BOOTHEEL RODEO BIG BOOST TO ECONOMY; 40,000 EXPECTED IN SIKESTON

Scooter Graham, left, and Roy Robert, both of the Scott County sheriff's posse, waited for the cue to ride in at the start of the 44th annual Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo in Sikeston Wednesday night. The rodeo runs through Saturday night.

SIKESTON -- It's usually hot instead of snowing. There are plenty of horses but no reindeer. And the only sleighs have wheels on them and are called stagecoaches. But in Sikeston, the second weekend in August seems like Christmas.

It is this time every year that the Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo comes to town bringing with it the second largest spending spree in the Sikeston area.

"It's like a second Christmas," said two Sikeston retailers, Dennis Fraser, owner of the Bottle Shop gift store, and Buzz Ferrell, manager of Ferrell's Boot and Western Shop. Sikeston Area Chamber of Commerce executive director Steve McPheeters said the same thing.

Guy Jenkins, manager of the Sikeston Ramada Inn, put it a different way.

"It's like the Indianapolis 500," Jenkins said. It wasn't clear if he was referring to the fact that all 152 rooms of his hotel had been booked solid for the four days of the rodeo since last August or to the activity in his lobby.

"I think pretty soon it's going to get to the point where you have to book all four days together in advance, and there will be no breaking it up into one or two days," he said.

Fraser said his gift and bottle shop makes as much in the four days of the Bootheel Rodeo as he will in any month besides December.

"It's the best week of the year," he said. "It's right up there with Christmas. It's right up there with the whole month of December."

Nearly half of the revenue Fraser's shop brings in during August comes from the rodeo.

The 44th annual Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo opened Wednesday night and runs through Saturday night.

McPheeters said 40,000 people will descend on Sikeston during the rodeo and put millions of dollars into the community. He said Sikeston also receives a huge boost from the volunteer efforts of the rodeo's sponsor, the Sikeston Jaycees. Since the rodeo is run and organized on a volunteer basis, most of the proceeds taken in from ticket sales and concessions go right back into the community.

"The Jaycees have pumped, literally, hundreds of thousands of dollars back into the community over the last few years," McPheeters said. "So we get a double benefit from the rodeo."

Ferrell said sales of boots, hats and T-shirts skyrocket during the rodeo. His store generally sells about five pairs of boots a week. During the rodeo that number can go off the charts.

"We try and get in as much (stock) as possible," he said. "We sold 42 pairs of boots on a Saturday during the rodeo one year."

Ferrell brings in extra cashiers and floor help for the last day of the rodeo and said as many as 60 people at a time might be browsing through his small store on Saturday.

Jenkins, who has managed the Ramada for eight years, said one gratifying part of the rodeo is seeing some familiar faces every year.

"We've had some people who have been coming here for 15 or 16 years," he said. And while the hotel is booked a year in advance, less than 1 percent of those reservations are canceled by rodeo time.

So while some of the best bull riders and roping teams in the nation are competing in the heat and dust of the rodeo grounds, the retailers, hotels and restaurants are hearing sleigh bells.

"It's like a second Christmas season for the community," McPheeters said.