Bucking horses & bulls make the trip to Franklin Rodeo

By Ruth Nicolaus

There’s plenty of “stock” at the Franklin Rodeo, but it’s not the “stock” found on Wall Street… It’s livestock.

About twenty bulls and forty-three horses will come in from Montana with a special job: buck off their rider at the Franklin Rodeo. They are owned and cared for by Mark “Sparky” and Marlene Dreesen, of J Bar J Rodeo Co., in Circle, Montana.

Horses with names like Gronk, Hell on Hooves, Dairy Day and Honey Lizard will get eight seconds to send a cowboy to the dirt. And bulls like JB, Slick and Drunken Sailor will also have the chance to send a cowboy flying in the air. The animals will make the twenty-six-hour trip from their home in eastern Montana to Franklin, aboard a semi and a two-ton truck with a gooseneck trailer. They stop in Salina, Kansas, overnight so the animals can unload, eat, drink and sleep, before they load up again for the second day of travel to Franklin.

Sparky and Marlene have been coming to Franklin as stock contractors for the rodeo since 2008. That was the year they bought J Bar J Rodeo Co. from the previous owners, Jim and Maggie Zinser, who had contracted with the Franklin Noon Rotary Club years prior. The Dreesen’s ranch, located near Circle, Montana, is home to 400-plus bucking horses. The bucking bulls are located in Glendive, Montana, with Sparky’s business partner, Paul Eiker.

Sparky grew up on a farm in South Dakota but knew he wanted to be a cowboy since sixth grade, after seeing the movie The Great American Cowboy. He competed as a bareback rider in high school and went professional before starting his own bucking horse and bull herd in 1988. He got his Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) membership as a pro rodeo stock contractor in 2005.

Together, Sparky and Marlene provide bucking horses and bulls for about fifty events a year. Some events are rodeos they produce on their own; some are college rodeos, some are like Franklin, where they are contracted and, for some events, they are sub-contractors.

Marlene is as much of the business as Sparky is. Her primary role is as rodeo secretary, compiling the scores and times from the rodeo and taking entry fees from the rodeo contestants. But she fills in wherever she’s needed: helping sort horses, helping with branding and keeping records of horses’ names and numbers.

“It works well because she knows what’s going on,” Sparky said. “Whether it’s the animals or the rodeo, she’s part of it.” In 2022, Marlene was awarded Women’s Pro Rodeo Association Secretary of the Year.

They love working with the Franklin Noon Rotary Club. “The Rodeo committee is so good to us,” Marlene said. They also appreciate that the rodeo helps area charities, “the causes that benefit from the money they raise,” Sparky said.

J Bar J Rodeo Co. has been honored three times with the PRCA’s Remuda Award, given to the stock contractor with the best herd of horses (2010, 2014, 2022). No other stock contractor has won the award three times.

The couple has been married thirty-eight years; they have three daughters, three sons-in-law and four grandchildren.