PENDLETON — If it hadn’t been canceled, the 2020 Pendleton Round-Up would have looked very different.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forced the Round-Up Association to cancel its rodeo for the first time in nearly 80 years, but even if there was no virus, Round-Up Publicity Director Pat Reay said the rodeo would still need to contend with the wildfire smoke that’s turned Pendleton’s air quality toxic over the past week.

These are the kind of “conundrums” Reay and the rest of the Round-Up Board of Directors have been dealing with this year. But as recently as June, the Round-Up was still lobbying the governor’s office to Let ‘Er Buck in 2020.

In May, Gov. Kate Brown announced that organizers for large events would need to either cancel them or seriously alter them to meet her social distancing rules. While several events were quick to cancel or postpone their 2020 plans, the Round-Up stayed relatively quiet.

Round-Up and Happy Canyon wouldn’t pull the plug on 2020 until July, citing COVID-19. But the groups had been talking with the state for months behind the scenes before making their decision, even going as far to submit an operational plan.

The East Oregonian obtained emails and documents related to the decision in addition to holding interviews with Brown and the Round-Up to get more on the historic cancellation.

The plan

The Round-Up and the governor’s office had met on multiple occasions by the time the state received “Pendleton Round-Up & Happy Canyon Operational Guidance Post COVID-19” on June 7.

The operational plan spelled out the health precautions and procedures the organizations would employ to keep the events going in 2020. On a page entitled “Four Stage Focus,” the Round-Up and Happy Canyon explained their priorities, much of which revolved around the potential economic pain from a canceled event.

“Phone calls received by the Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon Administrative Offices from community business owners asking if our events will be conducted have conveyed that if we are not able to hold our events; with visitors to the community, they will not be able continue their operations,” the document states. “The fiscal welfare of our community is at stake. The economic impact of the September Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon events have to the region has been estimated above $50 million.”

Even the priority called “Protect the health” includes a line about how addressing health shouldn’t just be confined to COVID-19, but also the mental health effects of “lost revenue, reduced opportunities, and uncertainty for the future.”

The Round-Up also provided a schedule of the week’s events, with the only thing “tentatively canceled” being the kick-off concert. That meant rodeos, Happy Canyon shows, pageants, parades, breakfasts and more were still on.

According to the operational guide, all rodeo attendees would have their temperatures taken before entering the Round-Up Grounds. If a visitor’s temperature ran high, they would be directed to a second area where, after they were “cooled and rested,” would have their temperature taken again, a process the Round-Up believed would weed out “false positive testing results.”

Contact tracing could be conducted through the Round-Up’s ticketing system, a process the association said was made easier by the fact that 82% of tickets are sold within a 200-mile radius of Pendleton.

The rest of the plan details the Round-Up’s new procedures. The group would install sanitation stations around the premises, some employees and volunteers would wear face masks and personal protective equipment, and social distancing would be encouraged at every event. Organizers also planned to prohibit handouts like candy at Round-Up parades and ban the vendors that usually set up along the parade routes.

There was no mention of a face mask requirement for audience members in the operational guide, but, Reay said, the Round-Up and Happy Canyon didn’t get far enough into the process to discuss that prospect before deciding to cancel the event.

The guide was submitted before Brown tightened face covering rules and the summer surge in coronavirus in Umatilla County that put the county on a state watchlist and sent it down to baseline restrictions, a position from which the county only recently recovered.

The decision

An early sign that the Round-Up’s operational plan might not pass muster with the state came from state Chief Operating Officer Katy Coba, a Pendleton native and the daughter of Mike Thorne, a former state senator and Round-Up director.

Coba forwarded the Round-Up’s plan to Brown and some of her staff, but also added that they planned to hold a full-attendance event.

“I have indicated to them that based on all the input we have received from the governor’s medical advisory panel as well as agency experts, a full attendance rodeo this fall will not work,” she wrote.

The email conversation over the Round-Up went dark in the governor’s office until July 11, when Coba emailed Brown again with an advance copy of the press release announcing the Round-Up’s cancellation. Round-Up and Happy Canyon would instead spend the time pivoting to Let ‘Er Buck Cares, an initiative to raise money for the organizations and businesses that rely on the Round-Up for revenue.

“Terribly disappointing and so sad,” Brown responded.

Some aides argued that the announcement made the governor “the community bad guy.”

Thomas Wheatley, a longtime Brown outside political consultant who was temporarily working in the governor’s office while another top aide was on leave, laid out in a June 18 email the governor’s options on how to react.

“Agree this sends mixed messages,” Wheatley wrote. “I don’t know enough of the background to understand if that is their intention. If they are trying to convey that they have made a prudent, though difficult, decision to cancel in order to protect public health, then they should revise the letter. If their feelings are more mixed and they feel they should have been allowed to proceed despite the significant risks to public health, then I think this letter makes more sense.”

Reay said it was a “collective decision” to cancel the Round-Up, declining to attribute the development to either side.

Curtailing or completely eliminating the Round-Up’s live audience was a line the board of directors didn’t want to cross, Reay said, and once they realized an audience wasn’t possible, the event was canceled.

“I don’t believe that was an option,” he said.

As statewide COVID-19 infection rates fell amid the spring shutdown, hopes were raised that some “normal” parts of life could return. Children could attend schools in the fall, short vacations might be possible, college football was given the green light to start practicing, and supporters of the Pendleton Round-Up hoped that the event could go off close to something as usual. But throughout the optimism, the state kept a cap on activities.

The default answer to events was “no” and it was only if things improved there could be a “yes.” The Pac-12 released its fall football schedule with games in Eugene and Corvallis. But without the approval of state public health officials and Brown, they wouldn’t be played. Games weren’t “canceled,” they never had the OK in the first place.

Dean Sidelinger, the state’s top infectious disease expert, said the problem with large gatherings like the Pendleton Round-Up or college football games is that they bring people from a distance, group them together, then they go back home, possibly spreading infection. It’s not just the event itself, but all of the side activities — meetings, parties, and visits — during something like the Pendleton Round-Up that is worrisome.

“We know that some of these activities they seem safer, they gather people outside for a football game, for the rodeo, but they come with a lot of association,” Sidelinger said. “People getting together to eat, to socialize in smaller small-knit groups … bring additional risks. We look forward … to some semblance of normal but this summer, fall and winter isn’t the time for that.”

For her part, Brown sent some sympathy Pendleton’s way.

“I know this is really, really hard,” Brown said in an interview with the EO Media Group. “I know many of us enjoy going to the Pendleton Round-Up. Honestly, it’s been some of my favorite times and some of my favorite memories in Oregon. So I know that this is really, really hard.”

The future

As soon as the Round-Up canceled its 2020 plans, it set its sights on 2021. But health experts offer no guarantee for a return to large events next year.

Dr. Melissa Sutton, medical director of respiratory viral pathogens for the Oregon Health Authority, said the virus and Oregonians’ efforts will decide when it is safe to hold something like the Pendleton Round-Up again.

“It is difficult to predict where Oregon, or the nation, will be in response to the COVID-19 pandemic next year, and consequently quite hard to predict the future of large events next summer or fall,” she said.

Sutton cautioned that Oregonians will have to sustain COVID-19 suppression methods “until there is a safe, effective, and widely administered vaccine.”

These steps include enhanced hygiene, social distancing, wearing face coverings — “and avoiding large gatherings.”

Often, state and federal signals on COVID-19 have been mixed. Signals within the political and public health portions of the federal government have also shifted and shifted again.

President Donald Trump said the country is making its “final turn” toward being COVID-19-free.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported hopeful trends on Wednesday, Sept. 16. New infections have fallen by nearly half since a spike after Memorial Day. Over the same period, the number of patients in intensive care units is down 62%, while deaths have fallen 33%.

But Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health for HHS, said the virus could rebound during the upcoming flu season and as cold weather pushed people indoors. Americans must continue to wear masks and practice social distancing.

“Let me say emphatically that these gains could be fleeting or even reversed if we do not continue to follow the national plan and exercise personal responsibility,” he said.

During a September press conference, Brown singled out Umatilla County as a place where the march of 2020 disasters has been especially “unfair.”

In February, Northeast Oregon was hit with severe storms, flooding and mudslides that caused Umatilla, Union and Wallowa counties, along with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, to be declared federal disaster areas.

By March, COVID-19 was spreading into the state and would spike, but it would spike in Umatilla County in July and early August.

In September, as COVID-19 numbers improved, the area was blanketed by hazardous smoke from fires in Western and Central Oregon.

For Pendleton Round-Up organizers and fans, and the future of the 2021 event, the clock is already ticking.

A new vaccine could be approved as early as the end of this year. But it will take another six to nine months for the medical system to ramp up so that enough Americans are immunized to give Pendleton Round-Up organizers — and state officials — enough confidence that the gathering won’t be a superspreader event.

The Round-Up wasn’t able to carry it’s traditions in 2020, but Reay said the directors didn’t want to sacrifice the century-old practices that make the rodeo unique just to log another year in the books.

“It needed to be done in the traditional way,” he said.