Looking for Dan Majerus?

That’s easy.

If it’s time for Whoop-Up Trail Days, Majerus can be found at the Conrad Rodeo Grounds.

The cowboy/now retired bank president has been part of the arena dirt for a half-century, the last 49 years consecutive.

He’s handled every role for the rodeo which is the annual opener for the Northern Rodeo Association and Northern Women’s Rodeo Association.

Along with the rodeo, Majerus has been an NRA competitor, judge, event director, member of the board of directors and a member of the executive board. Majerus was selected as the NRA Personality of the Year in 2023, one of the organization's highest honors. He has been chairman of the Conrad committee since 1978.

“The people make the rodeo worthwhile,” Majerus said.

This year’s Whoop-Up Trail Days will have a 6 p.m. performance on June 6 and finish with a 1 p.m. show on June 7. The rodeo celebrates its 85th year.

“It’s been a tradition for so long,” said Majerus of Conrad being first on the schedule. “We have sponsors in our community who are super supportive.”

In the early years, the Whoop-Up Trail Days rodeo was held in May and subject to undulating heat, gale force winds, blizzards, sheets of rain and whatever else Mother Nature could throw down.

“A kid from Browning wore ski goggles during the team roping we had before the rodeo one year,” Majerus said with a chuckle, sharing one of the many rodeo stories accumulated through the years. “We all laughed. By the end of the day, he could have sold those goggles for $100.

“The June weather is more forgiving.”

Majerus grew up on a ranch outside of Roundup in the Bull Mountains. He attended school in Klein, a small mining town, through eighth grade. The closure of Klein High School had Majerus finish his high school education in Roundup.

His father Leonard and a friend put on the Roundup Rodeo. His mother Betty served as rodeo secretary.

“Dad was constantly volunteering us,” said Majerus of himself and two brothers. “We knew as kids there would be no work on the ranch prior and two weeks after. The focus was on the rodeo.”

Majerus attended Montana State University, riding bareback horses and bulls for the rodeo program. MSU won the national collegiate title in 1975 and was second in 1976. He also helped stage the MSU spring rodeo.

The rodeo part was easy. The education part got off to a balky start. An advisor recommended he major in political science.

“I was taking, Plato, Socrates … stuff I will never use. This was not for me,” he said with another laugh.

Majerus switched to finance. “Finance had the least amount of requirements and the most electives.”

He first visited Conrad in 1973 to compete at the rodeo.

“The wind was blowing 80 miles an hour,” said Majerus.

After graduating from MSU in 1976, he took a year off before accepting a job with the Farm Credit Bureau.

In Conrad.

“My wife (Charlotte) and I agreed to be there 10 years,” Majerus said. “We figured something else would open up. I had been eyeing a job in Lewistown.

“Never happened.”

He moved over to Stockman Bank, first as a loan officer and then branch president the last 20 years.

And something else occurred.

“I got to know the people, the area,” Majerus said of putting down roots in the community of 2,400. He and his wife have a 440-acre place outside of town.

Majerus was still competing when he settled in Conrad. “After college, I didn’t have to get on those darn bulls, just broncs. I was a weekend warrior,” he said.

Majerus traveled with Bob Schall, a former MSU teammate. The Arlee cowboy is the winningest cowboy in NRA history.

“I followed him around like a little puppy dog,” said Majerus. “He forgot more about rodeo than most people knew. I absorbed everything he said.”

It was a weekend at Whoop-Up Trail Days in 1977 where he jumped in boots first.

Majerus and a friend had returned to town after riding in Canada the day before. It was raining hard and a group was standing under the leaky roof of a cook shack. The rodeo was cancelled.

“The old guys were complaining,” Majerus said. “They said, ‘This is the last one.’ ”

“Don’t quit the rodeo. It’s easy to put on,” said one of the men. “Dan and I can do it.”

Majerus stiffened and shot his friend Jerry Christman a sharp look.

“I was thinking, ‘Buddy, you have no idea what you're in for,’ ” said Majerus.

The next year, Majerus and Christman produced the Conrad rodeo.

“We did it all,” Majerus added with another chuckle.

Conrad became an NRA-sanctioned rodeo in the early 1980s.

“We had to get with an association,” said Majerus. “The NRA has helped with everything. They have a lot of safeguards. The stock contractors had to meet certain criteria and not leave in the middle of the night. And the main thing for the cowboys is the central entry system. You get a certain quality of cowboy at an NRA rodeo.

“Everything with the NRA is held to a certain standard.”

This year, Majerus can be found by the timed event chutes.

“It’s a great place to watch a rodeo. I’ll be trying to stay out of the way.”

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