{"id":21721,"date":"2025-06-23T17:36:37","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T23:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-burrofest-brings-community-together-to-celebrate-donkeys\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:09:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:09:04","slug":"mancos-burrofest-brings-community-together-to-celebrate-donkeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-burrofest-brings-community-together-to-celebrate-donkeys\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos BurroFest brings community together to celebrate donkeys"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jack
Jack competed in the obstacle course and took 1st place with 145 points.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might have seen a housefly, maybe even a superfly, but I bet you ain\u2019t never seen a donkey fly,\u201d says pop culture\u2019s most iconic donkey character in the classic 2001 animated comedy, \u201cShrek.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hundreds of people gathered Saturday in Mancos to celebrate of donkeys, or burros<\/em> in Spanish, during the sixth annual BurroFest, and though no donkeys flew, human hearts soared.<\/p>\n

Attendees watched as seven colorfully costumed burros competed for first place in an obstacle course in Mancos\u2019 Boyle Park. This year\u2019s BurroFest had an \u201cAlice in Wonderland\u201d theme, giving it the official title, \u201cBurros in Wonderland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who joined the festivities lined up for food trucks, explored the event\u2019s local artist booths, watched live music and learned about one of the American West\u2019s most beloved equines.<\/p>\n

\"062125Lucy
062125Lucy competed in obstacle course and took second place with 135 points. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Queen\u2019s Gambit Obstacle Course<\/div>\n

After opening with the singing of the national anthem and a land acknowledgment, emcees Kellie Pettyjohn and Jessica Randell kicked off the day by introducing each of the seven competing burros and their handlers.<\/p>\n

All the burros were local to the area, with the exception of one, Jack Speedy Burro and handler William Dee, who came from Idaho Springs, about 30 miles west of Denver. Each burro also had their own artist who\u2019d use the donkey as a subject.<\/p>\n

The obstacles varied in their difficulty, the emcees explained to the crowd, with five minutes allotted for each competitor to finish the course. Successful completion of the easiest obstacles generated five points, the medium obstacles offered 10 points and the hardest obstacles created 15 points.<\/p>\n

\"062125Hope
062125Hope competed in obstacle course and scored 110 points. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The audience was pushed to the edge of their seats with the \u201cCheckmate Choice\u201d obstacle. If overcome, the bonus obstacle gave the contender 20 points, but if lost, it retracted that same number from the contender\u2019s score.<\/p>\n

One by one, the burros made their way through the central obstacle course as the dense crowd of all ages gathered around and judges closely tallied the donkeys\u2019 progress. Handlers guided their burros through obstacle names like \u201cTweedledee and Tweedledum\u201d and \u201cWhite Rabbit Pocket Watch,\u201d as each contender\u2019s time ticked away.<\/p>\n

Throughout the main spectacle, the audience applauded, laughed and sometimes fell into an observant near-silence. An occasional signature donkey \u201chee-haw\u201d could be heard from one of the competitors on the sideline.<\/p>\n

After an exciting series of obstacle-traversing burros, the winner was Jack Speedy Burro of Idaho Springs, with 145 points. In second place, only 10 points behind was Lucy, guided by handler Danny Dehondt.<\/p>\n

\"Artist
Artist Dai Salwen painting Burro Bisy.(Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Aside from the obstacle course, BurroFest\u2019s champion of the costume contest was Little D, dressed up as the Cheshire Cat. The costume contest was decided by popular vote, with Little D receiving the loudest applause.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very fair when it came to assigning the points, but personally, I think all of them were winners,\u201d said one of the contest\u2019s judges, Patty Harpham. \u201cI\u2019ve had horses. I couldn\u2019t have gotten my horse to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

After their competition, burros wandered around or rested in their corrals while most of the crowd dispersed to enjoy the rest of the festivities. Other attendees went over to greet the burros.<\/p>\n

\"062125Vendors
062125Vendors at the sixth annual Mancos BurroFest. (Aaron Lewis\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
Community comes together<\/div>\n

After the competition, attendees explored artisan booths with jewelry and paintings, bought gyros, burgers and lemonade, cooled off in the shade under trees and helped themselves to brews at the beer garden.<\/p>\n

Children gathered by the library booth and made their own toy burros from Styrofoam pool noodles while other youths played in Boyle Park\u2019s playground.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do wish that they had a kid\u2019s burro race after they made these little burros,\u201d said one attendee, Megan Slater of the toy burros.<\/p>\n

Slater, who joined the event with her son, Aedan Pedersen, said that the festival seemed to be better organized and have more attendees present compared with the previous year.<\/p>\n

While the BurroFest was an opportunity for local businesses and artists to come together, the burros themselves remained as the star focus.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurros really unite humanity,\u201d said Annie Henderson, executive director of the Equitarian Initiative<\/a>, a global nonprofit with a booth at the festival. Henderson described the organization as a sort of Doctors Without Borders for equines.<\/p>\n

Historically, in nearby towns like Silverton, Henderson said, burros were once used to haul ore down from mountains, uplifting the mining-based economies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking animals are the backbone of our progress as a nation,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cThis really represents a celebration of those animals.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A donkey from Idaho Springs won the main obstacle course during the \u2018Alice in Wonderland\u2019 event <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,83,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77431,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21721\/revisions\/77431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21721"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}