First IFYR contestant in ’93 checks in ’08 entrants

The first person many of the 906 International Finals Youth Rodeo contestants will meet when they start checking in Friday morning will be the contestant who first checked in at the IFYR in 1993.
Kristy Jones, 30-year-old seventh- and eighth-grade English teacher at Meeker Middle School, holds the distinction of being the first contestant to check in at the inaugural IFYR.
She competed in IFYR barrel racing and pole bending all four years of her Meeker High School career.
 At the first three IFYRs, in 1993, ’94 and ’95, Jones also did the American flag presentation at the opening of the 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. daily performances, charging across the arena grounds on horseback. She volunteered those first three years, too, while competing 
Today, she is chairwoman of the 20-member IFYR check-in committee that staffs the Welcome Center, the small building at the southeast edge of the Expo Center complex.
It’s first stop for the 906 contestants who this year are expected from 27 states.
Jones, her husband Brian Jones, her parents, Tom and Linda Willoughby, all of Meeker, and the other volunteer check-in committee members will work six-hour shifts around the clock from 8 a.m. Friday until 2 p.m. Sunday, when the mandatory first contestants’ meeting occurs.
This year’s IFYR gets under way at 9 a.m. Monday and runs through Saturday, July 19.
By that time, Jones will be working at the message center, another vital link in the chain of volunteer-staffed support facilities serving contestants and families, rodeo officials and Expo personnel. 
 “It’s exciting,” Jones said. “I enjoy it. Everybody interacting with the families and hearing their stories. That’s the exciting part.”
The first contestants, many in dual-wheeled pickups with out-of-state tags towing horse trailers and accompanied by family, friends or both, will start drifting in early Friday.
The pace quickens as the weekend progresses. Saturday afternoon into Saturday night is usually the busiest period, Jones said, but there is little let-up through 2 p.m. Sunday when the Welcome Center closes.
“Last year on Saturday afternoon, at times they would be lined up out onto Independence Street,” she said. “A few come in on Friday but the majority start checking in on Saturday. Some will check in late that night after they’ve competed in a rodeo (elsewhere) Saturday night.
“Sunday is a really busy day. At the very end you have a lot of traffic. You have people backed up on Sunday. They’re supposed to be checked in before the mandatory meeting.”
Officially, committee members are Welcome Center greeters. Unofficially, they note that a contestant is on the grounds.
As greeters, they welcome contestants to the rodeo, try to answer any questions they may have, issue them a parking pass to get on and off the grounds during rodeo week, hand contestants welcome bags and tell them where to go next.
“They don’t really check in before they check in with the rodeo secretary during regular hours,” Jones said.
When contestants finish checking in at the Welcome Center, “if they’re staying on grounds, we tell them to go to camping, and if they have horses, after they go to camping, they go to stalling,” she said.
“Then they go to the message center and rodeo secretary. That’s the general flow,” Jones said.
But after they check in, the committee just refers them to the next stop. “If you tell them too much, it’s too much for them,” she said. Unless it’s their fourth year or so to compete in the IFYR.
Contestants who have been there before “know what to do,” she added.
 Camping and stalling committees work 24-hour days the same as the check-in committee.
“They have a huge responsibility,” Jones said.
The long- and late-hours don’t bother her. “I usually stay there late, but there are others who come in and work throughout the night. Usually around four to six people are there at a time.
“Sometimes I stay late and have to tell myself it’s time to go home because I have to be here in the morning,” Jones said.
She drives back and forth from the home and acreage west of Meeker that she and her husband share with two dogs: Max, a schnauzer, and Tyson, a blue heeler; and their four horses, Checker, Fancy, Kid and Gunner.
 Brian Jones, a salesman for Curwood, a plastic packaging firm, grew up around horses. His family had thoroughbred race horses until recently.
He and Kristy Jones’ parents just volunteer through the weekend at the Welcome Center.
“Our committee is finished after Sunday,” Kristy Jones said. But she will move over to the message center and help out there all rodeo week. It also stays open round the clock.
She started riding when she was “really young. I just kind of grew up riding horses, then started high school rodeoing,” she said.
Jones probably began rodeoing in junior high, she said later. “It’s been quite a while.”
She started working in check-in with Paul and Ruth Ann West, of the Shawnee area, the first year after she graduated from high school. Jones became chairman of the check-in committee in 2005 but has worked on the committee every year since 1997.
 “I really enjoy being out there,” Jones said. There are so many volunteers working on the numerous committees “that make it all come together.
“Working with everyone is a lot of fun. It’s a fun week,” she said.
Sometimes in the middle of the night, contestants who are just arriving “may be a little sleepy and tired but they’re all excited to be in Shawnee.
“They’re definitely as excited as we are,” Jones said.