Recovering at his family ranch in central Idaho from two terminal cancer diagnoses and his leg amputation, Kevin Donahue, 61, said he realized life is short. “I need to do what I’m passionate about.”
For Donahue, that happens to be raising cattle and producing his hometown rodeo on Father’s Day weekend, a poignant time for him.
In 2015, he returned home to care for his father. After his father passed away, he bought part of the family ranch north of Mackay, where his great grandparents settled in the late 1870s, and decided to call the Lost River Valley home again.
“It’s good to be back,” said Donahue, who left after high school to launch his career as an iron worker.
In 2016, to express his gratitude for community support he received while recovering from thyroid cancer at age 18 and then again from a relapse in his late 20s, Donahue and his wife, Dana, began managing The Mackay Rodeo—Idaho’s wildest rodeo.
“For me, the rodeo is also a way to honor those who started it and the Pehrson families, local businesses, and volunteers who kept it going for decades,” said Donahue, president of the Mackay Rodeo Association. Dana is executive director. The rodeo has been a cherished tradition since it was established in 1946.
“We want to keep it going for future generations to enjoy,” he said.
With a reputation for solid management and support from competitors and fans, it was recently sanctioned by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.
“It’s exciting and unusual for a rodeo in a small town of 500 like Mackay to be a PRCA event,” he said. “We have a great committee producing an amazing nonprofit, volunteer-run event.”
He anticipates more than 3,000 people daily will watch the 77th annual rodeo on June 16 and 17.
“Coming to the rodeo is a great way to spend Father’s Day weekend,” he said. “It’s the same weekend as the start of the nine-day Reno Rodeo, so we hope to get a lot of cowboys who are going there.”
To find rodeo sponsors, Donahue relies on his vast network of contacts from his previous careers as a professional bullfighter and ironworker throughout the Northwest and owner of Donahue McNamara Steel.
Organizing the rodeo is an eight-month endeavor for him. “To get corporate sponsors, I’m on the road most of the time.”
Always optimistic, Donahue has never let health issues limit his goals or mobility.
“Twice, doctors told me I had 20 days or two months to live. But I told them that wouldn’t happen because God has a plan for me to still be here.”
At birth, Donahue said an Irish priest not only blessed him and his twin brother but also named them on December 1, 1961 at the hospital in nearby Arco.
“We were the first twins born there. The nuns were running it at the time, and an Irish priest happened to be there. Mom asked his advice about naming us. He said these brothers needed good Irish names—Kevin and Kieran.”
After Donahue’s second cancer diagnosis, he returned to the valley “to be a bull fighter, to do what I’d always wanted—be a cowboy lifesaver, a bull rider’s guardian angel.”
Local stock contractors Byron and Loy Pehrson gave him pointers.
After six years as a pro bull fighter on a circuit, a string of injuries and broken bones convinced Donahue to return to steel construction.
Undaunted throughout his life, Donahue has not slowed down, despite the recent amputation of his right leg above the knee.
While calving in 2020, a cow pushed him against the fence and sliced a 3-inch deep hole in his leg, down to the bone. “I thought it healed, but I got a MRSA infection.”
Like he had done previously, he defied doctors’ predictions.
“I was told with an amputation above the knee, I’d have a 98 percent chance of never walking again,” he said. “I was riding three months later. I’m not gonna quit or slow down from doing the things I love—producing the rodeo and raising cattle. I get along just fine.” ISI
The Mackay Rodeo Facebook page provides the schedule for the competitions, breakfast, parade, dance, concert, and a link to buy tickets. The rodeo’s storied history is told in the book, “Idaho’s Wildest—The Mackay Rodeo’s Early Years” available for $10 per copy at Way Out West Publishing, 3255 E 129th N, Idaho Falls, ID 83401-5150.
