In Pasadena, the show must go on
70-year-old livestock event adapts to times as others remain closed due to pandemic
When Mason Corona, now 17, earned $30,000 from selling his livestock at shows last year, he made a decision: to reinvest it all in animals to show during his last year in high school.
He went all out, spending seven hours a day in the barn tending to a dozen animals. The effort was driven by visions of the future: Corona planned to use the earnings from selling the livestock, which he hoped would win prizes, boosting their value at auction, to fund his college education in entrepreneurship.
So he watched nervously on
March 11 as the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo was canceled and the Houston region marked its first known case of community spread of the novel coronavirus. Other livestock shows across the nation soon followed suit. A lot was riding on this season. “Everything,” he said. He carried on, exercising his animals and caring for their health.
On Sunday, Corona won Grand Champion Lamb and first place for showmanship at the
Pasadena Livestock Show and Rodeo for a lamb named Capone, whom he hopes will fetch roughly $7,000 at auction on Thursday.
The fact that the livestock show even occurred — though without the rodeo, barbecue cookoff, kick-off dance and picnic that usually attract hundreds of attendees — showed that, while this year has been anything but normal, exhibitors, vendors
and other entrepreneurs are finding a way to carry on.
“Luckily, with COVID numbers going down, everything fell into place,” said Jay Hunt, president of the Pasadena Livestock Show and Rodeo. While the organization had been planning for a way to host the livestock show that could meet public safety requirements, he noted there was always a risk a new government order could have scuttled those plans if cases had risen.
Usually the open-air pavilion where the animals are shown is bustling with lambs, hogs, goats and cattle, as well as the students that are caring for them and their families — at least 500 people at any given time, Hunt estimated. “It’s the way we’ve done it for 70 years,” he said.
Sunday morning, there were nothing but lambs who had been brought in that morning. The livestock show had decided to have one type of animal on the grounds at a time to reduce the number of people. Roughly a hundred people stood around the show ring as an announcer expressed his gratitude that the show was able to take place.
“We’re just a little more spaced out than normal,” he said.
Hunt stepped out of the pavilion and took a walk through the empty arena where the rodeo usually takes place. Bleachers looked out over nothing; the stage that is lowered for performers was stored away near the ceiling.
Most of the $2.5 to $3 million the Pasadena Livestock Show and Rodeo pulls in a year comes from the rodeo and cookoff, according to Hunt — the livestock show “is not a moneymaker” and would roughly break even.
But it was important to the organization that livestock show go on.
“At the end of the day, the rodeo, the cookoff, that’s what it’s all about: supporting the livestock show and auction — supporting the youth and education,” Hunt said. “They’ve been let down everywhere because a lot of other shows have been shut down.”
Back in the show ring, Brianna Moore, 15, smiled widely as her lamb took second in the lightweight class. Abbey Mercado, 15, stood off to the side, waiting for her turn to show a lamb named Nacho. She had been at the Houston Rodeo, readying to show her chickens, when it had canceled, leaving her worried about the birds she had spent more than $600 on. (The Houston Rodeo gave money to all of the exhibitors who were not able to show.)
The economic impact of canceled livestock shows has gone far beyond those feared by students who have invested in their animals. It also impacts all of the people who work the event, including the vendors selling clothing and carnival food.
During a normal year, the Pasadena Livestock Show and Rodeo hosts roughly 150 vendors, who fill the space between the pavilion and arena and also take over a nearby building, Campbell Hall. This year, the vendor count was down to five.
Jason Arney and Abbi Jones, who served funnel cakes and corn dogs with J.D.A. Company, said that all of the 20 shows they were planning to work this year had been canceled except Pasadena. The couple, who met at the Pasadena Livestock Show and Rodeo five years ago and have been engaged for over a year, have found essential worker jobs to see them through the health crisis — Arney doing deliveries for Door Dash and Jones working at a Dollar General.
Nearby, the owner of a pink bus called the Dainty Cactus, which was filled with rhinestone earrings and lacy blouses, also spoke to the adaptations that were necessary during the pandemic.
With no events to work, Tamara Wilcoxson of Santa Fe saw business dry up until recently, when she started bringing her business to new locations such as the outside of a dance studio. She also began selling her inventory online.
“Wherever there’s chaos, there’s opportunity,” she said.
Despite the chaos, students had the opportunity to show off their work. For some, it was their last chance to do so.
Paige Olson, a senior at Deer Park High School, was afraid the event would be canceled and was “speechless” when she learned it was not. She had began preparing for the show last year — she bought her lamb, Weston Dodge, in December before the pandemic. He won a spot in Thursday’s auction, which will have an unusual twist — in order to keep crowds down, buyers are being shown pictures of the animals instead of having them physically present.
For Sidney Grice, 14, this year was the first year she was old enough to participate. In between events, she gently kissed her lamb, “a momma’s boy,” on the forehead. He went on to win a spot in the auction.
“It felt incredible,” she said, beaming.