Cowboys from Out of State Rank Ramona

As contestants chowed down in the cowboy hospitality tent at Ramona Rodeo last weekend, Ramona Patch grabbed quick interviews between their bites of hamburgers and gulps of soda.

We wondered what they thought of Ramona's rodeo and Fred Grand Arena.

"This is a good rodeo," Paul Fields of Antelope Valley, near Palmdale, said. "They cater to the guys. There's good food." Fields said he was in Ramona two years ago as well. He and fellow tie-down roper Taylor Winters drove here.

"There's not enough parking," Winters said.

"But that's the way it is at all rodeos," Fields countered. "So many people come."

Brock Burns and and Boedie Evans drove from southeast Idaho to compete in bull riding.

"It's really nice here," Burns said. "It's so green."

Jerry Honeycutt of Honeycutt Rodeo, Inc., the livestock contractor for Ramona Rodeo, said he drove 1,183 miles from Alamosa, CO. He has been coming for 23 years.

"I enjoy the people, the park and the beautiful weather," Honeycutt said.

"My grandfather started rodeo in 1942, and my dad competed and provided livestock. My brothers compete. It gets in your blood."

Honeycutt said his dad, Roy, rode and competed with Casey Tibbs all over the country.

"Dad says Casey got him in trouble a lot," he said, with a chuckle.

Tibbs was a world champion rodeo cowboy who lived in Ramona. The western center in San Diego Country Estates is named after him.