Once a year there lies on the calendar the longest week. It’s not officially named that, but to those that have the pleasure of enduring it, know this to be the law. It’s Round-Up week in a northeastern Oregon town of Pendleton. It just so happens that one of our paper’s, the East Oregonian, call this rustic town home.
We were knee-deep in the smells and sights of a good ol’ rodeo. From Indian horse races, to saddle bronc, to Main Street and carnival festivities, to world-record making parades of horses, Native American pageantry and dance and not to mention we sported the look. Yes, complete attire of cowboy hat, button-down collar shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. We all put long hours, retired to our hotel rooms caked with dirt, sweat and exhaustion.
I will through in the side note, that I truly believe that when in comes to the Round-Up, I am a jinxed individual. This is the third year in a row that my back has gone out right before Round-Up. Last year, I had to miss the festivities as I was under the knife instead getting my back operated on. This year was no different. We left on Monday, back went out just prior on Saturday.
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Through some mis-adventures at the Wendy’s restaurant the first night in town, that we were seriously thinking we needed to go straight to urgent care and get a round of antibiotics after eating there, to the grumpy old couple that nagged and waved their fist at us for setting up our camera to the right side of them to shoot the Westward Ho! Parade and we were blocking their view of the street which they were sitting on the curb, to catching on film the true spirit of the famous Let’er Buck phrase on Main Street Friday night, just to name a few.
I will admit a pretty miserable week, where my stubborness had the better of me and I pushed myself too hard. Which landed me the opportunity to sit in my hotel room during the championships and edit video on Saturday, instead of partaking. I was never so happy for Sunday to come when we were able to leave.
This year was the centennial celebration for the Pendleton Round-Up. So we had to go big. We brought on board four freelance photographers (Joe Duty, Cody Duty, Joe Tierney and Hollis Officer) from around the nation, two multimedia members from Astoria, two interns, an IT person, a couple more to help with a post-round-up book and the many talented staff members of the East Oregonian to pull off some pretty amazing coverage for a small newspaper company.
Here’s a list of what we put together:
- Special Round-Up section on the website
- Thousands of photos
- Great audio pieces
- 25+ videos
- A Facebook page specifically for our coverage
- Twitter account specifically for our coverage
- A magazine “Untold Stories of the Pendleton Round-Up“
- Two books
