State Fair Time

State Fair Time

Well it’s that time of year again in New Mexico. You can always tell because the smell of fresh roasted green Chile hangs heavy in the air. So this years New Mexico State Fair started off to a wet bang like glorious years past. A little factoid for all of you, The New Mexico State Fair is the third largest state fair only behind California and Texas. Like most state fairs we have all the heavy attractions, turkey legs, fried snickers, sausage on a stick, idiotic gang violence and my personal favorite Pro Rodeo.

But we have a few other things that no other state fair has; Namely Fry Bread, both Navajo and Pueblo. We also have a very strong Native American and Hispanic influenced art shows and cultural showcases. This of any event anywhere in the world is a showcase of proud multi-cultrualism.

But you know what else we don’t have? A great PRCA Rodeo! Yep here is a rodeo that used to be a 2 header 16 day event that everyone clambered to get into is now just a side note of the season. Sure it’s still a must attend event, big money late in the season and so forth and so on. But it is no longer the top 10 or even top 20 rodeo it was just a few short years ago. In fact as I look at the short list of Pro Rodeos in New Mexico, actually up one this year, and I have to wonder why? Is it that the committees became to lazy, the Contractors and others too greedy or the PRCA to hard to deal with? Or I guess in all fairness that each would have it’s applications to each and every Pro Rodeo that has shut its doors over the years.

So what happened to the New Mexico State Fair? How did it go from a top rodeo to just a top 50 rodeo? Well I guess we could all speculate and draw our own conclusions, mine are pretty bleak but then again that is just how I am. But for everything that I know, I know the rodeo people in the state of New Mexico have no one to blame but ourselves!