MAKAWAO — After 64 years at the reins of the Makawao Rodeo, Maui Roping Club’s signature Fourth of July weekend event faces an uncertain future.

The club’s 65th Makawao Rodeo will not be held this year at its usual Oskie Rice Arena, an iconic paniolo site a mile above Makawao town and named after late Harold Frederick “Oskie” Rice of Kaonoulu Ranch.

Disagreements between landlord Kaonoulu Ranch, which is owned by the Rice family, and lessee Maui Roping Club, one of the oldest rodeo organizations in the state and holder of the Makawao Rodeo trademark, resulted in the ranch deciding against renewing the club’s annual contract, both sides said.

The nonprofit Maui Roping Club, established in 1955, has been packing up its bleachers and other arena items and continuing the search for a new venue for the rodeo.

Meanwhile, Kaonoulu Ranch, which dates back to 1916, is planning renovations at Oskie Rice Arena and a rebranded rodeo, called the Makawao Stampede. The event is slated for Fourth of July weekend at the Oskie Rice Arena, one of three Kaonoulu Ranch-owned Upcountry arenas.

The 55th annual Makawao Rodeo Parade, organized by a separate group, will continue as planned this July. Parade Chairman Duane Hamamura emphasized that the parade wants to remain neutral amid the transition but admitted that the recent split is befuddling.

“I’m more confused than anything,” he said Friday. “I didn’t realize there was any kind of situation or problems. Our parade will go on, and we will just be working with the Rice family and the Maui Roping Club.”

Hamamura said parade organizers had a meeting this week and discussed the split. They decided to stick with the parade name but can easily change it if needed.

“We’re kind of in the middle,” Hamamura said. “We are neutral. And we don’t want to side with one or the other. We just want to have a nice parade.”

Reasons for the separation remain unclear, and community members are concerned.

“It’s kind of sad for a lot of people,” said Tamara McKay, who has helped market the Makawao Rodeo for the last four years. “There’s a lot of history here.”

Maui Roping Club President Ronald Kehano said Friday that the ranch general manager had given the club various reasons for discontinuing the agreement, and the “story changed every time.”

He said the volunteer-run club and its nine board members were not notified until Jan. 16 by ranch General Manager Ken Miranda that the ranch would not be renewing the club’s annual lease agreement and would instead be taking control of the rodeo.

“We wanted to work together,” Kehano said. “Board members had asked to work together. We said we can do the 65th annual and he said no. He made up his mind beforehand.”

Miranda said the decision to sever ties with the club occurred over the course of years, with the facility not getting a lot of attention and reaching the point of being “unsightly and unsafe.”

“After a few incidents with the roping club, and this occurred over the course of a few years,” Miranda said Thursday. “I didn’t wake up one morning and say, ‘Hey I need to change this,’ We decided that maybe they had outlived their time.”

Kehano said the club made infrastructure improvements requested by Miranda. He said the board would have liked to have had written upgrade requests, and more time and options before the lease was terminated.

“Ideally what would be great is if they just kind of work something out so the Maui Roping Club could at least do the 65th and have that time to find a proper venue to move forward in the coming year so this historical event is not terminated, not gone,” McKay said.

Kehano said the decision to discontinue the lease was motivated by financial gain and power. He said rodeo attendance is increasing each year, with 2019 numbers hitting a record of about 4,000 people per day.

Miranda said the Rice family, of which he is a member by marriage, is looking to improve the facility and focusing on becoming drivers for change. Stampede organizers want to get the property better than it was in its heyday and to support youth rodeo without major alcohol promotion.

The ranch’s Maui Youth Rodeo Organization is a benefactor of this year’s event.

The Makawao Stampede will not have a beer garden but may have a VIP tent if the right sponsor is found, according to organizer Maile Masada.

“I have no intention of dragging anyone through the mud,” Miranda said. “It’s a matter of looking at pressing the reset button and getting this facility and event up to or back to the enjoyable standards for this community that it once was.”

Kehano said Makawao Rodeo sponsors still are supporting their event, and the club hopes to continue it this year.

* Kehaulani Cerizo can be reached at kcerizo@mauinews.com.