PHILLIPSBURG – A horsepower of another kind will roar into the Phillipsburg rodeo arena July 31 to Aug. 2.
Meet Cowboy Kenny and his Steel Rodeo Tour. Kenny Bartram rides into the arena on a dirt bike and loves to thrill crowds with his freestyle motocross.
Kenny and his fellow dirt bike riders will do tricks, ranging from the can-can to the kiss of death to the cliffhanger and the dead body. They love entertaining at rodeos, and will ride their dirt bikes following each night of Kansas’ Biggest Rodeo.
Kenny, from Stillwater, Okla., grew up around horses and horse shows and listens only to country music. He wears a cowboy hat as he rides, and that sets him apart from the other dirt bike riders.
“I grew up with nothing but country (music),” he said. “Most of freestyle is not country. Between being from Oklahoma and the music, the cowboy hat stuck.”
Kenny took his freestyle motocross act to rodeo in 2004 and formed his own company, Steel Rodeo Tour, in 2010. He’s worked the PBR Finals five times, and now does rodeos only.
He loves the rodeo fans.
“It doesn’t seem to matter what rodeo we go to, or where we are, everybody is so genuine, down to earth, and appreciates what we do,” he said. “In the rodeo world, when I jump the ramp, everybody’s blown away. And to do tricks off it, it’s like they’ve never seen it before.”
In Phillipsburg, he’ll bring a trick that is only done by a few people in the world: doing a backflip on an ATV.
Riding dirt bikes and doing freestyle is crazy to normal folks, but to Kenny, it’s not as crazy as riding bulls. He draws the comparison: “If you told me, in eight seconds, I was going to crash, even if I landed the trick, and then my bike would get up and chase me down, like a bull, that’s the difference between bull riding and dirt bikes. I can pull on the clutch and stop.”
See Cowboy Kenny and the Steel Rodeo tour each night of Kansas’ Biggest Rodeo in Phillipsburg July 31-August 1-2. Performances begin at 8 pm each night. Tickets are $15 for reserved adult seating and $11 for reserved child seating, and general admission tickets are $13 for adults and $10 for children. To purchase tickets, call Heritage Insurance at (785) 543-2448. For more information, visit the rodeo’s website at KansasBiggestRodeo.com or, on Facebook, search for “ksbiggestrodeo.”