Rodeo

The rodeo will be coming to Franklin Township Saturday after all, but one Township Committee member and his wife, an animal-rights activist, are not happy about it. A two-hour rodeo exhibition is the centerpiece of an outdoor festival planned by the Franklin Businessmen's Association, which hopes to raise money and bring the Gloucester County town some good publicity. Yesterday, the association announced it had changed one of two insurance carriers for liability coverage on the event; it made the switch to win township officials' final approval for holding the event on township-owned land in Malaga.

The Franklin Township Business Association last night unsuccessfully demanded the resignation of Township Committeeman Edward Hudak, saying he had violated the public trust when he supported a protest by animal-rights activists of a rodeo sponsored by the association. Association president Roger Horneff, accompanied by about 30 supporters, asked five times during the Township Committee meeting for Hudak to resign the seat to which he had been elected in November. Hudak "has deceived the public, has not attempted to live up to his campaign promises (and)

The Upper Merion Township Parks and Recreation Summer Playground Program put on a better-smelling rodeo Wednesday. The children learned something about bike safety. They had fun. And some of them won awards, which were provided by the Valley Forge Optimist Club.

A professional bull rider was trampled and killed by a bull Sunday at a traveling rodeo making its annual stop in Dutch Neck Village, Hopewell Township, N.J., just south of Bridgeton. The accident happened a little after 7:30 p.m. State police said Rigoberto Flores, 24, of Brentwood, N.Y., was riding the bull when he was thrown off and then crushed. State police said Flores was taken to Vineland Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead of chest injuries. - Bob Warner

Franklin Township is sponsoring its first festival day this Saturday with bluegrass music, arm wrestling, a fishing contest and a rodeo - all in the name of community pride. But the way things are going, this Gloucester County community may be forced to hold its party out of town in neighboring Clayton. The main event of the festival, sponsored by the local Businessmen's Association, is a demonstration rodeo that has raised more dust than a bucking bull. Local animal-rights activists say the event - called a showdeo - will not be properly supervised and could result in injury to the calves, bulls and horses.

A lowbrow college comedy and the rough-and-tumble tale of a rodeo star top this week's list of new movies on video. PCU 1/2 (1994) (Fox) 80 minutes. David Spade, Jeremy Piven, Chris Young. It stands for Port Chester University - also known as politically correct U. This hare-paced, harebrained and, for the most part, amusing update of Animal House suggests one peaceful solution to the PC wars: sex, drugs and funky music. (This last courtesy of George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, who rock the house.

NEW CASTLE, Del. - Police in Delaware say a bull rider was killed when he was thrown from the animal during a rodeo and then stepped on. Delaware State Police said in a news release Monday that Leonel Trejo, 40, an experienced rider, was participating in the rodeo Sunday. When he was thrown from the bull after about a minute of riding it, the animal stepped on his chest. Trejo was pronounced dead at a local hospital. - AP

HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP, N.J. - Six-foot-tall speakers blare norteño music across a grass field as members of the overwhelmingly Latino crowd fan themselves and wait for the bulls to be led into a makeshift rodeo ring. Beers are drunk and tacos de lengua , made with cow's tongue, are consumed. Some watch as cowboys stretch like gymnasts against the metal fencing. Others wait their turn to dance with a young woman in cutoff-jean shorts. On the edge of the crowd, Ciro Lopez shuffles his brilliant white boots, to the amusement of his mother and son. Between crescendos of tuba and accordion, the 34-year-old warehouse manager says the event is identical to those he attended when he lived in Mexico City and visited family in the countryside.

Around these parts, you'd figure the only cow-pokes come when you shove the fried onions into your cheesesteak; that steer-wrestling goes on daily on the Schuylkill Expressway; that bareback riding is some new quirk along the Admiral Wilson Boulevard. But just a short cattle drive away from Center City, they've been holding one bang-up rodeo every spring and summer Saturday night for the last 37 years at Cowtown in Woodstown, N.J. The Cowtown Rodeo is not some new-fangled Yuppie craze inspired by "City Slickers" or Chaps ads. Saturday nights in Cowtown are the genuine item: bulls and broncs flipping riders every which way, 10-gallon hats and bandanas in proliferation and a whole mess of "Yee-hahs!"

It's not quite the same as a camel passing through the eye of a needle, but given an inch to spare on either side, Verna Harkins can steer a 39-foot long, 14-ton school bus through an obstacle course with the best of them. Harkins, who has been driving 20 years for Krapf's Coaches, recently won the 13th annual Chester County School Bus Safety Road-E-O held at the Brandywine Campus of the Center for Arts & Technology. Of more than 100 school bus drivers who competed in the tournament, Harkins scored 572 of a possible 600 points to come out on top. Among the 12 events of the day, Harkins drove a 72-passenger bus through a series of narrow, constantly shifting lanes with hardly a hitch, then navigated a poker-straight line of tennis balls that never strayed from their place.

HE HAS BEEN in Philadelphia longer than Kimmo Timonen. Longer than Danny Briere, too, and Scott Hartnell. Take it further, Braydon Coburn's tenure here exceeds Doc Halladay's and Cliff Lee's and Shady McCoy's and, well, pretty much every pro athlete in this town save the thirtysomethings who still make up the core of the Phillies. He is in his seventh season as a Philadelphia Flyer, Coburn is, and it seems finally, that we may be warming to him. Still only 27 years old, he is no longer the defenseman fans dread seeing out there in a big moment, is no longer the defenseman that he himself described the other day as "a skate-as-fast-as-I-can-all-over-the-place kind of cowboy.

Bobby DelVecchio may not be trying his luck riding bulls anymore. In fact, the 55-year-old hasn't ridden one since the early 1990s. But his fingerprints will still be all over the place this weekend when the Philadelphia Invitational is held at the Wells Fargo Center on Friday and Saturday nights, even if he is not likely to be there. Vital in creating the Professional Bull Riders organization, DelVecchio helped shape the sport of bull riding to what it is today. It's a sport that he says has become much harder, more dangerous, and more physical than he ever could have imagined when he first hopped on a bull four decades ago. "The risk factor is triple what it was before PBR," DelVecchio said over the phone from his home in Texas.

HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP, N.J. - Six-foot-tall speakers blare norteño music across a grass field as members of the overwhelmingly Latino crowd fan themselves and wait for the bulls to be led into a makeshift rodeo ring. Beers are drunk and tacos de lengua , made with cow's tongue, are consumed. Some watch as cowboys stretch like gymnasts against the metal fencing. Others wait their turn to dance with a young woman in cutoff-jean shorts. On the edge of the crowd, Ciro Lopez shuffles his brilliant white boots, to the amusement of his mother and son. Between crescendos of tuba and accordion, the 34-year-old warehouse manager says the event is identical to those he attended when he lived in Mexico City and visited family in the countryside.

DEVOTEES of Mexican-style rodeos are planning a memorial show this week for a popular young rider who was killed in a bull-riding accident in South Jersey. Rigoberto Flores, 24, of Brentwood, N.Y., was killed Sunday while performing at a rodeo in Bridgeton, N.J., when he was thrown and fatally injured by a bull. Flores was one of the most well-known stars on the rodeo's East Coast circuit, according to rodeo organizer Jesus Santiago. Known to his fans as "El Andariego" or "The Wanderer of Izucar Matamoros, Puebla" - the city in the Mexican state of Puebla where he was from - Flores was a fan favorite for his rodeo skills, youthful enthusiasm and clean-cut reputation, according to Santiago.

NEWARK, N.J. - Devotees of Mexican-style rodeos are planning a memorial show this week for a popular young rider killed over the weekend in a bull-riding accident in South Jersey. Rigoberto Flores, 24, of Brentwood, N.Y., was killed Sunday while performing in a traveling rodeo near Bridgeton, Cumberland County, when he was thrown by a bull and trampled. Flores was one of the best-known stars on the rodeo's East Coast circuit, according to rodeo organizer Jesus Santiago. Known to his fans as "El Andariego" (the restless one)

A professional bull rider was trampled and killed by a bull Sunday at a traveling rodeo making its annual stop in Dutch Neck Village, Hopewell Township, N.J., just south of Bridgeton. The accident happened a little after 7:30 p.m. State police said Rigoberto Flores, 24, of Brentwood, N.Y., was riding the bull when he was thrown off and then crushed. State police said Flores was taken to Vineland Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead of chest injuries. - Bob Warner

NEW CASTLE, Del. - Police in Delaware say a bull rider was killed when he was thrown from the animal during a rodeo and then stepped on. Delaware State Police said in a news release Monday that Leonel Trejo, 40, an experienced rider, was participating in the rodeo Sunday. When he was thrown from the bull after about a minute of riding it, the animal stepped on his chest. Trejo was pronounced dead at a local hospital. - AP

A rodeo rider was killed in Delaware over the weekend when he was thrown from a bull and stomped on the chest by the animal, police say. Delaware State Police said Leonel Trejo, 40, was an experienced Mexican bull rider. He was taking a part in a rodeo at the Nur Temple on DuPont Highway in New Castle Sunday night when he was tossed after riding a bull for about one minute. The bull then stepped on Trejo's chest, police said. Trejo, who was not wearing protective equipment, was taken to Christiana Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

In his stated quest to turn Pennsylvania into Texas, Gov. Corbett is leaning too heavily on the energy industry to set policy for natural-gas drilling. As they say in Texas, never ask a barber if he thinks you need a haircut. The "barber" poised to cut through Pennsylvania's environmental regulations is C. Alan Walker, a former coal company executive who is Corbett's choice to head the Department of Community and Economic Development. Walker's cabinet agency doesn't normally influence environmental protection rules.

A Lindenwold man pleaded guilty yesterday to shooting a rodeo horse with a bow and steel-tipped arrow in Franklin Township, Gloucester County, last year, then leaving the mare to bleed to death in a field near its owner's home. Jason Allen, 20, was charged with multiple counts of animal cruelty for killing the horse, named Cutie by the family that had raised the 9-year-old horse from infancy. All but one charge were dropped yesterday as part of Allen's plea agreement. Allen could face up to 18 months in prison for animal cruelty.