Meet Our Rodeo Pioneers

The Pioneer Award at the Elizabeth Stampede Rodeo recognizes individuals or couples who have made significant, long-term contributions to the Rodeo’s history and success.

It honors those with, or dedicated to, the foundational development of the rodeo, often highlighting, but not limited to, volunteers, committee members, or board members.

Usually there is only one person or one couple to be selected by the board as Pioneers for that year.

Pioneers are selected using the following criteria:

  1. Nominee(s) has/have made a significant contribution to the long-term success of the rodeo.

  2. Has been a Board Member and maybe president.

  3. Has been a Committee Chair and/or has made a significant contribution to that committee’s long-term direction and rodeo direction.

  4. Has brought family along as volunteers.

  5. Has brought friends along as volunteers.

  6. Must be a volunteer.

  7. Will remain involved with the Stampede and carry on the Association’s traditions they helped instill.

  • “I enjoy the Stampede Family, All of the volunteers really try their best to put on the best rodeo for all of the fans and contestants! Every year keeps improving with hospitality or with the ground and it makes it a better experience! Every year it gets better.”

  • “A lasting legacy that is the Elizabeth Stampede starts with the fact that we have an amazing place on this planet and is made complete by our shared lifestyle. This one week of the year, we come together in kindness and respect, to labor, laugh, cry, celebrate. We are all volunteers simply doing something for our community. It is a celebration of what we love and who we love.” Jace Glick “

    Jace’s commitment to the rodeo over the past 28 years and the dedication for the next 50 has resulted in Jace receiving the rodeo organization’s highest honor in 2021

  • “The Stampede is a great organization. It opens up possibilities for a lot of people to contribute to an event that brings us all together.  I love my rodeo family; they have been there for me through all of the good and bad times, proving that every day is an adventure and a challenge.” - Susan

  • "I thought working as a volunteer would be as much fun as competing. It’s hard work volunteering. A lot of walking and cowboys never walk if they can ride. But we always had a real good time." –Tom

  • "To put on a great Rodeo is what we’re trying to do and be the best small market rodeo. You set up a good program and get good people, and we have a lot of good people here. We do this because the rodeo is important to us and our community." –Norm

  • "There were thirteen of us and we started from scratch with the PRCA. We were committed. We had to perform." –Ed & Donna

  • “We worked on the rodeo because we wanted to serve a greater cause, and because it was very gratifying. It’s the motivation that all the volunteers have and we can’t forget that as the rodeo moves ahead.”

  • "I still work as a volunteer because I like being around the rodeo. It gets in your blood." - Guy

  • "It was a lot of hard work but I remember a few years after we went pro in 1988, I was back of the bucking chutes with Pete Burns and it was a glorious night and seats were full and I thought, ‘Look how far we have come.’" - Roger

  • “The focus of the rodeo was always on what was going on in the arena. Taking the focus beyond the contestants and the events was the key to the future of the Stampede. –Leanna

  • “It is so important to us that we remember that the rodeo was put together by all kinds of wonderful people. This is the heart of it.”

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  • "Over the years Chamber members worked many hours and used their own tools and equipment to make improvements. We often wondered why we did this, pay dues to work, but it was fun, and when you saw fans enjoying the rodeo it was worth it." – June

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