After having to take a year off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Finals Youth Rodeo returns to action this Sunday evening for nearly a week at the Heart of Oklahoma Exposition Center.
This year’s theme for the IFYR is “It Feels Good to be a Legend.”
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.
The first performance is scheduled for 8 p.m. Sunday.
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 2021 champions will be crowned.
Nearly 700 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 has grown as envisioned by Ken Etchieson, the brain trust of this major annual event.
It has grown to as many as 1,000 contestants throughout its history. It consistently has drawn 800-900 contestants from more than 30 states and one or two countries outside the U.S.
A first for the IFYR this year is a Miss Teen Rodeo USA contest. I’m told there are 16 contestants and among them will be 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.
Gilbert related the IFYR in 2019 drew contestants from 34 states and two countries.
Had there been an IFYR a year ago, it would have marked the 31st 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 said a year ago, I thought we’d get by this COVID-19 eventually and I truly believed that. I added we could look forward to IFYR 28 in July of 2021 and that’s exactly what we are about to do now.