2009 Northwest Regional Locate Rodeo
This year’s event went very well thanks to the hard work of all Rodeo Committee members and volunteers. We were challenged this year by a reduced budget, but still managed to get everything covered. Again, we were thankful to have Paul Larkin, with Staking University, who came back for his 2nd tour of duty and put on our Locate Seminar. We had 40 people pre-register for the Locate Seminar and ended up with over 45 in attendance and 5 vendors. We again heard nothing but great things about the class. I heard from a manager that after his employee finished the class he went back to his office, grabbed his locator and ran out the door to show some of the new techniques he had just learned in the seminar.

We had 30 competitors for the competition from all over the Northwest. New faces mixed with familiar ones. We decided to change things up this year by having our Award Ceremony directly following the competition. By doing this we did not have the 4 hours of down time between the completion of the event and the start of the Awards Ceremony/Banquet Dinner. All in all, it took 5 hours from start to finish.

This was my last year as Chairman of this great event, but please know that I will still be around to help out and see old friends as well as make new ones in years to come. This event has really shown me that it is more than just about the prize money; it is about creating a network of comrades that you can call if you need anything. I look forward to seeing any future events.

Jamie Stencil, Chair
NW Regional Utility Locate Rodeo - 2005 – 2009