"I was shocked at the amount of people that showed up Thursday," said Shirley Schollenberg, long-time rodeo organizer. "The fairgrounds were packed."

Jeans-wearing, boot-kicking, hat-tossing cowboys and cowgirls of all ages kept the entertainment flowing, with rodeo clown Dill Pickle filling temporary lulls in the action. What the crowd saw was much more than the familiar faces of Kenai Peninsula contestants. This year's 89 entrants included an impressive scattering of out-of-towners. Among them were representatives from Kodiak's rodeo. Visiting Alaska on his honeymoon, David Moomow of Dallas, Texas, read about the Ninilchik Rodeo on the Kenai Peninsula Fair Web site and decided to stop by. Traveling north from Illinois, Chuck Gericke also threw his hat in the arena.

New to the sponsor list this year was Inlet View Construction, owned by Paul and Sue Simonds of Ninilchik. They joined other sponsors Clam Shell Lodge of Clam Gulch, Ninilchik Native Association Inc., Chinook Tesoro of Ninilchik and the Anchor Point Greenhouse.

The age of this year's contestants caught the attention of Schollenberg, leaving her wondering if it was just the year or a sign of things to come.

"This year the 0-10 age group participants were way down," Schollenberg said. "I don't know what that means for the coming years. I've been in this long enough to know it's a cyclical thing, but horses and rodeos are extra things that are definitely tied to the economy. Although our contestant rate was up, the young age groups were really suffering this year."

Lacking many competitors in her age group didn't slow down Kaytee Jo Hackett, 4, of Soldotna. Kaytee Jo took to the calf riding competition like her mom, Chelsey, has been known to tackle bull riding. Kaytee Jo's dad, Scooter, also was in the thick of the action over the weekend, teaming with Chelsey in ribbon roping, and working with other partners for team roping and double mugging.

Some rodeo events, namely the Saturday night dance and a split-the-pot, raised financial support for seven members of the Alaska High School Rodeo Association traveling July 19 to national competition in Farmington, N. M.

"We did an excellent job, ending up with $700 for the high school association," said Lara McGinnis, manager of the Kenai Peninsula State Fair. The rodeo is held at the rodeo arena on the fairgrounds.

Prizes were awarded for first, second and third place by age group 0-10, 11-16 and senior. The 2008 Ninilchik Family Style Rodeo all-around champion awards went to:

* All around cowboy, 0-10: Dalton McWhorter of Soldotna;

* All around cowgirl, 0-10: No one qualified;

* All around cowboy, 11-16: Bill Ashwell, Soldotna;

* All around cowgirl, 11-16: Jenna Mahoney, Homer;

* All around cowboy, senior: Scooter Hackett, Soldotna;

* All around cowgirl, senior: Melissa Fowler, Soldotna.

McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.