Posted on 07/24/2004 8:41:10 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Tip your hat to volunteers
By Ty Stockton outdoors@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
P.T. Barnum may lay claim to the "Greatest Show on Earth," but the title of greatest volunteer effort on the planet may well go to Cheyenne Frontier Days.
More than 2,000 people donate their time, sweat and occasionally some blood each year to keep the show going. Some put in a little bit of time when they can, while others take their vacation from paying jobs to work at Frontier Park for the days preceding the rodeo and the 10 days of the celebration itself.
Bill Daniels is one of the latter. He plans his time off from the Bureau of Land Management, where he works as a senior resource adviser, to help run the behind-the-chutes tours at Frontier Park Arena.
Daniels' volunteer work falls under the Public Relations Committee. He said there are 22 tours this year, and each tour needs a tour leader mounted on horseback. Daniels spent much of Friday in the rain, exercising the two horses the tour leaders will be riding.
In addition to getting the horses used to the sights, sounds and smells of Frontier Park, Daniels and his fellow public relations volunteers keep the public relations building clean, stock coolers at various places in the park with ice and drinks, and "help out wherever we're needed."
One of those extra duties came last night, when additional security was needed for the George Strait concert. There were roughly 24,000 tickets sold for the concert.
"There will be 10,000 people in standing room only by itself," Daniels said Friday. "They asked us to help keep people in line for that."
Daniels has been volunteering at Frontier Days for nine years now. Last year, he was rewarded for his efforts by being named the 2003 Public Relations Volunteer of the Year.
"I am the hardest-working guy out here," he said with a smile Friday as rainwater dripped off the bill of his Cheyenne Frontier Days baseball cap. "I don't mind working hard. I think it's a wonderful opportunity to get to come out and interact with the people, the visitors, who come here."
Liz Escobedo works with Daniels on the Public Relations Committee. She works in the public relations building and answers phones, helps reporters and photographers get their work done and tries to make sure anyone she talks to has a good time at the "Daddy of 'em All."
"I've been volunteering since before the Public Relations Committee was a committee," she said. "I've been doing this for 35 or 36 years." She pointed to the photographs of past committee chairmen lining the walls of the building and said, "I've been through every one of those chairmen and then some."
Her surroundings have changed a bit since she started volunteering.
"We were in a little house on the track for a while," she says. "Then we moved to a trailer, now this. This is heaven."
Before the electronic scoreboards were installed on the east and west sides of the stands, Escobedo says she used to sit by a speaker in an old press box she had to climb a ladder to get to. She wrote down the scores each competitor earned so the photographers and reporters could have all the information in one place.
Escobedo is retired, but she's no stranger to volunteering. In addition to volunteering at Frontier Days, where she works in the public relations building, the headquarters and the visitors center at Interstate 25 and College Drive, she donates her time to Meals on Wheels and other charitable organizations in Arizona, where she spends the colder months.
She got involved with Frontier Days when her husband, Richard, was on the Parades Committee.
"He also worked with the Security Committee and Concessions Committee," she said.
Though her husband died in 1990, she continues to come back to Frontier Days every year.
"I still really enjoy this," she said.
Frontier Days is a family affair for a number of volunteers. Larry Maier got his daughter, Jeannie Brown, interested in working at the park four years ago. Maier is on the Grounds Committee, and Brown works with the Contract Acts Committee.
"I work for the city," Maier said, "and the city does a lot of work out here. I started volunteering in '82 or so."
Maier and the Grounds Committee rake the arena to keep the arena dirt from being too hard or too soft, water the track and keep Frontier Park clean.
His daughter's committee is responsible for making sure the night-show performers have everything they need and don't have to think about anything but their upcoming shows.
"We get some strange requests," she said, "but they're always different. We've had to get bags of M&Ms and sort out all the green ones for one group, and another group wanted us to go buy all the tabloids we could find." She wouldn't reveal the names of the performers who asked for these things.
Brown's committee also drives the performers around town, to the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum to get their belt buckles and even pick up their dry cleaning.
"You name it, we've probably done it," she said.
Even though there are more than 2,000 volunteers at Frontier Days each year, there is always room for more. To volunteer, pick up an application at the headquarters in the Old West Museum building and get a sponsor.
"Your sponsor needs to be another volunteer or a committee chairman," Brown said. If the board approves your application, you're on your way to spending your vacation as part of the greatest volunteer effort on the planet.
Ty Stockton is the outdoors editor at the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. He spent much of his childhood on the back of a horse in his hometown of Riverton. He left home and realized he was a lousy bareback rider, so he decided to pursue his fall-back profession of journalism. His column will appear here during Frontier Days.
Been there many times. 4 yrs at FEW AFB, Missile Site Mgr, Cheyenne. '78-'82.
always loved and enjoyed Frountier Days. Son still lives there.
"Been there many times. 4 yrs at FEW AFB, Missile Site Mgr, Cheyenne. '78-'82."
FEW...otherwise known as Camp D. A. Russell ; > )
Rodeos are a chance for the city folks to meet up with working cowboys.
Working cowboys is right! A friend of mine who was assigned to FEW had season tickets to the rodeo and invited us to Frontier Days. No drugstore cowboys in Cheyenne. First rodeo for me - my conclusion was that there are two types of events......bullriding and everything else.
Bullriding is for guys who can't throw a rope and have a suicide wish stamped on their foreheads.
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