There was a lot of build-up the week before Perry City Administrator Sven Peterson was set to take a ride on a bucking bull, though when the time finally came, it was over fairly quickly.

At Friday’s opening night of the 2018 Dallas County Rodeo, many in the crowd were there to root on Peterson as he climbed onto a bull to raise money for the “Let’s Connect” project. He got into the chute and took ahold of a bull called “Mudslinger,” but when the gate was opened, Peterson found himself on the ground in the bull’s wake before he knew it. He describes what he felt leading up to a ride that few would have the stomach to even attempt. “The point at which you start climbing up into the chute, everything goes quiet and it’s just you and the bull. So it’s a pretty surreal feeling. But it ended pretty quickly, and I was on the ground!”

Peterson added, it did initially hurt when he fell off, but it was nowhere near the pain he felt last September when he broke five ribs falling off a bronco, which delayed his original date with “Mudslinger.” The ride lasted approximately one second, but that one second of bravery was enough to net the connector trail project close to $3,000. Peterson said they received around $2,200 in flat donations, and $500 in per-second contributions. However, he’s hopeful some of the per-second patrons will round-up a few seconds for their donation.

All the funds raised will go towards the project to bridge the nine miles between the Raccoon River Valley Trail in Perry with the High Trestle Trail in Woodward. To date, “Let’s Connect” is over 50% funded for phase one, and construction has already begun.