Transcript

Tim Paris · WashCo Insider

speaker-0: Today we're heading to Avella to talk about one of Washington County's fastest growing attractions, the Little A Town Arena and the Little A Town Rodeo. What started as a vision to create a unique gathering place for the community has quickly become a destination for family friendly entertainment, drawing visitors from across the region while supporting local organizations and showcasing the best of small town western Pennsylvania. Joining us today is Tim Parris, board member of the Little A Town Arena. Tim's roots run deep in this region. And he's helping lead the effort to transform this hillside venue into a place where community, tradition, and exciting events come together. We'll talk about the story behind the arena, the impact it's having on Avella, and what visitors can expect at the upcoming Little A Town Rodeo on june twenty seventh. Tim Parris, when we come back. Tim, thanks so much for joining us today. I've been excited about this. ⁓ we got involved and kind of helped out a little bit last year, and it was really maybe only my second experience with rodeo. And we had so much fun, my family had fun, the Washington County Tourism Promotion Agency just really enjoyed it. But ⁓ I want to if you can, let's just jump right into the rodeo. It's coming up in two weeks, June 27th. Give us an idea of, you know, for someone who's never attended a rodeo. Give us an idea of what they can expect whenever they get on site and what is that experience like? speaker-1: Well, once everybody gets on site, it's it's a little challenge to get on to our site, but ⁓ there there'll be a little bit of backup of traffic in that. But once they get on site it's well worth the wait. They ⁓ you can jump right into getting into the rodeo, ⁓ getting some good food vendors, some steak hoagies, some s hot sausages, things like that. ⁓ and then getting ready for some action packed ⁓ events. So we have ⁓ some barrel racing, we have bull riding, we have bronch riding, we have ⁓ roping, team roping and ⁓ steer wrestling, we have a lot of different events going on and they can expect to see food vendors, a lot of action packed events such as such as the events that I just mentioned, as well as a very nice laid back, comfortable atmosphere where you can bring your family and friends and and not have to worry about what's going on around you. As well as we have a lot of new seating this year. We was lucky enough that the county worked with us in getting some grant funding for some bleachers. ⁓ so we have a thousand seat grandstand bleachers. It's perfectly equipped for handicap wheelchair accessibility as well. So we're trying to improve things every day down there. speaker-0: Can you tell us a little bit about again, for those people who have never been to a rodeo, help us to understand the the circuit a little bit? I mean, the the cowboys and cowgirls that are participating as competitors, are they local? Are they competing in back to back events and kind of traveling throughout the summer? Is it a professional event? Is there a purse? Just ⁓ I I think everybody'd be interested to know, like, what is that lifestyle for them? speaker-1: Well, actually it's a combination. ⁓ to ride in the rodeo you have to have a a participation card. You have to be a member of CIBRA or or a few other organizations, the bull riding and and that to to be an actual competitor. There it is a timed, it is a qualifying ⁓ competition. ⁓ the qualification numbers fall ⁓ throughout the the United States and different rodeos and different sanctioned rodeos. ⁓ they do have another competition there called Slack, which is some of the more local folks that may or may not have cards or whatever can can kind of practice and and do some competition on their own there prior to or or after the event, depending on how the venue wants to set it up. ⁓ but no, it's definitely a true full blown competition. It's a sport. ⁓ these guys and girls come out there and they compete and they they keep track of their numbers and their times and they go up through the ranks and eventually hopefully get into the top qualifying brackets and and they actually go on to a final show somewhere in When. speaker-0: You know, I don't think that rodeo is something that most people would associate with Western Pennsylvania, but you guys have had unbelievable attendance in the last two years. Why do you think it resonates so well here? speaker-1: Well, some of it I attribute to the to the atmosphere of where we're located at. I mean, we're out in the middle of of a small town out in the country of western Pennsylvania and Washington County, ⁓ near the West Virginia and Ohio borders. ⁓ we're out where we're out in in nature. We're not in a city, we're not in a a f a c clustered up fairgrounds that has a lot of, you know, other stuff going on at the time. We basically were focusing on one event and one event only. ⁓ so I think that years ago when when there was high school rodeo round where Danny Buckleitner and ⁓ Boys was involved with it and actually Mel Blunt had a rodeo event area, went over real well. This area is latent with agricultural folks and and people that's been around animals and farms and that and basically are rodeoers at home every day in one way or another, just not competition rodeoers. So I think that's what it is. They they they like to come out there and they like to see what's going on. ⁓ speaker-0: And you guys are you're not just putting on rodeos, you're looking to build the sport in western Pennsylvania, right? speaker-1: We ⁓ we actually want to bring back youth and high school rodeo to this area. ⁓ they do have it ⁓ up north and in some other places in Kentucky, Colorado, all across the United States, but it's kind of fell to the wayside here. ⁓ we're actually starting the Little A Town Rodeo program ⁓ where we're gonna teach the ⁓ not only to rodeo, because not everybody wants to go jump on a twelve hundred pound animal and and ride it. ⁓ but we're gonna teach the other parts of that, the hauling, the veterinarian, ⁓ the home care. We're gonna have different clan clinics to try and help some of these kids that ⁓ may not want to wrestle or play football or or get into track and field, but they wanna do something and and get a little bit of camaraderie and the the whole Western rodeo world is in my mind a a good family. I mean, they're a good group of people that travel around together and and are together and I think it will help out a lot in our area to get get some of these kids back back out to what Nature brought us the agricultural end of it and try to get involved. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. And and you know, as we as we look ahead here two weeks, ⁓ again, June twenty-seventh for the Little A Town Rodeo, ⁓ one of the things that I wanted to mention, let's call it a pro tip, if you will, ⁓ we at the Washington County Tourism Promotion Agency partnered with the Little A Town Arena to ⁓ to create a new hat. And that hat is gonna look like this. It says Fear No Bull. And you can get one of these hats for five bucks. And with that, you get a ride on the mechanical bull. So ride the bull, get a hat. There's a pro tip for the day. Now, ⁓ Tim, let's back up a little bit. Did you did you grow up in the Avella area? speaker-1: I was born and raised in a valley, yes. speaker-0: Okay. And you you're still you still live there today, right? Yep. It seems like you know, just from the little bit that I know you, you have a big heart for the community and I know that the Little A Town ⁓ arena was kind of created to help generate funds for local nonprofits. Can you talk a little bit about that? speaker-1: Yeah, so years ago I I'm well still am, but ⁓ I was involved with the volunteer fire department. We started the junior fire department program and I came up through the ranks there. ⁓ some of you know and some of you probably don't know, Alan Gordon and Michelle Gordon had a a small ⁓ tax shop ⁓ western store in Novella similar to Lowry's Western shop. ⁓ so Alan and I kinda brainstormed one day of how we can help the fire department out and how we can start to generate some some type of money other than the bingos and everything else like that. So we had an old strip mine area that was reclaimed and brought back to where it was originally at. And we decided that we was gonna take that area and make an arena. So Ellen and I kinda and men and Michelle got involved in that and and working with the Matt Dejon from Buck and Bee Cattle Company back then, ⁓ we put on a rodeo and we decided that we wanted to continue to do that. Now when when the fire department and everybody got really busy with which we're fortunate to have here in Washington County, the Marcella Shell, everybody got jobs in the oil field and working six, seven days a week, sixteen hours a day, it became hard to to continue to run the arena, work the bingos and we're all volunteers and raise the money, so the f the arena kinda fell to the wayside. ⁓ back in right during COVID or something, I decided it was probably time to see if we could get that thing back up and running. And luckily I kinda fell into a lot of good people To help out with that, ⁓ with with my team and grants and and the county and tourism and everybody, it kinda all lined up luckily, and it's moving forward really well right now. And that's how we kinda got to where we was at and where we're at now. speaker-0: Yeah, I I mean I can't tell you how excited we were when we found out. ⁓ I think you guys had had the first rodeo by the time we found out about you and we thought, Man, what a good opportunity for Washington County. This is such a needed event. ⁓ caters to our people and the people surrounding Washington County. ⁓ and, you know, let's talk about Avella. Again, I think one of the things that separates Little Waytown Arena from others is you are in a beautiful setting. You're right down the road from nineteen thousand years of history at Meadowcroft Rock Shelter and Historic Village. ⁓ you've got Cross Creek County Park just down the road. We're in a beautiful slice of heaven in in Evella. but Tim, did you grow up around Rodeo or kind of how did how did you get into that or learn about it? What does that look like? speaker-1: Before I touch before I touch on that, ⁓ it's funny that you say a slice of heaven. We had a a crew in there from New York that came in with the bleachers that we just recently erected. And one of ⁓ was staying on site and he woke up and he when I I went down to meet him that morning, he goes, Man, he said, This is just like waking up in heaven. He said he looked around and and he was from the Ana. He looked around and he seen all the trees and the keller and the little bit of fog coming up and that and he It's like waking up in heaven. But as far as me and rodeo I didn't grow up around rodeo or in rodeo. ⁓ I can tell you where I've seen my first rodeo and it was in Sturgis. ⁓ but it wasn't actually a real rodeo. Okay. I was like ten years old and yeah my mom and dad, we were there on vacation and my dad said, Well, Carrie, they have a rodeo in town. Let's go see it. Well, when we started walking up the street, it was the Sturgis biker rodeo. So we immediately turned around and went the other direction. But anyways, no, when I grew up around animals, horses, my family's had horses. ⁓ I worked with Well, worked on the farm out in prosperity where my aunt and uncle lived. our our our deal with the farming was if we put up hay all summer we got to go to Washington County Fair with Hazel and Sonny McCauley. ⁓ some of my rodeo aspects was helping with their horses and maybe taking them down to the depot in the cricket and getting on ⁓ when they was green broke. ⁓ but since then once once Alan and I and and show got this up and running, I got with Matt and I've owned a couple of bulls with him in a circuit. ⁓ but That that's kinda went to the wayside, but I do still own some bulls out in Texas and Oklahoma that buck in different competitions. ⁓ so I'm sort of in the rodeo business, but I'm not really a rodeoer by any means. But I can get on a horse and ride it, but that's about it. But yeah, that's kinda how we got involved in it. And and more so the rodeo idea was something we thought that would be fresh to the area. ⁓ at that point in time I think Mel and them guys were shut down for probably not shut down, but hadn't done it for probably ten or twelve years. So that's why we thought we could rejuvenate it and get it up and that's why we feel that we can get this rodeo club up and running too. speaker-0: I I think the listeners of this podcast are gonna kinda start to see a little bit of a trend here. So today we're talking about rodeo. ⁓ in a few weeks we're gonna have the Pittsburgh Polo Club on, which I think many people don't even know that we have a polo club. We've got the Washington County Agricultural Fair coming up in in August and ⁓ also in a few weeks we'll be talking about the adios at Hollywood Casino at the Meadows. And the date on that is what, Ryan? Twenty fifth of July. So ⁓ This is an important industry to Washington County, and I think it reflects our roots and our traditions and our history. And I think there is I don't think there's a better event to go to in the summer than the Little Way Town Rodeo. ⁓ we saw it just a minute ago looking at some of the footage. Take a blanket, take a lawn chair, you can sit on the bank. It's a really cool venue. And I'm I'm super excited that you guys have brought it back, brought in the rodeo. ⁓ but that's not the only event that you've had. ⁓ let's look so Just this past weekend you had what event? speaker-1: We had the ⁓ Powell Mountain Man rendezvous, ⁓ which was the ⁓ but the Indian tribes came out and and had their weekend there and and they basically had their selling their wares or whatever and and doing their tribal dancing and their ⁓ culture. They they did a lot with their culture and involved a lot of the communities and they're very veteran oriented people and that. And it's the same group that does it in McDonald PA, the Red Feather Tribe, but the ⁓ Bunch of good people. They c come out and it it grew this year from last year and they're happy about that and they're already talking about next year. So we're speaker-0: We saw some pictures, yeah, it looked like a great event. ⁓ last year you had a couple of concerts. here in July you've got the Avella Area Community Day coming up. What does that ⁓ what does that entail? speaker-1: What that is is a sort of a a creation of mine, which now I think everybody's probably upset that's involved in it because I kinda said, Here, do this and I walked away from it a little bit. But now Rachel and the townships and in and all the townships, Independence, Cr ⁓ Cross Creek, ⁓ Hope Hopewell, ⁓ Jefferson Township. Now if I'm missing any, I I can't remember. But anyways what happened, I said, Let's get these townships together and have a another like community day. Like we're the townships handle everything or get the sponsors and that and just let the people come out and enjoy their day and we sponsor some of the bands and some other groups. I know Greens Greens are sponsoring trips to Meadowcroft Village that day, van rides down to Meadowcroft Village, ⁓ a lot of kids activities and events and going on. So it's it's a community day for the people that come out and enjoy themselves from all the townships in our school district, basically, because that's what I said, we get ⁓ all together. 'Cause everything from this arena is oriented around The community, the school district and their non profits and things like that. So speaker-0: Absolutely. I if for some reason you're not able to attend the rodeo, it's not gonna be any chance to get to see Bullriding in September. September twenty sixth you have the extreme bull riding event. ⁓ and how is that different from the rodeo? Like what is the ⁓ I guess what separates the two events? speaker-1: Well, the extreme bull riding and last year actually we we did w win the Sebra SBRA ⁓ outside event of the year. Us working with High Steel Rodeo, the promoter that puts it on. So we actually hit his promotion company in our our facility won Sebra last year, which was a big thing. ⁓ but basically on the extreme bull riding, you'll get some of the top end bull riders that come in at the end of the season to ⁓ get their scores up. There'll be probably some of the better quality bullshit. Bulls there from from the from this year ⁓ their competition. ⁓ and it's basically bull riding. It's it's guys that are coming in there and they're riding the bulls that's pretty much all you're gonna gonna see there. You're not gonna see roping unless one of the one of the handlers got a rope a bull, but yeah, we're not gonna see roping, you're not gonna see barrel racing, you're gonna see just down and dirty bull riding. That's what you're gonna get. You're gonna get a bunch of good competitors on bulls. speaker-0: And, you know, I I know one of the things when it comes to events, families are thinking about ticket prices and that kind of thing. This is very approachable, very affordable event. ⁓ and I know, you know, if you want to check it out, go to Littleatown Arena dot com. I believe you guys are even doing a ticket special where you can get tickets to both the rodeo and the extreme bull riding and save a couple of bucks whenever you bundle those up, right? speaker-1: Right. And w what we did is we tried to to try to make it a little bit more family friendly. ⁓ we did we did do a special with ticket packages and bundling some things up. There's a couple of different levels of that. ⁓ the other thing we're doing is we're only doing ticket sales at the g it it online and nothing at the gate. ⁓ we don't want to run into what we ran into last year, our first event. We ended up with about f thirty five hundred people there and it just got to the point where we couldn't handle it. ⁓ we weren't set up for that. We was anticipating somewhere around two to twenty five hundred. ⁓ so we are limited in ticket sales. ⁓ w so we have a little bit more manageable and and a lot more friendly place for the people to come to get in and and be able to get food and do everything. So we're kinda we're kinda limited in sales and we are doing some some packets so you can get get it for both events and and not wait till the last minute and be sold out and not be able to get in. speaker-0: Is that not the best problem in the world to have? Listen, if you haven't got your tickets, what Tim just said is you need to get your tickets ahead of time, right? Because this event is so popular, I'm telling you when you get there and see that hillside full, you're gonna understand why. Get your tickets early. Don't miss the rodeo on June twenty seventh. Now that's not it's not the last event of the year. You guys have a Christmas market and lighted drive thru, and that's ⁓ December eleventh, right? Correct. Tell us about that and then Also you've built a new venue where the Slighted Drive Throughs through's at. So tell us about that. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, I built a new venue. ⁓ well and it's not about this, but ⁓ so what happened with with this lighted drive through thing is years ago when I I built my property, I I started to put up Christmas lights. Years years in the past I remember going with my parents to Gus Barbish's up in up in Langloth up near now is it was climax, but his house was always decorated with blue lights, everything was perfect. He had animals there and everything and he raised money, I believe, was for Maybe Saint Jude's or Children's Hospital. So I always remembered that and then our house we always had blue lights on the fences and on the house and everything. That was my job, put the lights up when I was old enough to be smart enough not to fall off a ladder. But the so when I moved on to the new property I'm right on on Ovella Road there, so it's very visible. speaker-0: You're right across from the entrance to Cross Creek, right? speaker-1: Pretty close to it, yeah. So so I started to put up different displays and that and I think last year I was up to a hundred and twenty two different light displays. ⁓ and when we started this little A Town back up again, I kept thinking of other ways that we can keep generating money through the winter months, ⁓ to keep this thing alive. ⁓ so I said this light drive thru, I says usually we pick a non profit or somebody to th d to donate the money to. So last year my manager Sydney of the venues came up with the idea of the market. Her and Danny, the the secretary for the arena, they they started to put together this market and we have vendors there. I have a a big facility that has a an in indoor arena that's on turf. So we set everybody up there. You drive through the lights, you come and see Santa Claus if he can make it this year. Hopefully he said he'd be here if he doesn't get tied up on another project. But ⁓ he he'll come see Santa Claus, you'll get your hot chocolate, you'll get your cookies, you'll get the go through the vendor market and you get a everybody called it a mino many Ogle Bee ⁓ light display at the same time. So speaker-0: I mean, I you know, I can't tell you I I think what you're doing for the community is being felt across the county of Washington. And I I know a lot of people appreciate the work that you and your team are doing, both with the Christmas light up, with everything that's happening at Little A Town Arena. Parents, if I was you, think about it on June twenty seventh, plan a day, plan a weekend in Novella. Start your day off at Meadowcroft Rock Shelter, maybe pack a picnic, eat down at ⁓ Cross Creek County Park. Then head over to the rodeo for the evening. It's gonna be the day of the summer for you and your family. Tim, can't thank you enough for joining us today. We're all excited. Can't wait to come to the rodeo. speaker-1: All right. Well I appreciate it. speaker-0: Thanks, Kit Tim.