The Big Bend Ranch Rodeo provides an opportunity for working cowboys to show real cowboy skills and at the same time celebrate our ranching heritage and create exposure for a unique American lifestyle. In order to participate, each contestant must demonstrate he or she is a working ranch cowhand. The funds raised all go toward scholarships and assistance for students attending Sul Ross State University, School of Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, with an emphasis on supporting the rodeo team. After all, college rodeo started here.

The Big Bend Ranch Rodeo is a sanctioned rodeo by the Working Ranch Cowboy Association. The Working Ranch Cowboy Association is an organization committed to promoting and show casing the skills of those cowboys who still make their living with cattle. It also puts on the World Championship Ranch Rodeo in Amarillo every fall by taking the champion teams from each sanctioned rodeo. The WRCA promotes many good causes, manages its own scholarship program and provides financial support for cowboys and families going through hard times. We are proud to be affiliated with them.

A partner event to the BBRR, a chuckwagon cookoff, is conducted yearly where cooks and wagons compete against each other to see who can cook the most authentic camp food, over an open fire or with coals in cast iron skillets and Dutch ovens. We invite everyone to taste the fare on Saturday afternoon before the rodeo. Other events to complete the weekend include a Ranch Horse Association of America competition and a Ranch Horse Cutting competition. The Big Bend Ranch Rodeo is held the second Friday and Saturday of August every year and we are already in the process of planning the next show.