Kuna Rodeo

Cars bound for the Kuna Stampede come in on East King Road and turn onto Meridian Road. There a parking crew waves them into a lot that was enlarged for 2026, at $5 a car. The grounds are the Crooked 8 Event Center at 1882 East King Road, a farm and concert venue owned by Cody and Lini Chytka. The arena inside is the Koby J. Clark Arena, and over it flies what the rodeo calls the biggest American flag in Idaho rodeo history.

Gates open at 5 p.m. In 2026 the pre-rodeo and mutton bustin’ began at 6:00 and the main performance at 7:00. Cowboys and cowgirls compete in bull riding, bareback riding, steer wrestling, barrel racing, and team roping. A 501(c)3 runs the rodeo. Its stated purposes are promoting the sport and preserving Western heritage, and its motto is “Big Rodeo, Small Town Heart.” The Stampede also crowns its own rodeo queens.

Three named nights in September 2026

The 2026 Kuna Stampede ran September 3–5 and was the first to run three nights. Each night carried a name and a cause:

• Thursday, Family Night: reduced ticket prices, with fundraising for the Boys & Girls Club of Kuna.
• Friday, Patriot Night: honored military and first responders, with fundraising for the L Company 75th Ranger Foundation.
• Saturday, Home Town Night: raised money for District 2 High School Rodeo.

Tickets were sold by night and by area, with no assigned seats. There were four areas:

• Bleachers.
• Premier Arena-Side Seating: tables and chairs beside the arena, with wait staff serving the section through the evening.
• VIP: a premium area of its own.
• Standing Garden: standing room, which the rodeo offered as room to move and easy access to the vendors.

Crooked 8 sold cooler bags that guests filled with ice to keep adult drinks cold. Saturday Premier and Friday and Saturday VIP were sold out before the gates first opened. By Saturday afternoon the bleachers were gone too.

Rain fell on Friday, September 4. Before the gates opened, the rodeo posted, “The rain tried… but the sun just won,” and reported the arena drying fast.

Saturday started early. A Cowboy Community Breakfast ran from 7:30 to 10:00 a.m. at $10 a plate, with all proceeds going to Kuna American Legion Post 142. The annual Special Needs Rodeo, for kids and adults of all abilities, was also held that day. The One By One Foundation has supported it.

Entry is meant for local hands. In 2023 the rodeo was open competition, and anyone could enter, even without an Idaho Cowboys Association card. “You don’t have to be pro right now to enter this rodeo,” Lini Chytka said that year. “It’s Idaho cowboys. A lot of our local rodeos around the valley are going pro and our local cowboys don’t have anywhere to rodeo because they don’t have their pro card.” She and her husband have turned down the pro rodeo circuit several times.

Dirt, bleachers, and a summer of 2022

The Stampede takes its name from Kuna’s last rodeo before the revival. The rodeo’s Facebook page states, “1949 was the last Kuna Stampede.” The town kept asking for another. “A year hasn’t gone by that I get multiple calls wondering why Kuna doesn’t have a rodeo,” City Clerk Chris Engels told Idaho News 6 in 2022. “Four years ago we started working towards it.” The city had no venue, and the Chytkas offered theirs.

The first annual Kuna Rodeo was built over the summer of 2022. Fans were to sit on earthen berms until July, when the Eagle Rodeo called. It had lost its grounds at Avimor to a subdivision. As Lini Chytka recalled it, the Eagle committee said, “You need bleachers and we need somewhere to put ‘em.” The Eagle Rodeo brought bleachers seating 2,500 and donated its arena, back pens, and ticket counter. Its committee members came out four or five times to sweat in the sun alongside the Chytkas.

The Chytkas hauled 30 loads of topsoil and sand into the arena. Some of the top barrel racers in Idaho tested the ground and guided the adjustments, because the wrong ratio of soil to sand can injure horse and rider. In town, Engels’s office cut checks, handled permits, and organized more than 80 vendors. “In here, it’s just a hive of activity,” she said.

The rodeo ran September 2–3, 2022. It drew more entries than any other Idaho Cowboys Association rodeo that year, with barrel racing the largest field. “Why wouldn’t we? We’re Kuna,” Engels said. The Chytkas’ daughter Peyton was to carry the Kuna banner on horseback.

Every seat filled, and according to the Idaho Press over 900 vehicles were turned away. The association named the event Fan Favorite and Best New Rodeo. Mayor Joe Stear remembered the parking lot: “There wasn’t a vehicle out there that didn’t have a quarter-inch of dust all over it when the show was over, and it was just everything you expect a rodeo to be.”

Two rodeos on one weekend

Four days after the 2022 rodeo ended, Engels emailed a preliminary profit breakdown. One line said the city appeared to have enough to buy its own arena, “to make sure that we never lose a Kuna Rodeo again.”

Lini Chytka said it felt like being slapped. She put the couple’s outlay at $200,000 to $220,000 of their own money, spent on dirt work, bucking chutes, back pens, and a crow’s nest in hopes of a continued relationship with the city. Engels said the plan had always been a permanent, city-owned venue that could also host Future Farmers of America events and weddings. The 2022 contract made no multi-year promise. Gail Cutsforth, of the city’s rodeo advisory committee, questioned whether it was fair to spend taxpayer money improving one owner’s private property.

The Chytkas resigned from the city’s rodeo committee. The city cited a potential conflict of interest; the Chytkas said they felt squeezed out. They were given a bid sheet due December 31. With friends from the newly formed Kuna Stampede, they presented to the advisory committee, but the bid was never turned in. Stear said the city took that to mean they did not want it.

In early January 2023 the city announced a rodeo at a city-owned location for September 1–2. The Kuna Stampede then posted on Facebook that it had scheduled its own rodeo for the same date. Residents were confused and angry, and some lashed out at council members who had known nothing of it. Days later the city canceled its rodeo after a barrage of angry emails, social media posts, and death threats.

“It felt like a sucker punch,” Lini Chytka said. “We decided to start our own non-profit rodeo to make sure that it would be successful for the whole community, and that’s how the Kuna Stampede was born.” Stear said the city would fully support it.

By August 2023 Chytka said it was water under the bridge. “It’s good. Everything’s good,” she said. “The mayor has been super helpful.” Stear said the city had no plans for a rodeo of its own in the next couple of years. “Our intent was to bring the rodeo back and I think we’ve done that,” he said. For that year’s rodeo the Stampede added 1,000 seats.

The arena named for Koby Clark

On the Friday night of the 2023 rodeo, the arena was dedicated and officially named the Koby J. Clark Memorial Arena. The Idaho Press had already used that name in its coverage of the 2022 rodeo.

Clark was a Kuna cowboy from the time he could walk. He learned to ride and rope on the Chytkas’ property, and after high school he went to the mountains to cowboy. He was killed in May 2018, in a vehicle that went into the Selway River.

“Koby was the inspiration behind all of this,” Lini Chytka said. “The only reason any of this is happening is because of him.” His mother, Krista Clark, said, “He had the best smile, the best laugh and he loved to help people.” His father, James Clark, said, “It’s nothing we’ve asked for, but Cody and Lini have made it about him.”