Sponsor clears way for bull run

The Mesquite Resort Association hopes to cash in on the bull market.

The association has agreed to sponsor the country's first-ever running of the bulls on July 11 by routing the horned critters over a quarter-mile course on a ranch owned by one of the local hotel-casinos.

The original plan was to run the bulls down Mesquite Boulevard through the heart of the town that is 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. But state highway officials deemed that route unsafe for such an event, putting the idea in limbo. That's when the association came to the rescue.

"We like the idea that this is the first time an event of this nature has taken place in the United States," association spokesman Kirk Lee said. "Like any small town that wants an identity, this is a hook. I can already see a 10th annual running of the bulls."

The Oasis Resort, Casablanca and Virgin River hotel-casinos, which make up the association, hope to attract 10,000 spectators to an event that shouldn't last much more than a minute.

A dozen rodeo bulls, supplied by the Slick Fork Cattle Co., will be chasing as many as 1,000 runners at the Oasis Ranch about two miles east of downtown. The bull run was the brainchild of promoter Phil Immordino, who will work with the association to put on the event.

Unlike other "sporting" events, it will be the runners who pay $50 each to participate and the spectators who get free admission. As of Wednesday, more than 700 runners had signed up.

Not everyone is thrilled with the idea. There already has been talk that the Humane Society of the United States and other animal-rights groups will stage protests in Mesquite, arguing that the bulls will be abused.

But Lee, who also serves as Oasis Resort's marketing director, said the animals will not be poked or prodded as are the bulls that run each year through the streets of Pamplona, Spain. That event was romanticized in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises."

"We hope the event goes so well that it's fun and that there will be no accidents," Lee said. "We're sticking firm to the idea that we can follow all professional rodeo restrictions. There will be no prodding, poking, whipping or stabbing of the bulls."

And unlike their Spanish counterparts, these bulls won't be butchered afterward. Instead they'll remain rodeo performers used by Slick Fork in Nevada and Utah.

The bull run, the centerpiece of a three-day festival, will occur on a compacted gravel surface surrounded by makeshift storefront props that will resemble a movie set, Lee said. It will be given the name "Main Street in Mesquite Village." And there will be plenty of escape routes for runners who decide they're no match for the bulls.

Speaking of bulls, Lee said invitations have gone out to members of the National Basketball Association champion Chicago Bulls and runner-up Utah Jazz. He also said an invitation was sent to Hemingway's niece, Hillary Hemingway, a Florida author who has written about the secret Area 51 Air Force base in Nevada. Lee said television crews from Spain and Germany have already indicated they will attend.

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