Cokeville Pioneer Day

On the Friday of the 2026 celebration, the first contestants in the Cokeville arena were children five and under. They swung ropes at a roping dummy and ran barrels on stick horses. The Cokeville Stock and Saddle Club Youth Rodeo began July 24 at 10 a.m. with free admission and worked up through the age groups: goat ribbon pulls and goat tying, sheep riding for the smallest, calf riding, steer riding, bareback riding, and bulls for riders seventeen and eighteen. Each event and age group paid out and gave a buckle. Afterward one family asked on the club’s Facebook page whether anyone had picked up a little red, black and blue sheep rope: “We never got it off the sheep last night!”

Pioneer Day is Cokeville’s July holiday, kept on or near the 24th. It marks the date in 1847 when Latter-day Saint pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. In 2026 a newly inducted club committee ran it over two days under the slogan “250 years of Freedom, Family and RODEO,” to mark the country’s 250 years. A town beautification committee, organized that year, had won a grant for a mural on the downtown Cokeville City Office. On Friday evening a ribbon was cut there from 7 to 7:30, with music and refreshments until 9.

Saturday on Mainstreet and in the arena

Saturday began at 10 a.m. with a community parade down Mainstreet celebrating freedom and Pioneer heritage. The Open Rodeo opened at 5 p.m., and adults paid $14 at the gate in cash or by Venmo. The program ran from mutton bustin’ for children six and under through bull riding, saddle bronc, bareback, stock saddle riding, tie-down, ladies’ barrel racing and breakaway, ribbon roping and team roping. The club advertised the Ranch Queen for Saturday. Food vendors worked both days, among them one called Baconlicious.

The 2026 rodeo added an invitational bronc riding. “We have contacted the top 30 bronc riding athletes in the nation to come and join us on this bronc riding,” Justin McKinnon, an organizer, told SVI-NEWS. “We have some added money. For the winner, we have got a silver bar that they will receive.”

PRCA announcer Kade Rogge called the rodeo, and professional rodeo clown JJ Harrison worked the arena. Rogge is a former high school and collegiate rodeo athlete from Southern Idaho. He said of small-town rodeos, “It’s the people who work for absolutely no money all year round – that’s what really makes me buy into Cokeville.” Harrison is also a former rodeo athlete, holds a master’s degree, and has taught school. He had not been to Cokeville before. “I have never been to the metropolis that is Cokeville, but I love Wyoming,” he said. “The Wyoming [rodeo] fan is a little bit different to work, because they are kind of rodeo savvy.” He gave his reason for taking up the work: “I have just been too lazy to work and too scared to steal.”

At 8:30 the arena became a dance floor. The club had brought back a community dance, with the band Rough Stock playing country and rock, free admission, and no alcohol on the premises. The next day Jamie Beddoes McKinnon thanked the volunteers who had worked chutes, gates and animals and wrote, “We’ll let the dust settle for a minute and get back at it!!”

Honorees in the arena

The club runs on volunteers, and since at least 2020 it has named Rodeo Honorees from among them. The 2020 list came in the club’s 25th anniversary year. That year each honoree was received at the rodeo by a relative or friend while others rode in the honoree’s name. Tamara Dayton was received by her husband, Ed, with their son Nick riding for her. Roland Johns was received by his daughter, Janet Dayton, with a grandson and three great-grandchildren riding.

The 2026 honorees were Tricia Brooks and Trudy Hatch. Brooks competed for Miss Rodeo Utah before she married Jason and settled in Cokeville. Her niece Kallie learned to ride on the front of Tricia’s saddle, and her daughter Sara rode miles beside her. She was a driving force behind the weekly Cokeville Rope & Runs for local children. Hatch moved to Cokeville with her husband, Scott, in 1997 and joined the club in approximately 2015. She served about eight years as secretary, knocking on business doors for donations and prizes, keeping time and taking tickets. The club presented her a buckle.

Lots east of the Stock Yards

The rodeo is older than the club. The club’s page says the club “has been around for generations,” and that the town held an annual Pioneer Day Rodeo for many decades before that. An account submitted by Christine Teichert begins with three men: Reed Dayton, Bill Buckley and Herman A. Teichert. Dayton was bishop of the Cokeville Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he wanted the young people to have something to look forward to. The rodeo was first held half a mile north of town, just off Highway 30.

In 1953 Minerva Teichert wrote to her daughter Laurie: “We are to have a 24th Celebration. Reed, Bill Buckley and dad [Herman Teichert] bought the lots east of the Stock Yards for a Rodeo ground. Every body helped build a dandy corral and arena. It has become a great Institution in Cokeville.” There were no stands. Spectators parked around the fence with their cars facing the arena, and the three buyers had reserved spaces. Dayton donated bucking stock.

The bishop also needed money for a new chapel. In the early 1950s the ward combined the rodeo with a barbecue dinner, foot races and square dancing, and put the proceeds toward the building. Dayton was released as bishop in 1956 and kept working on the celebration. The chapel was dedicated in 1961. In the 1980s the Church donated the grounds to the Stock and Saddle Club.

Flags, carriages and pickup men

Evan Pope’s account of the arena begins earlier than the letter. His daughter, Jody Keetch, wrote that he was 10 years old in 1950 when he helped build the fence around it. For the next 45 years the arena ran north to south, on the same property as now, with square corners and the railroad stockyard on its border. Local ranchers took turns donating stock for the rodeo and beef for the dinner. The day was always hot and dry, with a parade, dinner, baseball or other games, a rodeo and a dance, and people took it off from work. At rodeo time there was little water, the dust was hard to see through, and the mosquitoes came out.

Pope brought in big calves off the range for the calf roping, and in his prime a 20-second run was “a pretty dang good run.” In the years his father was over the rodeo, winners took home spurs and ropes instead of money. He carried the flag before the club existed. Once, just after the anthem, his horse leaped into the air and landed in full stride. He worked as a pickup man with Sim Weston, entered the wild cow milking with his sons, and ended the day dancing with his wife, DottyJo. For decades he drove a horse-drawn carriage at the head of the parade and carried at least 40 grand marshals, several of them general authorities. The club thanked him for nearly 70 years of service.

The flag passed down through families. Ed and Tam Dayton carried it together for many years. Their son Nick began at 14 with his friend Candace Bird, and Ed later gave up his place so Nick could ride with his mother. Nick also worked as a pickup man and competed in stock saddle and roping. In 2024 the Kemmerer Gazette reported that the Cokeville Stock and Saddle Flag Team presented a flag ceremony at the Pioneer Day rodeo, and that the parade ran on Saturday, July 20.

“As a kid growing up in Cokeville,” Keetch wrote, “the 24th was the best day of the year, even better than Christmas.”