It’s not often you’ll find Sarah Broussard speechless.
An outgoing and energetic presence, Broussard is known for putting on major equestrian events in the Flathead Valley. With a quick wit and confident speaking style, it would take a lot to knock her out of the saddle.
But when she picked up the phone to talk to her friend, Tagen Vine, earlier this summer, she found she didn’t have words.
Vine, the president of the Kalispell Regional Healthcare Foundation, was calling about an award. Broussard listened, perplexed, as he explained about his role as a Montana Ambassador, and that Broussard had won a big award.
She hung up the phone and digested the information, realizing she hadn’t listened to much of it out of shock. The Placemaker of the Year Award? What had she done to deserve that? What was it, again?
After asking other friends who serve as Montana Ambassadors, a not-for-profit association of Montana business advocates who promote the state, Broussard started realizing the gravity of the situation.
“It slowly kind of started to dawn on me,” Broussard said last week, laughing at herself. “It’s a huge honor to be recognized.”
The Montana Ambassadors give the Placemaker of the Year Award as a distinction for those who use their own resources and ingenuity to make the state a better place. The annual equestrian triathlon held at Broussard’s Rebecca Farm, The Event, has created positive change in the Flathead community, the ambassadors decided.
As part of The Event, Broussard started a program called Halt Cancer at X, which accepts parking donations and athlete pledges and auction proceeds during the triathlon and donates them to various organizations and researchers looking to defeat breast cancer.
The Event itself is a boon to the community, the ambassadors said, bringing in about 10,000 spectators and $5.5 million annually to the Flathead Valley economy.
Recently, The Event expanded to include the North American Youth Championships, a competitive field of riders ages 14 to 21.
“I’m very honored,” Broussard said of the award. “I’m still reeling a bit over the whole thing.”
Putting on a successful triathlon is a big job, and over 17 years, Broussard has grown The Event into one of the premiere equestrian weekends in North America. Horses and riders come from around the country and the world to participate, turning Rebecca Farm into a small city for a few days.
Broussard is the first to tell you there’s no way she could have done all of this alone.
“I am very fortunate to work with a group of people here at the farm that are amazing,” she said. “They are invested in the success of the event and that is our product. That is our Montana-made product that we create and distribute every year.”
The staff works like a well-oiled machine, along with a sturdy group of stalwart volunteers who show up year after year. The community itself has nurtured The Event into what it has become, Broussard said.
“It’s not about me, it’s not about my people, it’s not only about the competitors, it’s about the community,” she said. “They support us, we support them.”
She attended an awards ceremony earlier in August, and the plaque found a home on her bedside table, where she continued to look at it with awe.
“To think that somebody thinks of me on this level and that they would actually put my name forth for this award, and that the governor signed off on it, I’m still trying to process it,” Broussard said.