LABELLE – At the May 27 meeting of the Hendry County Commission, LaBelle Family Livestock Club members asked the county to be fair to everyone when determining use of the LaBelle Rodeo Arena.

“We are a 501 3-C nonprofit organization created approximately 75 years ago by a group of local cowboys and businessmen,” explained Sherri Walker, president of LaBelle Family Livestock Club.

“All of our board members are volunteers. Our main focus is to do our part to help keep kids off the street, have family-oriented events and put back into our community,” she continued.

Walker asked for a “first come, first served” policy for booking dates at the LaBelle Rodeo Arena.

“For the past couple years, the protocol has been that all three-day rodeos take precedence over our one-day barrel races,” she explained.

“We have had three of our events -- that were booked months in advance -- cancelled and those dates given to outside groups after we had followed county policy to obtain insurance for the event, paid sanction fees to the other organizations such as the International Barrel Racers Association and WPRA Barrel Racing Association so that the points accrued at the LaBelle events also count towards the riders competing at other barrel races in other venues to help advance them to local and state championships.

“Our club puts back into the community,” Walker said. “We help maintain the rodeo grounds, and we have helped to pay for expenses like dirt to go back into the rodeo arena to help keep it safe.

“We help sponsor kids who have worked hard to make it to the championship finals. We donate to several charities and events, including the back-to-school bash. Every Christmas we contact local schools, and we make sure kids have a good Christmas, with lots of toys, clothes and food.

“We also help people in need whether it be for food, household expenses, supporting people going through cancer treatments and sometimes raise money to help people pay for medical and sometimes even funeral expenses,” she said.

“There are two other groups that are not from LaBelle, not Hendry County taxpayers, that put nothing back into the rodeo grounds. They do not follow rules set in place and they have damaged things several times at the rodeo grounds, which I have reported each time, and yet they have been given priority over our club.

“We feel this is an unfair practice and we would be very grateful if the policy was made fair for all involved. We would like to be able to book our dates for our club year and know that we will not be bumped for another group,” she said.

 “I have been a member of LaBelle Livestock Club since 1994 and on the board since 1997,” said Andie Tindall. “All the work I do for the club is voluntary and must be done on my own time.

“I am here to speak about our club being bumped from the schedule for a three-day rodeo,” she continued.

“I am the person who schedules our series. We try to have seven shows in our series. First I have to check with the county, Jennifer Barron  specifically, to see what dates are available.

“Next I have to check with the associations we are sanctioned with,” she explained.  

She said when scheduling the series of shows, she wants to avoid double-booking on top of other area barrel racing shows.

“The IBRA rules state there may not one be more than one IBRA-sanctioned show on a given date within 75 miles of each other,” Walker continued. “Plus, it’s just common courtesy not to do that.

“Lastly, I must apply for sanctioning with the organizations and secure the insurance required by the county.

“I spend many hours doing all these things, so when I am told to just reschedule our event, it is not an easy task because all of it has to be redone.

“This three-day rodeo we were bumped for is not a professional rodeo, nor is it a rodeo that draws a big crowd,” she explained.

“This is a junior rodeo, which we do support because it involves kids,” she explained. “But their organization is only representative of about 30 families or so.

“I have heard it mentioned a three-day rodeo will bring more revenue to LaBelle than our one-day event. I beg to differ and here’s why. Most of these families bring all they need with them for the weekend and they stay onsite because there are fun activities for the kids as well as it is very costly to try to take a whole family out to eat all weekend. I know this because my son high school rodeoed for four years, and any time we had to stay overnight, this is what we and most others involved did,” she added.

“Being sanctioned with all these different organizations draws a lot of people to LaBelle from all over our state and even out-of-state. We have many people who come from Fort Myers, Naples, Davie, West Palm and even North Florida to enter our shows. This season we averaged about 100 riders per show. When a barrel racer gets ready to leave a show, nine times out of 10, they will go to town. They will go for food, gas or something to drink for the ride on their way home, which would generate income.

“We are asking that you reconsider this three-day rodeo rule and make it a ‘first come, first served’ rule where nobody has to reschedule their event because of another,” said Tindall.

Laura Caruthers, also with LaBelle Family Livestock Club, said bumping the barrel racing shows is a bad business decision.

“There is no monetary benefit to this,” she said. Non-profit groups do not pay a fee to use the arena.

“They do not contribute. They expect us, the week before, to prep the ground to make sure it is safe for them,” she said.

She said these outside groups do not help maintain the arena and do not contribute to the LaBelle community.

“We raise money all the time for the community. We give back all the time. The three-day rodeo people do not give back. They take.

“They should not be able to take from us because they do a three-day event instead of one,” she added.

Commissioner Ramon Iglesias asked why the LaBelle club was expected to prepare the rodeo grounds for someone else.  

“We have been called in the past when they (county staff) were short staffed,” said Walker.

“It’s unsafe if we don’t. We don’t want children to be hurt,” she added.

Iglesias asked if they could share the rodeo grounds on the same weekend. Walker said the barrel racing events usually start at 9:45 a.m. and run until around 3 p.m., depending on how many riders participate. They sometimes have more than 100 riders. The junior rodeo shows start on Friday night and go all day Saturday and Sunday.

She said there are also concerns about event insurance. The barrel races include adults while the junior rodeo event participants are children so the insurance requirements are different.

In addition, there isn’t enough room for parking for both groups due to all the trucks and horse trailers.

Emory “Rowdy” Howard said booking for the rodeo grounds was discussed at the last West Rec meeting.

“We couldn’t act on anything because this is a BOCC policy,” he said.

“You guys put in a lot of work, a lot of sweat and it is very well appreciated,” said Howard. “This needs to be fair for everybody. Commissioner (Mitchell) Wills during the West Rec meeting threw out a change to the policy.

He said it has been suggested to invite those who regularly use the arena to an annual meeting to work out the schedule for the next season. That way any conflicts could be worked out between those groups.

“If there is a conflict, both parties must work out the conflict. If a date can’t be worked out, we’ll have to pull that date off the calendar,” he added.

If a group doesn’t show up for the meeting, they lose the opportunity to negotiate dates on the schedule.

He said after that meeting, any future additions to the calendar will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

Commissioners agreed to put the proposed changes on the agenda for a commission meeting in July.

The scheduling meeting could then be held before the show season starts in the fall.

Commissioners noted the LaBelle Youth Livestock Show and Swamp Cabbage Festival will have their dates “set in stone” on the calendar before negotiations begin with the other organizations.

The LaBelle Family Livestock Club representatives expressed appreciation for this plan.