Winner rodeo is 50-year staple for family, helping others

Daily Republic - 7/25/2019

Jul. 25--WINNER -- The Winner Elks Rodeo isn't just a 50-year community event.

It's a family tradition.

That starts with sisters Maureen Hollenbeck and Michelle Parvin, who have been involved in the rodeo's organization for the past 50 years. Their father, Bill Dillon, was one of the founders of the benefit rodeo, which is a summer staple for the town of nearly 3,000 people and its surrounding area. Hollenbeck's father-in-law, Vincent, was another founder, and today, Maureen and her husband of 55 years, Vincent, whose nickname is "Squeek," are part of a four-generation lineage of those helping run or participate in the Winner Elks Rodeo.

This year's edition of the rodeo will be held this weekend, with 7:30 p.m. performances on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Tripp County 4-H Grounds. For all 50 years, the rodeo has raised funds for LifeScape, the South Dakota organization that helps children and adults with disabilities and medical rehabilitation needs.

Parvin said her father gave her advice when she was young about the rodeo, and keeping it strong both for the community and for LifeScape's patients.

"I was a youngster, and my dad said to me, 'I hope you hold this dear to your heart,'" Parvin recalled this week. "And I have. And working with the children that are challenged, it can be heartbreaking, so when you are helping them, it makes you feel better. It's important to me that we're helping our local community, and we're giving our area some great entertainment, because this is something that draws people from a long distance away and it's good for our economy."

"We've been there the whole time," Hollenbeck said of her family history.

The Hollenbecks have provided the rodeo stock for the event for all 50 years, and the rodeo's start came not long after Vincent Hollenbeck started H&S Rodeo Company in 1968 with business partner Roy Sell and his namesake son, who has always been called Squeek. In 1969, the Winner Elks Rodeo got under way. In 1990, Maureen and Squeek took over the company and renamed it the Hollenbeck Rodeo Company. Maureen Hollenbeck said the idea for the rodeo started through the Winner Elks, who hosted a traveling clinic for the Crippled Children's Hospital and School, the predecessor for LifeScape.

"That was when the polio epidemic was still on people's minds, and the hospital staff came to Winner for evaluations and they stopped at the Winner Elks Lodge," she said. "That inspired the Elks that maybe there was something more they could do to help those families."

Dillon and Hollenbeck -- joined by Dick Kazda and Harold Jans -- were the four men to start the rodeo and from then on, Maureen Hollenbeck said, the rodeo's mission and its impact has remained mostly the same.

Jessica Wells, the president of the LifeScape Foundation, said the rodeo's importance among annual fundraisers is special. Funding from the rodeo goes toward outreach programs, which impacted 515 individuals last year, and LifeScape's therapists drive 220,000 miles a year from LifeScape's main sites in Sioux Falls and Rapid City to visit homes, day cares and schools, treating individuals in 61 of South Dakota's 66 counties.

"It's rare for one activity like this to have longevity it has," she said. "But it's a credit to the rodeo community and the surrounding area that they continue to embrace this rodeo."

A group of spectators watch the bull riding action during the 49th annual Winner Elks Rodeo on July 28, 2018 in Winner. This Friday will mark the start of the 50th annual rodeo. (Matt Gade / Republic)

While polio treatment and therapy was why LifeScape started in the 1950s, Wells said the greatest need today is for autism services through speech, occupational and physical therapists.

"There are several children and adults in this community that have received services from LifeScape. This rodeo is very meaningful to all of us and I think it's meaningful to everyone," Hollenbeck said.

Parvin estimated that the Winner Elks Rodeo has raised more than $200,000 for LifeScape in its history. How much is raised on an annual basis depends on the various factors that impact a rodeo, Hollenbeck said, such as weather, attendance, the number of participants and what is paid out to the participants.

Hollenbeck and Parvin are still critical to the event, which has an eight-person board and starts its planning in January.

The sisters track down advertisers, potential donors and sponsors. Parvin said she helps manage tickets and handle "odds and ends," as she calls it, while Hollenbeck leans on her rodeo timer and secretary history to coordinate the paperwork with the various rodeo associations, including the Northwest Ranch Cowboy Association, the South Dakota and Nebraska Rodeo Associations, and the Mid-States Rodeo Association. Hollenbeck called her sister the backbone of the event, while Parvin described her sister as a force who gets things done.

"We're thankful for all of the people that help us," Parvin said, "because we certainly don't do it alone."

Hollenbeck said she still likes the rodeo because it provides family entertainment with a candy toss, mutton busting and special entertainment.

"There's a lot of locals that get to participate, and that's special when local talent gets to try their hand at rodeo," Hollenbeck said.

Some of those competitors are in Hollenbeck's family. Her son, Scott, and daughter, Dori, along with granddaughter, Sydney, also compete in rodeo events. Parvin's daughter, Tera Fenenga, and husband, Brad, are also involved with the rodeo each year, as well.

A few special events are planned for this year. John Payne, who is nicknamed "The One Arm Bandit" and has been the Professional Rodeo Circuit Association Speciality Act of the Year multiple times, will be performing as a special guest. On Saturday, children and staff from LifeScape will be special guests, and stagecoach rides are being organized for the children to enjoy.

Parvin said she now sees the event as a ritual, right down to where to expect certain people to be sitting in the grandstands. She said it's common to see spectators from rural South Dakota and Nebraska make lengthy trips to be in attendance.

"We have people who will come all three nights," she said. "It's like a big family gathering."

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