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Cheyenne Frontier Days, the annual rodeo held in Wyoming’s capital city, has been canceled for the first time in more than a century due to the coronavirus pandemic, officials announced Wednesday.
Event organizers said the risk of spreading the virus is too great for the more than 140,000 people who visit Cheyenne for Frontier Days over the last two weeks in July, Mayor Marian Orr said.
"What this pandemic means is we just can't come together," Orr said. "We really have to stay apart so we can come together again sooner rather than later. It's clear that we just aren't going to be ready for this."
FILE: Shane Hanchey, of Sulphur, La., takes a lap and acknowledges the crowd after winning the tie-down roping event during Championship Sunday of the 122nd annual Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo at Frontier Park Arena in Cheyenne, Wyo. (The Wyoming Tribune Eagle via AP)
Frontier Days pumps up to $28 million into the Cheyenne-area economy. Some shops get by largely on those two weeks out of the year when their business booms.
"One of the things that's worried us most is the psyche of our businesses. Them just staying with it. This is just another hit. It's going to have a huge impact on us. It is our identity," Cheyenne Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Dale Steenbergen said.
The event took place through both world wars and the Great Depression, when tough finances prompted it to become a mostly volunteer-run event. To this day, a small army of local volunteers runs the Western heritage festival of rodeo, music concerts, carnival rides, parades and downtown pancake breakfasts that feed thousands of people at a time.
Bars all over Cheyenne are typically standing-room-only during Frontier Days, as people try line dancing and mechanical bull-riding.
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"We worked hard as a group, brainstorming and trying to come up with solutions," Frontier Days President and CEO Tom Hirsig said in a news conference with Gov. Mark Gordon. "One of the worst things we could do would be to cause our state to go backward in the recovery process."
Wyoming, the least-populated state, has had relatively few coronavirus cases and only 14 deaths. Gordon has gradually lifted restrictions on businesses, allowing people to go to bars and dine in restaurants.
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Tourism is Wyoming's second-biggest industry after coal mining and other fossil fuel extraction. But recent surges of the virus in the cities of Casper and Laramie have worried health officials that some residents may not be taking social distancing seriously.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
