62nd ‘Heart of The North Spooner Rodeo’ Underway

Sorry, this video is no longer available

Tradition, fun, thrills and excitement are on this weekend for the 62 annual Heart of the North Spooner Rodeo.

“The bull riding, the calf roping, the team roper, the barrel racing — they are all high action, high-speed events. There’s not a dull moment at a rodeo,” said Richard Fankhouser, the chairman of the Rodeo Committee.

Fankhouser has been running the three-day professional rodeo competition for nearly 30 years.

“We’re at the size now where we don’t have a bad show,” Fankhauser.

But there’s another guy that’s the so-called king of the rodeo.

“I’ve never missed one here and I’ve never missed a performance,” said Bob Lemoine, a committee member since the rodeo started.

“When we first got this thing going, we didn’t get much help from the city. They all thought it was going to be a failure.

The Spooner Rodeo is the largest in the Upper Midwest that attracts roughly 15,000 fans every year.

“It really brings in a lot of people. It supports our economy,” said Michelle Voight, executive director for the Washburn County Tourism Association.

“It’s one of our busiest weekends of the year,” said Roger Charron, owner of the Spooner Outlet.

It’s a small-town feel with a big one-of-a-kind outdoor rodeo that’s showing no signs of closing the stalls anytime soon.

The Spooner Rodeo will continue through Saturday night.