Aloha, I’m Kalaʻi Miller.

Every Fourth of July, paniolos and spectators from all across the islands make the trip to the Oskie Rice Arena in Makawao, Maui for a weekend of rodeo and celebration.

The rodeo started in 1956 and today the family of the original organizers continue the Upcountry Maui tradition with the Makawao Stampede Rodeo.

My favorite thing about Makawao Rodeo is how big it is.

My favorite part about rodeoing is the friends I make.

My favorite part about going to the Makawao Rodeo is meeting new people and that awesome experience I get.

It’s just the craziness and everything that happens.

I love it, everything about it.

The grit and how tough it is to do so not a lot of people do it.

My name is Nixon Nuese, I’m 11 years old.

I’ve been rodeoing for four years.

I do bull riding, breakaway, team roping, goat tying, double mugging, and open roping.

My name is Ken Miranda and I’m the general manager here of Kaonoulu Ranch.

We own the Oskie Rice Arena facility here and the surrounding pastures and also the polo field.

I have started doing the Makawao Stampede Rodeo here the last couple years.

Kaonoulu Ranch is my family ranch was originally owned by my great grandfather HW "Pop" Rice.

It's been in our family since 1916.

And right now, my husband and I run it for the family.

About 70 years ago, my dad approached his father Oskie and said, they wanted a place for the cowboys to display their skills to play.

So, he asked for an arena that they could build for the cowboys to come and compete, mostly against ranch cowboys against each other.

My grandfather Oskie said, okay, you guys want to build an arena.

Here you go, you guys can have this piece of property, build an arena, you manage it, and you can have it.

After the first couple years, Maui Roping Club was formed.

And they produced the Makawao Fourth of July rodeo.

They produced it for 65 years did an awesome job.

And then as things happen, new chapters in history and the ranch decided to take the land back and renovate the facility.

And we moved it from the old location and we built this new facility for the community to enjoy.

The rodeo's now called the Fourth of July Makawao Stampede, and it's held Fourth of July weekend here.

Last year was our first year producing it; we were limited because of COVID.

But we opened it up this year.

We are full on open.

(Rodeo announcer) Here we go.

Oh wow.

I’m a fourth generation cowboy actually.

I've been doing rodeo for professionally for 13 years now, but I've been involved with it ever since I was little.

I started just like anybody else with a rope in my hand, whether that was a bull rope a team rope or just riding horses.

So in the steer wrestling, you, you basically running a fast horse.

That horse is starting from zero mile an hour to probably about 30, 35, 40 mile an hour and its object is to pass that steer, and as he's passing that steer, you go ahead and slide down off the side of that horse onto that steer catching that steer by the horns and then being able to move move that steers hips alongside and then throw them on the ground.

As you're backing in that box, and you're kind of getting ready to nod, and of course the adrenaline's pumping a little bit, but I try to keep my mind as clear as possible, and that gate cracks and I go down in the arena and grab my steer and throw them and I think my first time was probably a seven, three or a seven, five, somewhere around there.

(Radio announcer) Come on Judd, let’s get it done.

Oklahoma cowboy, Makawao.

He’s got ’em down.

Good job Judd!

I didn't think I was gonna win because that was the first time I had competed in the steer wrestling since 2008.

It was just kind of one of those things for me that I was gonna just do my best and have fun and that worked out I came out with a win.

Gosh Makawao has cowboy roots that are legendary.

Ikua Purdy is the guy that kind of founded the whole roping competition here in Hawaiʻi.

He went to Cheyenne, Wyoming and won the World Steer Open Championships, way back in the day where he had to take a schooner and then a train to get there and nothing like what anybody has to deal with today.

And you know, now he's buried up here in in Kula, at Ulupalakua Ranch.

The ranching, rodeo polo history here in Makawao is amazingly deep.

And we've had some really, really good cowboys and cowgirls come out of here as the rest of Hawaiʻi in general.

The vaqueros came to teach the paniolos, the Hawaiians how to take care of the wild cattle that we're running rampant around here.

But those skills are so prevalent today.

In rodeo we have two events that we call Hawaiʻi's own event.

One is the poʻo wai u and one is the double mugging.

Those two events actually were created by my father Freddie and his buddies, George Manoa, and a few other guys.

Poʻo wai u is a rodeo event that should look like how it was roping cattle in the mountains.

They would go up to the mountains and rope the wild cattle, tie them up to a tree either for a day or overnight and they would bring them down the next day tied to an oxen.

(Rodeo announcer) He’s got ropes.

Yes, yes, yes.

Oh yes!

This might change up.

The other event is double mugging.

One cowboy ropes, the animal by the head another cowboy on the ground, knocks it down and then they tie up three legs and call for time.

(Rodeo announcer) Sal is on the ground, get a rope Sal.

Here we go, keep him down now.

Lift.

They’re wrestling.

Come on Sale.

Alright now.

There we go.

That’s a pretty nice job by the boys.

The regular events; team roping and tie down, bull riding, they’re traditional events.

But if you’re from Hawaiʻi and you’re a cowboy, you want to be proficient in poʻo wai u and double mugging.

There's paniolo on every island in the state of Hawaiʻi.

When they get together for example this weekend, we're one paniolo family.

That it doesn't matter where you came from or who your family is.

Everybody's family for us., doesn't matter your last name.

Here in the rodeo community, you’re family and everybody treats you like family.

The community looks forward to this Fourth of July weekend all year long.

Everybody grabs a pair of cowboy boots and and a hat then shows up here and and enjoys participating in one form or another where it'd be in the spectators side or over here actually competing in the arena.

Being a full on cowboy for a weekend, others pursue it a little more seriously.

(Rodeo announcer) Watch this ring.

There we go, come on.

Swing over that backs.

Oh no, no tie.

Follow through.

Oh!

Left hand side, giving it all.

Oh!

How did he get out of that?

He got out of it Rob.

Come on.

Come on.

And he got the head on.

Let’s see what the heeler’s going to do.

Yes sir.

Oh!

Makawao!

Guees what folks?

Everybody loves to watch rodeo.

It brings everybody together because no matter if you like our ocean person or a paniolo whatever you do in life, everybody loves to come and watch the rodeo.

The Fourth of July Makawao Stampede is an amazing event in our community.

It not only brings people out of their homes to celebrate the Fourth of July or Independence Day, but it brings the community together we have people that come from all over the island actually, people fly in from off island to spectate it.

But the best part is that we have people that fly in from all over the state to compete.

It tightens our rodeo family.

You don’t get an opportunity to see each other thoughout the year and you come here for a weekend.

Yes to win the buckle, yes to win the money but really to spend a weekend rodeoing side by side with friends and family that you haven't seen all year.

It's good, tough, friendly competition but it's also an amazing weekend.

The community comes out you can have kupunas coming out in their lau hala hats and put on their lei poʻo.

Get their best rodeo shirts on along with your babies that are running around with balloons and streamers celebrating the day.

Our event is a non alcoholic event.

We really promote that it's a family event that it's a safe, fun, great place to come from babies to the oldest kupunas and everyone in between.

And then it's just a really good time to get together and celebrate life.

My name is Kaipo Soledade and I'm from Maui.

I've been doing rodeos since I was 16, so about nine years.

I used to ride bulls, but now I only fight bulls.

So when the bull rider falls or gets into a sticky situation, I step between the rider and the bull, and kind of distract the bull and take the hit if you have to.

We all you all kind of get hit like that's it's kind of part of the job.

It's just getting back up and doing it if you love it, which I love to do it.

So yeah, there's bumps and bruises and some broken bones here and there.

But always, for some reason you always come back.

I didn't come from rodeo or paniolo background at all.

My dad's a professional surfer.

So I grew up surfing.

But I got into rodeo because the island so small, so you kind of go to school with everybody.

You go to school with paniolos, you make friends.

So one of my best friends since I was a kid, did rodeo.

So that's how I started riding bulls.

And then after riding bulls for a couple years, I got hurt and I decided to fight bulls.

I fight bulls professionally but I always come back to Makawao because home is always home.

That's where I started.

Makawao Rodeo was my first rodeo I ever fought at.

It's really something super special about Hawaiʻi, that we are competitors.

We are rodeoing our hardest, but at the end of the day, what happens outside the arena is way more important.

They're gonna make memories.

They've got friendships, they're gonna last a lifetime.

You win a buckle, you got to go win it again.

You make a friend, that friend is your friend for life.

Our mission is training arena champions, but raising life champions.

And that life champion lasts forever.

And so that that spirit, that attitude that you're not competing against somebody, you're competing with them.

(Rodeo announcer) Alright let’s see.

Roy’s got ‘um roped, James is going to come in and help with the mugging.

This is where the wrestling match starts folks.

Makawao, they’ll need some encouragment from you in the grandstands.

Come on.

Help them out.

Thank you for that folks.

I got my rodeo family and my family out here.

And they're the people that support me through rough times and keep my head up when things aren't going so well and encouraged me and got my back when I go off and will be in the mainland.

I always know that I got someone over here rooting for me the whole time.

(Rodeo announcer) Daniel Miranda.

Come on Daniel.

Pull, pull, pull.

Yes!

Oh man!

Rodeo in Hawaiʻi, in general, it's a big family sport.

We all support each other and that's a big thing.

I mean, we're all here in the middle of the ocean.

So we might as well do what we can to help strive and keep this sport alive here for the rest of the keiki coming up under us.

(Kalaʻi Miller) We all face moments in our lives that have us reevaluating what we want our future to look like.

For Saili Levi, it was a health scare that jumpstarted his pursuit to change his career path.

And after several failed attempts, it was a venture into vanilla that is bringing his family some sweet success.

(Music) Smell this.

Does it smell good?

Yeah.

What does it smell like?

Vanilla.

Okay, go put it away.

Put it on the table.

If I close my eyes and I think about it, you know, I'm still in that doctor's office where we didn't know what was going on, you know, he had some abnormal bloodwork and we went to a specialist.

The ending of 2016, I was diagnosed with leukemia.

And at this point, there had been some things going on in my life, my sister just passed away.

And now finding out that I had leukemia, it kind of, kind of made me reevaluate my life.

I was at the time pregnant with my third child.

I'll never forget driving home from that appointment.

And I was crying and Saili's telling me stop crying.

And, you know, and he was emotional.

And it started this discussion that he's talked about several times.

If I were to die, how would my girls remember me?

I was spending, you know, a lot of time at work, and I wanted to be around my girls more often.

And I didn't want them to remember me as coming home from work being too tired to take them out to the parks.

And so, it kind of motivated me to think of something else that I could do.

And that’s when I started looking into, um, taking some night classes at BYU and trying to start my own business.

He came home with several ideas of what he thought would be able to take him and take our family, to where he wanted to be where he imagined he could go.

And so, a lot of those ideas, I thought, Oh, you're crazy.

No, we're not doing that.

I love you.

I support you.

But try again.

Well, first he wanted to do mushrooms and then he decided a party tent you know those huge white tents.

And what else did we try?

Bouncy houses.

So, it wasn’t until a friend of mine, while were were working together for the water company here in Lāʻie, um, he recognized you know, the vanilla plants growing in this one area we were working on.

And at first, I didn't think anything of it.

But it wasn't until a couple of weeks later, I went back to him and I asked him to explain to me what that vine was.

We did some research online and as soon as we saw some videos on YouTube and Google, we were like, let's go and see if we can take some of these vines home and start planting them in our backyards.

And so, you know, Laie Vanilla Company basically started from there.

At first, we killed many vanilla vines, just from not knowing what to do but between the research that we did online, and with the hands-on trial and error process that we went through, we were able to learn more and how to grow vanilla.

I think altogether is was about three years.

Because vanilla, it takes about two to three years for the plants to mature.

And so, for the first two to three years, I was working full-time for the water company and at the same time planting vanilla in my backyard.

So, he would put in his hours at the water company.

And then he would put in his hours in the backyard doing the vanilla.

And it would be till really late at night.

And I saw this for a while.

And I thought to myself, he's really going for it.

And it's really going somewhere.

We were able to reach out to a few of the local restaurants here on the islands.

And as they got interested in vanilla, um, it kind of gave us hope to, okay let’s, let’s continue to do this.

It was around January of 2020, when we decided to take the leap of faith.

And then everyone knows around March of 2020, that's when COVID hit but we knew it was something that we needed to do because we had prayed about it.

And we had talked about it because as the kids were staying home more because there were no schools I was able to kind of be there more for the kids and help them with school and I was able to take them to the farm and help build the farm that it is today.

My wife picked up a lot of that financial burden that we had to take care of.

I decided, as a nurse, it's easy for me to pick up extra shifts to pick up an extra job.

And it took a while before it became profitable.

You know, and it took a while before we realized that it would be something that would be able to take our family into the future.

But it didn't take a while for us to see that this is we that we made the right decision.

And that this is where we wanted to go because I could see how happy he was, how happy the kids were.

And our family unit was so much happier with him being with the kids more and me being able to help out.

It just really brought us all together.

(Nats home video) I can’t hear you.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Okay.

Mush, mush, mush.

You guys gotta build the farm.

Let’s go.

Push.

Are we going to have a break?

Yeah, okay, take a break.

Break time.

Good job.

Okay everybody in.

Everybody in.

One, two, three.

Go farmily team.

Okay go take a break.

So, the girls were there from the beginning, from rolling out the ground cloth, the ground mats, to helping me pounding the different poles that holds up the, the netting to bringing the plants over from our backyard to the farm where it is now.

So, a typical day on the farm depends on what, what cycle we're in.

And so, the different cycles that we go through is from January to March, the, the plants are dormant and they're growing.

From March to August, it's a little bit more work that we have to put in because all the flowers, this is the flowering period.

So, we have to hand pollinate the flowers, because there aren't, we don't have any of the natural pollinators here in Hawaiʻi.

The natural pollinators, they're indigenous to Central America.

And those natural pollinators it's called the melipona bee.

(Nats hand pollination) So the pollen is under the anther cap.

Yup.

Then you want to squeeze it lightly so the pollen can get to the anther cap and then that causes the stem to become the beautiful vanilla.

Perfect.

Did you catch that?

Yeah.

And now we’ll get you to pollinate.

So, my girls are all in with the business from hand pollinating.

You know, Mālie, I've taught her when she was six.

Iʻinilani she's learned how to pollinate now.

She's also six.

And Taimane she's five years old and she's one of those ambitious, young ones who wants to learn now while she's five.

And then from August to December, this is when we harvest.

You can see that they’re mature when they start to turn yellow at the tips.

And um, we typically let them wait on the vine for at least nine months.

Sometimes we have to wait longer.

Here’s what we call a bouquet because it’s got a whole bunch of them on top.

Here’s what I’m going to do.

I’m going to cut these beans out.

We gotta separate them, right?

We gotta get them ready for blanching.

Why do you blanch them?

We want to blanch them so that they don’t continue to grow and split.

You see how these ones are already split?

Even though they smell really good, they don’t have the looks that people want.

What we need to do in order to cure them is we blanch them in hot water.

And so, the temperature that the water needs to be at is 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

And as soon as it's at 150 degrees, we will put all the vanilla beans in the water and we'll sit them there for about five minutes.

We'll dump them out and we'll wrap them up in towels or blankets.

And then we store them in an insulated box for about two days, then we go through the drying process, which is just sitting them out in the sun for an hour, and then wrapping them back up and sweating them in the insulated box for another 23 hours.

So we just do that over and over again, for about a month.

My least favorite thing to do at the farm is pulling weeds and that's where my wife comes in.

She's the number one weed puller that we have on the books.

I mean, we don't pay her but she does, she's in the books.

I don't have a salary, but I do get foot massages.

It's been so rewarding and so fun to see the girls grow into, Laie Vanilla Company.

And we have number four on the way it's going to be our first son.

I'm going to raise him to learn how to crawl in the farm.

So he can crawl and pull weeds, you know, they grab everything.

So it shouldn't be a hard transition.

Mama's done.

I was born and raised in Lāʻie.

Saili was born in Samoa and raised there until he was about seven or eight when his family moved to Lāʻie.

And so, when we talk about why did we name it Laie Vanilla Company, you know, we could have chosen anything.

I feel a deep connection to Lāʻie.

Lāʻie Elementary School, Saili and I were in the same second grade class, there at the elementary school and now our kids go to that school.

I told Saili, that this is what I want it to be.

This is where it all started.

This is where he found that first vanilla vine that launched our business.

It was in the backyard of our family home that I was born and raised in that my grandfather built that we killed and brought back to life and learned how to grow all these vanilla vines.

And so, that is part of the legacy now that our family has of Lāʻie and that we hope will live on in Laie Vanilla Company.

As far as my, my diagnosis with leukemia, we are still monitoring it and it's, it looks like I could live a normal life as long as we do what we need to do and follow what the doctors say.

I tell my kids, if you believe it, you can achieve it.

And if you're passionate about something, and you don't know how it's gonna get done, I tell them, how is none of your business, you just do what you need to do now take it one step at a time and it'll all work out.

Thank you for joining us.

Head to PBS Hawaiʻi dot org for bonus features from this episode.

For Home is Here, I’m Kalaʻi Miller, a hui hou.

Ha!

That horse wins.

Most sports are business that professionals get paid a salary.

Win or lose they get paid.

Here, it’s a lifestyle.

You work for what you get.

Not everything comes easy everybody but it’s a lifestyle and we all work together for it.

I don’t have a favorite thing to cook with vanilla because I don’t cook at all.

But I do like to eat a lot of desserts.

And so, I would say from creme brulee to vanilla ice cream.

I mean, anything that you can make with vanilla I love and so I'm grateful that I'm the vanilla farmer and so when people come and buy vanilla from me, they actually bring samples of what they what they sell or what they make.

And so, I would say I love all of it.