News

“Rodeo is more than just an event,” Jim Reames says. “It’s a time that families get together, communities collaborate, and people celebrate wins and losses. It’s a time when we forget about the daily grind of life in a place that we just get to be ourselves and really hang out with our friends and be present.”

Jim Reames is Senior Vice President and Treasure Valley Market President for First Federal Bank, and every June his calendar clears for the Snake River Stampede. What began in the early 1900s as a small local bucking horse competition has grown into one of the top ten professional rodeos in the country, drawing more than 60,000 people to the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa over five days and six performances.

A Nonprofit at Heart

The Stampede operates as a nonprofit, and that mission runs all the way down to the concourse, where local service clubs staff the food booths. Jim has watched it up close for years.

“The Stampede, for years, has been known as a place for nonprofits,” he says. “You’ll see 4-H, Lions Club, Kiwanis manning the different food booths.”

Beyond the booths, the Stampede board has raised more than $1 million for local breast cancer screening and awareness work through its Stampede for the Cure initiative, alongside the millions it has funneled into Idaho’s economy over the years.

Showing Up

First Fed sponsors the Stampede as one of dozens of local businesses that help put the week together. Jim is clear-eyed about what that involvement actually looks like.

What that sponsorship actually funds matters more than it might sound. First Fed is a mutual bank, owned by its depositors rather than outside shareholders, which means the budget behind that flag and those tickets traces back to customers, not a parent company somewhere else. Jim points to that structure directly when he talks about why the bank shows up the way it does.

“Stampede is more than just a rodeo. It’s another way give back to the community on behalf of our customers, it’s another way for us to participate at a different level,” Jim says. “We’re one of a lot of sponsors, and it takes a big group to put on a big event.”

The Stampede is one of roughly 30 events First Fed supports across the Treasure Valley each year, Jim says, a level of community involvement he describes as unusual for a bank.

“That’s unique for banks, because typically we like to stick to one or two things,” he says. “But being owned by our customers, owned by our community, this is an opportunity that we’re able to invest back into those that invest into us.”

“When looking around today, an event like this, being part of First Fed means I’m part of the reason this is occurring today,” Jim says. “I’m part of the reason that the larger community, the Treasure Valley, all 800,000 people have an opportunity to come to something like this. It just makes me proud to look around and see that.”

Summer in Idaho moves fast. For five days every June, the Snake River Stampede gives the Treasure Valley a reason to slow down together and witness some of the most talented rodeo performers in the West.