Eureka Rodeo

On the Saturday morning of the Eureka Rodeo, the grandstands at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds on Osloski Road are open without charge. Saturday slack begins at 9:00 a.m. For the 2026 rodeo, the Tobacco Valley Rodeo Association told spectators to get coffee from MaggieRae’s Coffee Truck and breakfast from Taco Loco and watch from the stands. The ticketed performances run at night. Gates open at 6:00, and the first event starts at 8:00. In 2026 the nights were Friday, July 24, and Saturday, July 25.

The program, as Visit Montana lists it, includes bull riding, bronc riding, barrel racing, team roping, steer wrestling, and mutton bustin’ for young riders. For 2026 the association booked Whistle-Nut for both nights and promised “big laughs.” Food trucks and dessert vendors set up along the grounds, merchandise vendors sell western goods, and anyone 21 or older can buy a drink. Coolers, outside food, glass, pets, and cameras with detachable lenses are not allowed through the gate. Matthew Rumble and Beyond Graphics Apparel & Design produced the year’s rodeo shirts and gear. The Saturday performance in 2026 fell on the National Day of the Cowboy, and the association marked it with a post: “There’s no better way to celebrate than at a rodeo!” On Canada Day the same account thanked “our neighbors up north” for their support. Mike Cole, the association’s president, describes that support as “a huge following up north.”

The association is a volunteer board. Its members are Mike Cole, BeeGee Cole, Shawn Vandeburg, Sara Sherwood, Aubree Sherwood, Dannee Rodriguez, Carmen Davis, and Sam Chaney, and they work through the year on two events. The second is the Bull Thing, held in the same arena each August. Its gates open at 4:00 and the riding begins at 7:00.

The ground and the purse

Before the 2025 season, the arena dirt was the main project. “We brought in a bunch of sand and added three inches all over the arena,” Cole told Joe Kusek of the Northern Rodeo Association. “It was coarse and held together great. It worked into the existing ground so well. Even I was amazed.”

That year the rodeo raised its added money from $2,000 to $3,000. On the Mountain Health Co-op Tour, it ranked second among the 30 regular-season rodeos for added money and third for total payout. Thirteen competitors left Eureka with checks of $1,000 or more. “That’s something you have to do,” Cole said, and he promised $4,000 for the following year. He credits sponsors for the money: “Oh my goodness, that’s the key to the whole thing.” He also said finding good seats for all of them “is getting tough because we have so many sponsors.”

In fall 2025, the Northern Rodeo Association and the Northern Women’s Rodeo Association named Eureka the Platinum Rodeo of the Year and the rodeo with the best ground. The committee was to be honored at the 50th Annual NRA Finals at Majestic Valley Arena in Kalispell, October 30 through November 1. It was the third time Eureka had won the honor since joining the association in 1999. “We push this as traditional entertainment,” Cole said.

Seats on the slope

The arena at the fairgrounds dates to the late 1970s. A Kootenai Sand & Gravel account says it had about 2,200 seats while the association sold almost 5,000 tickets a year. People who could not find a seat sat on the steep hill behind the bleachers and watched the Rodeo or the Bull Thing from there. “We risked losing customers,” Cole said while looking over the old bleachers. He proposed new bleachers built of concrete.

The bleachers had been a cause in Eureka before that. Dr. Andrew Ivy was a Korean War MASH surgeon who practiced for 25 years in Honolulu and moved to Montana in 1977. In town he was known as “Doc.” His obituary in the Tobacco Valley News says he was “a familiar face at the Tobacco Valley Rodeo as a promoter and for raising money for new bleachers.” He died in Eureka on May 14, 2013, at 88.

Paying for the work led to several Lincoln County Commission meetings. The commissioners met in Eureka on November 2, 2016, and spent much of the session on a fairgrounds project that had gone out to bid on June 29 of that year without formal commission approval. Commissioner Larson said the county was being asked “to write a blank check.” Commissioner Peck said the required agreement on the Rodeo Association’s financial obligation had not been reached. Commissioner Cole then offered to remove the bleacher portion from the project and make the Tobacco Valley Rodeo Association responsible for invoices already incurred, subject to commission approval. The matter was tabled for a week.

In August 2019 the association extended its contract with Kootenai Sand & Gravel to add almost 1,200 seats. The crews prepared the ground, laid coarse and then fine fill, compacted it, and set large precast concrete sections in place. The job had to be done by August, when the Bull Thing would use the arena. “Kootenai’s doing a really fine job,” Cole said.

On March 16, 2022, Mike Cole reported to the commissioners that a grant application had been denied. He said the association would pay for the entire project itself and expected to pay off the county loan within the month. He also asked for a letter of support for grants toward a Skybox Improvement Plan and said he was “a little nervous” that high fuel prices might reduce the number of contestants. In his 2025 interview, Cole listed sky boxes put in “seven years ago,” along with more iron, concrete, a new ticket booth, and a new vendor area.

An open rodeo from the 1940s

The Eureka Rodeo began in the 1940s as an open rodeo, without sanctioning by any association. Cole rode bareback horses there before he became committee president in the 1980s. “This rodeo is a lifelong thing for me,” he said. He and his wife, BeeGee, decided the rodeo needed a sanctioning body. “We felt we needed an organization that would have your back,” Cole said. “The consistency, the stability are things we looked for.” In 1999 the rodeo joined the NRA and NWRA. Cole says NRA president Joe Warner helped persuade them. “You could say Joe Warner had a role in it,” he said, and laughed.

Distance from the rest of Montana has always shaped the rodeo. “We’re a long way from everything,” Cole said. The association says the 2027 Eureka Rodeo will be held in July and has not yet announced a date. Cole describes the preparation this way: “This is year-round. We’re getting this rodeo ready for the next generation to carry it on.”