ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
The 12th edition of the Seward County PRCA Rodeo is about a month away, and the rodeo continues to grow with each passing year.
For most of those years, a parade has been part of the mid-August fun in Liberal, and adding to the excitement of this year’s rodeo will be a truck show.
The show will take place on both days of the PRCA rodeo, Aug. 14 and 15, and the show is taking place in conjunction with an open house for Seward County Community College’s truck driving school at the school’s West Campus on Western Avenue.
Seward County Rodeo Association (SCRA) member C.J. Wettstein said trucks will begin coming in at noon Friday, Aug. 14, at the West Campus, and the show itself will start at 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 15, the show will start at 8 a.m. and run until as late as 11:30 p.m.
Wettstein said after each evening’s portion of the rodeo, trucks will be lit up under the darkness of the Southwest Kansas night sky.
“People can come out of the rodeo and enjoy the firing up of the lights by the trucks,” he said. “Everything’s set up. We’re going to have the semi truck show, and then we’re going to have the pickup truck show too. We’ll have everything in that area. It’ll be close to the rodeo.”
Fellow SCRA member Renee Haralson said more information and registration can be found on both the Seward County PRCA Rodeo Facebook page and the Web site sewardcountyprcarodeo.com.
“We’ve got contact information on there for the truck show,” she said. “We’re going to give prizes away, and we’re also looking for sponsors for the truck show and vendors. If they want to come out for the show, they can get hold of us for that.”
Haralson emphasized the truck show is separate from the rodeo, but it is done in conjunction with the rodeo.
“Our sponsors are separate,” she said. “We’re excited. We think trucks and rodeo go together.”
Wettstein said local rodeo officials have been looking at doing a pickup show for about two to three years, but they could never finalize plans. With SCCC hosting an open house for its truck driving school, he said this proved to be the perfect time to bring on a truck show with the rest of the fun of the PRCA.
“When the college wanted to have an open house at the same time as the rodeo, that’s when we thought we can throw this truck show in,” he said. “They were pretty excited about it. We’re pretty excited about it.”
Like the rest of the rodeo weekend lineup, Haralson said she and other SCRA members are looking to make the truck show an annual event as well.
“We hope it’ll grow like the rodeo’s grown,” she said.
Haralson too said she would like to see some of the vehicles from the show take part in the parade Saturday morning.
“That’ll make it nice too,” she said.
With pickups being popular in the area, Wettstein said hopes are to have both a good pickup show and a good truck show.
“Colton Chase is a trucker himself, and he has about three trucks he does with the truck show,” he said. “He’s got that little Wee Pete truck for his son. They’re going to have the Wee Pete truck there, and we’re looking at trying to get a couple more Wee Pete trucks there. We’re hoping we can have big trucks and little trucks both and pickups in the parade.”
Most auto shows spotlight vehicles from certain years, but Haralson said the upcoming truck show has no such requirements.
“For this, we want to have all kinds there,” she said. “We want it to be something people can come out and enjoy and walk around whether they’re looking at new or old.”
“If they’ve got a pickup, they can be in the show, and they’ve got a semi truck, they can be in the show,” Wettstein said.
Entries will be judged, and prizes will be available for top entries. Haralson said having the truck driving school close to the rodeo arena makes it ideal for both events to happen at the same time.
“Not everybody who’s going to come to the truck show is going to go to the rodeo,” she said. “Not everybody who’s going to go to the rodeo is going to go to the truck show, but I still think it complements each other. If you’re going to bring people in for the rodeo at night, they need something during the day to go to. Bring them in earlier so they have something to go do. I think the truck show would be a perfect thing for them to do. Vendors and sponsors will be seen at the truck show also by other people. We’re excited, and we hope that brings more people to the rodeo too.”
For more information about the truck show, call Wettstein at 620-629-1342 or Chase at 620-655-2395.
