The Rodeo Expo Center Is Welcome in My Neighborhood

I live about where Loop 289 and I-27 collide on the way to the airport.

The Rodeo Expo Center is looking to make a home at University and The Loop. This is about two miles from me and probably a little over a mile from my neighborhood. The location is over behind the new Stripes and across from the State School. Now that most of you are oriented, you probably know that there's a whole bunch of nothing over there.

Now on the State School side of University, there are so homes, but they are up the street a bit. There's one home that will kind of be behind the Expo Center that I feel like has a valid complaint, but that's one person inconvenienced in the name of progress.

None of this has kept my neighbors (once again, two miles away) from trying to stop the Expo Center from the location approved by voters. They've been using very thin excuses to try to sway council votes, such as there will be RVs on site (of course) and open-air stables for rodeo horses (of course). All of this is a giant improvement over the cotton lint, dust and debris we get from the current fields over there.

There are two other factors here, too.

One are the people who adamantly believe that everything that is an inconvenience to everyone else should be dumped on the east side of town -- and that's just not fair to the east side, or to those of us on the north who could use a little progress. Then, there are the entities that think the rodeo should be located on their grounds. Well, I'm sorry to say that you played a game of hardball and lost.

We all have to make sacrifices. The good people with the ABC Rodeo have been making personal sacrifices for decades in order to benefit Lubbock charities, and they fought fairly for their new home. We can hold our nose if the breeze blows the wrong way, or plug our ears if an event runs late. We can do all of this for the benefit of Lubbock, and I'm happy to do my part.