Life's-blood events lost to COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 has torn through American life like a boll weevil, disrupting just about everything in its path.

Locally, most events have been canceled, sending hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars out the window.

Clovis lost its life’s-blood events this summer, and the revenue that goes along with them. And sadly, some of those events may be gone permanently.

Among those are Clovis Livestock Auction’s horse sales that occur quarterly — during spring, summer, fall and winter — and bring loads of money into the area. Not this year, though, due to state COVID-19 restrictions.

“It’s a huge economic impact,” Curry County Chamber of Commerce Director Ernie Kos said. “We have people come here from all over the country to buy and sell their horses.”

This year’s spring and summer sales weren’t canceled, however; they were shifted to Texas, which had lighter restrictions as of May 1. So Levelland was happy to step in as a replacement site.

“They moved it strictly because of COVID,” Kos said, “because they were more open (in Texas) than we were at the time.”

And those running the horse sales found that they liked Levelland’s facility, which looks like it might mean goodbye Clovis, goodbye revenue.

“Right after that news we learned that we lost a huge roping event,” Kos said, referring to a 1,300-team shindig normally hosted by the Curry County Events Center that has vamoosed to Stephenville, Texas.

“Two major events,” Kos said. “We’re so close to the Texas border; geographically they can move it. Those are two huge losses of events that would bring major dollars to our community. It’s understandable that we lost them because of COVID, but it looks like we’ve lost them for good.”

The roping contest used to draw people from all over to the Events Center.

“The income loss has been devastating for the facility as a whole,” Kos said. “It’s a big event because they guarantee $150,000 in cash and prizes.”

And then there are some events that are in no apparent danger of going away, but lost out big time due to COVID-19.

For instance, there’s the Pioneer Days Rodeo in the first week of June. “That would’ve been a big 50th anniversary,” Kos said. “And now the Curry County Fair has been canceled, and that would’ve been the 100th anniversary.”

People were able to drag Main on June 20, “but we didn’t have the three nights of concerts,” Kos said, “and all the other activities that go with the event.”

And then there is the late-June Custom Classic softball tournament that brings in teams and players from throughout the Southwest, thousands of people who need to sleep in hotels, eat at restaurants, maybe shop at local stores.

Not this year.

“First time in 37 years, man,” said Roger Jackson of the Clovis Softball Association, who is a Custom Classic organizer. “I helped start this tournament 37 years ago; it was pretty sad that we didn’t have it.”

The Custom Classic has had as many as 130-plus teams with 22-25 players per team come to town. Last year there were roughly 110 teams, still a healthy amount of people contributing to the Clovis economy.

This year is oh so different.

“We’re still giving it a hope for our fall league and maybe The Halloween Howl,” Jackson said, noting that The Howl tournament has averaged 160 teams for the last five years.

“We can’t give up on it. But it’s out of our hands; it’s in the government’s hands.”