For the first time in years, an Eagle County local wins the Vail Rotary Club’s rubber duck race

When Jim Lyons took a break from running the crane at the Village Inn Plaza roof replacement project on Friday, he saw a Vail Rotary booth and bought a few rubber ducks for the annual Labor Day weekend race on Gore Creek.

Lyons didn’t get a chance to see the race, which turns Gore Creek bright yellow as more than 10,000 rubber ducks compete against each other in a float from the Covered Bridge to the International Bridge. But he heard what happened — as his duck neared the finish line in second place, it seemed unlikely that it could overtake the duck in front of it, but that duck got hung up on the wire netting that forms the finish line corral, and Lyons’ duck was able to sneak out in front.

“I never thought I’d win,” Lyons said. “I just thought I was donating to the Rotary.”

In both 2022 and 2023, Denver residents claimed top honors in the annual event, making Sunday’s race the first time a local won the $5,000 first prize in years.

And Lyons is not from one of the area’s population centers, either. He lives on a ranch in Bond, one of less than 200 people to reside in the historic railroad community in Western Eagle County. From the 1930s to the 1980s, Bond was once one of the most important stops for passenger trains on the Denver and Rio Grande Western’s main line; the town received its name for the bonding of the Denver and Salt Lake Railway with the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, which occurs at that location.

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Lyons bought his ranch in 1994 after moving to Colorado from Texas about 10 years earlier. He was still a teenager when he got to Colorado and received good advice upon his arrival.

“I was 19 and worked for an outfitter, and he said, ‘The first thing you need to do is change your license plates to Colorado plates,'” Lyons said with a laugh.

Nearly 40 years later, Lyons said he has never considered moving back to Texas. He raises chickens and horses on his ranch when he’s not working as a crane operator on projects around the Western Slope. He loves community events like the duck race but doesn’t always get a chance to participate.

“I’ve done it a couple times,” he said of the race. “But it’s been years.”

The duck race raised more than $56,000 this year, with 6,903 ducks adopted. The Rotary Club uses the term “adopt” to describe a duck purchase, as contestants don’t get to keep their ducks. A single duck adoption starts at $10, and a bulk purchase of several ducks brings the price per duck down to $5.

Each duck is numbered, and a database matching the numbers to the person who adopted them is maintained by the club. The adopters of the first 15 ducks to reach the International Bridge win prizes, with the first claiming the grand prize of $5,000. Winners do not need to be present at the race to claim their prize.

Penny Wilson with the Vail Rotary Club said as of Saturday, about $40,000 had been raised through duck adoption sales.

“We had a really good race day, though,” she said. “We think there were less people there than normal; the parking structure did not fill like it often does on race day. But we still managed to raise more than $16,000 on the day of the event, when ordinarily we raise between $12,000 and $15,000 day of.”

Wilson said she’s always impressed by the number of people who aren’t aware of the race and stumble upon it before it happens, adopting a duck or two.

“But we always love it when a local wins,” she said.