Piper Cordes, a freshman from Wall, South Dakota, competes as a member of the Montana State University rodeo team.
(Jack Power/MSU Creative Services)
On the fourth floor of the Montana State Capitol, a sea of cowboy hats crowded into a small hearing room and overflowed into the hallway.
Cowboy hats in the capitol is not an unusual sight, but there was a density and purpose to the figures below the brims that set a different tone on Thursday, as dozens testified in support of designating American rodeo as Montana’s official state sport.
Stevensville Republican Rep. Greg Overstreet introduced House Bill 190 to add rodeo to the list of Montana state symbols.
“Why have a state sport? That’s a fair question,” Overstreet told the committee. “A state sport expresses a state’s heritage. A state sport spotlights something about a state.”
Overstreet then stepped aside and let a flood of advocates — from 9-year-old kids to worn and weathered retired cowboys — speak to the importance of highlighting the heritage sport.
Since COVID, participation and interest in rodeo has surged throughout the country, according to Mark “Sparky” Dreesen of J Bar J Ranch
“I believe a lot of that is the way we think as cowboys in Montana,” Dreesen said. “My dad always told me when you put your cowboy hat on, it better mean something. And it better mean something good. And I believe that is very true with what the people in Montana and the United States want to see today.”
David “Danger Dave” Whitmoyer, a professional rodeo clown, said he’s worked with every rodeo group in Montana and understands the wide-reach of the sport. The Cowboy Channel broadcasts half of all rodeos in the state with a customer base of more than 100 million, Whitmoyer said.
In person, rodeos are a huge part of Montana’s tourism draw, he said, noting that both Montana entrances to Yellowstone National Park boast two rodeo arenas, and Glacier National Park has rodeo arenas within miles of its main entrances as well.
According to the Institute of Tourism and Recreation Research at the University of Montana, the 2024 East Helena Valley Rodeo drew more than 500 attendees who spent nearly $50,000 in the area.
Browning High School sophomore Talvin Champ, who has been involved in rodeo since he was four, said it should become the official state sport because rodeo and agriculture tie together the entire state.
“Our great state was built on the back of a horse — plowing fields, moving cows, pulling travois and hunting buffalo. I am very proud not only of my Montana homestead heritage but of my Crow and Blackfoot heritage as well,” Champ said. “I’m proud of my western heritage. Rodeo is my western heritage.”
Champ is a team roper on the Browning rodeo team and said the high school club offers a sense of belonging for students and pride for the community.
“Our rodeo team has found the perfect balance between keeping our native traditions alive while keeping the rodeoing in the modern world,” Champ said. “Rodeo gives us a platform to celebrate both our cowboy and native culture. Through rodeo, my teammates and I have found a connection to our community and the world outside.”
This isn’t the first time Montanans have tried to establish rodeo as the state sport.
Just last year, a Stevensville resident sponsored a ballot initiative that failed to garner the requisite 30,180 signatures needed to appear on November’s ballot.
The Legislature is a quicker way to an official act, but committee chairwoman Julie Darling said the many proponents who testified were the most important part of the legislation.
Overstreet said he had support from the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, Office of Public Instruction, and state auditor, and a spokesperson for OPI testified in favor of the bill.
The committee took immediate executive action on the bill, passing it unanimously. It will next move to the House floor.
Rodeo is the most common state sport, currently shared by South Dakota, Wyoming and Texas. Other states have adopted sports ranging from the common – baseball in New York — to the increasingly popular — pickleball in Washington — to the less traditional — pack burro racing in Colorado, and jousting in Maryland.
If adopted, rodeo would join the pantheon of state symbols, next to the duck-billed dinosaur (state fossil), Scobey soil (state soil), bitterroot (state floral emblem), blackspotted cutthroat trout (state fish), bluebunch wheatgrass (state grass), grizzly bear (state animal), and “Montana Melody” (state ballad) among others.
