For the third year in a row, Estes Park's Rooftop Rodeo has been named the top small rodeo in the nation. The award was announced at the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association (PRCA) PRCA award banquet Dec. 1 in Las Vegas, NV. and is the third major award won by the mountain community's rodeo the past month.

In November the rodeo was named best mid-sized rodeo by the Mountain States Circuit (MSC) at its finals competition and the best small size rodeo in America by the Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA). The MSC represents more than 40 rodeos in Wyoming and Colorado while the WPRA award is a national competition.

This is the third year in a row that the PRCA has named the Estes Park event as the best in the nation in competition with about 400 other PRCA-sanctioned events and the fifth time the rodeo has been named tops in the past eight years. The WPRA award also was presented during the PRCA National Finals Rodeo and banquet last week.

The PRCA recognizes four rodeo categories: Small Outdoor, Medium Outdoor, Large Outdoor and Large Indoor. A rodeo's size is determined by the amount of added purse money awarded to the contestants. The Small Outdoor category is the largest group.

The 2011 Rooftop Rodeo will be held from July 12 through July 17.