Find handcrafted buckles from NHSRA alumna and more at the rodeo trade show

Thirty years after competing at the National High School Finals Rodeo in Gillette as New Mexico’s All-Around Cowgirl in 1993, Kelsi Maynard found herself back at Cam-plex for a different reason.

The buckle merchant set up shop among the sea of vendors at this year’s NHSFR Trade Show, hosted inside the Wyoming Center at Cam-plex. Within the trade show, an array of cowboy accoutrements, Western flair and odds and ends await shoppers in the maze of booths stacked throughout the annual indoor market that’s a staple of the high school finals.

People shop Saturday as the National High School Finals Rodeo trade show opens at Cam-plex in Gillette.

This year among the fray is Maynard Buckles, a silver, turquoise and, of course, buckle booth.

Based out of Thoreau, a small New Mexican town near the Navajo Nation, Maynard’s buckles are handmade by Navajo silversmiths, separating her products from the dozens of buckle companies that have hawked into the market since her family business was started back in 1980.

“A lot of the industry has gone to machine-made stuff and ours is still all handcrafted,” she said.

Handmade belt buckles in the Maynard Buckles booth Saturday as the National High School Finals Rodeo trade show opens at Cam-plex in Gillette.

There are ready-made items like buckles, cross necklaces popular among the high school contestants and turquoise necklaces made by Navajo hands. But the company specializes in custom orders.

Customers can work with Maynard drawing up a custom design for their buckle. Once approved, it’s sent to silversmiths who hand-cut the buckle and solder it onto the base, a process that can take two to three days, Maynard said.

“We’ve made buckles for everything that you can imagine,” she said. “My dad made them for Dale Earnhardt, the race car driver, years ago and had his race car with his signature on there. An odd one I’ve made before is for a thumb wrestling championship.”

She’s even made custom buckles for a Wyoming bar that specializes in hosting chicken ropings, which is a real happening in the Equality State.

“Somebody actually ropes the chicken,” she explained.

People look over saddles Saturday as the National High School Finals Rodeo trade show begins at Cam-plex in Gillette.

Elsewhere in the trade show, shoppers sift through racks of rodeo equipment, saddles that can cost more than a used car, craftsman twirling cowboy hats through hat stiffening spray and plenty or jewelry, especially turquoise.

There are vendors hocking snacks from candy to jerky and even a raffle to win a new all-terrain vehicle at the Wyoming Rodeo Ministry’s corner of the bazaar.

Walking from booth to booth provides a jarring spike to the senses. There are makeup stands beside boutiques beside knife vendors beside one-off rarities that somehow seem perfectly at home within the shopping-mall chaos of the trade show.

Devin Dixon of Kinnear works on felt scent diffusers in the Wind & Sage booth Saturday as the National High School Finals Rodeo trade show opens at Cam-plex in Gillette.

Many of the vendors haunt the rodeo circuit and some, like Maynard, are alumni of the national high school finals.

“We enjoy coming to Gillette, the facility is top notch for the high school finals,” Maynard said.

She’s had booths at almost every high school finals since taking over in 1997 after her college rodeo career. And even 30 years after first arriving as a rodeo athlete herself, Gillette still stands out.

“The people are friendly, they’re cowboy-related, they understand our lifestyle,” she said.

All these years later, many of those cowboy-related, understanding folks — from Gillette or otherwise — can be found at the ever-evolving fair that is the NHSFR Trade Show.

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