Minor flooding pushes Jasper County Rodeo back to Fall

COLFAX — After kicking off the Jasper County Fair two years in a row, the Jasper County Rodeo will be delayed until after the fair festivities conclude due to the recent rain.

Fair officials announced late Wednesday on the Jasper County Fair Round-Up & Rodeo Facebook page that Saturday's rodeo and the planned evening concert will be pushed back to a later date. The Barnyard Baby and Jasper County Queen contests are still scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. Saturday, but event organizers said they decided to delay the rodeo because the arena was taking in too much water from the recent rain. They said they will not be able to dry out the grounds in time for the competition.

“We had water up to the arena (Wednesday) night. We tried to figure out another alternative, but they all had another glitch behind them,” Jasper County Fair Round Up Committee member Alan Guy said. “We will reschedule it to probably around late September, early October.”

According to Guy, the rodeo contest itself can typically be held in a muddy and even rainy environment. However, Guys said the wet conditions will greatly affect the seating at the rodeo grounds. He said the water at the arena would have cut the seating by at least half if they decided to carry on with the rodeo.

“We have got so much water that won’t drain away fast enough that it would be a muddy mess for the spectators. We didn’t want it to impact our crowd terribly like it would have,” Guy said. “Setting bleachers would be terribly hard. It will go away, but even the seating we had, which is relatively permanent, would have been impacted. You would have to walk through water to get to bleachers.”

With the rodeo rescheduled toward the end of the season, Guy said the event organizers will have to step up when fall hits to help promote the event, from attracting the contestants to signing up entertainers.

“We really need to work with our contestants to see if we can work them in,” Guy said. “It is not the end of the world, but it isn’t a good thing. We scheduled our rodeo so that we would be earlier than a lot of other rodeos. This will impact that. We just have to work harder to spread the word.”

Guy said the fair committee may have some issues creating a schedule to accommodate their current entertainment as well. He said it is “up in the air” if rodeo clown Jason “Whistlenut” Dent and local country musician Royce Johns will make an appearance at the Jasper County Rodeo.

“We are working with our current announcer, Frank Arnett and ‘Whistlenut’ Jason Dent in finding a schedule that works for all of us,” Guy said. “We are working in conjunction with everybody trying to find the best possible date to make all of it work.”

Guy said it is still unclear how the weather will affect the county fair if the rain continues to fall come July. He said as of right now, the fair is still scheduled to begin July 20.

“I’d like to say we would be fine. But as of a week ago, I would’ve told you that we would have been fine with the rodeo,” Guy said. “We will go full force and make the fair as good as possible. We are kind of at the mercy of Mother Nature. If she cooperates with us, we will be fine for July. If she continues to throw hurdles at us, it will be a different story.”

Despite Thursday’s afternoon storm, the weekend is forecasted to be mostly clear with light rain only projected for Saturday.

With the water levels of the Skunk River near Colfax at around 15.5 feet deep as of early Thursday afternoon, city officials said they are not too worried about potential flooding. Colfax Public Works Director Bob Rhone said the city typically gets concerned when the water level reaches about 18 feet with rain projected in the forecast.

“It is probably not going to be an issue, unless the weather catches us by surprise,” Rhone said Thursday. “We made sure all our pumps are operable. We are prepared in case things go south, but right now, I am not near as concerned as I was three or four days ago.”

For more information about the fair, visit jascofair.com, email jcfrounduprodeo@gmail.com or find Jasper County Fair Round Up & Rodeo on Facebook.

Contact Anthony Victor Reyes at areyes@jaspercountytribune.com