Atlanta, Texas—The Cass County Cowboy Church is taking Saturday to celebrate the spirit of the cowboy with a free ranch rodeo event.

All are invited and admission is free to the rodeo, which is being held on the National Day of the American Cowboy, a day to honor the cowboy every 4th Saturday in July.

“We’re going to have a ranch rodeo,” said Frank Locke, pastor of the Cass County Cowboy Church. “We’re going to have barrel racing, free bucking machines, a western swing concert and vendors’ trades day.”

Tomorrow’s rodeo starts with barrel racing at 9 a.m. and ranch racing later at 2 p.m. The western swing concert, featuring East Texas country gospel band Higher Trails, kicks off at 7 p.m.

“We did this last year to some extent. It wasn’t nearly as big an event as it’s going to be this year,” said Locke. “We got our arena built and so we decided to add some arena events to what we did last year.”

Last year, the Cass County Cowboy Church celebrated the day simply with a trades day. Among the items for sale this year will be custom hats, handmade saddles, Western art, metal art and other cowboy-themed goods.

“Now that we have our own holiday, we’re going to make a big deal out of it,” said Locke, noting this is an amateur ranch rodeo. One of the events, he added, will be a steer dressing competition.

Other rodeo events will include team penning, branding and ribbon roping. Food vendors, including a chuckwagon, will be there for festivalgoers’ nourishment. Pulled pork sandwiches and other offerings are on the menu.

The 1st Annual National Day of the Cowboy was celebrated in 2005 after American Cowboy magazine started pushing for the event the year before.

The Cass County Cowboy Church is located about four miles south of Atlanta at 7701 U.S. Highway 59.



(For information, call 903-799-SPUR (7787). For more information about the main music act, visit www.highertrailsband.com.)