BARRHEAD - It looks like the Barrhead Exhibition Association and Agricultural Society is considering taking another run at hosting the Wildrose Rodeo Association (WRA) Challenge.
If they do, the society will have a place to stage the event as Town of Barrhead councillors approved a request from the organization to extend its current Agrena facility-use agreement for an additional year during their Dec. 12 meeting.
The agreement now ends Sept. 30, 2026.
The WRA boasts more than 600 members and annually sponsors a circuit of between 30 and 40 rodeo events in communities mostly in central to northern Alberta.
The society hosted the WRA's showcase event that features the Top 10 point totals in the seven core rodeo events (bull riding, bareback and saddleback riding, calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling and ladies barrel racing) and ends the association's season for over 30 years, from 1989 to 2022, except for the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
In November 2022, the WRA announced they had chosen Rimbey, the only other bidder, to host the next three years, rejecting the Barrhead Exhibition Association and Agricultural Society's bid.
WRA president Glen Nash said they chose Rimbey because their bid included an extra performance.
"[The five performances] is something we've been doing for several years, and we did not want to go backwards," he said.
After this year's WRA season, competitors chose the Barrhead Blue Heron Fair Days event to be their favourite of the 35 rodeos on the circuit. In late October, a WRA board member asked the society to consider submitting a new bid for the 2024, 2025, and 2026 Challenge events.
Town of Barrhead CAO Edward LeBlanc said he received the request from society president Jackie Miller via a Dec. 5 e-mail.
The request for decision (RFD) states that in addition to securing the Agrena for the 12 days, including set up and tear down, to host the finals, the agreement also includes roughly $6,600 in-kind contributions.
Coun. Anthony Oswald, council's ag society representative, said he supported the society's request but added the agreement needed amending, saying it needed to be updated as it sometimes conflicted with other agreements the municipality has with other users.
He pointed specifically to the clause about using Agrena's concession and kitchen, which was also included in a separate vendor lease.
"[As a result, for the 2022 finals], the society had zero use of the concession and therefore no revenue," Oswald said.
He also pointed to another clause, which states that town staff will be responsible for setting up tents for the event.
"Tents haven't been set up for several years, and I don't think our staff should be doing it," he said, adding the same clause, which also states that parks and recreation department staff are responsible for cleaning up the debris on the rodeo grounds following the demolition derby. The demolition derby, while an ag society event, is a separate event held in July.
"The agreement needs cleaning up so we don't have any misunderstandings like we have had in the past," Oswald said.
LeBlanc agreed but said to give the ag society enough time to decide if they would submit a bid, council needed to provide them with a definitive answer on the agreement's extension.
"The other details, we can work on later," he said.
