In Wyoming, A Block Party Could Mean A Gathering Of Neighbors From 100 Miles Away

Sweetgrass much preferred munching on grass to running on a Sunday afternoon at the Double Rafter Ranch in Parkman. 

Her entire mouth had turned as green as mint gum, and she didn’t mind at all.

That was a problem for the horse’s rider, 6-year-old Dorothy Bratton, who was left atop a saddle that wasn’t going much of anywhere. Not without an awful lot more motivation than a pair of small cowboy boots could muster.  

Fortunately for Dorothy, her dad, Richie Bratton, knew just what to do. He had put on his running shoes that morning. 

So, when it was Dorothy’s turn to run the barrel race in the Double Rafter Ranch’s annual kids's rodeo and overall "block" party last weekend, he led the horse through the course with a rope — running about as fast as any human dad could.

Dorothy’s job, in addition to hanging on, was to urge her father to run faster. She also let him know at the end she wouldn’t have minded if he’d run just a little bit faster. 

Dad just shook his head and laughed, while Sweetgrass went back to what she does best — eating all the grass she could possibly reach from one spot. 

It was a neighborhood block party, Wyoming ranch-style while drawing neighbors from 100 square miles around.

Bring a potluck dish, a beverage and, if you have one, a horse. This is, after all, a community where children have ridden their horses to school, as Cowboy State Daily previously reported, so why not a BYOH block-party rodeo?

Dorothy and her family had come from Casper to join friends, relatives and neighbors for what was the ranch’s second-annual kid rodeo. Families without horses could borrow one, just as Dorothy had. 

Bratton remembers family gatherings with barbecues and a sleigh and horse rides. But a kid rodeo is something extra. And he liked it. 

He liked it a lot. 

“We don’t all live next door to each other,” he said with a chuckle. “But you can all get out here and have a block party, even if your block is 100 square miles.”

Why Not Throw Our Own

The BYOH block party and rodeo evolved from a friendship between Chelsie Kerns-Warner’s daughter Cassidy and her best friend, Jay Dee Brug. 

Marcus Warner recalled asking Brug how she liked living in the Parkman area. It was prettier, she told him, but she missed the community gatherings where she once lived. 

Cassidy, meanwhile, wanted to get more involved in rodeo.

The family already had an arena and horses, Chelsie Kerns-Warner told Cowboy State Daily. 

“To me it seemed kind of silly to load up a horse and drag her into town so she could run barrels in somebody else’s dirt,” she said. “So I said, ‘Why don’t we just throw our own rodeo?’”

Things just snowballed from there.

To prepare the arena, Krayton Kerns brought a rototiller to churn up the dirt, and the family’s children picked out all the rocks they could find. 

Gift bags were packed and Jay Dee’s mom, Shy Brug, contributed leatherwork prizes for the kids. 

Pink Unicorn Gunfight At OK Corral

The team events included a ladle race, with riders carrying water from one end of the arena to the other to fill a bucket. There was also a race between two barrels and back again.

Chelsie also raided her children’s Nerf-gun collection for a shootout with empty beer cans.

Because what Wyoming block party rodeo is complete without a gunfight, even if the most in-demand gun at the fight is a pretty pink unicorn gun?

There was also a mutton-busting event to wrap up the day, thanks to Lodge Grass, Montana, sheep rancher Taylor and Cathryn Kerns, who brought about a dozen sheep south for the event. 

Bringing Back Old-World Charm

For Chelsie, the real payoff of their block party has been reviving a stronger sense of community for their children.

She’s heard her father talk about community picnics and gatherings that once brought neighboring ranch families together. As ranches changed hands over the years and different people moved in, that sense of connection has faded. 

“So, we’re just trying to bring back that old charm,” she said.

For Marcus, seeing children of different ages from across the surrounding communities together in one place was tremendous.

“I can’t think of too many opportunities for the kids to get this interaction,” he said. “If you look around at everybody who showed up, we have people from Sheridan, Casper, Dayton, Ranchester, Parkman … I mean it’s pretty incredible.”

Learning To Get Back Up Again

Getting everyone together was only part of what the afternoon offered. There was also the chance to try something, make a mess of it and try and try again.

For Alice Kerns, Chelsie’s aunt, that was one of the day’s most important lessons. 

“You can fail and get right back up, and it’s OK,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “That’s the biggest thing.” 

The ladle race, for example, didn’t always go smoothly. Horses danced away from the barrel at the most inopportune times, and ladles were lost on the ground. 

Through it all, though, the children still cheered each other on, even if they weren’t on the same team.

“It was just truly about having fun,” she said. “Everybody was cheering each other on.”

Whether they made it all the way around the barrels in record time mattered less than a willingness to give it a try. In the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt’s “man in the arena,” they were out there trying, dropped ladles and all. 

“It’s OK to fail and get back up and just keep going, even when you land on your head,” Alice Kerns said with a chuckle. 

A Generation Of Gatherings

The gathering place itself has been part of the Kerns family for well over a century.

The family homesteaded here in 1887. Family lore puts the old barn’s construction by roughly 1890, though its exact age remains a subject of family debate. An 1892 photograph shows it already standing. 

“There are great big sandstone rocks that those beams are sitting on,” Krayton Kerns told Cowboy State Daily, gesturing toward the barn’s floor-to-ceiling support beams. “That’s what’s kept it, over 100 years, from rotting, because there’s no moisture down there.”

To restore the barn, the family lifted it with hydraulic jacks and installed concrete supports underneath. 

During the work, a windstorm knocked it off its temporary supports, shifting the building about 3 feet to the south. 

Tension wires installed to hold the structure together helped keep the barn intact, Krayton said. Only one structural log split.

With the barn back on a solid foundation, he figures it should easily last another century. 

The restored barn is no longer a working horse barn, though. 

It’s a gathering place for Christmas celebrations and family dinners, with an old-time cookstove ready to fire up in one corner. The cookstove adds a smoky, old-world flavor to whatever is cooked inside, be it pot roast or turkey. 

Another Ranch Generation

But preserving the buildings was only one part of the question. The family also had to decide what to do with the ranch. 

“We didn’t want to lose it,” Krayton said. “But we lived up in Laurel (Montana) and we couldn’t see moving down here, just ourselves.”

Chelsie’s brother Tyler Kerns and his wife, Jill, helped settle the question when they decided to move to the ranch. In 2022, the family began renovating the house, ordered from a Montgomery Ward catalog and built in 1932. 

Nineteen grandchildren were turned loose with hammers to help strip plaster from its walls. New sheetrock and siding gave the old home new life. 

Krayton and his wife, Dru Ann, built a home nearby, as did Chelsie and Marcus. 

Now Krayton can sit with his coffee after dinner and watch his grandchildren cross the pasture with a halter and a bucket of grain, catching a few horses to saddle up and ride.

“You wouldn’t see that otherwise,” he said with a misty-eyed smile. “That piece would be gone.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.