Choteau American Legion Rodeo

At one o’clock on the Fourth of July the Choteau Community Band, under the direction of Dana Burt, plays in the grandstand at the Choteau Rodeo Grounds while the seats fill. The arena below is the one Levi Hurst, a competitor from Kalispell, described in 2024: “It’s a beautiful arena. It’s nice how it’s down here in the river bottom.” At two the band gives way to the opening ceremonies, and for the next two hours the Choteau American Legion Rodeo runs through bareback bronc riding, saddle bronc riding, bull riding, steer wrestling, team roping, tie-down roping, breakaway roping and barrel racing, with junior barrel racing and junior breakaway for young cowboys and cowgirls.

The show is sanctioned by the Northern Rodeo Association and put on by the Choteau American Legion C. James Smith Post 6. In 2026 the post had 114 members, and the Sons of the American Legion had 52 more. Many of them work the rodeo. For the 2026 edition, the 80th, cowboys and cowgirls registered for 275 to 300 outs. Jacobs Challenge events are set aside for rookie rough stock riders. With sponsor money, the Legion added $1,000 to the pots for rough stock events and $500 to $750 for timed events. Legion Commander Jerry Collins, who also announces the rodeo, said where the crowd’s eyes go: “Almost everyone comes to the rodeo to watch bareback, bronc and bulls.”

The timed-event slack runs the afternoon before, starting at 4 p.m. on July 3. Admission is $5, and the Sons of the American Legion staff the beer garden. On the Fourth the Choteau Booster Club sells concessions and the Choteau Wrestling Club runs the beer garden. In 2022 the American Legion Auxiliary kept the concession stand, selling burgers, cold water and pop, and candy.

A pen of stock from Vaughn

The stock comes from Jacobs Livestock Rodeo Co. of Vaughn, the rodeo’s producer. For 2026 its owner, Dick Lyman, planned to truck in two and a half trailers: 30 head of horses, around 19 bulls, 15 roping calves, 25 breakaway calves and 20 head of team-roping cattle, worked by a crew of 12 to 15. “We should have a pretty good pen of stuff,” Lyman said. “We’ve three broncs that have been the NRA Finals and we’ve got five bulls that have been to the NRA Finals.”

He gave the grounds credit for the condition of his animals. “It’s such a beautiful grounds to come up there to. They’ve got green grass to turn the horses out onto three or four days early so they are fresh coming off pasture. It makes for a really, really good rodeo,” Lyman said. “It’s a great small-town atmosphere that’s just outstanding.”

The 2026 arena crew around that stock were bullfighters Jarrod Anderson and Austin Wagner, funnyman Zane Drishinski, pickup men Pete White and Shane Moran, timers Fanci Pulliam and Betsy Moran, secretary Britney Corder, and judges Jim Duvall and Mike Tatsey. The Legion Rodeo Committee that year was Collins, Marlin Styren, Aaron Leys, Luke Grigsby, Leo Tash and Christopher Banka.

A buckle and a saddle in 2026

The 2026 prizes included a belt buckle in memory of Aiden Copenhaver of Fairfield, who was killed in a vehicle accident on Dec. 21, 2025, at 21. His parents, Cory and Amanda Copenhaver, provided the buckle, and it was awarded to a rookie rough stock rider. On July 6 the rodeo’s Facebook page called it “an honor to honor and remember the Legacy of Aiden Copenhaver” and asked anyone with video of “that small ceremony and horse with his saddle” to send it in.

The same post thanked Rory and Sonny Fellers, 2W Spreading, Larry and Robert Wurz, Alan Gagne, Lane Yeager “and the whole crew that helped us get the arena dried out so contestants and animals could compete safely.”

Burgers on the street, bells at noon

The rodeo sits inside a town-wide holiday, and the Legion runs much of it. In 2026 the Legion Club began grilling burgers on the street at 6 p.m. on July 3, and VooDoo Cadillac played a street dance outside the club at 9. On the Fourth the club opened at 7 a.m. for breakfast, with loaded Caesars and Bloody Marys from 8. At 10 a.m. the Chamber of Commerce parade, “Declaration of Celebration — Happy Birthday, America!”, went up Main Avenue. The ticket office at the rodeo grounds opened at 11, after the parade. Legion members poured drinks at the Chamber’s Hot Diggity Dog Barbecue in the City Park, which replaced the old steak fry. At noon Trinity Lutheran, the United Methodist Church and St. Joseph’s Catholic Church each rang their bells for one minute to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

After the rodeo the Legion moved back to the City Park bandshell at 6 p.m. to sell burgers and beer while 50 Watt Sun played, and the community fireworks went up at dusk. On July 5 the club served breakfast again, and keg hockey teams competed outside it starting at 11 a.m. In 2008, when the Choteau Volunteer Fire Department ran the tournament, teams tried “to move an aluminum pony-size beer keg up and down the street.” In 2026 a dunk tank fundraiser with free hot dogs followed the hockey, and at 6 p.m. Shake Down County played a family street dance while the Legion served walking tacos.

The money goes back into the town. Sponsors gave the Legion $27,000 in 2026 to help with rodeo costs and Legion programs. Those programs include the Backpack Buddies food program at Choteau Elementary School, the annual Boys State delegates, Canine Care Montana, which trains service dogs for veterans, and the Choteau Lions Swimming Pool. A 2020 report called the rodeo the main fundraiser for the Legion’s charitable work in the community.

From the 63rd to the 80th

In 2008 the Choteau Acantha billed the 63rd annual American Legion rodeo. The Prairie Mountain Players community band played from 1:15 to 2 p.m., giving audiences “the old-time sounds of Sousa marches, German polkas and other ‘traditional’ Choteau Fourth of July songs.” Reserved seats under the grandstand cost $15, and the paper warned that the event often sold out. Jacobs Livestock was already the stock contractor, Joe Warner was announcing, and Britney Lyman was rodeo secretary. That year’s program included a wild-cow milking contest for three-person teams, and the slack followed the main event at about 4:30 p.m.

The 2020 rodeo should have been the 75th. Under COVID-19 rules, the committee proposed spreading the rodeo over two days and limiting tickets to 3,000. The grandstands were to be taped into sections for groups of 50, with signs, staff and masks to keep people six feet apart. “We’re not out to try and infect the whole world with COVID,” Collins said. “We’re trying to make sure we’re doing this as safely and efficiently as we can.” The Teton County Board of Health took up the plan on Monday, June 15, 2020. Rodeo announcer Will Rasmussen, a Choteau resident, spoke in favor: “I think we should think of reasons to have a celebration, not reasons to shut it down.” The sticking point was crowd size. “If you have one case out of all these people, you have no way of knowing who they were in contact with during the rodeo,” board member Elaine Sedlack said. “It would take an army of contact tracers to deal with that.” The board denied the proposal unanimously, with one abstention. It did approve a July 3 mixer to celebrate the rodeo and the history of the Choteau American Legion.

Until 2021 the Legion’s show was the largest one-day rodeo in the Northern Rodeo Association. That year the slack went to July 3. The Legion’s own listing says the slack was moved there, and a state tourism listing says it was added. Either way, the one-day title was gone. “However,” the Legion wrote, “we continue to see the large contestant numbers.” In 2022, its 76th, the Legion staged a two-day rodeo for the first time in many years. It added a July 3 main event at 6 p.m. for contestants coming over from the Ennis rodeo, and it put a big screen up for instant replays. The 2025 listing again announced a July 3 performance. In 2026 the schedule returned to slack on the 3rd and a single main performance on the Fourth.

In 2024 the 78th rodeo fell on a Thursday. By then Collins had chaired the committee for eight years. “We rodeo a lot to celebrate the Western way of life,” he said. “And it’s such a historic thing in this community. And then being tied to the Legion too on the patriotic side of it ... so, we kind of marry those two together.” In the stands that day sat Joe George, who had driven over from Belt. “We come to Choteau every year,” he said. “It’s in the fiber, old West.”