Springtime Fun in Prescott Valley Something for Everyone!

Springtime Fun in Prescott Valley Someth ing for Everyone!

by Marnie Uhl, President/CEO, Prescott Valley Chamber of Commerce

Prescott Valley blossoms with fun and exciting events this spring.

In April, the Town of Prescott Valley hosts its annual EGGstravanza and Family Arts Festival coinciding with the Easter holiday, and this year will be Saturday, April 9, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The free event features arts vendors, infl atables, games, egg hunts, artwork from local schools, photos with the Easter bunny and more.

Contact Community Services at 928.759.3090 for more information.

The 44th annual Prescott Valley Days will be throughout the Entertainment District May 5 through May 8. Thursday night, the Ranch to Table dinner celebrates the ranching history of the Fain Family and the community.

The dinner, catered by Chef Jim Cabral and family, features a ranch culinary experience. This is a ticketed event; reservations can be made at www.pvchamber.org.

On Friday night, the Fiesta del Pueblo celebrating Prescott Valley’s Hispanic community takes place. Sponsored by Carnicería Azteca and Azteca Market, the event includes live music and bands, dancing, street tacos, traditional cantaritos and a beer garden. Festivities begin at 5 p.m.

Saturday starts with the annual Prescott Valley Days Parade presented by the Prescott Valley Early Bird Lions Club at 9 a.m., followed by the Bear Dash 5K Fun Run hosted by Bradshaw Mountain High School and the Humboldt Education Foundation.

At noon other activities start including a carnival, cosplay contest, open-air market place and food vendors and youth performances. Dancing through the Decades will be performed at 5 p.m. with Funk Frequency and at 7:30 p.m. with 90 Proof.

Sunday the carnival opens at noon. Events are free with the exception of the carnival, food and beverage concessions and the open-air marketplace vendors.

Team Up to Clean Up — 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. — is a signature town and chamber event combing a free dump day with a communitywide cleanup day on Saturday, May 14. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Wrapping May events is the 2nd annual Rhythm and Brews to be held in the Entertainment District festival area behind Colt Grill on Saturday, May 21 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Food will be available for purchase; live music and dancing are on tap for this event sponsored by the Town of Prescott Valley and SignalsAZ, Talking Glass Media. For more information visit www.prescottvalleyaz.gov/292/Community-Services or call 928.759.3090.

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Prescott LIVING: Welcome to Prescott. You’ve been here slightly more than a year. How has that year been to you?

Jim Dewey Brown: It’s been pretty awesome. There are some shakeups here and there, but it’s growing pains. That’s how it usually is when there’s change.

Prescott LIVING: Was everything as you thought it would be?

Jim Dewey Brown: It’s pretty much right on course with taking a new job and bringing new ideas. It’s kind of what you expect as far as when you do something like this.

Prescott LIVING: Is it a diff erent environment from where you were in New Mexico? Prescott LIVING: Tell us a little about your family. You have a daughter, Elise. What does she do now?

Jim Dewey Brown: She’s punching cows. Her boyfriend runs a 1,800cow outfi t in Geary, Oklahoma.

Prescott LIVING: Do you and your wife enjoy Prescott?

Jim Dewey Brown: My wife Jody Martinelli, one of Kirsten Vold’s best friends since high school - who also set us up on a blind date back in 2014 — loves the area and everything about it. This is one of the friendliest and most supportive towns we’ve ever lived in.

Jim Dewey Brown: Not really. We — rodeo — are a pretty tightknit community. But as far as the size of rodeo, yeah, it’s defi nitely bigger than what I’ve dealt with in the past as far as pro rodeos go. What I was doing, they were little $1,000 added rodeos. So, it was defi nitely small potatoes compared to the World’s Oldest Rodeo®. I think the biggest thing is the infrastructure; just trying to make it a little more seamless and user-friendly.

Prescott LIVING: You had a successful rodeo year even with the pandemic last year. Were you content with it?

Jim Dewey Brown: Yeah. I think it was great, nearly seven sellouts. It wasn’t a record. There were probably 32,000 attendees. Of course, it’s kind of apples and oranges now because we didn’t have the skybox. But I’m happy with nearly seven sellouts. We defi nitely did have a record number of cowboys here. So that was good.

Prescott LIVING: How does the World’s Oldest Rodeo® compare to other rodeos around the country as far as participation of cowboys and visibility?

Jim Dewey Brown: I think all over the country, it was up last year, even after the pandemic hit. Rodeos were shutting down left and right. And there’s still some that are suff ering, didn’t make it back in 2021. I hope that changes in 2022.

But as far as participation and crowd and attendance, I think it will be up all across the nation. We saw a record attendance at the College National Finals. People were ready to get out of the house and ready to do something and go back to their roots.

Prescott LIVING: Why is rodeo so successful?

Jim Dewey Brown: I think there’s still that romantic view of the American cowboy and the American West because it’s the last frontier. Have a devilmay-care attitude? It’s all there; that’s rodeo. It’s kind of a macho sport. Who’s the toughest and who’s going to do the best?

Prescott LIVING: Did you fi nd that same kind of attitude in New Mexico?

Jim Dewey Brown: With rodeos? Oh yeah. It’s all the same everywhere. You have that friendly competition. The attitude is the same. Also, it’s a lot of the same cowboys. They’re coming here,

they’re going there. They’re going anywhere they can make money.

Prescott LIVING: Tell us what you will do diff erently in 2022.

Jim Dewey Brown: Well, the rodeo grounds and arena are getting a face lift. We’ll have an almost brand-new facility.

This winter we tore out everything, cleaned it up. And it will be safe for our animal participants. We are getting rid of the old animal enclosures and putting in a new set to give this arena more bucking chutes. We’re actually adding two more, so there’ll be 10 altogether.

And then we’re adding two muttonbusting chutes, which is something new that we’re going to try this year. For those who don’t know, mutton-busting is an event for young children to stay on the back of a sheep for as long as possible. So, we’ll be doing that kind of a pre-rodeo at a few of the performances. We haven’t locked down how many we’re going to do, but it’s looking like about three nights that we’ll have mutton-busting right before the rodeo starts.

Prescott LIVING: How much money are you spending on upgrading the rodeo grounds?

Jim Dewey Brown: It’s nearly half a million dollars on the pens and another $600,000 on the restrooms.

Prescott LIVING: So that’s more than $1 million in expansion and upgrading. And that presumes that construction prices stay reasonable, and that you got a supply chain that brings you the materials?

Jim Dewey Brown: Yeah, exactly.

Prescott LIVING: What are you doing about parking?

Jim Dewey Brown: Parking is always going to be an issue here because we can’t grow any more land.

Prescott LIVING: OK. What about in the stadium? What are you doing?

Jim Dewey Brown: The thing that we’re working on, which won’t likely be fi nished for 2022 unfortunately, is restrooms on the east end. They’ll be a two-story setup. We should be breaking ground before the rodeo. It just won’t be totally fi nished.

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Jim at the Prescott Frontier Days offi ce.

Jim on a Milo DeWitt Horse at the Payson Pro Rodeo.