Grab your lassos and cowboy hats because the National Western Stock Show is here for its 118th season.
The show kicked off Thursday with a parade through downtown Denver. Indigenous dancers, many in full traditional regalia, took to the streets alongside marching bands, horses and longhorn cattle.
It was the first time performers from the Rocky Mountain Indigenous Dancers troupe joined in the annual procession that begins the agricultural and ranching showcase each year. The troupe’s director, Mary Martinez Yellow Horse, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, said her dancers’ inclusion in the parade was symbolic.
“Representation matters, that we're able to bring our culture into new spaces. And even if it's uncomfortable, it's needed,” Yellow Horse said. “So we're out there to show that we're still here. We're still thriving.”
Yellow Horse added that inviting Indigenous people to participate in stock show festivities bucks negative stereotypes.
“We're able to come out and show that the stereotypes of cowboys and Indians are no longer there, and they shouldn't be represented in that way anymore,” she said. “We're all just people. We should walk hand in hand.”
Often called the “Super Bowl of livestock shows,” the National Western Stock Show offers dozens of rodeos, horse and livestock shows, live music and family entertainment over a couple weeks' time. This year’s lineup will include a new exhibit featuring Colorado’s burgeoning wine industry and a “cowboy courtyard” that hosts musical acts on weekends.
“I think people will really, you know, enjoy coming back and seeing some of the traditional things we do, but with a new flair,” stock show president and CEO Paul Andrews said.
Andrews said the tradition of hosting the show in January each year dates back to its beginnings in 1906. The show started out as a way to bring together ranchers and farmers to learn about agricultural innovations and do business with each other. Although January weather can be frigid, the show’s founders kept the ranching community in mind.
“There's only one month of the year where ranchers are not having calves, and that is the month of January,” Andrews said. “It's the only month that a rancher will leave their ranch and bring their animals to Denver.”
He said all 50 states will be represented in this year’s show, but it’s about more than exhibits and spectacles.
“We are educating America on agriculture, the Western traditions that we represent, and where their food comes from,” Andrews said.
He also believes the show can help bridge divides between urban and rural communities.
“We're alike, OK? Some of us live out on a ranch in a very small community, and some of us live in the big city,” he said. “But we're all Americans.”
This year’s National Western Stock Show starts Saturday and runs through Jan. 21 in Denver. Grounds admission ranges from $17 to $25.
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