AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Anyone who's interested in a little bull riding or calf roping can find what they're looking for at some of the rodeos that take place across the U.S. One of the country's oldest Black rodeos takes place every year in Okmulgee, Okla. That's where hundreds of cowboys and cowgirls showed up as the summer waned. Anna Pope of Harvest Public Media was part of the crowd at the invitational and sent us this postcard.
(CROSSTALK)
ANNA POPE, BYLINE: It was early evening. The grandstand was getting packed as riders on horseback waited to fill the arena.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: So we're going to bring in the Checotah Roughriders. Rodeo fans are going to kick off 69 years of Okmulgee Roy LeBlanc Invitational Rodeo.
KENNETH LEBLANC: My name is Kenneth LeBlanc, and I am the coordinator for the Okmulgee Roy LeBlanc Invitational Rodeo. My dad and my grandfather and about 22 other guys, they started the Okmulgee County Roundup Club in 1956.
POPE: That's when Black people were only allowed to sit in one area of the town's white rodeo, so LeBlanc's cowboy relatives and others decided to start their club.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: Whoa, rodeo fans (inaudible). Well, we got the next cowboy right here. It's Carter Henderson. He said, I'm 8. He got one that's going to go. You better hold on, Carter.
CARTER HENDERSON: Carter Henderson - I was in a mutton busting rodeo. This is my first time, really.
POPE: First time mutton busting, trying to hold onto a sheep without falling off.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: Well, he's off. He's safe. All right, all right.
CARTER: I told my daddy at the Black rodeo in Texarkana, please, let me do mutton busting. They couldn't sign me up, so I did this one.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #2: You know what time it is, right? It's Pony Express time here at the 69th Annual Okmulgee Roy LeBlanc Invitational Rodeo. Make some noise if you have never seen Pony Express.
AARON FOSTER: Man, we've been doing this event probably 10-plus years. I'm Aaron Foster. The name of our team is the A-State Regulators out of Arkansas, and we compete in the Pony Express.
POPE: It's a relay race on horseback.
FOSTER: No, we didn't kind of grow up doing it, but we just picked it up along the way. We always been cowboys. It's competitive, you know, all or nothing. When you hit that dirt, it's just - it's a different feeling, you know, so we love it.
(CHEERING)
CHEYENNE WILLIAMS: My name is Cheyenne Williams. I'm 19 years old, from Houston, Texas.
POPE: And competing in the ladies steer undecorating, where the focus is on a piece of tape attached to a steer.
WILLIAMS: We ride onside the steer and get the tape and raise it in air.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: Oh, she was quick with it.
WILLIAMS: Well, I've been rodeoing all my life. It's in my blood line. My mother, she also does ladies steer undecorating, and she run barrels also. My dad, he's a calf roper. My grandpa, he was a steer wrestler, a bronc rider, a bull rider, a calf roper. And my brothers, they rope calves. I love the history of the event - this rodeo especially because it's been going on for years.
POPE: For 69 years - and the Roy LeBlanc Okmulgee Invitational Rodeo gets bigger and bigger every year. For NPR News, I'm Anna Pope in Okmulgee, Okla.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEYONCE SONG, "TEXAS HOLD 'EM") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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