Everywhere, golf carts are buzzing around, carrying grounds-keepers and volunteer workers. Whoosh! A 25-ton off-road Volvo articulated hauler zips past us, hauling sawdust for livestock bedding. At the office, people crowd around Greg Golightly, managing director of the Buildings and Grounds Department, pressing him with questions and requests.

This is Reliant Park in Houston. We’re in the midst of preparations for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the world’s largest rodeo and the third-largest fair or festival in North America. The date is February 20, just 11 days before the Show opens its March 3-22 run.

This is a truly unique international event. General attendance at the 2008 Show was more than 1.8 million persons. More than 2,000 foreign visitors came to Houston from 84 countries. And last year the Show exported $1.5 million worth of breeding stock to overseas countries. With 30,258 livestock competitors and horse show entries last year, the Houston Livestock Show is the world’s largest such event.

But the Show is not just about horses and livestock. Nationally acclaimed musical artists perform every night during the Show and Rodeo. Top names include the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts, Reba McEntire, ZZ Top and many more. There’s a huge carnival. And a petting zoo. A series of art exhibits, a Texas-sized food court, a shopping mall and much, much more.

It all takes place in Reliant Park, the site of Reliant Stadium, Reliant Center, the Reliant Astrodome, and the Reliant Arena. The park is a vast complex of buildings and tents that house six indoor arenas in addition to the main stadium, a retractable-roofed building that is home to the Houston Texans pro football team.

What makes the preparation task so daunting is that the stadium, the six arenas, and thousands of pens, stalls, and corridors all have concrete floors. Every surface must be covered with clay, sand, a combination of clay and sand, topsoil, or sawdust and wood shavings. Every time one group of livestock, say the goats, moves out of an area, it must be cleaned to prepare for the next round of animals, which could be hogs, chickens, or sheep.

It’s in the preparation and during the show for cleanup that Volvo Construction Equipment can help. For many years, ROMCO, one of the company’s Texas-area dealers, has supplied the Show with Volvo articulated haulers for hauling clay, sand, sawdust and wood shavings for bedding. And for the first time this year, Volvo Construction Equipment and Services is contributing a Volvo MC90B skid steer loader, a Volvo L25B compact wheel loader, and a Volvo BL70 backhoe loader.

Articulated trucks save time
We visited Reliant Park at the peak of preparations for the Show. Two Volvo articulated haulers, a Volvo A25D and a Volvo A25E, were hauling sawdust about a half mile from a stockpile to a point near the Reliant Center. Traveling between 30 and 40 miles per hour, the big haulers fairly dominated the concrete roadways around Reliant Park.

We caught up with the Volvo A25D operator, Jesse Gallegos, as he was making his rounds. “It’s a smooth, fast truck that really makes our job easier,” says Gallegos. “And I really like the stereo system.”

Peter Shaw operates the Volvo A25E articulated dump truck, hauling sawdust to the stockpile at Reliant Center. “I’m running nearly 40 miles per hour and this machine is smooth as silk,” says Shaw. “And it has excellent power and maneuverability.”

For 16 years, Archie Peterson, a ROMCO sales representative, has been a member of the Show’s Equipment Acquisition Committee. Years ago, Peterson tells us, the Show used on-road tandem-axle trucks to haul all of the required clay, sand and topsoil into the arenas and grounds.

“I proposed using articulated dump trucks instead of tandem-axle trucks,” says Peterson. “I figured the artic haulers would be faster. But show management was hesitant to use them, because they thought the tires would tear up the pavement.

“We did calculations to show that the big tires’ loads per square inch would not exceed the limit of the concrete pavement,” says Peterson. “So I brought one artic hauler to the grounds, to show that it would not tear up the pavement – and the next day they sent all the on-road trucks home.”

That was huge for Show management, because the Show is a non-profit charity event, and the on-road trucks were paid by the load. So because ROMCO donated the Volvo artic haulers, it saved the Show considerable money. “We cut the time to haul dirt to the Astrodome from two weeks to three days,” says Peterson.

Compact loader a hit
Like the big artic haulers, the Volvo L25B compact loader is proving to be a smash hit at the Show as well. “We’ve got that baby loader in use everyplace on these grounds,” says Golightly. “Everybody wants to use it. That loader is a Godsend.”

When we visited, operator Mike Shively was using the Volvo L25B to fill some large planters with dirt. “The loader is very smooth,” Shively told us. “It maneuvers very nicely – gets me into tight places, and even some places I shouldn’t be into,” he jokes. “The cab is very comfortable, and the hand controls are nice. I like them.”

The Volvo loader is especially handy, Shively said, to get into and around the animal stalls, which are tight quarters. Both the Volvo L25B loader and the Volvo MC90B skid steer loader distribute sawdust and bedding materials to the pens and stalls used at Reliant Park.

“With that Volvo L25B compact loader I can drive right inside of a 40-yard roll-off container trailer to get shavings for the petting zoo,” says Shively. “We use the loader in the birthing center where we have cows and hogs, and we put fresh shavings in the petting zoo every morning. And we use the loader in the horse arena, to spread and handle sand.”

The Volvo MC90B skid steer loader is used for many of the same tasks as the Volvo L25B compact loader. The skid steer loader can squeeze into the tight pens and stalls to spread bedding material – and it can just as easily clean them out, saving untold manual labor. The Volvo BL70 backhoe loader is used to move materials throughout the site as needed.

Mike Strittmatter, Product Manager, Compact Equipment, Volvo Construction Equipment, is on the Show’s Equipment Acquisition Committee this year for the first time. Both he and Peterson are enthusiastic about the exposure given to Volvo Construction Equipment both prior to, and during the show. Equipment operators come from ranches and local contractors, from volunteer workers, and from Show staff. “A lot of people are operating this Volvo equipment for the first time, and they’re finding that they like it,” says Strittmatter.

“This show has more than 20,000 volunteers,” says Peterson. “Every time you shake a hand here, it’s a potential customer.”

It’s about the scholarships

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a charity that benefits the youth of Texas. Since the show began in 1932, the Show has contributed more than $235 million to scholarships, research, endowments, calf scramble participants, junior show exhibitors, the Rodeo Institute for Teacher Excellence, School Art participants, and other educational and youth programs. Currently, 1,934 students are attending 88 different Texas colleges and universities on Show scholarships valued at nearly $24.8 million.

Since the inception of its scholarship program in 1957, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has committed more than $130 million in direct educational support to the youth of Texas. More than 300,000 young amateur artists participated in the School Art program in 2008, submitting projects based on Western culture, heritage and history.

Michael Strittmatter, compact equipment product manager for Volvo Construction Equipment, says Show management keeps ticket prices low so that the average family can attend the rodeo and a concert. On Value Day Wednesday, for example, $10 buys a rodeo ticket. “The Show and Rodeo sell more tickets than the Houston Astros baseball team draws in their entire 81-game home season,” says Strittmatter.

The economic impact on the Houston area is large indeed. Rodeo competitors, visitors, livestock show contestants, vendors and others have direct expenditures in excess of $220 million annually. When economic multipliers are applied, the financial impact of the Show is nearly $345 million.

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