ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
To help raise funds for its services in 2021, Crossroads Therapeutic Riding Center began hosting a ranch rodeo in the spring at the Seward County Fairgrounds.
This year marks the fifth edition of the event, and the 2025 Crossroads Ranch Rodeo will take place this Saturday, with contestants getting rules starting at 5 p.m. and the rodeo beginning at 6 p.m.
As always, Crossroads Director Rena Cross said the rodeo will be full of fun and games for the entire family.
“We’ll have different vendors,” she said. “We’ll have Wild West Soda back this year. We’ll have some new vendors, and the VFW is doing our concessions this year.”
Ranch rodeos typically feature events cowboys would typically handle on a ranch, such as cattle sorting and branding, but new for this year, the Crossroads rodeo will feature bronc riding as part of the night’s fun.
“It’s going to be the very first event,” Cross said. “We’re hoping nobody will miss that. That is something that is completely new.”
Also new for this year is wild cow milking, which Cross said may be hard event for the cowboys, but a fun one for the audience.
And what rodeo is complete without a rodeo clown? Cross said Saturday’s event will feature pro rodeo clown Lane Chance.
Naturally, Cross said she feels great about reaching the rodeo’s first landmark anniversary at five years.
“This ranch rodeo has been a huge fundraiser for us,” she said. “We have not only Seward County, but other big communities that are backing us. We have great sponsors. We have new sponsors this year.”
Cross said she looks for continued success in the next five years.
“I hope it’ll be just as good, if not better,” she said.
Last year saw the 25th anniversary of Crossroads, and Cross said the agency had a great celebration in 2024.
“We had a wonderful banquet,” she said. “We had a lot of people we write grants to. We invited them. We had them come out. They enjoyed it. We had good steaks. The environment was great, and one of our clients who had been with us since she was 3 years old got up and spoke about her life at Crossroads.”
As with the rodeo, Cross too is looking for continued success for her agency.
“It’ll definitely be a growing thing,” she said. “I have another certified instructor. She’s not quite certified yet, but she has all of her stuff turned in. There’ll be more people we’ll be able to take on, so we’ll have more teachers. I’m still certified.”
Crossroads volunteer Natalie Adame is also getting certified, and Cross said this allows for more classes to be offered at the agency’s arena on East Bluebell Road.
“We have an outdoor arena, and we have an indoor arena,” Cross said. “It’s not like we’re dependent on the weather. Open up the back door of the indoor arena, and go from the indoor arena to the outdoor arena and do trail rides and things like that out there. I can see us getting bigger.”
Also in 2024, Crossroads was able to add a fourth day of services and now operates Monday through Thursday, and with that additional day, Cross said agency leaders look to keep the client load full.
“We did lose two clients this year, but we put on three,” she said. “They went on to other places that had more appropriate help for what their children needed for their care. We had them last year, but they moved out of town, and we put on three new ones this year. We have quite a few autistic kids this year.”
In the past, Crossroads has had a large waiting list of clients wanting services, but she said after adding the fourth day, that list is quickly dwindling.
“That really helps,” she said.
Crossroads likewise has seemingly been in constant need of volunteers throughout most of its history, but Cross added things are also looking good on that front at this time.
“Right now, a lot of our community service hours from our high school kids and even our college kids,” she said. “They’re needing their hours. They’re coming out to the barn, and they’re helping with a lot of the work we’re doing outside with our outdoor arena and our stalls. They’re doing that part, cleaning up, sweeping, cleaning the ramps and the arena.”
The first 10 paid five-man teams will take part in this weekend’s rodeo at a cost of $150 per person, with the top three teams receiving a payout.
The Crossroads Ranch Rodeo will feature five events, including mugging, branding, cow milking, trailer loading and bronc riding.
Those coming to Saturday’s rodeo can do so with a free will donation at the gate. For more information, call 620-629-5107. Cross said she could not be more excited for the fifth edition of the ranch rodeo.
“This rodeo’s going to be a huge difference,” she said. “I’m hoping we’ll get more people in the seats, and I’m very excited about it.”
