Rich Rollins named grand marshal of 2004 Sisters Rodeo

Rich Rollins. photo provided Rich Rollins of Terrebonne has been selected as grand marshal for the 2004 Sisters Rodeo parade, according to Ron Alexander of the Sisters Rodeo Association.

Rollins will lead the annual parade through downtown Sisters on Saturday, June 12, and also will make appearances at performances of the 64th Sisters PRCA Rodeo.

Rollins was an active participant in the Sisters Rodeo from 1962 through 1985, working as a volunteer, supplier of rodeo horses and bulls and member of the association's board of directors. He helped his close friend, the late Mert Hunking, keep the rodeo alive during the early 1960s at a time that it almost folded.

Rollins was born in Springerville, Arizona, and worked with horses there and later in Texas where he moved as a teenager. In 1961, he followed his parents to Sisters and worked in logging that summer and broke horses during the winter.

"After I started working with horses in the Sisters area, I never went back to logging," Rollins said.

He met Mert Hunking when he sold him his first horse and got involved in the efforts of Hunking, Homer Shaw and others to get the Sisters Rodeo Association started again.

"I never missed a Sisters Rodeo from 1962 until I moved from Sisters in 1985," he said.

In 1971 he joined with Hunking and Jerry Kosh to form the Sombrero Stock Company with 175 head of bucking horses and 65 bulls. Besides providing stock for the Sisters Rodeo, they supplied stock for another 30 rodeos from Burns to Cottage Grove, from Lakeview to Clackamas County. Even after he sold his share of the company to Hunking two years later, he continued to work for Sombrero.

"For several years, we were the rodeo association, the stock contractors and the whole thing," Rollins said. "Several times, after the rodeo, we had to go out and recruit new members just to have the enough finances to pay the bills."

Rollins helped with the move of the Sisters Rodeo from the old site in the present-day Sisters Industrial Park to two different sites east of Sisters. Three years later, the association purchased the current site.

On one of those temporary moves, a new member of the association suggested that they should seek a permit to hold the rodeo. Rollins and others were opposed to that since they hadn't applied before, but the permit application was submitted.

"That process created opposition from some local residents concerned about the noise, the traffic and the dust. Four public hearings were held and the future looked bleak," Rollins said.

At the last hearing, Rollins stood up and stated that this was a transition year to keep the rodeo alive and it would not be permanent at the location. He added that maybe those opposed to the dust, horses, and noise should move back to Portland.

"The association got the permit and paid $1,800 for legal fees," Rollins said. "I later asked what the fine would have been for having the rodeo without a permit and got an answer of $250."

Rollins and his wife Margie enjoyed the years in Sisters where they raised their four daughters and a son. He stayed active in horse-trading as well as buying and restoring firearms. He sold Jim Cheatham most of the firearms still on display at The Gallery Restaurant. He also got well acquainted with the late Western artist Ray Eyerly, taking him on roundups of Sombrero horses in the Grandview area north of Sisters to find scenes for Eyerly to paint.

Rich appears in five of Eyerly's paintings, including one with his wife.

After 24 years living in Sisters and participating in the Sisters Rodeo, the Rollins moved to Redmond in 1985 before settling on acreage just east of Terrebonne.