Tumbleweeds gather in the box seats of the rodeo arena in Stonyford, Calif.Credit...Max Whittaker for The New York Times

The Summer Without Rodeos

Around the country, but mostly in small towns in the West, hundreds of professional rodeos have been canceled.

STONYFORD, Calif. — Tucked into the hard wrinkles of Northern California foothills, the one-stop-sign town of Stonyford can feel like the middle of nowhere.

Zoe Brandenberger, one of about 200 residents, has spent most of her life in Stonyford.

“Right when you think you’re lost,” she said while offering driving directions, “you’re about here.”

Stonyford could always count on a few crowded days every year during its annual three-day rodeo, when the town’s population swells into the thousands.

Out-of-towners stay for much of a week. Pickups, campers and trailers, paying $25 each, fill the field behind Brother Moore Arena. There are nightly dances and rodeo queens. There is a pancake breakfast and a parade.

The air is filled with dust, noise and the smells of barbecue and barn animals.

“It totally transforms this town,” said Barbara Leach, a resident. “You have traffic.”

Not this year. There was no 77th Stonyford Rodeo. Not with the coronavirus.

On the blue-skied spring Friday that the rodeo was supposed to start, the grandstands were empty, the chutes filled with tumbleweeds. At the Stonyford General Store, the only store in town, there were more points on the antlers of the giant elk head mounted above the register than there were customers.

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Stonyford General Store is the only store in Stonyford.Credit...Max Whittaker for The New York Times
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A taxidermy fox and bobcat preside over the sporting goods section of the Stonyford General Store.Credit...Max Whittaker for The New York Times

“It’s sad because we’ve always had the rodeo,” said Ms. Brandenberger, who leads the Stony Creek Horsemen’s Association, which runs the rodeo.

She looked around the empty arena, named after her father, and sighed.

Around the country, but mostly in small towns in the West, hundreds of professional rodeos have been canceled — hard blows to tradition and economics. In many places, the rodeo is the biggest event on the annual calendar.

Some rodeos, like Stonyford, with $18,000 in prize money, are relatively small affairs. Some, like Cheyenne Frontier Days or the Calgary Stampede, are immense undertakings that last a week or two and, besides being daily rodeos with $1 million or more in payouts, are filled with concerts, carnivals and livestock shows.

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, the governing body of about 700 annual rodeos, estimates that about half will not take place in 2020. Those still on the schedule are working with fingers crossed, some moving dates to buy more time.

A few small rodeos in places like Woodward, Okla., and Mesquite, Texas, took place recently, but most rodeos in June are canceled.

“Covid-19 has impacted the entire country, every business you can think of,” said George Taylor, chief executive of the P.R.C.A. “Our business is a representation of that, but also represents a loss of community — something that brings these small towns together.”

Rodeo holds a unique spot in the American sports landscape. Golf, NASCAR, even the professional bull riding tour have resurrected made-for-television events from sequestered locations, mostly without fans. The N.B.A., N.H.L. and Major League Soccer are among those creating plans to quarantine teams all together to resume games far from their home arenas and stadiums.

Rodeos are different. They are not a league, but a loose coalition of community events, usually run by nonprofit organizations and volunteers.

The point is the place.

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“Right when you think you’re lost, you’re about here,” said Zoe Brandenberger of Stonyford while offering driving directions.Credit...Max Whittaker for The New York Times

You cannot move the Pendleton Round-Up to Texas from Oregon. Cheyenne Frontier Days cannot be held at Walt Disney World. Stonyford Rodeo cannot be moved to someplace else.

“We wouldn’t have a town without a rodeo,” said Dale Seidel of Burwell, Neb., where Nebraska’s Big Rodeo has been the big annual event since 1921.

While the Nebraska Sandhills and nearby Calamus Lake are draws to Burwell, nothing is a booster shot like the rodeo. This year’s event, scheduled July 22-25, is still on, for now.

“You put 20,000 people through a 1,000-people town, it is Christmas time for the businesses in Burwell,” Mr. Seidel said.

In late May, when Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming tearfully announced the cancellation of July’s Cheyenne Frontier Days for the first time in its 124-year history, he was surrounded by representatives of other canceled Wyoming rodeos. They were socially distanced, wearing masks and cowboy hats.

At least one went rogue. On Mother’s Day, a crowd estimated at 1,800 disobeyed stay-at-home orders and showed up to a rodeo (not sanctioned by the P.R.C.A.) in Cottonwood, Calif. It drew the ire of county officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Mr. Taylor worries that, like restaurants or stores on Main Streets across the country, some rodeos will close permanently, too.

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The campground next to Stonyford’s rodeo arena was empty this year.Credit...Max Whittaker for The New York Times

“Covid-19 is forever going to leave a mark on rodeo,” Mr. Taylor said. “Whether it’s the loss of some rodeos, whether it’s businesses that were impacted, whether it’s the number of cowboys that have to go find something else to do, and then don’t ever come back.”

Lost rodeos are big blows to the 5,000 registered cowboys and cowgirls who compete each year, including bronc riders, steer wrestlers, calf ropers, bull riders and barrel racers.

P.R.C.A. rodeos handed out $60 million in prize money in 2019. That sum is likely to be cut by more than half in 2020. And shutdowns may be even harder on stock contractors, those who breed, raise and supply the animals to ride, wrestle and rope.

But the broader worry is on the network of rodeos themselves.

The precautions and shutdowns can feel overblown to people involved in rodeo. Many are in rural areas with few cases of the virus. They tend to lean conservative.

“We have people calling the office going, ‘What, there’s no rodeo this weekend?’” said Tina Tonascia, chief operations officer for the Santa Maria Elks Rodeo in California.

The rodeo moved to September from its usual slot in late May.

While the biggest rodeos are canceled, most smaller ones are desperate to make them happen. Often run by nonprofit organizations — another difference from most sports — they are a major fund-raising mechanism across small towns.

Volunteer fire departments might host a pancake breakfast. High schools might make proceeds from parking cars. Youth sports leagues might hold raffles or sell tacos or hot dogs.

The Santa Maria rodeo takes place over four days, but Ms. Tonascia calls it “a six-week rodeo” full of fund-raisers, golf tournaments and promotions. The biggest is the contest for the rodeo queen. Area nonprofit organizations nominate a teenage girl, and whichever organization raises the most money wins the crown. Last year, Ms. Tonascia said, four organizations collectively raised $800,000.

Come rodeo week, the sold-out grandstands hold 35,000 over four days. Around 300 R.V.s fill a temporary campground on the grounds. More than 300 cowboys and cowgirls compete for about $100,000 in prizes.

The rodeo organization has 70 committees and more than 500 volunteers. When it postponed the rodeo, it changed this year’s theme. It was “Experience It.” Now it is “Hope.”

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Dates were left blank on the sign for Stonyford’s rodeo arena. Stonyford has canceled its annual rodeo because of the coronavirus pandemic.Credit...Max Whittaker for The New York Times

“When you talk about loss, financially, you can’t even begin to add up the numbers,” Ms. Tonascia said. “What have we lost emotionally? What have we lost as a community? I mean, we’ve been doing this 77 years.”

Up the Central California coast, each July, Salinas holds the state’s biggest rodeo. “Big Week,” as organizers call it, has an annual economic impact of $11 million, according to one study, and donates about $500,000 to local charities.

When it became apparent that the coronavirus would not be just a short interruption for American culture, the 110th Rodeo Salinas looked for more time.

Moving a rodeo is a logistical feat, a juggling of cowboys, contractors, concerts, carnivals, seasonal weather and other local events. Rodeo Salinas landed in early October.

“Without it, we’re looking at a real loss, not just for the tradition — it’s like a reunion for the whole town — but also the opportunity for the nonprofits,” said Tim Baldwin, a Rodeo Salinas board member.

Hundreds of other rodeos have flung their hopes all the way to 2021.

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The empty announcer’s booth at Stonyford’s rodeo arena.Credit...Max Whittaker for The New York Times

In Stonyford, on the day that this year’s rodeo was supposed to start, Ms. Brandenberger stood in the rodeo office, surrounded by photos and posters of rodeos past.

On a table was a stack of this year’s unused poster, bright orange signs that would have been placed all over the county.

On the announcer’s box above the rodeo arena, facing the two-lane road that cuts through town, was a beacon of uncertainty.

“STONYFORD RODEO,” the large painted-red sign read in white letters, along with “MAY” and a white dash.

Until this year’s rodeo was canceled, it read “MAY 1-3.”

Now it just says “MAY,” a fitting message of doubt and hope.

John Branch is a sports reporter. He won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing for “Snow Fall,” a story about a deadly avalanche in Washington State, and was also a finalist for the prize in 2012. More about John Branch

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section D, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Places That Hang Their Hats On the Rodeo Are Left to Hope. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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