Mission Valley welcomes the 78th annual Mission Valley rodeo

The 78th annual Mission Mountain rodeo is still in many ways part of the scene that rodeo enthusiast Les Baldwin developed in the late 1930s.

One major difference is the Mission Valley rodeo used to be a Pro Rodeo Cowboy Association sanctioned rodeo and now is a National Rodeo Sanctioned event that will be held Friday and Saturday at the Polson Fairgrounds.

“We have some of the top cowboys of all time that have come through and competed between Calgary and Wyoming with Polson being kind of on the circuit,” Una Rose Graham said. “We’ve had some good contestants competing in the pro rodeo. It gets very expensive to build up winning money and some of our (current contestants) can get to the NRA state finals, but it isn’t as competitive as the PCRA rodeo is.”

Graham said she felt one major difference between a PCRA event and an NRA event is that an NRA event is more of a “family-oriented” event.

The two-day rodeo will begin with the junior events that include breakaway, junior barrel races, mini bull riding, mutton bustin and pony mini buckers, and will begin at 6:30 p.m. both days at the Fairgrounds.

Following the junior events, there will be the main events such as bareback riding, stear wrestling, saddle bronc, team roping, ladies barrel racing and bull riding that begins Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Polson Fairgrounds.

After the rodeo, a band called Pink Cadillac will perform around 9:30 p.m. both nights.

The rodeo should draw interest from mostly in-state and some regional contestants.

“It brings a lot more families to rodeo together,” Graham said. “Dad might rope and mom might barrel race. (The event) will have mostly Montana residents and people around the state competing. We will have a few out of state contestants from Idaho and occasionally Washington.”