[July 01, 2011] Longtime wranglers have seen it all at the Stampede Tweet Jun 28, 2011 (Greeley Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- After spending three decades getting up at 2 a.m. to climb light poles and hang decorations around the city, chasing calves and cleaning up horse poo, one might think retirement from the Greeley Stampede would sound nice. Not if you're Lajune and Billy Pearson. In fact, this couple, who have been Wranglers for the annual Fourth of July event for 29 and 30 years, respectively, might never retire. "After this many years, if we didn't have it, I don't know what we'd do," Lajune said with a laugh. "I don't know what's out there." The Pearsons, in fact, are so attached to the rodeo and carnival, they don't have much time for anything else during the two-week stint in June and July. That's where they met, and after Lajune impressed Billy with her willingness to get a pair of cowboy boots dirty, it was love at first sight. The couple has been married 19 years. "She went out to Webster Feedlots with me to vaccinate some cattle," Billy said. "She had these brand-new boots on. But she got right in the middle of all that (manure) and never complained. I knew she was the one for me." Over the past 30 years, the couple has seen it all. They remember when their job was to throw the tumbleweeds out of the old arena and paint the chutes. They remember when there were only about 50 wranglers in the organization -- there are about 350 volunteers now. They remember when they would take a week off work to help out. "Now we take a week off after it's over to recuperate," Billy, 73, said with a laugh. Between the two, they have worked every inch of the event except parking, from bucking chutes and decorations to nightshows and security, to marketing and cleanup. They've even kept some of the committeemen -- and their ideas -- in check over the years. "I'll never forget the year Dave Markley had this bright idea that it would be cool to put balloons up and down the parade route," Lajune said. "We filled 10,000 balloons with helium. Do you know how many helium tanks we went through? And it took three semi-trailers full of balloons to get them all to the parade route." The next year, Markley thought it would be fun to have five Cobra helicopters on one end of town and five more on the other end take off at the same time and hover over the parade. That was when Lajune had to say something. "I was like, 'Dave, do you realize how loud one Cobra is, let alone 10? Every horse on the parade route will be in a tree,' " she said, laughing. Now, they spend most of their time as the escorts for the grand marshals. Billy's been around the rodeo so long -- his dad was a rodeo performer -- it would be hard to get him to leave. He remembers when it was the Cowboys' Turtle Association instead of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. It was named that in 1936 because a professional organization for cowboys was slow to form, Billy said. In 1945, it became the Rodeo Cowboys Association, and in 1975, it was officially named the PRCA. He still wears the buckle his dad won at the first Estes Park Rooftop Rodeo in 1941. The print is barely legible, but the words can still be made out: "All Around Cowboy, 1st Annual Rodeo." He also remembers when there was a tunnel at the Greeley rodeo grounds that ran under the race track, which went around the current stands. He carries a picture of himself when he was 1 with his dad in the bucking chutes. He's so attached to the sport, Lajune, 61, is having a hard time getting him to stop working in the arena. "When Billy is down in the arena; when the cowboy is done riding, and the pickup men are going around taking flank straps off the bucking stock, guess who's the last one up on the fence?" she said. "Even Benny Butler (one of the rodeo's longtime stock contractors) is up on the fence before him. I can't even watch the bull riding anymore." "This is my last year," Billy reassured her. "... I'll probably get out of the bulls." "Once a cowboy, always a cowboy," she said. Although Billy tried to ride professionally when he was in his 20s, he said it never really was his thing. But he loves being around the rodeo life. And he did make a return run at it 15 years ago when the Stampede sponsored an event called Beauty and Beast. It was an event for amateur bull riders. "He was going to ride one last time," she said. "He said it's just like riding a bicycle. He gets on the bull, and he's trying to hang on, and the bull spins, and he ends up under the bull. I remember he said, 'It's only $150.' Yeah, $15,000 later we got him home all patched up." That bull still didn't keep Billy down. He was back at the park working the next day, purple from the collarbone to the waist and with a broken leg. But what the couple remembers most is all the fun they've had. All the pranks they helped pull off on the Stampede Committee, the trail rides at the Pawnee Buttes National Grassland, the kickoff banquets, the Wrangler parties and mostly, just the friendships they've made throughout the years that have made their last three decades of being Wranglers worth it all, they said. "We'll be doing this as long as we have our health," Billy said. "But we don't want to become a liability," Lajune added. "I guess we've never really thought about leaving." To see more of the Greeley Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.greeleytribune.com. Copyright (c) 2011, Greeley Tribune, Colo. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. 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