Hells Canyon Mule Days 2021 postponed
By Paul Hall on Tuesday, August 31st, 2021 in Featured Stories Northeastern Oregon News
ENTERPRISE, OR – (Information provided by Hells Canyon Mule Days) This year, 2021, is the 41st annual event and plans were in place to make it an outstanding one according to Sondra Lozier, President.
Once again, this year as in 2020, we find ourselves making the same difficult decision to postpone Hells Canyon Mule Days till 2022.
As for the Mule Days show and everything that goes with it, vendors and exhibition, cowboy poetry gathering, and cowboy church, Dutch over cook-off, parade, Saturday night pit b-b-q dinner, and the PT mule sale, we feel we can’t safely conduct the Mule Days event.
It is out of concern for the health and wellbeing of our Wallowa County communities and for those who visit us that we make this decision. We place the health and safety of our contestants, exhibitors and vendors, spectators, volunteers, guest, and everyone connected with the Mule show above all else and that made this the only decision possible.
“This is incredibly disappointing,” Lozier said, “and I assure everyone that this decision was not made lightly. Our board was unanimous that this was the only option. As disappointing as this is, we look forward to welcoming everyone back to Enterprise in 2022 when we plan to celebrate the 41st (again) annual Hells Canyon Mule Days event.” The 2022 dates are set for September 9th, 10th, and 11th at the Wallowa County Event Center and Fairgrounds.
In light of canceling the Mule Days event, the board voted to award the $1,000.00 Max Walker Memorial scholars to three Wallowa County high school seniors for this year even through the scholarships are funded in part by donations from the Cowboy Poetry gathering and from the gathering sponsors. This has been a very difficult year for the graduating seniors and we felt it was not fair to deny them the help they applied for.
This is the second time that the event has been canceled since it was established in 1981 and it is the oldest and largest mule show in Oregon.
