MOUNTAIN VIEW — The third annual Bridger Valley SWOT OHV Poker Run took place on Saturday, Aug. 19, in Mountain View. The event — put on by the Town of Mountain View, Fort Bridger American Legion Post 36 and Southwest Wyoming Off-road Trails (SWOT) — was titled the “Rick Schuler Memorial Run” as a tribute to the late Schuler who was a founding member of SWOT and dedicated advocate of trails. Schuler passed away while mountain biking last year.

Nearly 100 machines and more than 245 riders attended this year’s event. The poker run was planned this year as the kick-off to the Mountain View 50th birthday party that took place later in the day.

Several dignitaries joined the poker run including Gov. Mark Gordon’s chief of staff Drew Perkins, Sen. Wendy Schuler and Reps. Ryan Berger and Jon Conrad. In addition, Forrest Kamminga, manager of the Wyoming State Trails Office and Brynn Hirschman from the Outdoor Recreation Office rode in the event.

Videographer Dean Petersen from State Parks rode along and filmed the event.

“The Rick Schuler Memorial Poker Run was very well organized. It was apparent that responsible motorized recreation was at the highest priority when the event was taking place,” Kamminga said.

The poker run this year included a stop at historic Piedmont kilns and a route through BLM lands, county roads and into the forest. The partly-cloudy day poured out a few rain showers to keep the dust down and muddy up the machines and riders. The riders returned to the city park in Mountain View around 4 p.m. and were treated to a barbecue meal provided by Benedict’s Market.

Donna Bindl, one of the poker run organizers, said, “I think the poker run itself was a little of everything people wanted to see and do with their machines. We were all happy to see how many registrations we had and the fun people were having.”

Many raffle prizes were donated by local and regional merchants and were given away at the proceedings after the meal. The winners of the poker run were Kristy Duncan ($250), Weston Cobb ($500) and Danny Lamb ($1,000).

The American Legion and SWOT also had a large raffle and the winners were announced at the event. Patrick Williams won the limited-edition Ruger 10/22 donated by Sportsworld in Evanston.

Ronnie Robbins won the Traeger Grill donated by Jim and Tracy Jones, along with a $150 meat package donated by Benedict’s Market in Mountain View.

The grand prize raffle, a Kawasaki 50cc ATV donated by Tim Ray, owner of Addicted Motorsports in Evanston, was won by Nathalee Wilson.