Ogden Pioneer Days will forever be remembered as a part of the Class of 2017. That’s the year the Ogden Pioneer Days celebration was inducted into the vaunted ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo. With the induction, Ogden Pioneer Days becomes Utah’s only Hall of Fame-inducted rodeo—and has also been ranked as one of the top five large outdoor rodeos in the country.
Clad in blue committee shirts, members of the organizing committee, who oversee activities ranging from parades to art strolls, followed Chairman Alan Hall and Rodeo Director Dave Halverson to the stage, where Ogden Pioneer Days, founded during the height of the Great Depression, received the prestigious honors.
The Ogden Pioneer Days Committee was honored along such pro-rodeo greats as barrel racer Charmayne James, team roper Mike Beers, and all-around cowboy Bob Ragsdale. The weekend started with a Cowboy Ball and ended tonight with a PRCA rodeo.
“The rodeo was started right after the Great Depression because the community needed it,” said Dave Halverson, who was Ogden Pioneer Days’ Rodeo Director at the time of the induction. “You do what you do, and you hope that someday you get the call. But we don’t do this for the notoriety, we do it for the community and the state of Utah.”
