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It had tension. It had danger. It had a touch of theatre.
Sangudo’s Bull Bash on Saturday only lasted about two hours. But, oh boy, what a two hours they were, and what a lesson they offered to anyone hoping to whet the public’s appetite for no-holds-barred entertainment.
At the outset organizers provided a dramatic touch by turning off the lights and having the cowboys line up behind an arc of fire. So simple, yet so effective.
As the bull riding got under way, the packed house felt an intimacy with what was happening in the arena.
Some spectators pressed against metal fences to get up close and personal to man and beast, backing off whenever a bull threatened to charge.
This was riveting stuff, visceral and pulse-pounding.
Beyond the customary cowboy capers, something extra was laid on, something that straddles the boundary between courage and recklessness … Mexican Poker.
Watching four men play cards at a table while a bull is released into the arena was almost surreal. Seen on TV, you might have suspected the danger was hyped, that somehow the spectacle was fake.
In the flesh, you realize there is nothing fake about a bull charging a table and smashing it to smithereens. There is nothing fake about a bull knocking into a card-player and causing him to flee the arena.
This is what happened, and this is the type of excitement people appreciate.
Recently Barrhead &District Chamber of Commerce vice president Dave Sawatzky called for events like the Blue Heron Fair and Wildrose Rodeo to be spiced up.
He suggested running of the bulls or bull soccer as a way of giving the Wildrose Rodeo some extra oomph.
Sangudo in its own way has added strength to that argument. People want a little craziness, a little wildness and danger; they don’t want the same old, same old. And if they don’t get what they want, they will probably look elsewhere for thrills and spills.
As we have said before, Barrhead has no divine right to the Wildrose Rodeo. The town has to apply for that honour. Amid reports that Whitecourt and Drayton Valley are interested in making the rodeo their own it is increasingly important that Barrhead steps up its game.
The Sangudo &District Agricultural Society is hoping to make the Bull Bash an annual event.
Organizers must be delighted with the way things panned out on Saturday. For hometown favourite Jerett Nash to take championship honours with the penultimate ride of the evening was a wonderful bonus.
Even though wind power has been around a long time, it still possesses a futuristic aura.
Winds turning turbines and creating a carbon-free, inexhaustible and seemingly benign source of energy for all our needs seems a little idealistic, a little impractical.
Some might raise eyebrows, therefore, at Pembina Hills school division’s decision to join the Bull Creek Wind Power Project and buy wind-driven electricity for 25 years from 2014. Yet perhaps it is time to become more realistic about wind power and what it promises.
The fact is PHRD is not really taking a gamble. Far from it. Firstly, wind power appears to offer a practical solution to the problem of energy price fluctuations and secondly there is always the fallback of “brown electricity” in the local grid – coal or gas-produced power – if winds failed to blow.
Come 2014, staff and students at local schools are unlikely to care about the source of their energy.
Just so long as the lights come on.
