Nothing Like A Night At The County Fair
- By Kris Bagley
Sports offer a great experience for anyone eager to cheer on intense competition, but one area sport tends to offer a little more - rodeo. A favorite pastime of many around El Campo, rodeo requires family involvement and strict commitments from any participants. The sport has a large amount of fans as well, but the biggest supporters are behind the scenes working and cheering just the same.

"I think everybody has their part in it," Shay Goudeau, an avid barrel racer and 1991 El Campo High School graduate, said. "You can go for two or three days and visit with the other families and everybody has something to do. It's not like some of them sit in the stands all day and cheer for a baseball game. There's always something to do," she said.

"Somebody needs to help one kid with this or the other kid with that or get the horses fed or get them saddled. Everybody is involved all the time, it's not just a one-man team. It takes a whole family to get it done."

Goudeau's favorite place to look for upcoming events is on the Web at www.ebarrelracing. com. Another place to look for area rodeos is www.texasyouthrodeo.com. Though the Web sites offer several dates of rodeos throughout the El Campo area, Goudeau suggests checking the Wharton County Youth Fair arena on the weekend, or simply go out for a tour of the country.

"If you drive around out in the country in El Campo, there's arenas all over the place," Goudeau said.

"A lot of people probably have never recognized that, but if you look around, you see them everywhere. At night especially, you'll see the lights on most of the time."