African American families come out in droves to get in on the fun and excitement on Black Heritage Day at the Rodeo in Houston. It's an opportunity for urban and suburban families to check out the incredible exhibit areas and to learn how modern agriculture and farming techniques are important, improving and impacting their daily lives.
There's plenty of places for shopping, dancing and music mingled in with the Kid country, AgVenture and the livestock exhibition to give us city folks a chance to see of how a variety of farm animals are bred and raised.
Houston Livestock Show:Kid Country
The area called Kid Country is where you can take your youngsters to try their hand at a variety of western style activities. It gives children a chance to experience camel rides, pony rides and for those brave enough to try it out, they can take a spin on a mechanical bull. For a another boost of our western heritage, take them on over to Reliant Center to learn about the important role farming and agriculture plays in today's society.
AgVenture Farm Exhibits
This enjoyable and educational area let's kids see, touch and smell all kinds of farm animals in the petting zoo. They have set-up very informative displays where children can learn a lot about egg hatching, bee hives and see milking demonstrations. They can even take a picture with a real Texas Longhorn to document their memorable trip to the Houston Rodeo.
Livestock Show: Exhibitions and Competition
This is the worlds largest competition for junior livestock breeders. Each year over 20,000 youth from Local 4-H and FFA chapters bring their cattle, swine, sheep, goat, and rabbits to this show to be judged. This is a serious competition and many of the top animals are sold in a auction that directly benefits the young farmers. Some of the money is used to cover the expenses incurred in raising their show animals, a lot of the young exhibitors goal is to earn money to help pay for college.
Horse Show-Amateur Horse-cutting
It's hard for urban teens to imagine the rigors of living on a farm. But, just like the cowboys before them, kids that live on farms and ranches need to have a good horse. Any old horse won't do. It has to be a quarter horse. They've been bred and trained for cutting and reining and make the best horses for working cows. The Horse Show has young cowboys and their horses competing in reining and cutting competitions.
Shopping At The Rodeo
Houston just isn't Houston without decent places to shop. The Houston Rodeo has vendors hawking their wares all over Reliant Center and and Reliant stadium. There will be merchants at the rodeo in Houston selling a phenomenal selection of products including Western duds, horse trailers and tons of unique arts and crafts.
Rodeo Party Pavilion
Folks that enjoy doing a little boot-scootin have a new venue for dancing, the Rockin’ Rodeo Party Pavilion. It's available for your corporate outing, celebrations, weddings, or birthday parties. You can get your groove on in it's climate-controlled area that's all decked out in a Western motif. It features a nice size dance floor, and outdoor area with picnic tables.
The Hideout
This favorite cowboy hangout is will be jumping every evening.Each night the Hideout will feature special musical guest. During Black Heritage Day you can get in step with the dynamic sounds of the Zydeco Boss Kieth Frank. His foot stomping music is known to bring crowds to their feet and liven up any party.
Here's the performance time for the Hideout.
open 6 p.m. to midnight, Sunday – Thursday
weekday entertainers perform at 10:15 p.m.
weekend entertainers perform at 8:30 p.m.
Houston Rodeo Concert
The Rodeo in Houston always features a concert by the top stars from R&B, Hip Hop and Jazz during Black Heritage Day. Some of the past entertainers that have dazzled the crowds at the Houston Rodeo Concert were Luther Vandross, Beyonce, and Frankie Beverly and Maze. For a complete schedule of the concerts and the performance dates of other popular African American music artist that are scheduled to perform during the rodeo check out the HLSR homepage.
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is one of the largest events that takes time to focus attention on the contributions, achievements and heritage of Black cowboys and the African American heroes in Houston and across the state of Texas. It's also an important Houston event for Black high school students, who are can compete for thousands of dollars in scholarships awarded annually by the Black Heritage Committee.
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