Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo

Today we are doing the Rodeo and it is something else! The theme for today was “Armed Forces Day at the Rodeo” and there are military personnel everywhere. I have to admit that the attention any one in uniform, or somebody just wearing an old Navy hat, is kind of different.

The opening ceremonies for todays event were great and to be honest I was more focused on enjoying them than taking photos for this blog. There was music, there were military vehicles and there were airplanes, the US Air Force Thunderbirds even did a fly over.

After the opening ceremonies the rodeo began and as my luck our seats were very comfortable and in the shade but not very well suited for getting action photos so here is the best of the few that I managed to get. Unfortunately the day we were there it was cowboys zero and Bulls ten! not a single rider got in an eight second ride so needless to say they didn’t give anyone much of a chance to have their picture taken.

As the rodeo ended they had a wild horse race and although the horses weren’t totally wild it was safe to say the horses were just barely approachable. Each three man team were given a horse and a saddle. It was their job to control the horse until all the start, then saddle the horse and finally ride the horse one complete lab around the arena. It was pure pandemonium and I believe that there was only one or two teams out of about fifteen that actually completed the race. I don’t remember ever seeing so many people put themselves in harms way for so little reward. Unfortunately I can not find any of the photos that I thought I had taken.

Throughout the day there were several dignitaries and military personnel introduced but the most moving one was of six non commissioned Air Force Security Police. It was a normal day at the gate when two guards noticed something very unusual about a man trying to get onto the base. They called for back up and without incident they managed to get the individual out of the car. Upon searching the car they also found a young girl in the back of the car that had been kidnapped. The man had several out standing felony warrants and was immediately arrested and put into custody. The child found in the car was returned to her home in a short time unharmed and in what they described as in good health. The point they finally made at the end of this recognition was that had the guards not followed their training and intuition the situation may have been a lot worse. Sometimes bad stories have good ending.

With that I will say good day.