Volunteer families recall back to event's early years
At this weekend’s 153rd Silver Spurs Rodeo, “The Tradition Rides On,” as this year’s tagline says.
And, the anniversary celebration goes on, as the Silver Spurs Riding Club has been celebrating its 80th anniversary all year, going back to the first rodeo held in 1944.
This weekend’s rodeo, held Friday and Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. inside the indoor Silver Spurs Arena, will feature live action in the traditional events of bull riding, bareback riding, saddle bronc riding, tie-down roping, team roping, steer wrestling, and women’s barrel racing.
In between, spectators will be entertained by rodeo clowns, the Junior Silver Spurs Quadrille Team, junior bull riders and barrel racers.
So, it’s not all that different from when it debuted as a benefit event and the admission price was a war bond to help with the World War II effort overseas.
And, it will still be run by a legion of volunteers, the fourth and fifth generation of ranching families, whose earlier generations who’ve never lived a day in their lives without it, in a place where “Rodeo Day” is a school holiday.
The rodeo goes back to a time when it was held in a rodeo ring located near Neptune Road and Kings Highway— and built by the ranchers.
“I remember helping build it. It meant you got to go somewhere,” said Hank Partin, one of those ranching family members that go back to the beginning. “We all volunteered.”
While the men cut down green cypress poles, the women stripped them down to get them ready. Of course, this was done after work hours on the ranch, and sometimes those with cars would have to drive over and shine their headlights to get the work done.
“Some of the family members didn’t really appreciate this ‘Silver Spurs,’ said Bev Partin. “You worked at the ranch, that came first. Many a night, after hours, the boys would be out getting the stock ready for the rodeos.”
Later, some of those folks recall later rodeos were held near a livestock market on Donegan Street before moving to the current location on U.S. 192 to an open-air arena.
It fit right into the fabric of the community, said Jimmy Chapman, who thinks his family donated land for one of those rodeo rings.
“To tell you how the times have changed, there were feed stores in downtown Kissimmee and St. Cloud,” he said. “Those ag-related businesses were such a big part of both towns.”
Chapman said a relative had a garage in Kissimmee.
“What did he work on? Tractors and trucks.” He said. “If you were lucky, he’d work on your car.”
But, as Hank Partin said, everybody in town got behind those early rodeos, providing the momentum for them to continue to this day.
“It wasn’t strictly an agricultural thing. It intertwined the businesses together— bankers, lawyers, the school officials,” he said. “It was a whole community thing. I remember my daddy going to the bank to get a loan to be able to put the rodeo on.”
These families have worked every facet of this production— selling tickets, parking cars, working the concessions, getting the stock ready and, of course, marketing it.
Kathy Baker, a longtime rodeo secretary and a Partin by birth, said she and her family led the clowns and the rodeo queens to the schools each year.
“They’d have an assembly. We put the hours into it because we loved it,” she said.
One of the big reasons the Silver Spurs Rodeo has endured for 80 years—in a time and place where there are dozens of, and more familiar, entertainment options—is that it’s a family affair. To talk to people like Chapman, a family business.
“I’m sure there were lots of us who thought we were all kin because we saw each other all the time. Went to church together,” he said. “And the civic organizations like the Lions Club, Elks Club Jaycees helped us with the promotion.”
Clay Tyson, the rodeo’s 200809 “Big Boss”, said the process of putting on the rodeo every year is a yearly extension of the fight to keep main core values that their predecessors put in place.
“We’re trying to put together an entertainment show. It’s hard to entertain in this day and age and stay within those values,” he said. “It was what this county was built on, agriculture land, and it’s getting harder to maintain.
“It’s our duty to keep this going. My duty is to pass it on to my children, so they can have the same experiences I did.”
Crowds, like the sellouts at the February rodeo that coincides with the Osceola County Fair—the “The Kissimmee Valley Livestock Show” as lifers like Chapman call it—keep coming and supporting it.
“We’re still affordable for families, we’ve gone up (in price) in the last few years, but we offer something that’s unique,” said Sara Berlinsky, who is wrapping up her year as the Big Boss, just the third “boss lady” in its history.
That unique factor likely plays into the Silver Spurs Rodeo’s long-term success, that a few others have tried to corral like a steer wrestler or roper. Once Disney World became a neighbor in the “Cow Capital of the World” and marketed itself as the “Gateway to the World”, it had a brief presence in the rodeo.
“We didn’t mind being on Disney’s doorstep,” Ed Partin said. “We just didn’t want to be their doormat. Needless to say, that didn’t last long.”
The tradition of rodeos, and ranchers putting it on, is what has been everlasting.
“It’s vital to this county, in my opinion,” Chapman said. “Other places like Okeechobee and Arcadia, they came up here to see what it was about. Then we went down and helped them start theirs.”
But, at 153 rodeos and counting, Kissimmee is where the tradition rides on.
