Tanner Long sits with his friend’s son, Tellan Buckman, on horseback. The ranch rodeo at the Winter Show is a family affair. Photo courtesy Bobbie Jo Manikowski

VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – The week of the North Dakota Winter Show is a type of family reunion for Bobbie Jo Manikowski.

Not that her relatives show up, but her ranch rodeo “family” is there.

Manikowski, a resident of Sheyenne, N.D., has been participating in the ranch rodeo at the Winter Show since it started five years ago.

Her ranch rodeo team, the 6T is Whisky Bound, includes her, her brother-in-law Billy Buckman, Sentinel Butte, N.D., Buckman’s friend Jason Bird, and Manikowski’s cousin Tanner Long, Lisbon.

Ranch rodeos are a friendly competition for ranch cowboys in five to six events. Those events might include wild cow milking, steer branding, steer doctoring, steer mugging, the trailer relay, and ranch bronc riding. The events change, depending on the organizer’s wishes and the livestock available.

Each person on a ranch rodeo team usually has a job: to rope, ride broncs, milk, run the bottle of milk to the judges, and mug steers, among other things. For Manikowski’s team, their roles are flexible. “Nobody has a specific job,” she said. “We all can do everything.” But often Buckman and Bird rope, Manikowski is the mugger, and Long, who is known by his nickname “the Flame” because of his red hair and his speed, is the runner.

The Winter Show’s ranch rodeo is a relaxing time for participants, she said, and they make the most out of their days in Valley City. “It’s like a family reunion. We get hotels at the same place, and eat at the same place.” Last year, after the ranch rodeo, they were late in getting to a restaurant and the cook was gone. The manager told them, “we’ll make sure we have a cook the next night for you guys,” she said. “There’s somebody in the kitchen a little bit later, because they know we’re all coming from the Winter Show.”

Manikowski’s team has won the ranch rodeo in 2017 and 2018, and she loves the friendly competition. “When you can walk out of the arena, laughing with your competitors, it’s a great day.”

She is a long-time Winter Show attendee, having gone to it as a kid and being involved in the 4-H livestock judging. “I can remember walking around the booths, getting a big bag for the free pens and pencils and finding the booth with the shelled sunflower seeds.

“The Winter Show just provides that atmosphere for everybody to get out and go to a place where there are no worries and stress. You get to see so many different sides of agriculture and how it has a positive impact on the state and the nation.

“It has always been family oriented, and there are things there that grab your attention, whether you’re from the city or the country.”

This year’s ranch rodeo is March 5 at 6:30 pm each night.

The 83rd annual N.D. Winter Show will be held Feb. 29-March 7 in Valley City, N.D. Activities and entertainment include a country music concert; truck and tractor pull; livestock shows; crop show; a presentation by ranchers’ advocate Amanda Radke; a craft fair, and PRCA rodeos.

Tickets are available at the Winter Show office located at 700 Seventh Street SE, Valley City, N.D. Tickets are required for the truck and tractor pull and the rodeo. For more information, visit the website at www.northdakotawintershow.com or call 701.845.1401.

The North Dakota Winter Show is the oldest and longest running agriculture show in N.D. It attracts exhibitors and visitors from numerous states and Canada.