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| Photo
courtesy of Cave Creek Museum |
The
1970 Centennial Celebration included a square dance
in front of the Cave Creek post office. The restaurant
Oaks Diner & Flapjacks now occupies the building
that was the post office at that time.
(Click
picture for full size image) |
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| Photo
courtesy of Cave Creek Museum |
Signs
from the '70s: The long beard of "Rip Van Prospector"
forms the "C" on the cover of the original
1970 Cave Creek Centennial Celebration's "Parade
Watcher's Guide" (left). The celebration soon became
the Fiesta Days Parade and by 1974, as proclaimed on
this poster (right), was in its third year.
(Click picture for full size image)
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| Photo
courtesy of Cave Creek Museum |
Bill
Metcalfe (left), emcee of the Cave Creek Centennial
Celebration Parade in 1970, takes the main grandstand
with comedian Dick Van Dyke (right). After marching
in the parade, Van Dyke, a Cave Creek resident at the
time, tells a few jokes and answers questions from the
crowd.
(Click picture for full size image) |
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| Photo
courtesy of Cave Creek Museum |
Actress
Amanda Blake (right), who portrayed Miss Kitty on "Gunsmoke,"
rode in a surrey during the 1970 parade that celebrated
the 100th year since the founding of Cave Creek. The
Centennial Celebration became Fiesta Days a couple years
later and is now an annual event.
(Click picture for full size image) |
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| Photo
courtesy of Cave Creek Museum |
Television
host and producer Hugh Downs (left) with his wife Ruth
(right) entertain the crowd at the Cave Creek Centennial
Celebration in 1970, which later became Fiesta Days.
Downs, a Carefree resident at the time, was Jack Parr's
announcer on "The Tonight Show," and he also
hosted "The Today Show" and co anchored "20/20"
with Barbara Walters.
(Click picture for full size image) |
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Fiesta
Days: Back in the saddle again
by Chris Moore
CAVE CREEK - Whoop pi ti yi yay, get on your way . . . it's
time again to saddle up for Fiesta Days, produced by the Desert
Foothills Community Association (DFCA). Whether you love rodeo
or a parade, the golf ball or the dance hall, a bucking bronc
or an ice cold beer, any foothills resident worth a lick will
be whooping it up April 7 9.
The Fiesta Days Golf Tournament tees off a day earlier on
Thursday, April 6, at Rancho Mañana. Friday, April
7, children 4 7 years old will again climb atop those wild
and wooly sheep for the first round of Mutton Bustin'. The
top 10 riders will compete for prize buckles in the finals
during Sunday's rodeo.
The Fiesta Days Parade takes off on Saturday morning from
the Sundial in Carefree and trails down Cave Creek Road with
the theme "Our Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys."
And on Saturday afternoon, the rodeo begins at 1 p.m., with
rough stock provided by Honeycutt Rodeo Company of Arlington,
Arizona. During the event, last year's Rodeo Queen, Elizabeth
Sparrow, will present the 2006 Fiesta Days Rodeo Queen. The
rodeo continues on Sunday with more top notch action and,
of course, the Mutton Bustin' finals.
If you're lookin' to go steppin', Harold's Corral will be
jumping with the Western music of Mogollon for the Fiesta
Days kick off dance Friday night, and Starfire and the Pat
James Band will provide music for the dance at The Buffalo
Chip Saloon on Saturday night.
In light of the Fiesta Days theme, maybe it's time to dip
into a little history, a look back at some of those cowboy
heroes that made this Western town and this grand event what
they are today.
You need to go back to 1970. Well, actually you need to go
back 100 years before that to when the town of Cave Creek
was founded. According to Beverly Metcalfe Brooks, one of
the original organizers of the Centennial Celebration and
the current Cave Creek Museum Historian, "This community
is 136 years old," and its festival, Fiesta Days, "would
never have been if it had not been for that original Centennial
Celebration."
In 1970, the citizens of Cave Creek got together and organized
a big jamboree with a parade to commemorate 100 years since
its founding in 1870. "The whole town was involved with
months and months of preparation," Brooks said. "Oh,
my goodness, it was huge."
Celebrities came out to take part in the event. Comedian Dick
Van Dyke, Amanda Blake of "Gunsmoke" fame, Hugh
Downs, Arizona's balladeer Dolan Ellis, local children's television
favorites Wallace and Ladmo, and Governor Jack Williams all
participated in the Centennial parade.
"Dick Van Dyke handed out trophies one year. Hugh Downs
loved to ride in the parade with his grandson-and even gave
me a lot of good ideas for Fiesta Days one year," said
Cave Creek resident Vern Willer, an early and long time force
behind the celebration.
The Centennial Celebration was such a success that the town
decided to make it an annual event, which shortly thereafter
became known as Fiesta Days. "It was so much fun,"
Brooks said, "that we thought we'd do it again.
"At the time we didn't realize we were making this wonderful
history," Brooks added. "It was just something we
were doing."
Soon a rodeo was added and Fiesta Days was out of the chute.
Willer,
founder and first president of the DFCA, said what was then
called the Fiesta Rodeo "hit the big time in 1979"
with its Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) franchise.
"That's how you get the major cowboys to come to your
rodeo," he explained. Before that, according to Willer,
the rodeos were presented by the Black Mountain Saddle Club
and sanctioned by the Arizona Rodeo Association.
Willer served as DFCA's president for three years beginning
in 1978 when the association incorporated the Fiesta Days
Rodeo and Parade. He gives much of the credit for the rodeo's
early success to ErnaMarie Smith, a member of the DFCA board
of directors who acted as its treasurer for all three years
that Willer was president. "At that time we had to raise
all the money for everything," Willer said. "She
was very good at that."
Vic Dewis, also a member of the board of directors, served
as the association's treasurer for 15 years in the 1980s and
'90s. In the mid '80s, Dewis said, they were able to put on
the rodeo for "about $25,000. Now, I'd say, it's about
$110,000 or $120,000."
Today, Dewis helps out getting advertising and working with
local banks for Fiesta Days, but he was also influential in
saving the rodeo when its lease was up some years ago and
in getting new bleachers for the Cave Creek Memorial Arena.
"When the rodeo used to be down on Van Dyne Ranch at
Cave Creek Road and Carefree Highway," Dewis said, "there
were a lot of local people that didn't care for the lights
and the noise and we had to shut down." The rodeo was
held one year at Rawhide but, according to Dewis, "there
was hardly any attendance and we really went into the hole."
Susan Dewis, Vic's wife, served as rodeo queen coordinator
for seven years and, he points out, "four of her queens
went on to be Miss Rodeo Arizona."
Willer recalled an incident in 1981: "We borrowed Tex
Earnhardt's huge plaster bull to advertise the rodeo, and
we put it out on the corner of Cave Creek Road and Carefree
Highway. After the rodeo, when the crowd was leaving, we were
sitting around and happened to look down Cave Creek Road.
Hey, we said, there goes the bull." Someone had stolen
the bull and the trailer and they were hightailing it out
of town.
According to Willer, Maggie Simpson, who is currently a docent
at the Cave Creek Museum, saw the bull being rustled and knew
she had to save it, so she chased the bandits down and apprehended
them.
"Of course, we didn't want to have to explain to Tex
that we'd lost his bull," Willer said. "But, you
see, the trailer had a flat tire earlier in the day and Maggie
had put one of her tires on the trailer. She wasn't about
to let them get away with her tire."
Looking back, Willer said there have been big changes in the
Fiesta Days Rodeo since the early days. "It was just
some wooden bleachers in those days," he noted. "We
just barely made the contractors' fees in the beginning. Now
they have money in the bank. There have been tremendous improvements
in the grounds and the crowds are much bigger. And we built
the arena in 1983 with all volunteer help."
The PRCA
franchise and a new arena helped through the years to strengthen
the rodeo's reputation. "It takes time to build up a
reputation," Willer said, "and that's what attracts
first rate cowboys to your rodeo. April's a good time of year
for Fiesta Days, too, because it falls between several other
rodeos and cowboys like to keep working. Cowboys fly in and
out just for the Fiesta Days Rodeo."
Willer's son, Kevin Willer, carried on his father's tradition
by also becoming president of DFCA and held the position for
several years until his vice president, Wayne Wilson, became
president in 1997.
"After Wayne did five rodeos," said Linda Reese,
current president, "I came aboard." She has been
president of DFCA since 2001.
"Wayne diligently worked to improve the rodeo,"
Reese said, "which increased the added money and that
draws the big name cowboys for the Fiesta Days Rodeo."
Wilson was "the major negotiator," according to
Reese, who assisted him in getting a new lease for the rodeo
grounds, which took over a year and was finally resolved in
2005 with the Town of Cave Creek assuming the land lease,
including an additional 10 acres for supplemental parking.
"He was a marvelous man," said Kathy Norby, a friend
of Wilson, volunteer for the rodeo and proprietor of Norby
Fine Art Gallery in Cave Creek. "In many ways he was
the lifeblood of the rodeo. It's tough this year going forward
without him." |
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Fiesta
Days 2006 is dedicated to Wilson, who died last year crossing New
River Wash during the August flood. His memory was the inspiration
for the theme "Our Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys," coined
by the chair of this year's parade, Patty Coyle.
"Wayne was Wayne," said Patty Byerly of New River, an
old friend of Wilson's whose family has been volunteering at the
rodeo for three generations. "What you saw was what you got."
Wilson's entire family (about 15 20 people) will be in attendance
this year, according to Linda Reese. Desert Foothills tour operator
and member of the Fiesta Days committee Johnny Ringo said, "I
always like to volunteer my vehicles for a special cause in the
parade." Last year he took six children with multiple sclerosis
and their parents. On Saturday, April 8, he will do just that for
Wilson's family.
The Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) is doing their
part for the Wilson family as well. The WPRA Rodeo on Friday is
"full scale," according to Reese, "but all women."
The event, she explained, will not include bareback riding or bull
riding, but it will donate all of its gate proceeds to the Wayne
Wilson Memorial Scholarship Fund.
"Our intent is to make the Wayne Wilson Memorial Scholarship
Fund perpetual-to invest the money to perpetuate the scholarship,"
Reese said. "We're still collecting pledges and money is still
trickling in" from P. F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon
last Juanuary. DFCA treasurer Candace Read is working to establish
separate accounts with Mesa Community College and Arizona State
University to set up the scholarships.
Byerly's mother, Chris Hornbeck, who died in 1996, was involved
in the rodeo since before the grounds were built. "We helped
build the place," Byerly said. In 1985, the first rodeo was
held at it's current home, the Cave Creek Memorial Arena.
But Hornbeck built more than that. She took those old rodeo cowboys
under her wing, or at least under her tarpaulin tent, and not only
built up a lot of goodwill but filled a lot of hungry stomachs.
Around 1986, Byerly said, Hornbeck started Chris' Cowboy Kitchen
to feed the stock contractors, contestants and volunteers on the
rodeo grounds.
According to her daughter, Hornbeck began by "serving coffee
to Walt Aulsbaugh," one of the top PRCA stock contractors in
the country in those days, "and then she started thinking maybe
the others would like a hot meal." Now Chris' Cowboy Kitchen,
Byerly said, "serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as
iced tea and lemonade, and for Saturday night dinner there's always
something special-pork or turkey breast or something. There's usually
a long waiting line on Saturday."
Once, she said, that line formed to get a taste of a 250 pound pig
roasted on a spit which was part of a new barbeque built by Candace
Read and her husband Rusty, also a member of the DFCA board of directors.
It has a griddle, a grill and a small oven, as well as the rotisserie
that spun the sizzling pig that year.
In 1997, they folded up the tent and tarp floor and built a permanent
ramada that is now used for Chris' Cowboy Kitchen every year. "That
tarp floor used to drive us crazy," Byerly said.
"For three generations," she notes, "our family's
been a part of the Fiesta Days Rodeo." The newest generation,
Byerly's daughters-Tiffany, 20, and Chrissy, 17-usually work the
stripping chutes and sometimes the gates for the calf roping. Both
have been active with the rodeo since they were about 13 years old.
So, from generation to generation, the people of the Desert Foothills
continue to follow each other down Cave Creek Road in their Western
finery and cheer on their favorite cowboys in the arena just like
they did so many years ago. When you're watching the Fiesta Days
Rodeo and Parade this year, give a thought back to the heroes of
yesterday while you're enjoying the cowboys of today.
For information on events, times, ticket prices, and other information
call the DCFA at (480) 488 4043 or visit www.thedesertadvocate.com.
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