Darrington Rodeo on its last legs?

DARRINGTON — During the week, the rodeo grounds along Highway 530 are mostly quiet, with a few volunteers doing their final chores before Saturday.

Then, if the weather's good, as many as 3,000 people will crowd into the bleachers around the arena, watching about 200 cowboys from all over the western parts of the United States and Canada take part in professional rodeo competitions.

And every year, lingering over the show is the question of whether it will be the last one.

"Every year, we keep saying we're getting closer to quitting, and then we do it one more year," said Irv Tellesbo, former president and present member of the Darrington Horse Owners Association, which sponsors the event.

This weekend's rodeo is the 41st, capping a fairly remarkable history for an organization that largely exists for one weekend a year.

It's the only stand-alone rodeo in Snohomish County, although another rodeo is staged during Monroe's Evergreen State Fair, and other professional rodeos are held through the state and region, often in small agricultural towns.

In 1989, the Washington Rodeo Association named the Darrington Rodeo its Rodeo of the Year.

The Darrington Rodeo is a key event on professional rodeo circuits, said Sandy Sullivan, secretary of the Professional Western Rodeo Association in Moses Lake. Darrington is one of 28 prime rodeos sponsored by the association, Sullivan said, and has been a major event on the schedule for years.

"It's a nice rodeo," she said.

If the rodeo folded, "that would be a loss to the association and to the cowboys who love to compete there," she said.

Tellesbo has a wry grin as he explains the origins of the Darrington Rodeo, chuckling at the suggestion that several hundred people must be involved to put on such an event.

"There are about 10 active members," he said. "Right about this time of year, we start scrounging for people for the rodeo."

Eventually, several dozen volunteers will be involved over the weekend, helping stage events, work the gate and cook the food.

But the rodeo may be facing its final years, Tellesbo said, partly because of finances and partly because of declining membership.

"Young people in their 30s and 40s don't have time for anything but television," said the 70-year-old Tellesbo, who's been with the rodeo since 1974 and got involved through his daughter's interest in horses. "We worked just as hard 30, 40 years ago."

It was that hard work that led to start of the rodeo in 1962, he said, with the first event held at the local airport. At that time, there also was a logging festival held at a ski slope near the high school, but the logging show faded away, and eventually the events were combined, with the rodeo taking the formal name of Timberbowl.

"There were a lot of horses around here in those days and a lot of farms," Tellesbo said.

The names of more than a dozen founders are listed on a plaque on the rodeo grounds, but Tellesbo underscores the difficulties in continuing by running his finger down the list, explaining that most of them are no longer active.

"He's dead," he says. "He's dead ... "

But in 1972, the association raised $10,000 and bought the 22-acre site where the arena now stands on the west side of town.

"Everything here was put in by the members," Tellesbo said of the arena. "It's all handmade."

There are bleachers for 3,000 people, with all the iron stands welded by volunteers. A 1,500-square-foot building with full cooking facilities, an office and a meeting room was finished in 1980.

"It took us about two years to build it, weekends and nights," Tellesbo said.

That work has brought its own rewards, attracting people like Bill Karen, who at 66 says he's about the average age of association members.

Karen doesn't even have a horse and lives in Everett, but comes to help simply because he likes it.

"I just got involved. I like to putter and do things," he said. "It's been years since I rode a horse."

The association is a nonprofit corporation, and every year after the rodeo, the members get around to deciding if they'll do it again, looking over things like insurance bills and permit costs.

"It costs about $15,000 to open the grounds," said Tellesbo. "We try to keep just enough to get started again next year."

A big factor is weather. People who live closer to Puget Sound, he said, tend to look at clouds in the mountains and assume the weather is bad in Darrington.

That's often not the case, he said, explaining that Darrington, elevation 540 feet, sits in a deep valley surrounded by mountains.

"If we could get the stands three-quarters full, we could make money," Tellesbo said.

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com