Cowboy Breakfast comes home to Sinkiuse Square

Official fair, rodeo kick-off gathers Friday morning

GRANT COUNTY — Kiwanis Club of Moses Lake past president Ken Sterner has an interesting question.

"What's the difference between a hotcake and a pancake?" he asks his fellow members during a meeting with the Columbia Basin Herald.

After some discussion, Columbia Basin Rodeo Association board of directors member Rob Weber answers:

"It's actually, believe it or not, it's the region you come from," he explained. "They're hotcakes in the southeast and they're pancakes in the northwest."

It's pertinent information, considering the breakfast item is offered again during this year's Cowboy Breakfast.

The event, a joint effort by the Kiwanis Club of Moses Lake, the Columbia Basin Rodeo Association and the Moses Lake Business Association, starts at Sinkiuse Square at 6:30 a.m. Friday, lasting through 10 a.m.

Michael's on the Lake volunteers services for the breakfast, serving a plate of pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, juice and coffee, plus condiments. The breakfast is $5.

Third Avenue remains open, association Executive Director Sally Goodwin said. Half a block of Ash Street is closed for safety.

"The sidewalks are wide enough we don't need to close the street," Goodwin said.

The event serves as the official kickoff to the Grant County Fair and round-up rodeo.

The origins of the annual event remain uncertain, but coordinators within the Kiwanis Club estimate it began in the late 1970s on the corner of Third Avenue and Ash Street, across the street from where it is located now.

"We used to have a chuck wagon right there at the corner of Ash and Third by what is now the Computer Store," club treasurer P.J. De Benedetti said. "We had a little grill outside the chuck wagon and we had a grill inside the chuck wagon, and you literally walked up and we cooked the hotcakes, pancakes or flapjacks and the guys inside were cooking the eggs, and you could literally walk up and tell the person how you wanted your eggs."

Due to an increase in volume, such orders are no longer possible, he added.

"Those first years, other than tying it with the rodeo parade, it kind of stood by itself," member Fred Huston said. "We just always had a parade for enough people to be there to make it worthwhile, and then finally other people became part of the activity and it grew into a pretty good operation."

Weber said members used to attend the breakfast, and decided to begin promoting the Moses Lake Round-Up Rodeo at the breakfast in 1996.

"We started bringing little fences and building corrals, and we wanted to put up banners to support our sponsors," he said. "At the same time, the rodeo association started buying tickets for all their sponsors to make sure they would come and get involved with it."

The business association became involved at about the same time to get the business community involved.

The breakfast had been located in Sinkiuse Square before, Huston said, but it was about 1998 when all three organizations put it on in the location together.

This year, the event returns to the square after being located in McCosh Park last year, due to construction on Third Avenue and the square.

"Now we're anxious to get back home and try out the new digs," club President Patty Laughery said.

The event typically draws about 450 people and a total of 50 volunteers. Work begins in preparing the breakfast about a month beforehand, the club members said.

In 1997, the rodeo association began offering entertainment, contacting Dale Roth Productions with the help of the business association. This year, Roth offers Kayla Taylor at 6:45 a.m., John Thompson at 7:15 a.m., Emily West at 7:45 a.m. and the Cool Waters Band at 8:30 a.m.

Children's activities begin at 8:30 a.m., including a stick horse rodeo, a roping dummy contest, a Little Rodeo Clown Contest and a Little Moses Lake Round-Up Rodeo Queen contest.

Weber's favorite part is the excitement created by the event.

"The energy from all the business people who come, from the citizens who live here, from the organizations involved," he said. "It just creates an excitement and an energy, which is what we wanted to create anyway to light the fair week on fire for the rodeo and everything."

Club member Ted DeWitt likes working together with as a group with the club.

"Being somewhat new to the community, it's always good for me to see people, recognize people and talk to them that I run into in daily life — churches, schools, wherever you're involved in seeing them," he said.

Huston's favorite part harks back to the early days of the event when he would cook, and the event would try to cook to order.

"The interaction between cooking and the patrons," he said, demonstrating with a laugh, "'How do you like your egg? Well, you get them my way.'"

Laughery said a lot of people come from out of town or return to town for the breakfast and the fair.

"It's so cool when you see the long lines of people and knowing the proceeds from this event mainly goes to support scholarships for our graduating seniors," Laughery said. "The more money we make, the more money we can give away in scholarships next spring."

De Benedetti likes to see the businesses who make it tradition for their staff to come to the event and dine together. He also enjoys the social interaction.

"Now the cooks are away from where the customers are being served, but we're close enough if somebody wants to come over and visit or give us a bad time, they can do that," he said with a chuckle.

"If you were back 80 or 100 years ago, this would be akin to the old barn raising," Sterner said. "That's really what it is. I just like the venue, the whole feeling it creates for the beginning of the fair, the excitement and all the socialization."