Qualls named Weiser Valley Roundup Grand Marshal

 Still an Elks member at the time, for a few years Qualls got several members from the civic organization involved with the rodeo, as well.

 “We got the Angel Wings Network to help out, too,” he said. “We needed someone to help park cars and sell tickets at the gate, and Angel Wings took on the ticket sales part of it.”

 Talking about that brought up reminiscences of Weiser’s Hells Canyon Rodeo of the 1950s and 1960s, with some of Qualls own earliest memories attending rodeos.

 “The first time I ever went to the rodeo in Weiser it was still the Hells Canyon Rodeo and the bucking chutes, announcers booth, the roping box, everything was on the east end,” he said. “I got in free because my dad was on the sheriff’s posse and they parked cars, getting a family pass for the first night. 

 “So I got to come down from Midvale to the big Weiser rodeo,” Qualls added. “I saw the world record set in this arena in bulldogging by Harry Charters, from down at Melba. It didn’t last very long until someone broke it again, but it was a world record the night he set it. That goes back to when I was pretty small, the very early '60s, maybe the late '50s.”

 Qualls doesn’t lay any claim to having been a rodeo cowboy, although he came close to giving it a try. 

 “When I was in high school, Ralph Stephens, who was a neighbor of Phyllis’ (his wife) family out on North Crane Creek, was a rodeo stock contractor and he was trying to help some young guys get going, so he had sent a couple of bucking horses to town,” he said. “Greg Holmes and Howard Sutton, and I don’t remember who all, had a little practice pen and they were bucking horses in there. Ralph also had an arena at his place on Crane Creek and I was out there knocking around and talking to him, and he goes, ‘You ought to try bronc riding.’ And, I go, ‘I don’t know.’ And he went, ‘Yeah, you long legged sucker, why don’t you?’ 

 “Anyway, Ralph helped me get on a couple or three saddle broncs, but I didn’t have the heart or the skill at the time,” Qualls continued. “I think later on, once I figured out the science of bronc riding, I could have been pretty good at it. But, I didn’t take the opportunity when I had it, when Ralph had the horses and the place, and furnished me a saddle, and I was young and stupid, so I went and did six years in the Air Force instead.”

 Qualls said he spent two years in Korea and most of the rest of his service time in Texas. He was an electronics technician, working on ignition systems, “airborne stuff.”

 “I was in Strategic Air Command, working on B52s and KC 135s while I was in Texas, and then, in Korea I worked on F4s for two years,” he said.

 After his discharge from the military, Qualls spent several years in construction, getting in on the building boom in the Lake Tahoe Incline Village development of the late '70s and early '80s. 

 He later went to work in the City of Weiser’s water department, adding on to the two-year degree he had earned while in the Air Force with every accredited training he went to.

 “So, I wound up with a heck of a college education in environmental science,” Qualls said. “I worked on all of these water quality projects everywhere on the TMDL (total maximum daily load) on the mid-Snake, the TMDL on the Weiser River, on the groundwater quality project we did on the Weiser Flat.”

 He said the Weiser River project had taken around nine years to complete, and he had spent time testifying at both the Idaho legislature and in Washington D.C. during those years.

 “I was on the board of the Idaho Rural Water Users for six years, and got a trip to Washington D.C. to testify to a committee there and meet up with the congressional folks back there to get enough funding into the farm bill to fund a lot of the projects we identified needing done on the Weiser River,” he said. “You can identify a problem, but you can’t rely on local farmers and ranchers to pay the bill when it goes into the multiple millions of dollars. I spent almost a week in DC visiting with different folks, but we finally got it done, got some funding to come this way.”

 Qualls said when his dad served on the Cambridge Rodeo board, “I got volunteered to help with a few projects up there. And, then, Phyllis’ dad, LeRoy Grothaus, was the president of the Cambridge Rodeo Board for 10 years, and was on the board for 20.”

 Around his third year on the board, Qualls took on his first round as the president, and, in all, served in that position 12 years total at three different times.

 “Before I took the position the first time, I talked to LeRoy, picked his brain,” Qualls said. “After I was the president, I thought it was important to be involved with the Idaho Cowboys Association (ICA) because they were the sanctioning body for our rodeo. They had an opening for a board position on the ICA directors and I was there for six years.” 

 That position paid off with an ICA gold card, giving him admission to any ICA rodeo the rest of his life.

 Qualls describes the rodeo board president’s position as being 24/7, 365 days a year.

 “There’s sponsors, stock contractors, cowboys, the ICA, and all of the things you have to coordinate,” he said. “And, you don’t let something slip by and try to do it at the last minute, because it doesn’t work out. So you want to stay ahead of all of those things, and anyone who’s done this will tell you the same thing. It’s a lot more of a job than people think it is.”

 Some of the best times Qualls has had in his rodeo involvement has been through announcing at events. After promising over 60 sponsors they would be mentioned from the announcer’s booth, he helped then-announcer Hessler out by taking on that part of duties. Later, Hessler talked him into announcing the rough stock from the rodeo arena floor.

 “I loved that. So, I did that here for a couple of years,” he said. “Then Mick was announcing the Idaho City rodeo by himself, and asked me to go with him one year. I went up there, and the first year I did it for free, but they liked it. So, I got paid for going to Idaho City after that.”

 He’s announced the Junior Rodeo at Council, and the Ontario rodeo a couple of years ago, along with nine years at the Washington County Fair horse show, and is currently covering the Buckle Series Playdays held at the Fred Hust Arena, among many other community events.

 Some major accomplishments to the rodeo grounds during Qualls’ years on the board include the fully covered grandstands, as well as a new Priefert calf chute, both compliments of his skills at fundraising and negotiating.

 “Without the support of my wife through all the years of doing this, I could have never done it,” Qualls said. “We raised kids, took care of a home and a place, and without all of the support I’ve received from her, there’s no way I could have done any of this. So, she gets a lot of the credit.”