Gardiner Rodeo

The Jim Duffy Arena stands on Highway 89 just north of Gardiner, Montana, the town at the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park. On rodeo nights the gate opens at 5 p.m. and the first event starts at 6. Tickets are sold at the gate, cash or check only. The organizers repeated that rule on their page in the days before the 2026 rodeo: adults $25, kids $15, under 12 free. The rodeo runs two evenings on Father’s Day weekend. By the count of SWX Local Sports, the 2026 edition, June 19 and 20, was its 52nd.

Two nights of Northern Rodeo Association competition

The Northern Rodeo Association sanctions the Gardiner competition. On the association’s 2026 schedule it fell between Poplar Wild West Days and the Wilsall Rodeo, in a season that closed with the NRA Finals in Kalispell in October. The card listed for the 2023 rodeo ran through bull riding, saddle bronc and bareback bronc riding, steer wrestling, team roping, calf roping, ladies’ breakaway roping and ladies’ barrel racing, and junior breakaway and barrel racing for younger riders. That year Jacob’s Livestock furnished the bulls, broncs, and other stock. Rodeo clown and barrel man Troy Lerwill, “The Wild Man,” worked the arena and the crowd.

A stand sells rodeo merchandise: t-shirts, coozies, hats, insulated mugs, and pint glasses. For 2026 the rodeo pointed fans to Bernadette Roach Photography for pictures of both nights. The Gardiner chamber listed each performance from 6 to 9 p.m. Its calendar also carried Band of Drifters at Two Bit City on the Friday and Brandon & Dirty Shame Band there on the Saturday, both billed “Rodeo Weekend!”

The Jaycees’ Upper Yellowstone Roundup

The Gardiner Jaycees started the rodeo in 1975. Its earlier name was the Upper Yellowstone Roundup, and a 2023 notice in the Bozeman radio press still used it. The Upper Yellowstone Roundup Association organizes the event today. In 2023 the roundup spread from Friday, June 16, through Sunday, June 18, with performances at 6 p.m. on the Saturday and Sunday. Adults paid $20 at the gate that year, children 6 to 12 paid $15, and those 6 and under got in free.

Warren Johnson and the next hands

Warren Johnson, president of the rodeo, has been involved since its early years. “We started it from nothing and we fought for years to get it built up,” he told SWX in June 2026. He gave the founders’ reasoning plainly: “We wanted to have a good event right next to Yellowstone Park which would get all the tourists and they’d love it. The tourists love it because that’s part of why they come out west, to see the rodeo and the wildlife.”

He is training the people who will run it after him. “I bring my son and my grandson and my granddaughter down and show them how to continue to operate it,” Johnson said. “This rodeo is America, part Americana. And, in the history of it, I don’t want to see it go. It’s the West. When the West dies, I think we’ve lost something.”