I’ve fully embraced the country lifestyle since moving to Santa Ynez, so it bordered on embarrassing to admit I’d never actually attended a rodeo. I was determined to remedy that when Old Santa Ynez Days Rodeo was on the horizon this year and rallied a group of girlfriends to come up from Los Angeles for the weekend to partake in my adorable small town’s biggest celebration of the year.
While Old Santa Ynez Days weekend has been a community tradition for 60 years, the rodeo is a more recent addition to the event lineup. This was the fifth annual Old Santa Ynez Days Rodeo and the biggest yet. The rodeo was started by a local cowboy, Ralph Lausten, in 2018. He brought his friend Kevin Murphy, owner of KJ Murphy’s hat shop, into the fold, and Murphy now serves as president of the rodeo’s beneficiary nonprofit organization, Santa Ynez Valley Western Heritage Foundation ( syvwhf.org ).
“The mission of our foundation is to provide education for the youth here in the Santa Ynez Valley in relation to agriculture and ranching,” Murphy explained. The rodeo is the primary annual fundraiser that allows them to channel resources into Santa Ynez High School’s agriculture programs. As the rodeo has grown, the foundation has helped underwrite facility improvements, started an annual Ag Day, and supported field trips. “We provided a plan for the ag department and with our presence, they were able to get a third teacher for the 2023-2024 school year, enabling them to enroll [more] students,” Murphy shared. The foundation has also donated to childhood cancer initiatives.