Bigbee's Biggest East

Brianna Bigbee, formerly @thebleacherbabe on Instagram and now @cosmopolitancowgirl, has quite the story to tell when it comes to her husband's family's roping, the Biggest East, they've been putting on for decades!

"The Biggest East of the Mississippi started out as a bulldogging, calf roping, and barrel racing in 1965. Decades later, it is still one of the biggest ropings in the region. While team roping was popular out west, no one back east knew how to team rope. Perry Bigbee, the founder of the Biggest East, had made many trips out west where he saw and started team roping back home. His attitude of “let's do it”, is how team roping got started in the eastern region of the United States. It began as two calf ropers chasing a horned steer with no horn wrap and trying to team rope him! They had no idea what they were doing!

"When the Biggest East added team roping, no one had a clue how big it would become. In the early years, it was not unusual for the Biggest East to have over 4000 teams on the weekend. Yes that’s right, 4,000 teams. Mind you, this was before a “drawpot” was ever heard of. It has always been held towards the end of Spetember, in the cool time of the year. When the ropings kicked off that Thursday there were a lot of times, the production never stoped until that Sunday. There were team ropers camped out all over the place!

"The Camarillos, Speed Williams, Clay Cooper, Al Bach, Tee Woolman, JD Yates, and many of the other greats all passed though that arena in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. While those top rodeo talents had plenty of rodeos to go to, there wasn’t much for jackpotting back in those days. This allowed the “wolves” to come jackpot for big money in a fun backyard setting at the end of the season. People from everywhere flocked to catch a glimpse of those guys!

"At the end of 1980s, Perry Bigbee had wore himself down of the responsibilities of putting on the roping. In the year, 1990 he felt it was time to pass the torch to help keep the tradition alive and enlisted Beverly Robbins as that person. Her passion for team roping was something Perry knew would keep the flame alive for the Biggest East. Beverly ran the roping for 28 years before passing the torch back to Cole Bigbee and family as she wanted to keep the roping alive as well.

"As far as we can tell this is the oldest standing consecutively produced team roping on the planet! Every year this roping provides a fun, family experience for all. The reasonable fees, great prize line and production keeps generations of families coming back." -Cole & Brianna Bigbee