This year’s International Finals Youth Rodeo officially kicks off Sunday evening with the first performance at 8 p.m. at the Heart of Oklahoma Exposition Center.
Official check-in begins at 8 a.m. on Friday. It will run until 11 p.m. Friday night, then reopen at 7 a.m. Saturday and remain open around the clock until noon on Sunday.
A mandatory contestants meeting is scheduled at 2 p.m., Randy Gilbert, chairman of the Shawnee Civic and Cultural Development Authority says.
Daily performances will be held at 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, with the finals that Friday evening. The top 15 contestants in each of 10 events will compete on that Friday night when the 2022 champions will be crowned.
Several area contests from Lincoln and Pottawatomie Counties are entered to compete at this year’s rodeo.
They include Kenzie Cowden and Rylee Moore from Chandler; Bode Gatlin and Kaylin McRae from Meeker; Avery Dockrey, Madison Van Brunt and Koree Thompson all from Shawnee; and Jessica Staff, from Tecumseh.
Nearly 650 contestants have signed up to compete at this year’s IFYR.
That’s more than twice the number that showed up for the initial IFYR in 1993, a year following three years of the National High School Finals Rodeo here between 1990-1992.
But through time, the number of contestants and entries have grown as envisioned by Ken Etchieson, the brain trust of this major annual event.
This will be the second year a Miss Teen Rodeo USA contest has been held during the IFYR. I’m told there are 10 contestants entered this year. Last year was the first time for the contest to be held at the IFYR, and among the 16 contestants was the daughter of an original IFYR Youth Director in 1993 Nikol Johnson Treat from Arkansas.
Gilbert likes to call this annual event “a family affair.”
Each contestant is assured of competing at least twice in the event or events he or she is entered during the first and second rounds of competition. As I mentioned, the third round, the short go, is for those top 15 in each event after Friday morning’s performance.
Earlier this week, crews and volunteers were busy making final preparations.
Had there been an IFYR in 2020 (it was canceled due to COVID) this year would have marked the 32nd consecutive year for a major youth rodeo the size and scope of the IFYR to be hosted at the Heart of Oklahoma Exposition Center dating back to when the NHSFR was held here in 1990 through 1992.
I thought we’d get by this COVID-19 eventually and I truly believed that.