Sam Harper, of Paradise Valley, Nevada, rides Party Pooper during the saddle bronc riding event of the High Desert Stampede rodeo in Redmond in 2019.

The High Desert Stampede is gearing up for another action packed rodeo at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center in Redmond Wednesday through Saturday. Promoters say this 2023 renewal will be both bigger and better than its five previous editions.

Denis Fast, Stampede board chairman, recently reviewed the list of competing cowboys and said it is the most talented group to ever dig their boots into the Redmond dirt.

“Eleven world champions are signed up and we have athletes from as far away as Florida and Quebec in Canada,” Fast said. “This is the biggest indoor rodeo on the West Coast.”

The Stampede’s prestige in the pro rodeo world will make Redmond’s airport one busy place as the profession’s top athletes start arriving and competing for some $200,000 in prize money.

The Redmond rodeo is now listed among the top 60 in the country and is part of the National Finals Rodeo playoff series. The NFR series is the most recent incarnation of what was called the Pro Rodeo Tour in 2021, though it has been known by multiple names in the past.

Standings are kept throughout the season and there is a championship NFR playoff event at the end of the season.

The NFR Playoff Series encompasses the top events on Pro Rodeo’s schedule, including Houston, the Calgary Stampede and the Ellensburg (Wash.) Rodeo. In 2022, 53 rodeos were in the series — 21 of which took place between the Reno (Nev.) Rodeo in June and Cheyenne (Wyo.) Frontier Days at the end of July.

The High Desert Stampede will be telecast on the Cowboy Channel.

In case tickets are sold out for any of the performances, large screen TVs will be set up outside in the entertainment tent that opens for tailgating at 4 p.m. for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances.

The rodeo kicks off Wednesday at 10 a.m. with steer wrestling, team roping and tie-down slack.

After that broncs and bulls kick open the chutes at 7 p.m. to start bareback, saddle bronc and two full sections of the perennial crowd favorite — bull riding. Women’s professional breakaway roping will be featured Wednesday night as well. Competitive horse-and-rider duos compete for the biggest purse ever offered in this event. Breakaway roping is the fastest growing part of rodeo, according to Fast.

Thursday is another full day culminating with the full NFR Playoff Series main event at 7 p.m., repeated on Friday and Saturday.

Keeping it entertaining

No rodeo would be complete without the rodeo clown. This year’s entertainment is a favorite of Central Oregon: J.J. Harrison.

Fast said that Harrison “is hilarious and an entertaining show entirely on his own. He’s a big kid at heart, sure to make you laugh even if you came to watch those big ugly bulls do their worst.”

Also integral to a successful rodeo is the announcer. Steve Kenyon returns to Redmond for the 2023 Stampede. Kenyon has more than 30 years of rodeo-calling experience, his own radio show and also broadcasts on WNFR.

Rodeo royalty

Another first for this year’s Stampede is a rodeo queen.

The 2023 honor belongs to Allie Nuhring, who was born and raised in southwest Portland with little access to horses. When she was 4, Nuhring attended her first rodeo. As soon as she saw the rodeo queens come racing from the gate, she knew she wanted to be one of them.

Nuhring graduated from Oregon City High School in 2018 with the Presidential Academic Award of Excellence. She bought her first horse in 2019 and began the life of rodeo royalty. Winning her first title in early 2020, she hasn’t looked back. Nuhring spent the last three years as the 2020-2021 Santiam Canyon Stampede Queen and as the 2022 Benton County Fair and Rodeo Queen.

For more information and tickets, visit highdesertstampede.com.