Bull Bash and Tim Walz

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The Bull Bash is an annual event on the Main Street of Valentine, Nebraska.

The former Palisadian-Post editor Bill Bruns wrote CTN that “You ought to have a Musing that, “Who knew my relatives would be growing up next to a future VP candidate, in little Valentine, Nebraska.” He was referring to vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz.

We often visited Valentine, population 2,600, to visit Corrine and Emory Pascoe, my husband’s parents, who owned a beauty shop in town. I had even penned a story about the Heart City Bull Bash, a celebrated community event.

For at least the past two decades the Bash was “to showcase bull power that was available to ranchers to improve their herds,” and always took place around Valentine’s Day. Main Street was closed down, so that bulls could be showcased. There were a series of other events that could include fundraising for 4H (Luck of the Draw), wine tasting, a quilt show, dummy roping and even shopping specials at the local stores. https://www.bullbash.net/

People from all over the nation sent letters to be postmarked “Valentine” for February 14 and there was a Valentine’s Day coronation at the high school.

Corrine and Emory knew everyone in town—and my mother was a source of much “information” – and most of it accurate.

Sadly, they both have passed away or I’m sure one of the National journalists would have pumped her for information.

Tim Walz captured in his freshman year.

L.A. Times covered Walz on August 15. They wrote he “is a white guy who spent formative years in Valentine, the remote seat of Cherry County, the nation’s top producer of beef cows.

President Trump won 87 percent of the vote there in 2020 and when a reporter asked a local if Walz might flip any votes. “Um, no,” he said.

CTN still did not plan to do a story, but when the Wall Street Journal ran an August 21 piece (“Walz’s First Stop to Win Rural Voters: His Hometowns”), it was time to join other journalistic endeavors. Luckily my husband is roughly the same age and was able to produce a few yearbook photos.

Most people haven’t mentioned that Walz was also on the high school golf team (back row, far right).

The WSJ wrote “But while many in the towns where Walz grew up are impressed by his political ascent from a map dot near the state’s rolling Sandhills, they aren’t ready to vote for him.

“Even some of Walz’s cousins, many of whom live east of Valentine in Butte, Ne., a town of roughly 300 people where Walz graduated from high school plan to vote for former President Donald Trump.”

Walz father James, who fought in the Korean War, was the superintendent in Valentine “that made the family seem slightly more affluent than others, according to former classmates.”

Ranchers’ kids often attended one-room elementary schools and when it came time to attend Valentine High School, often stayed at rented homes in town during the week because the drive to school in the winter months was dangerous and long.

Even though both articles concluded that it might be difficult for rural America to change its mind, a resident said, “Take all politics out of it, what Tim has done is the American dream.”

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