Tucson Arizona's 85th Rodeo Parade 2010

Today, February 25, 2010 was Tucson's 85th Rodeo Parade, an annual event to help celebrate Tucson's La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros (The Festival of the Cowboys). Even though this doesn't sound like a big event to other cities and states, this is a very big event for Tucson. Schools are closed on the Thursday and Friday during rodeo week each year whereas schools here stay open for Columbus Day. Go figure. The daytime weather was ideal here today being sunny and 71 degrees, which is perfect for a parade, since other U.S. states were still having yet another snow blizzard. Tucson's rodeo parade is the largest non-motorized parade in the Country. The parade consists of school marching bands, Mexican Folk Dancers and musicians, floats, people riding horses including children, horse buggies carrying people - many advertising for local businesses. The parade began at 9:00 A.M. and usually by 12:00 P.M. all traces of a parade are gone. Believe it, or not the street cleaners are behind the last horse. Need I say why. Ha! I can't imagine having to walk directly behind a horse. The parade procession travels through 3 main streets of South Tucson and the only negative about it is if you have to get to that area for work in the morning. Then you have to arrive at work much earlier than usual, before they block off the streets. Since parking for the parade becomes extremely difficult in this area unless people get there early, there's morning shuttles from 7-9 A.M. at two of our large shopping malls - Park Place Mall and the Tucson Mall, which provides transportation to and from the parade for only $2.50 roundtrip. Seniors and people with disabilities only pay $1.25 for the shuttle.

They shortened the route of the parade this year to cut down on the city's budget, but that doesn't mean they cut down on security. They didn't. In 2007 a beautiful 5 year old girl was killed when she was trampled on by the horse she was riding, which was her very own horse. Apparently, the two horses behind her, which were pulling an open buggy got startled by something, bunking into her horse and caused the reaction of her horse. After this tragedy more safety measures were added. Apparently horses get very easily startled, so it is very important for security to be at every possible area - especially at street corners, to prevent people from causing any commotion to startle and annoy the horses. I remember maybe the year before that when a horse which was pulling the Mayor's buggy got startled and started to take off into the crowd. Luckily it was stopped before any injuries and/or fatalities took place and too much damage occurred. They estimated that approximately 200,000 people - local and out-of-towners were at the rodeo parade this year.

The parade committee gave first and second prizes for the best in these categories: Authentic Mexican; Authentic Native American; Best Mounted Western Female; Best Mounted Western Male; Buggy; Charro; Comical; Creative Float; Colorful Float; Family Group; Historical; Historical Float; Matched Riding Pair; Multiple Team Hitch; Music; Royalty; Single Team Hitch; and Western Riding Group.

The parade procession ends near the rodeo grounds and many people go to the rodeo after the parade to make it an all-day outing for themselves, their families and friends - especially children. Besides local participants, out-of-town professionals come to this rodeo every year to participate in the competitions. Many animal lovers are against the rodeo because of all the bull fights which take place and the other animal events, but for those who love the parade and the rodeo this is a huge exciting week - every year.