open' division competing during the Friday night (May 30), and Saturday (May 31) and Sunday (June 1) afternoon performances. In the open division, you put together the best team you can. There are no handicaps figured in.”

The action was non-stop in the arena Saturday.

The first teams rode out of the chutes at 8 a.m.

The final run came shortly after 4 p.m.

“It's continuous action all day,” said Marvin Teixeira, Paulette's husband who keeps the action moving all day. Marvin Teixeira is also the co-chairman - along with Norm MacDonald - of the Elks Rodeo. “We started the day with the 6s. We have one run right after the other. We just keep going until we finish the division. Then we drag the arena - get it all smoothed out and packed down again - and head right into the next competition.”

Riders are also allowed to be on more than one team during each level of competition. So, while there were between 80 and 90 riders entered, they mixed and matched to create 275 different teams in the four divisions.

The winning team in the 5.5s - with header listed first - was Jeff Smith and Danny Fleming with a time of 31.38 for the two rounds. They were followed by Cheyne Torres and Dustin Noblitt (31.82) and Jake Pearce and Leroy Grossini (47.27).

In the 6s, Jeff Mang and Mike Draper took the title (26.45) with John Machado and John Chaves (31.28) finishing second and Jeff Smith and Glenn Teixeira (31.66) finishing third.

In the 7s, Cody Mora and Rob Donlon (26.87) won the division.

Mora - teamed with John Chaves - also placed second in the 7s coming in just .01 of a second behind (26.88) with Austin Condit and Van Snow (29.07) coming in third.

Condit and Donlon did win bragging rights in the 8s with a two-go time of 39.76 to win that title. Mora and Fleming placed second (42.28) and Machado and Ryan Southwick (42.40) finished third.

This may be a family affair but, if you look at the numbers, it's one huge family.

“We have hundreds of volunteers who help us out every year,” said Barks. “We couldn't do this - today's Elks team roping, tomorrow's youth rodeo or the PRCA Rodeo - without hundreds of volunteers. These people are great - they are just so dedicated - and there are just way too many to thank individually.”

“A lot of those volunteers are here this weekend,” said Paulette Teixeira. “And even though we have a lot of help from volunteers this weekend, we still have a lot of expenses. We are really thankful that we have such wonderful sponsors who help us put this event on. We'd have a hard time putting this all together without the help of Saturn of Santa Maria, Home Motors, Central Coast Batteries, Irrigation West and M&W Pumps.”

The weekend is also far from over.

The kids take over the Arena today with the annual Junior Rodeo. The action gets underway at 9 a.m. and continues until early afternoon.

“I expect the competition in pole bending, breakaway roping, goat tying and barrel racing will run until around one in the afternoon,” said Marvin Teixeira.

“The top finishers will be invited back for the annual Youth Rodeo in two weeks,” said Paulette Teixeira. “They'll perform Thursday morning (May 29) before a packed house of local elementary school students.”

Admission is free and the public is invited to attend.

“This is the calm before the storm,” said Barks. “Everybody's a little more relaxed. It gives all of us a little bit of a tune-up before the PBR and PRCA hits town.”

May 11, 2008