{"id":27247,"date":"2024-06-08T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-09T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ute-mountain-roundup-rodeo-bonds-people-together\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:55:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:55:05","slug":"ute-mountain-roundup-rodeo-bonds-people-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ute-mountain-roundup-rodeo-bonds-people-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Ute Mountain Roundup Rodeo bonds people together"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The bronco looks back at Bailey Benchs while trying to buck him off during the Friday night Ute Mountain Roundup. (Sam Green\/Special to the Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

CORTEZ \u2013 Thick gray clouds and a light breeze gave rodeo fans relief from the heat on Friday night, as they flooded into the Montezuma County Fairgrounds for the second night of the Ute Mountain Roundup Rodeo.<\/p>\n

The sport has always been about family and community, so it was only fitting that the UMR honored Bob Banks, whose memory the arena is named after, by presenting 32 of Banks\u2019 family members with the Western Heritage Award.<\/p>\n

Families and community inspire George Tobias, vice president and co-owner of Frazier Shows, the carnival that accompanies the rodeo. While he enjoys rodeo culture, it\u2019s really all about bringing joy to his clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing job. The rewards are endless,\u201d Tobias said. \u201cTo be able to see kids grow each year, and they do they grow, I see a lot of the same kids, and to make sure that the rides are safe, and to just watch the community let their hair down, have a little fun, get away from the normal grind and to be able to do it for an economical price is just amazing, its hard to put into words.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Cortez veterinary technician Kacey Lockhart, one of the rodeo committee\u2019s volunteers, rodeo is also about values.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very family-oriented, it\u2019s very godly-oriented. There\u2019s a cowboy code that goes way back, and it\u2019s all about doing what\u2019s right, being a good person, standing up for what you believe in, helping one another, and being kind to your friends and neighbors,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery contestant here, you can just see that they love and have passion for being here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hadley Durell, a bar manager at Blondie\u2019s, has been working the bar tent at the UMR for six years, and she\u2019s also noticed the integrity of the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen a fight break out. I\u2019ve never seen anything negative, really. It\u2019s always been a super positive and upbeat experience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Durell, who was born and raised in Cortez, enjoys seeing people come together for the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can tell that the rodeo every year kind of brings people together, it\u2019s kind of a bonding thing, I would say for the town,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For local business owner Toni Smith, it all began at the rodeo.<\/p>\n

Smith, who grew up barrel racing in Cortez, sold homemade jewelry at the rodeos she competed in to make a little extra money.<\/p>\n

Today, she is the owner of Patina Trails Mercantile, a rodeo sponsor and vendor for the second year running.<\/p>\n

Smith and her company source almost all of their materials locally \u2013 silver from San Juan Gems and stones from a mine owner in Mancos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

community at rodeo inspires Cortez business owners attending Friday\u2019s event<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,60,937,346,2295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-rodeo","tag-sports","tag-ute-mountain-roundup-rodeo"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27247","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=27247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80000,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27247\/revisions\/80000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27247"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}