By: Ryan Duey
Lisa Peters has been awarded the 2023 Justin Sports Medicine Committee Person of the Year Award for her volunteer work with the Wild Bill Hickok Rodeo in Abilene, Kansas.
The Abilene resident is chairman of hospitality for the rodeo, making sure food is ordered and served to contestants and contract personnel during each of the four nights of the rodeo, plus for two breakfasts as well.
She also makes cookies, providing 200 dozen of them individually wrapped for people to take with them.
Peters’ nephew, Dusty Kuntz, vice-president of the Abilene rodeo committee, asked her to help when the new committee took over two years ago.
“All he told me was ‘you’ll have to bake 200 dozen cookies,’ and I said, well, sure. You can do anything for a week,” she joked. “I had no idea what I was getting into.”
Sponsors provide the nightly meals, which range from barbecue beef to Mexican to pulled pork sandwiches, followed with homemade ice cream each night. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy is one of the meals, which the contestants love. “They don’t get fried chicken very often,” on the road, she said.
Peters and her helpers also serve breakfast two mornings: pancakes, sausage, and biscuits and gravy. About 100 people are served for breakfast, with 150 for the evening meals.
Peters grew up in Dickinson County, rarely missing the rodeo as a kid. She has a photo her parents took of her as she slept as a seven-year-old, with her boots and jeans laid out for the next day, ready to dress for the fair. “It was the biggest event of the year,” she said. “It still gives me goosebumps.”
She spent her adult life in Texas, Colorado Springs and Sioux City, Iowa, managing horse ranches and showing cutting horses. When she married Roger Peters, who also showed cutting horses, the two began showing together. She was the 1996 Reserve World Champion in the $20,000 Non-Pro Cutting Class.
She never enjoyed baking, preferring to be outside and with horses. But when she married, her husband, who loved to cook, got her involved.
“I love to do cookies,” she said. “We’d go to cutting horse shows and I would always give cookies to my helpers. I got to be known for my cookies.”
She makes about fifteen varieties of cookies for rodeo hospitality, including not only the traditional types like chocolate chip and peanut butter, but also toffee sandies, double chocolate, lemon poppyseed, and her favorite, jelly-filled linzer cookies. The cookie tradition is one started by Wava Marston with the previous rodeo committee.
She also makes sure the hospitality pavilion is set up in a welcoming manner, with tablecloths, decoration, lights, and entertainment like cornhole, cards and board games.
“That’s the goal,” she said, “to make people feel at home and comfortable.
“It’s so much fun to have everybody come in here. It’s like a family, and everybody sits around and visits, and when they leave they’re happy and content. It’s a great service we can provide.”
Matt Farson, president of the rodeo committee, along with other committee members, presented Peters with her award during the rodeo on August 1.
“Lisa is one of the most willing-to-help people I have ever met,” he said. “She took on a huge role when she decided she would take care of the hospitality area, and never complained and doesn’t ask for help. She’s just a worker that loves to give back and make people smile. We are honored to have people like her on our committee.”
1She is quick to praise her fellow volunteers. “Everyone on our committee works hard all year to make this the best rodeo possible, and I am deeply honored to be selected for this award.”
She loves being involved with the rodeo. “It’s a challenge, and it’s exhausting, but it is very rewarding.”
She was awarded a pair of Justin Boots for winning the award.
Peters moved back to Abilene in 2015; her husband passed away in 2010.
The 2025 Wild Bill Hickok Rodeo will be July 29-August 1.
For more information, visit WildBillHickokRodeo.com.
