Roping event started small

Now memorial has 2,000-plus competitors and barrel racing

It started in memory of one young man taken too soon.

Eight years later, the Memory Lane Team Roping Memorial has become a full weekend of camaraderie with so many people it honours that you simply can’t name them all.

“The original spot, even before the eight years there was a really really good friend, he died really young and we said ‘hey, we’ve got to have a roping for this guy, just to remember him,’” said coorganizer Joyce Stuber.

“That’s how it started. Then we said we’ve got a lot of friends that we need to remember, so let’s open this up. We had no idea it would be this big.”

There’s a buckle donated from each of 85 families in the massive team roping events, which begin today and run through Sunday at the Medicine Hat Exhibition and Stampede Grounds.

Another nine buckles will be given out in the two-day barrel racing draws Friday and Saturday. That competition is in its third year.

Stuber says the first year’s roping event honoured 33 people.

“We only planned for a one-day event, thinking it would be an afternoon,” she said. “We did start in the morning... it ended at three in the morning. It was overwhelming.”

There should be around 2,000 competitors this year, with a banquet held to present the buckles. HALO air rescue will also get donation money from the weekend. The roping and racing is free to come watch for the public.

Aside from the fantastic community members wanting to support each other, Stuber says there’s a simple reason it got so big.

“Because this is such a cheap roping, people come from all over,” she said. “It’s sort of a gathering, to get together to chat with people you haven’t seen for, some of them, the last year. I had a phone call today from a guy, I bet he hasn’t roped in 10, 15 years.”

Just watch, he’ll win a buckle, too.