Everything you need to know about Helldorado Days this year

If this were the Old West — the imagined one, not necessarily the real one — Kevin Riordan would look right at home in an era of bushy beards and villains twirling handlebar mustaches.

That’s because Riordan’s beard — a slender rope of carefully gathered, rubber-banded hair that brings to mind a rattlesnake crawling out of a hole — is nothing less than organic Western art.

Riordan’s beard hangs about 5 feet from his chin, like a reddish exclamation mark in front of nearly every inch of his 5-foot-9-inch frame. Not surprisingly, it’s the focus of questions, comments and cellphone camera lenses whenever Riordan leaves the house. And, on Saturday, it’ll be put to practical use when Riordan competes in the Whiskerino competition at the Las Vegas Elks Helldorado Days celebration.

Helldorado Days runs Thursday through Sunday with a slate of attractions that includes Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association rodeos, mutton bustin’ competitions for kids, a Saturday morning parade, a carnival, live music, exhibits, food and drink — including a beer tent — vendors and, of course, that signature Whiskerino contest.

The celebration and rodeo will take place at the Downtown Rodeo Grounds, located at at 100 S. Grand Central Parkway, next to the Smith Center for Performing Arts. Gates open at 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets at the gate range from $20 to $35 for adults and $15 to $20 for children.

For advance tickets, more information and a complete Helldorado schedule, visit the Elks’ Helldorado web site (www.elkshelldorado.com).

Jim Buell, former Helldorado general chairman and past exalted ruler of Las Vegas Elks Lodge 1468, recalls that the origins of Helldorado Days stem from city fathers’ desire back in 1934 to both celebrate the construction of Hoover Dam and induce those who came here to build the dam to stick around when the job was finished.

So, Buell says, “they decided they needed to have some kind of big festival.”

The first year, a promoter named Clyde Zerby was hired to produce Helldorado. The following year, Las Vegas Elks Lodge No. 1468 became involved and still produces Helldorado, today in association with the city of Las Vegas.

Buell estimates that about 20,000 people attended one Helldorado Days event or another last year. “Obviously,” he says, “our rodeo is a big event and we hope to fill the stands every night.”

The Helldorado rodeo is a PRCA-sanctioned event. “We’re fortunate where, in Las Vegas, we get some of the very best cowboys,” Buell adds.

PRCA rodeos will be held Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Then, at 5 p.m. Sunday, local riders will compete in team roping, barrel racing and bull riding in the Southwest Regional Rodeo.

Because the Helldorado rodeo is a PRCA-sanctioned event, rodeogoers are likely to see some of the weekend’s participants riding again in Las Vegas later this year when the National Finals Rodeo comes to town. And, Buell says, Helldorado rodeo guests will be able to see a classic outdoor rodeo in a setting that’s “up-close and personal. Those people in the front row, they can expect to get some dirt kicked up on them if they get a bucking horse coming pretty close.”

Other Las Vegas Helldorado Days events will include mutton bustin’ — a rodeo-like sheep-riding event for kids ages 5 to 7 — and the Helldorado parade in downtown Las Vegas, which this year moves to an earlier time, at 10 a.m. Saturday.

The parade will travel north on Fourth Street, from Gass Avenue to Ogden Avenue, Buell says.”It’s a terrific parade with lots of bands, lots of floats and a lot of horses, quite frankly. We don’t see a lot of horses in other parades.”

And there’s that Whiskerino contest, which is scheduled for the Pullman Grille inside Main Street Station at 2 p.m. Saturday

Contestants will be awarded prizes for best facial hair in six categories: Longest beard, most unique beard, longest moustache, best moustache, best overall and audience favorite.

“My understanding is Whiskerino has been around since the very beginning,” Buell says, although “in the old days, you had to start out clean-shaven.”

Contestants “went to the Elks Lodge in January and they took pictures of them clean-shaven. Then, they had from January to Helldorado Days in May (to) grow a beard. So it was very interesting, because all of the people — and, remember, it was a small town — knew that anybody they saw growing a beard was in the Whiskerino contest.”

Good thing, too, because Riordan never could have cultivated that impressive lariat of facial hair in a mere four months. Riordan says he became an aficionado of facial hair in high school, in part because of his father’s own “fairly big handlebar moustache,

“He was quite well-known for it. On the day I was born, there’s a picture of him holding me, and he had a huge moustache back then and he always got compliments on it. When I was kid, people would always stop him and compliment him on his moustache.”

But Riordan, now 36, also played sports, and “we weren’t allowed to have facial hair,” he says. Ditto for his years working in the restaurant industry, where “we had to be clean-shaven.”

Still, Riordan says, “I used to go to concerts all the time, and when we’d go to concerts there were a lot of guys with facial hair, and it was something I always wanted to do. So when I finally got a job that allowed me to not shave anymore, and I was no longer doing sports, I just started growing it.”

Riordan has been growing his beard for more than 10 years, but competed in his first Helldorado Days’ Whiskerino contest nine years ago, after having been introduced to the contest by his then-girlfriend. He has won four Whiskerino awards, including one for longest beard and one for best goatee. He says, “I don’t compete every year.”

Riordan also competes in a handful of regional and national beard and moustache contests each year, most of which raise money for charity. He figures he’s done between 15 to 20 so far, and has taken home a number of awards including, most recently, winning the “Partial Beard Freestyle” gold in October’s 2014 World Beard and Moustache Championships in Portland, Oregon.

But maintaining a world-class beard isn’t a slapdash sort of thing. Each day, Riordan shampoos his beard in he shower, taking hanks a few inches long, wetting them, working shampoo into them, and then rinsing them clear, working from top to bottom in a process that takes about 40 minutes. Once a month, he snips the rubber bands used at intervals of an inch or two to gather the beard hairs together and replaces them in a process that takes about four hours.

Riordan works in the construction industry, operating heavy machinery. So, each day, he’ll protect his beard by tucking it into the one-piece mechanic’s overalls he wears. Most coworkers, he says, “wouldn’t even know I have a beard.”

Maintaining his beard even affects a few basic daily activities. Because he’s 5-feet-9 inches tall and his beard 5 feet long, “I’ve got to keep my chin up” when walking, Riordan says, and “watch my posture.”

“I can’t play sports like I used to,” he continues, and Riordan sleeps on his back (the banded beard’s texture and flexibility is similar to that of rope, which prevents him from stuffing it into a hat or coiling it to sleep).

“I can’t eat Buffalo wings,” he says. “I can’t get ones with the bone. I get sauce all over the place. So I have to get boneless wings and cut them in half. Basically, every meal I have to eat with a fork and knife.”

On the other hand, the results of Riordan’s efforts are sure to be noticed and, in most cases, appreciated by those he meets.

“Now, it’s hard to leave home without having to take photographs and answering a million questions,” Riordan says. “I get the same questions, and one of them is, is it real? And, how long have you been growing it? Does it get in the way?”

When out in public, “you get interrupted a lot,” Riordan adds, including once while dining at a buffet with his mother on Mothers Day. “I had people come up and wanted to take a photo, and I literally had food in my mouth. But I never turn anyone down.”

At least he won’t be the only guy at Helldorado Days with a striking beard. Buell notes that Helldorado Days was designed, and remains to this day, as a community event that celebrates our Western past.

Along the way, Las Vegas Elks Helldorado Days also raises money for area nonprofit organizations. “Over the years, we’ve given away millions of dollars to local charities as a result of Helldorado Days,” Buell says.

This year’s beneficiaries, each of which will receive a portion of ticket proceeds, are The Animal Foundation on Thursday, Boys and Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada on Friday, Shade Tree Shelter on Saturday and Project 150 on Sunday.

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280, or follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.