Kaonoulu Ranch in Upcountry Maui turns 110 years old this fall, and the sprawling cattle spread is marking the milestone with three days of bull riding, bronc busting and barrel racing at the Oskie Rice Memorial Rodeo. The event runs October 23 through October 25 at the Oskie Rice Event Center, open to the public and timed to coincide with the Festivals of Aloha celebrations across the island.
According to Maui Now, the rodeo weekend will blend championship-level competition with hands-on exhibits and cultural demonstrations meant to teach residents and visitors about Hawaiʻi's ranching history and the skills still used on working ranches across the islands. Harold W. “Pop” Rice purchased Kaonoulu Ranch in August 1916, and the property has hosted rodeo events for over a century, per the same account.
The land itself carries a deeper history than a single family's tenure. Before Pop Rice bought it, Kaonoulu was owned by native landowner Keohokoloe and later by Yung Hee, a former sugar plantation contract laborer who built one of Maui's early Chinese-owned agricultural estates and famously resisted selling to neighboring sugar interests, according to Maui Magazine. The ranch spans roughly 10,000 to 12,000 acres and stands as one of the few nearly intact ahupuaʻa in Hawaiʻi, an ancient land division designed to stretch resources from mountain summit to sea, as noted by the Maui County Council.
Three Days of Bulls, Broncs and Barrels
The action kicks off Friday, October 23, with a preliminary rodeo qualifier starting at 8 a.m., gates opening to the Fan Field at 3 p.m., and pre-rodeo entertainment leading into the Friday Night Bull Bash at 6 p.m. That evening's card features professional bull riders, barrel racing and mutton busting, per the seed report.
Saturday, October 24, opens the Fan Field gates again at 3 p.m., with 808vibez performing live music from 4 p.m. to 5:45 p.m. and family-friendly entertainment filling the grounds before the Saturday Night Memorial Rodeo Performance begins at 6 p.m. That performance includes bull and bronc riding, barrel racing and team roping. The weekend wraps Sunday, October 25, with Cowboy Church at 10 a.m. in the grandstands, Fan Field gates opening at 11 a.m., a DJ Boomshot country mash-up set from 4 p.m. to 5:45 p.m., and the Championship Rodeo beginning at 1 p.m., where competitors vie for buckles in bull riding, bareback bronc riding and team roping.
A Legacy Rooted in Paniolo History
The rodeo's namesake, Harold “Oskie” Rice, was far more than a figurehead. In 1955 he helped found the Maui Roping Club and donated pasture land on Kaonoulu Ranch in Makawao to build the original Oskie Rice Arena, a contribution recognized by the Hawaii Cattlemen's Council, which inducted him into the Paniolo Hall of Fame in 2009. A year before founding the club, Rice introduced Monkey, the first Santa Gertrudis bull brought to Hawaiʻi, pioneering crossbreeding with local Hereford herds to help cattle withstand the islands' dry grazing conditions. Ranch owners completed a rebuild and relocation of the arena in 2020, modernizing the venue while preserving its paniolo character.
The traditions on display this October trace back nearly two centuries. Paniolo culture began in 1832 when King Kamehameha III invited Mexican-Spanish vaqueros to Hawaiʻi to teach horseback riding, cattle handling and roping, according to SFGATE — the word paniolo itself derives from the Hawaiian pronunciation of Español. That instruction became necessary after cattle, first brought to Hawaiʻi in 1793 as a gift from British Captain George Vancouver to King Kamehameha I, multiplied to roughly 25,000 head in the wild once Kamehameha placed a decade-long kapu on killing them. The skills those vaqueros taught eventually reached the world stage in 1908, when Hawaiian paniolo Ikua Purdy won the steer roping world championship at Wyoming's Cheyenne Frontier Days, roping his steer in 56 seconds alongside island teammates Archie Kaʻauʻa and Jack Low, according to the National Park Service.
Music and Culture Alongside the Competition
Organizers say the weekend will include cultural demonstrations and Hawaiian music alongside the rodeo events, and Kaonoulu's own rodeo calendar runs deeper than this single weekend — the ranch has hosted the Fourth of July Makawao Stampede for more than 70 years under the fourth-generation stewardship of the Miranda and Rice-King families. Hawaiian slack key guitar, or kī hōʻalu, developed alongside these ranching traditions in the 1830s after vaqueros introduced acoustic guitars that island cowboys retuned around campfires, a tradition Hoodline explored in its coverage of the 44th annual Slack Key Festival. That musical lineage remains part of Upcountry Maui's identity and gives the rodeo's cultural programming its roots.
The 2026 Oskie Rice Memorial Rodeo is sponsored by Goodfellow Bros., Festivals of Aloha, Maui County, Alpha Inc., American AgCredit, Bacon Universal, Maui Oil Company, Maui Soda & Ice Works, The Odom Corporation and Pacific Media Group, which also owns Maui Now. More information on tickets and schedules is available at maui-rodeo.com and oskiericeeventcenter.com.
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