Kelly Maher-Wolfensperger has just a few rules for the annual Ham and Jam party that happens in Hulett each year, when 30,000 or so bikes roll into town for a free pork sandwich and the fixings from Captain Ron’s Rodeo Bar.
“We do not mince, muddle, or blend,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “And we have no carbless and we have no Twisted Tea — so don’t ask.”
Her no-nonsense rules mean the bar doesn’t make Old Fashioneds, mojitos, or mules during the weeks of the Sturgis rally.
“I’ve got people coming in here asking me for Chardonnay,” Wolfensperger added with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘What about this says we have wine?’ I mean, yeah, we have some really bad Cab, but this is not a wine bar.”
What she can make, besides the best Bloody Mary on the Hulett side of Sturgis, is a scene.
“I live for chaos,” she said, spreading her arms wide to take in a classic small-town dive bar scene that is about to host hundreds of guests. “I’m born and ready for it. I’m an Aries, so, hell yeah, I’m ready for it.”
Sleep, coffee, ibuprofen and DripDrop — not necessarily in that order — are what she relies on to get her through August and the Sturgis Rally week.
“My daughter is a dietician for a Big Ten football team and that’s what they use to keep their football players hydrated,” she said.
With that, and 10 cute outfits complete with colorful boots, she’s ready — and rarin' — to go.
A 21-Day ‘One-Day’ Party
Wolfensperger and the town spend months preparing for the Ham and Jam.
“I think you start planning next year like the day it’s going on,” Tom Coronato told Cowboy State Daily. He is a co-owner of the Ponderosa Cafe. “I’m already planning for how I do it differently next year, because it’s not a one-day event. I mean Ham and Jam is one day, but if you prepare for one day you get one day. So we prepare for 21 days, because that’s when business is up in the Black Hills.”
The community works together on the broader logistics of drawing thousands of bikers. That includes a row of porta potties, as well as road crew and traffic crews, who keep the bikers going in the right direction and ensure cars aren’t driving into the middle of the Ham and Jam.
“The mayor and the town council will do the budgets in advance, in anticipation of how many porta potties they need,” Coronato said. “What kind of staff they need, how many extra security people they need, like for police presence and stuff like that. The rest is just a wing and a prayer that you have good weather and good attendance.”
Things aren’t always smooth.
“It’s a nightmare,” Brianna Gose told Cowboy State Daily with a chuckle and a sigh. “As usual. It’s just a lot of work, but I’ve got great employees.”
Gose said she will start cleaning out the beer garden at Captain Ron’s Rodeo Bar at least a month ahead of time.
“It’s just a lot of running to get ready and going places, picking up all the supplies,” she said. “We had to go to three stores to find beans this year. Sam’s Club didn’t have any big cans of beans this time.”
The bar, which started the Ham and Jam 37 or so years ago, will spend thousands on its signature, free pork sandwich with picnic sides.
When Ham And Jam Was Wilder
Rain might fall, but nothing seems to keep people from coming back, year after year, to experience this scene in the Black Hills of Wyoming.
Hugs were the order of the day up and down the street as Ham and Jam regulars bump into one another again during Wyoming Wednesday.
Their excitement, their reunions, feed into an already festive, party atmosphere.
Royce Griebler, for example, has been coming to the Ham and Jam since the late '80s and remembers when it was a bit woolier.
“It was pretty wild with the drag racing and a lot of other stuff,” he said. “I mean, it was fun. Probably more dangerous, but back then you were young and you didn’t care about the danger.”
In the beginning, Griebler rode with his brother.
“He doesn’t ride anymore, but my son and some other friends do,” he said. “I’m out here to go ride.”
Topless Steer Riding
Frank Lamb also remembers when things were a bit wilder.
“At the time it was called No Panties Wednesday,” he said with a chuckle. “That was in 2003. They were just changing over to Ham and Jam.”
In those days, a PRCA rodeo capped the day, but the grand finale wasn’t bull riding.
“It was topless steer riding,” Lamb said with a chuckle. “They don’t do that any more. So some things have calmed down quite a bit.”
DCI agents used to come to the event to help provide security, Lamb added.
“One of them was a friend of mine, and it was horseback security,” he said. “So they had some horseback guys.”
Lamb doesn’t care that the event is a little tamer, nor did he care that rain clouds were gathering.
“I wouldn’t miss this,” he said. “I haven’t been able to come the last 10 years because of (work). But I”m not managing the racetrack anymore, so I can just go where I want.”
Detour No More
Ham and Jam is supposed to be a one-day party. Ride in, have a Bloody Mary, eat a pork sandwich, and roar off into the distance toward the next town on the Devils Tower loop’s “hydration station.”
But in Hulett, Wednesday’s spillover from Sturgis is so good it changes the script for some. They end up circling not just the date on their calendar but real estate listings, too.
Mike Romano, for example, first experienced the area as a child, then came back as an adult for rally week. Before he knew it, he was buying a ranch and changing his address.
“This place just speaks to me,” he said. “That might sound corny, but to some people that’s reality. I came here to unwind from two phones, two iPads, two laptops.”
Romano had been running a global company. But coming back to the rally as an adult showed him what his life was missing.
“This helped me reconnect when I came back here,” he said. “So I gravitated to the Hulett side.”
Wolfensperger, as well, found herself drawn to Hulett. She first came in 2012, but had a motorcycle accident that year and had to go home early.
The next year, she and her husband were back.
“We were staying out here with a friend and, well, we never left,” she said. “We saw the chaos that’s out there and so we just stayed here and people watched and fell in love with the town.”
The couple have five, six motorcycles. For them, the Sturgis Rally never really ends. “When it’s not rally, we love riding the hills,” she said. “We ride the hills at least 300 to 400 miles every Sunday, which is not hard to do out here.”
Out-of-towners might think of Ham and Jam as a wild Wednesday detour for their Sturgis adventures. But for some, like Romano and Wolfensperger, the detour became the destination.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
