MOSES LAKE — It’s one of those Old West traditions, the crew gets together for a good breakfast before the work starts. The annual Cowboy Breakfast is scheduled for 7 to 10 a.m. Friday at Sinkiuse Square next to the Moses Lake post office.

Breakfast is sponsored by the Moses Lake Kiwanis, and proceeds form the event go toward Kiwanis community projects. It the traditional kickoff for the Grant County Fair, which beings Tuesday, and the Moses Lake Roundup, with its first performance Thursday.

It’s a cowboy breakfast, so it’s a cowpuncher’s menu – flapjacks and coffee, sausage, eggs and juice. Kiwanis volunteers flip the flapjacks and scramble the eggs, pour the coffee and run the chow line. Michael’s on the Lake provides the pancake batter, eggs and sausage. Other sponsors include the Moses Lake Business Association and the Moses Lake Roundup Association.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $6 for children 12 years of age and younger. Children three years of age and younger eat for free.

Breakfast also features the crowning of a new queen of the rodeo and the best buckaroo during the Pee Wee Rodeo, for children 9 years of age and younger. Buckaroos, steer ropers, barrel racers and queen contestants line up for the grand entry at 9 a.m.

Local deejay Dale Roth provides the music all morning.

The Pee Wee Rodeo includes two events for boys and two events for girls. Boys rope a stationary steer head and ride stick-horse bucking broncos. Girls have a barrel race with stick horses and participate in the queen contest. (Although in the past, boys have raced barrels and girls have roped steers.) But while the horses are stick horses, Little Miss Moses Lake Roundup gets a real crown and real sash.

The Cowboy Breakfast has been the traditional kickoff for the fair and rodeo for many years. The Kiwanis have been flipping the pancakes since 1988, and they took it over from another service organization.

“All the money stays in the community,” said Ted DeWitt, who has organized breakfast for the Kiwanis for over a decade. The money goes to scholarships for college-bound students, as well as other Kiwanis projects. The Kiwanis worked with the Moses Lake Rotary chapter to help purchase dogs for the K-9 units of the Moses Lake Police Department and Grant County Sheriff’s Office the last two years.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].