121st Annual Boley Rodeo
Boley, OK
May 25, 2024
Next weekend, Tulsa Tough will attract thousands of visitors to our city. Throngs of out-of-state and out-of-country travelers will revel in our annual extolling of bicycles and bacchanalia. But an hour southwest of us, the town of Boley turns up just as fiercely.
Just west of Woody Guthrie’s Okemah birthplace, you knew you’d found Boley on May 25th by the miles-long swaths of parked cars, trucks and horse trailers on Highway 62. The vehicles—seemingly abandoned a la The Last Of Us—went all the way up Main Street, where the first sign of life was a man popping a wheelie on a dirt bike over the entirety of the downhill thoroughfare. Donks, high riders and low riders began to pepper the assortment of wheels, with subwoofers and charcoal grills heralding your proximity to the function.
And there was indeed a function.
Just as somehow the sea of near-nude Cry Baby Hill attendees conceal an actual bicycle race, the epicenter of Boley’s tailgate party contained the 121st Annual Boley Rodeo.