NHSFR will return to Sweetwater County

The National High School Finals Rodeo will make its way back to Rock Springs and Green River in the years 2018 and 2019. The recent rodeo was the last year scheduled for the National High School Finals Rodeo in Sweetwater County and will be in Gillette for the next two years. A bid was placed on the rodeo to decide where it would be hosted after Gillette. Sunday, the NHSFR board of directors voted for the rodeo to return Rock Springs.

"I'm excited for them to come back, we just have to work the details out," Larry Lloyd, director of the Sweetwater County Events Complex said.

Within the next three months, the events complex will be working through details of the contract with the NHSFR to finalize and consolidate plans for the return of the rodeo to Sweetwater County.

"It's been a good run over the last four years," Lloyd said. "They bring a lot of money to Sweetwater County. Overall, it's a good event for our part of the country, it's good for Rock Springs and Green River."

Economic Impact

"Typically, every year, it's about an $8 million impact that comes into our community," Dave Hanks, CEO of the Rock Springs Chamber of Commerce, said.

To grasp the scope of the event, take a look at a few of the numbers from the event. It is estimated there are just more than 1,600 competitors who participated in the rodeo and just more than 1,700 animals there. There were an estimated 8,000-10,000 people, excluding competitors, in the community for the event, including contestant's families, people to see the rodeo, and vendors. Between $500,000 to $750,000 is estimated to be spent on food and supplies for the animals in the competition alone. That doesn't include money spent in the community by the people in town for the event either.

The additional sales tax brought in by people spending money in the community is exponential.

"It's always nice to inject another $8 million into the community," Hanks said. "I would hate to see what the sales tax revenue would be if we didn't have the rodeo."

The rodeo helps to off set the decline in sales tax revenue within Sweetwater County.

"Anything you can do to capture more sales tax, the better off it is for all of the towns in that community," Hanks said. "Personally, I believe this rodeo has been one of the best events we could've recruited here."

Restaurants are fully staffed and busy daily through out the week, grocery stores are busy, fully staffed with high traffic volume, hotels in Rock Springs and Green River are booked full, as well as the KOA and 1,300 campsites on the Sweetwater Events Complex property. The Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the Green River were frequented during the week as well.

The Green River Chamber of Commerce gave away 50 fishing poles and goodie bags with Green River restaurant information, T-shirts and other goodies, at the shooting competition hosted in Green River, to promote the City of Green River and it's facilities.

Overall, 126 participants were the competition, plus their families made about 400 to 500 people in Green River for the week.

"Anytime that many people are here definitely makes a huge impact. It definitely helps Green River," Rebecca Eusek, director of the Green River Chamber of Commerce said. "The business tax money that brings here is going to benefit the community as a whole."

The fact that the event has been hosted in Rock Springs for the past four years and has now been voted to come back for another two years, shows the community can absorb the event and the number of people it brings in not only successfully, but well.

"That speaks very well to the events complex and our community, that they want to come back here again," Eusek said. "It's definitely a good thing. Any events that we can bring here would be great."