New Book Captures Estes Park’s Rooftop Rodeo History

By Ted Harbin//Photo Courtesy of Rooftop Rodeo

When Howell Wright was in high school, he realized he wanted to write a book on American sports.

Influenced by being raised on a cattle ranch in central Arkansas, he began the process by attending his county fair. What started as a story idea became a passion for rodeo, one that carried him through college, a career as an officer in the Marine Corps and retirement in Colorado mountain community.

He’s written that book and two others to boot. This one is Rodeo With Altitude: The History of Estes Park’s Rooftop Rodeo. It’s in the publisher’s hands, but Wright – and the town of Estes Park – are hoping it will be reader-ready in time for this year’s six-day event, which begins July 6.

Wright was still a teenager when he was talked into trying his hand at riding broncs and bulls. Maybe the rodeo arena manager and the stock contractor at that county fair thought a first-person account would make the perfect story, but Wright followed suit. He got on a bareback horse, but that was no fun. He tried bull riding, and he liked it enough to continue.

Over time and 22 attempts, he failed to make a qualified ride. He had bigger things coming his direction anyway. He graduated from the University of Arkansas, then joined the Marine Corps, serving two tours of duty in Vietnam.

“Of course, in my first tour in Vietnam, I got shot up pretty good and spent time recovering in Okinawa (Japan),” he said. “They got me patched up pretty good, and I went back in and did another tour. Then I came back to California and was on the Marine Corps rodeo team and was a clown out there on the West Coast for the better part of the year.”

When his military assignments allowed, Wright kept rodeoing. When he moved to Estes Park in 2005, he and his wife, J’Ann, immediately got involved with Rooftop Rodeo. He even served as president of the volunteer committee for six years and remains an integral part of the event, now as its historian.

Over the last two decades, Rooftop Rodeo has been named the year’s top event six times. Five came in the PRCA, and then the WPRA honored the rodeo in 2017. A sport derived from working ranches has been a tradition in that mountain town since the 1920s, and it thrives today.

There will soon be a book about the 98 years of Rooftop Rodeo, written by a man who has dedicated the last two decades of his life helping make it into the spectacular community event that it is. Estes Park is already a tourist destination, and the rodeo gives everyone who attends a taste of the Old West and its importance to the region’s Western heritage.