2026 Bone Game --- Friday, September 18th at 6pm at Rancho HS
The oldest tradition in Las Vegas high school football is the rivalry between Rancho High School Rams and Las Vegas High Wildcats.
The annual game is played for "HERKIMERS BONE" also known as "Sir Herk" Rancho tied Las Vegas in the first meeting of the series in 1958, The Herkimer tradition began.
The "Bone" is actually a large cow bone proposed by the Rancho LETTERMANS'S CLUB as the annual trophy for the Rancho-Vegas Football game. The father of a Rancho player owned a butcher shop and several members of the LETTERMAN's CLUB went to the butcher shop got the bone and boiled it in water for a full day. One end of the bone fell off during the boiling process, so they glued it back on and painted it silver to hide the crack. Since then, it has been preserved in Bronze. The first "Bone Game" ended in a 13-13 tie so each school agreed to keep "The Bone" a semester. However, some Rancho students stole "The Bone" from Vegas during the semester, where they were supposed to keep it at Vegas, and after that administrations agreed to Keep "The Bone" at the winning school for that year until the next year's game for bragging rights.
