Spooner Rodeo Entertainment 2026

Kelly Kenney was born in 1975 and raised in a small town in southwest Missouri with hard working, loving parents and two older brothers. Kenney credits his parents for allowing his dreams of becoming a cowboy to come true. He says, “Just now I realize how many sacrifices my family made to haul me to all of those high school rodeos. (We were) Living off of very little, but I never knew it, I felt I was the richest kid in the world.”

At an early age he learned to ride a stubborn little sorrel pony, and it wasn’t long before that experience developed into a love of rodeo. In high school, he learned how to rope and bulldog, and how to play guitar. He went to college on a rodeo scholarship. Soon officiating high school and college baseball and basketball, rodeoing, picking and singing consumed his life, leaving him with very little time for anything else. Then accidentally, in 1996. at a rodeo in his home town, the announcer didn’t show. Kenney reluctantly agreed to help. That night in November of ’96, he was “bitten by the entertainment bug,” as he puts it.

The next four years of Kenney’s life were jammed packed with excitement. He was announcing rodeos and competing hard all summer, officiating college baseball in the springtime, calling basketball games all winter and filling any otherwise vacant time slots with singing gigs. It didn’t take long for Kelly Kenney to realize his life was being consumed with work and travel, leaving little time for the things he loved at home - his family, hunting, fishing, and ranching.

In 2000 he became the head rodeo coaching position at Missouri Valley College in Marshall, MO. The next year Kenney was encouraged by his peers, students and family to pursue a career in the field that he had originally started years earlier, announcing rodeos. Kenney turned pro in 2001, resigned from the college in good standing, hung up his officiating uniforms and has never looked back.

Now Kenney announces PRCA Rodeos full time working approximately 30-40 events each year, traveling from Georgia to California and Texas to Montana. Last year he announced three Wisconsin rodeos, Spooner, Madison and Merrill. Despite his busy schedule all around the United States, last year, for example Kenney was able to fit in a fishing vacation in May and a hunting trip in November.

With a cow/calf operation at home, Kenney’s life remains full of responsibilities. Kenney says, “Now when rodeo season slows down in the fall, I get a chance to go hunting, pick with the band and auctioneer some sales. Most importantly, I get to truly enjoy my family.”

To find out more about Kelly Kenney, visit his website: http://www.kellykenney.com/index.html