Reno (Nevada): The fifth-annual Reno National Gay Rodeo attracted spectators from all 50 states and from as far away as Sweden and Germany. Events drew upwards of 6,500 on-lookers with about 4,000 gays attending a barn dance. Many of those in attendance were lesbians, and one fourth of the 60 participants in the rodeo events were gay women. The rodeo is sponsored by the Comstock Gay Rodeo Association, which will donate part of the profits to a Thanksgiving dinner for Reno senior citizens. Thirty-five members of the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Marching Band and Twirling Corps performed, as did the Mustangs, a country music group from Houston. As one indication of the growing awareness In Reno of the money the gay rodeo brings to the area, the Jim Beam distillery designed a miniature whiskey decanter In honor of the event.

Photo Captions (see photos in article above)

HOMOPHOBIC HORSE at this year's Reno National Gay Rodeo tries to get gay cowboy off his back.

Jim Bo Williamson and Diane Shannon, winners of the All-Around Cowboy and All-Around Cowgirl awards at the Reno's Gay Rodeo.