- Ute Stampede and Pageant come to a compromise on use of arena
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By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
A compromise between two of the summer’s big events at the Juab County Fairgrounds was reached on Monday.
Chris Memmott, president of the Ute Stampede Committee, and Lynn Boswell, one of the founders of the Mormon Handcart Pageant, decided, along with county commissioners, to split the Monday move-in and move-out day into halves.
The Ute Stampede Committee will have until noon on the Monday following the Stampede to get their equipment out of the arena and the pageant will begin to move in after that time.
“For five years, we have been getting along fine,” said Boswell. “It doesn’t bother us if they move out while we move in.”
However, such was not the case with the seven-member Ute Stampede Committee.
“There are seven perceptions that it is not working,” said Memmott.
Lynn said he had been caught off-guard by the idea that the overlapping schedules were not working because he had thought they were. However, he was willing to work with the Ute Stampede Committee in order to make the move less painful for the committee.
“The Stampede is not over until midnight on Saturday,” said Memmott. “Monday is our big clean-up day.”
Memmott wanted the commission to set a time for each group to work to. He did not want those times to be overlapping.
He said that for many years the Ute Stampede had full use of the arena from Monday through Monday. Traditionally, the Monday following the rodeo was the clean-up day. Many of the committee members had objections to making Sunday and day of work and wanted to have that day off and begin the clean-up on Monday.
In addition, said Bob Day, county buildings and ground superintendent and a member of the rodeo committee, this year the rodeo would have new sound system contractors. The new contractor would not pull out until Monday.
“We have been moving their stuff in the arena to take our banners down,” he said.
The scoreboard also has to be removed on Monday, Memmott said.
In the early morning, on Monday, area Boy Scout troops and others are paid to come in and clean the bleacher areas of debris.
One problem with starting later in the day, said Boswell, was the fact that setting up for the pageant was hard physical labor and, in July, the day quickly heated up.
“We start at 6 a.m.,” he said. “We rely on volunteers and we are concerned with how that will work out if we start later.”
Nevertheless, he said, he was willing to do what was needed.
“We need both activities,” said Val Jones, commission chairman. “They are both important to Nephi.”
Bob Garrett, county road superintendent and a member of the rodeo committee, said the committee had not complained in the past because they were not certain how successful the pageant was going to be nor how it would survive.
“Now we know it might even turn out to be bigger than the Ute Stampede,” said Garrett. “We would like a bit more space, calendar-wise.”
The Ute Stampede Rodeo has been an annual staple of Nephi summers since 1934, he said.
Garrett said that the Ute Stampede Committee were the ones who had actually built the arena but, three commissions ago, the committee discovered that the county owned the facility. At that time, some of the power of the committee over the arena was taken away.
Nevertheless, he said, the committee wanted the pageant to be successful, they just wanted to not fall over each other with the move-in and move-out.
They wanted to continue to have the pageant in July, said Boswell. It works well to have it around the 24th of July, a state holiday. The calendar is quite tight, he said, with many community events planned to use the arena during the summer months. One following the rodeo and the pageant, is the demotion derby which is part of the county fair.
The fair is held, this year from August 6-11, 2007.
There are also other events in the arena such as the Jr. Rodeo Queen Contest and Western Night Rodeo and Ranch Rodeo.
On June 13 to June 16 is the Utah “Mardi Gras Days” Samboree at the Juab County Fairgrounds. Before that is the high school rodeo.
Both groups said they wanted to have the events, the stampede and pageant, at the same times in the future. They were both committed to the on-going improvements of both events.
One other problem, which Day could see, was that the pageant builds a small pond in the arena as part of their production. The county has budgeted $8,000 for new sand for the arena.
He was concerned that the sand not be disturbed in such a way that it turned up the underlying clay.
The solution, said commissioners, might be to have the county buildings and grounds people build the pond for the pageant.
“We don’t have any objection to that,” said Boswell. “That is an excellent solution.”
He said volunteers had been doing the work and digging down just four-inches, piling the sand up around the pond and had also been lining the pond with plastic liner to prevent leaks.
All events do a good job of cleaning up after those events are over, said Chad Winn, commissioner. “Everyone has been doing as good as they can.”
He said that the result of continued use will not be perfect but it will be satisfactory.
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