The 2024 Rooftop Rodeo Parade charted a new course this year due to construction in the downtown corridor, but according to parade organizers, the venerable rodeo parade may not return to its traditional route along Elkhorn Avenue.
The parade kicked off Monday morning at 10 a.m. at the Estes Park Fairgrounds and went south along Community Drive to Manford Avenue, then turned north on to Colorado Highway 7 before proceeding back to the fairgrounds via U.S. Highway 36 before and Fourth Street.
“It makes sense to have a rodeo parade around the rodeo,” said Kevin McDonald, the special events coordinator for the Estes Park Events Complex. “It was so much easier to have the horses stage around the arena,” said McDonald.
The roots of what would become the Estes Park Rooftop Rodeo date to 1908 according to a June 25 article published that year in The Mountaineer.
What was billed as a Frontier Day celebration promised “a genuine old fashioned ‘Wild West’ exhibition” with “noted riders and horses in a Bronco Busting contest” and “some bad ‘outlaw’ horses are being rounded up.”
Promotions advertised the event would feature “Bronco Busting” along with “roping and branding and steer riding.”
The use of the word rodeo in connection with the event began in the 1920s and in 1941 the annual event became known by its signature name, Rooftop Rodeo, because of the town’s elevation.
For decades, the parade traced a course from west to east along Elkhorn Avenue past the shops on Estes Park’s main street. However, with the Downtown Estes Loop project still in process, it was decided to move the parade this year.
One of the other changes this year was the addition of Kurtis Kelly as the parade master of ceremonies. Kelly has served as the MC for the Catch the Glow holiday parade for the past three years.
Kelly—an Estes Park High School graduate who retired in 2015 from a 30-year career at the Estes Valley Library—is well known around the Estes Valley for his first-person portrayals of historic Estes Park characters including F. O. Stanley, Abner Sprague, the Earl of Dunraven, and Enos Mills in addition to Abraham Lincoln, Noah Webster, “Teddy Blue” Abbott, Alfred Packer, and Edgar Allen Poe.
“Growing up I was the shyest kid. Others would have thought I was the least likely to get into performing arts, I dreaded public speaking, but I kind of broke out of my shell in college.”
Involvements with local theater through the Fine Arts Guild of the Rockies led to Kelly enacting historic characters and even his role as the announcer for the parades. Kelly also supplied the voice of Enos Mills in Nick Mollé’s documentary Living Dream: 100 Years of Rocky Mountain National Park.
There were 46 entries for the 2024 Rodeo Parade, about 20 fewer than last year when the parade returned after a four-year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic.
Kelly was given information about each parade entries including the U.S. Marine Corps Mounted Color Guard, the Mrs. Rooftop Rodeo court and queens, the Estes Valley Fire Protection District vehicles, the Estes Park Village Band, area businesses, and dozens of mounted rodeo royalty.
Kelley then spent a day preparing his script to narrate the parade. With a background in theater arts and a career at the library, Kelly is aware of the power of storytelling. “There is a story to tell about the whole arc of the parade. There are parts where we are all anticipating what’s coming and moments of read drama, like the Marine Corps Mounted Guard when everyone stands and salutes.”
While Kelly tries to stick to the script, he sometimes needs to ad-lib to fill space and other times, like when the Estes Park Village Band is passing by, when he doesn’t want to talk over the music. “We want to give out information about what people are seeing and also make sure we keep the enthusiasm level there too.”
While no decision has been made about the route for next year’s rodeo parade, McDonald said one of the advantages of keeping the route around the fairgrounds area is the easy access to ample free parking for participants.
According to McDonald a post-event evaluation will take into consideration the advantages of using the fairground as a staging area, the complexities of shutting down parts of Highway 7 and Highway 36 and rerouting traffic, and the impact on businesses along the route before a decision is made about the route for 2025.
Kurtis Kelly will be enacting Abner Sprague in a performance Monday, July 15 at 7 p.m. at the YMCA of the Rockies, Maude Jellison Library. For more information about his historic enactments, click here to go to his webpage, Character Infusion – Storytelling and Creative Infusion.
I watched the parade from the Museum parking lot. There was easy access and I was able to recognize most of the entries without commentary. I would like to know what other viewers thought were the best places from which to watch the new route.