Stock show will happen in 2022, president promises

Clear your January 2022 calendar: The National Western Stock Show will return. President and CEO Paul Andrews says he “can guarantee you that.”

The news comes days after the city of Denver delayed some plans to renovate and expand the National Western Center, home to the popular livestock show, trade show and rodeo.

“We are 100% sure that the National Western Stock Show is occurring,” Andrews said. “January 8 through the 23rd.”

Stock show officials canceled the 2021 event — a Denver tradition for more than a century — because of the pandemic. It sent ripple effects around the country and around the world, as the event draws thousands each year on top of nearly 900 vendors. The show has an annual economic impact of about $120 million in a given year, Andrews said.

The nonprofit that’s in charge of the show itself, the Western Stock Show Association, lost up to $24 million after the 2021 cancellation.

“I had to lay off nearly 60% of my staff to survive this,” Andrews said. “But we’ve still got to pay a heating bill, still got to pay property taxes and we’ve still got to pay the salaries of the people remaining.”

Andrews said he cut his own salary, which according to financial documents was more than $420,000 in 2019, by 45%.

That’s just the local and immediate losses, Andrews noted. An Oklahoma group formed this year to put on a new stock show to fill the gap left by the National Western Stock Show, which he said is “impacting our ability to host our Super Bowl of livestock shows in 2022.”

Still, Andrews expressed opti

mism that Denver’s 114-year-old tradition will hold strong and keep the vendors and people coming.

Patty Lewis and her 91-yearold mother, Oleta Smith, welcomed the news that the 2022 stock show will go on. For decades, the two, who own Rockin P Ranch, have hauled their jewelry, clothing and more from their homes in Ouray to Denver for the National Western Trade Show, part of the larger stock show.

The 2021 cancellation meant a loss of about a third of their annual income, Lewis said.

“We took a bit hit. Denver is one of our biggest shows,” Lewis said.

Each year before heading to the trade show, Lewis said she mails out about 1,400 invitations to their regular customers, and they’ll do that again as the 2022 show approaches.

“We’ll definitely be there, and our customers will be too,” Lewis said.

Already, the National Western Center campus is hosting smaller events in compliance with COVID-19 regulations, Andrews said, and he thinks new attractions like the Stockyard Events Center and stockyards should draw people in.

The pandemic also gave construction workers time and space to make progress on existing projects, Tykus Holloway, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of the National Western Center, said in a statement.

“Significant progress is being made on construction of the new campus with new roads, bridges, utilities, rail consolidation and river-front work,” Holloway said. “Work is on schedule, and we are looking forward to sharing our progress as well as the debut of the new Stockyards Events Center and Stockyards with visitors and exhibitors at the 2022 stock show.”

But state and local regulations change with the tide of the pandemic, and President Joe Biden said this month achieving herd immunity by the end of the summer would be difficult.

Denver public health officials did not immediately respond when asked what type of regulations the 2022 stock show might face.

Colorado House Rep. Donald Valdez has announced his candidacy for the 3rd Congressional District, hoping to defeat U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert in 2022.

Valdez, who unsuccessfully campaigned in 2019 for the seat and withdrew before the primary, joins five other Democrats challenging Boebert, including colleague state Sen. Kerry Donovan of Vail.

The 3rd Congressional District encompasses the Western Slope, southern Colorado, Pueblo and many of the ski towns in between.

Gregg Smith, Colin Wilhelm, Sol Sandoval and Root Routledge are the others seeking the Democratic nomination.

Valdez of La Jara is in his third term in the Colorado House and is a farmer and rancher. He released a video ad Thursday about his reasons for wanting to replace Boebert, whom he refers to as a QAnon conspiracy theorist. Although Boebert previously has said she is not a believer in the conspiracy theories, she said a month before the primary that she hopes it’s real.

“What happened on Jan. 6 wasn’t just an attack on our Capitol. It was an outright assault on our democracy,” Valdez says in the video.

“And Lauren Boebert? She egged them on.”

This week Valdez called for the newly elected Colorado representative to be censured for participating in the president’s rally at the White House before the Capitol insurrection.

Valdez was reelected to the Colorado legislature in November after defeating a Democratic challenger in the primary and winning nearly 58% of the vote against his Republican opponent.

He previously worked as a sheriff’s deputy in Conejos County and pointed to his record on water, education and rural health care in the legislature in his campaign announcement, saying he wants to replace the “radical Republican.”

“These wild conspiracy theories won’t protect our water, our land, expand rural health care or improve our schools,” Valdez said in the video.