ProRodeo Sports News - November 17, 2023

SHORT ROUND Walton chosen as Donita Barnes Award winner Prestigious Honor

F or his nearly 50 years of involvement in rodeo, Scott Walton was selected as the recipient of the 2023 Donita Barnes Lifetime Achievement Award. “This is unbelievable,” said Walton, 61. “To even be nominated to be in this category is very special to me and humbling. Just to be nominated with those four other people, I worked with them all and know them all. I have known them for years and they are great people and all deserving, and I guess it was my turn. I’m very honored.” Other nominees for the 2023 Donita Barnes Lifetime Achievement Award were Edie Longfellow, Kay Bleakly, Jim Fain and James Harper. The Donita Barnes Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Walton at the PRCA Awards Banquet on Dec. 6 at 6 p.m. (PT) at the South Point in Las Vegas. “My dad (Allen) started the NILE Rodeo (in Billings, Mont.), and I think he started that sometime in the 1970s,” Walton said. “He started the rodeo there and hired Harry Vold to be the stock contractor and then I helped them when they came to town. I went to college at Montana State and Harry Vold was doing the College Finals at that time (in Bozeman, Mont.) and I was helping.” In 1982, Vold, a ProRodeo Hall of Fame stock contractor, asked Walton to come work for him. Walton

“I went to work with Harry then and I learned a lot from that man over the years,” Walton said. Walton worked for Vold until 1996 when he went to work for ProRodeo Hall of Famer Walt Garrison at Copenhagen & Skoal Tobacco as rodeo supervisor for 13 years. “We ran the scoreboard and did everything,” Walton said. “In 2010, I started putting scoreboards up and doing jobs on my own with Rick (Sallee).” Since 2010, Walton has served as the president

of Walton Scoreboards Inc. “In 2013, I moved back to Montana where I’m originally from, I was living in Texas,” Walton said. “Since 2013, I just kept growing my scoreboard video screen business and it has been very, very good to me and my family. Rick and I do rodeos all over the country.” Walton has had a job in one capacity or another at every National Finals Rodeo since 1982. Other winners of the Donita Barnes Lifetime Achievement Award are Donita Barnes (2011); Art and Linda Alsbaugh (2012); Fred and Norma Dorenkamp (2013); Quail Dobbs (2014); Cotton Rosser (2015); Karen Vold (2016), Jim and Julie Sutton (2017), Hadley Barrett (2018); Roy and Virginia Honeycutt (2019); Cindy Rosser (2020); Kay Gay (2021); and Bronc Rumford (2022).

Garrett tabbed Justin Committeeman of the Year

Wade Garrett, the Vice-President of the Ute Stampede Rodeo Committee, has been selected as the PRCA’s 2023 John Justin Standard of the West Committeeman of the Year. Garrett, a lobbyist, won the John Justin Standard of the West Committeeman of the Year award for his work with the Ute Stampede. “It means a lot to receive an honor like this, I’m very taken back,” said Garrett, who has been part of the Ute Stampede Rodeo Committee for nearly a decade. “I’m very honored and flattered.

In 2023, the Ute Stampede took place July 13 15. Nephi has a population around 7,000 people. “For all seven of us as a committee, I’m the face of it of this year, but this award brings respect to our rodeo,” Garrett said. Garrett is the second member of the Ute Stampede to win the Justin Committeeman of the Year award as Jerry Shepherd took home the honor in 2018. Each year, Justin Boots recognizes 125 outstanding volunteers from PRCA rodeos around

Garrett

I do a mix of everything. We are small committee by rodeo standards with seven members that put on the three-day show. We seat about 12,000 people at our (rodeo), so we bring quite a few people in, and we have been selling out the Friday and Saturday night performances and our goal is to sell out Thursday as well.”

the country through its John Justin Standard of the West program. PRCA rodeos vote on the individual to receive the PRCA’s John Justin Committeeman of the Year Award, whose dedication represents the deeds of those volunteers. Garrett will be recognized at the PRCA Awards Banquet, Dec. 6 at the South Point Hotel in Las Vegas.

ProRodeo Sports News 11/17/2023

ProRodeo.com

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