Who’s ready to ride?
It’s rodeo season in Montgomery, Alabama, and your Cattlemen’s staffers are wearing their cowboy hats this week as we double as players on the SLE Rodeo team. We are handling last minute details from printing banners, offering media interviews, sponsorships, Junior Beef Expo, designing the program and everything in between. We are also gearing up for meeting our membership goal, Extension forage workshops, BQA trainings, Beef 101s, YCLP Class IV and the many summer beef promotions that your Beef Checkoff funds.
It’s any exciting and busy time. Keep reading to learn more…
PREPARING FOR SLE RODEO
The members and staff of the Southeastern Livestock Exposition are preparing for the big event headed to Montgomery March 16-18. Staff has kicked off social media, radio, television and outdoor advertisements and has started making on-air appearances at WSFA-12, WBAM 98.9 and WACV 93.1 and WTXT 107.5 so far this week. On Thursday, rodeo clown Trent McFarland and staffer Kayla Greer will be spending the morning at the Montgomery Zoo as the duo attend the mayor’s weekly media briefing with Executive Director Dr. Billy Powell heads over to WAKA to record a tv spot followed by a radio interview at WTXT. SLE Livestock Week events kick off officially on Thursday as more than 230 registered participants compete in the SLE Livestock Judging Contest at the Garrett Coliseum. Jason P’Poole is pleased that for the second year, we’ve seen an increase in participation!
Following Thursday’s high school and collegiate livestock judging contest, rodeo events will begin over the weekend as we welcome the Alabama High School Association Cinch Rodeo and NBHA Barrel Races to Garrett Coliseum grounds. We are thrilled to have support from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians and to welcome Elder Billy Smith to the high school rodeo as he presents $100 scholarships to each of the young competitors.
There’s so much going on, and you can find all the info you need by visiting www.slerodeo.com. Here’s a brief rundown of all you can expect:
- Thursday Night at 7 p.m.- Children 12 and under enter FREE
- Friday Night at 7 p.m.- Family 4-Pack (4 tickets for $40!)
- PRCA Freestyle Bullfighting will take place Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights with bulls from Hurricane Hookers Ranch in Louisiana
- WORLD-CLASS bucking stock from PRCA Top Stock Contractor Frontier Rodeo Company from Freedom, Oklahoma
- Stick Horse Rodeo for the kiddos each night at 5:45 p.m.
- Western Festival on Saturday from 10 a.m. until noon
Call us today to get your tickets! 1-888-2RODEO2
National Anthem Contest Winners
CONGRATS to our SLE Rodeo National Anthem vocalist Sarah Grace
Chandler of Titus, Ala. Sarah Grace is 14 years old and has a beautiful voice you can all hear at the Friday night performance of the show. Not only was Sarah Grace’s audition outstanding, we had many!! So many, in fact, that the committee elected to select an entry for each show! We are excited to have Sydni Sikes with her sign language interpretation to perform at Wednesday’s Miracle Rodeo, Ella Langley of Hope Hull perform Thursday night, Sarah Grace Chandler on Friday and Mary Kate McPherson of Faunsdale at the Saturday matinee show.
Each of these outstanding young ladies will help kick off the rodeo in true patriotic fashion and help lead up to welcome Hope Hull’s Charity Bowden at the Saturday night show. Charity is headed to the Miss Alabama stage after performing on Team Miley on NBC’s The Voice- Season 11.
Come support these young ladies and check out their outstanding singing abilities!
Monitoring the Legislative Session
Ag Coalition met on Tuesday to monitor legislation being discusses in the Legislative Session as it moves into passing bills and working on the two budgets. The prison reform bill and the hearing on the impeachment of Gov. Robert Bentley are the two biggest topics in the two chambers this week. Stay tuned for more updates.
Keeping Up With State Leaders
ACA staff will be hosting a conference call with our state officers and regional vice presidents this week to encourage membership and plan meetings for the coming spring months. With the “Over the Top” deadline on the horizon it is an important time for counties to keep recruiting members to help us get to the 12,000 member goal. Remember, you can sign members up online too! We are at 8,600 members with several counties nearing “Over the Top” status. Big congrats to Clay, Greene and Chambers counties on their “Over the Top” status. Great work!
BQA Registration on BamaBeef.org
Be sure to check out all of the BQA trainings that will be held during April and May at the Research & Extension Centers across the state. All of these will be hands-on, interactive trainings to achieve BQA certification. Registration is now open on for all sessions.
Questions about certification? Call Erin at (334) 265-1867.
Beef 101’s Lining Up
The month of April will be spent educating influencers about beef at
Auburn University. The checkoff-funded program, BEEF 101, will host over 200 individuals from culinary students to Extension personnel who all share an interest of learning more about beef from pasture to plate. Cattlemen are encouraged to attend if they are interested. The dates are April 5, 10, 21, 26. Contact Erin if you would like more information or if you would like to attend.
Black & White Spring Forward Sale
We look forward to spending time this weekend at the Garrett Coliseum and at ACA President Richard Meadows’ Black & White Spring Forward sale happening at Montgomery Stockyards. You’ll find staff buzzing around the barns at both venues as we meet and mingle with cattle families from across the state!
Thanks for reading this week’s post! We’ll be back next week- same time, same place. Until then, we want to remind you that you can stay in touch with us by following us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Have a great week and don’t forget to purchase your SLE Rodeo tickets!