The MSU Rodeo Club held its 43rd annual Spartan Stampede Rodeo this weekend. The four performances during three days featured bull riders, barrel racers and calf ropers among others competing in the largest indoor rodeo in Michigan.

Rodeo Club President Adrian Acuña, an animal science junior, estimated about 7,500 people attended Friday night’s performance and expected approximately 25,000 to 30,000 people would attend the four performances combined.

The Spartan Stampede is the single biggest event on the Rodeo Club’s calendar, he said, and was named the 2011 Indoor Rodeo of the Year by the International Professional Rodeo Association.

“Rodeo Club basically exists to put on Spartan Stampede,” junior Nicole Simmons said. “It’s a lot of work, but we have lots of fun.”

The event kicked off with Wrangler National Patriot Night on Friday. More than $2,000 was generated by admissions and individual donations to be contributed to the Desert Angels, a military nonprofit that specializes in collecting and shipping needed items to U.S. troops overseas.

Jessica Main, a 2008 MSU alumna and Mason, Mich., resident who also performed at the event, called the week preceding the stampede “the week of no sleep,” and agreed with Simmons.

Main joined Rodeo Club almost immediately after arriving at MSU. She’d been a barrel racer for years by then, and her parents had been in Rodeo Club when they attended MSU, she said.

She continues to compete in the stampede, thanks to a provision that allows local riders to register without being official members. In contrast to Main, Simmons, also a barrel racer, only joined Rodeo Club as a freshman after her friends convinced her to go see a performance.

“I just fell in love with it,” she said. “And after I joined, I fit right in.”

Moore joined the club without knowing what event he wanted to do before becoming a bull rider almost by default. Since then, he has gone on to be a mid-state finalist in bull riding.

Moore said falling is something that happens to all rodeo riders, but he doesn’t let it faze him.

“When you hit the ground, you just have to get up, run and hope for the best,” he said.

Despite “a couple of stitches here and there,” Moore said he loves it in Rodeo Club.

“It’s lots of fun, and you meet lots of good people,” he said.

Mary Lu Boettger, a St. John’s, Mich. resident, attended the first Saturday performance with her family and came away impressed.

“We were excited to bring our grandchildren, and we’d bring them again,” she said.

Although the stampede is the main focus of the year, the club also has a traveling intercollegiate team that competes throughout the country.

Rodeo Club meets Tuesdays at Anthony Hall, although members practice individually, animal science senior Amanda Egert said.