A rodeo queen’s duties: Charla chats with Reina Prattis during a party at a Middleburg winery, far left, and works on her horse-riding skills on her family’s Lovettsville farm.
arena, jazzing up the crowd. At the base of each cowboy hat loops an abundant- ly curled ponytail, and it’s worth noting that, here, even the simplest of American hairstyles is both overdone and ebul- lient. “There’s a thin line between tacky and classy,” Charli likes to say, “and with rodeo queens, it’s a really thin line.” “Today,” the announcer continues,
“is the start of our 2010 Miss Rodeo America Pageant!” The women burst into the arena,
watching them,” Allen says. “The horse- manship is the key.” Beyond that, the judges — who can be
former MRA queens and large-animal vets, or rodeo stars and ranchers — want to see spunk but also pliancy and chasti- ty; no “sexy” on the runway. Since 1955, when a group of men
from International Rodeo Management were looking for a way to promote this Western pastime, the pageant has been all about finding “a young, attractive, nice-looking young lady who can ride a horse and speak knowledgably about the sport of rodeo,” says MRA executive director Raeana Wadhams. The first contest was held in Casper, Wyo. Nine women competed. Today, the pageant calls Las Vegas
home and is timed to coincide with the “Super Bowl of Rodeo,” the Wrangler Na- tional Rodeo Finals. About 28 states send rodeo queens, and the contestants tend to be 19-to-25-year-old women from smaller communities in the wide-open West and still-rural parts of the South- east — places where horse ranches and rodeos hold sway, and a “traffic jam” is (as Miss Rodeo Wyoming texted Charli one afternoon) getting stuck “while some cat- tle cross the road.” The pageant itself is a seven-day marathon of horse show, mod-
eling prowess, speeches, cowboy quizzes, rodeo statistics and private interviews with the judges. At every public break- fast, lunch and dinner, the judges watch the women’s manners and decorum, how they mingle and converse. The winner walks away with pseudo-
celebrity status for a year, plus a $20,000 college scholarship and about $50,000 in clothes, boots, hat, jewelry, custom horse saddle, and other Western gear and services. She spends the next 12 months earning a nominal salary and a small stipend during the approximately 300 days she travels, making public ap- pearances and attending 60 to 75 rodeos, riding unfamiliar workhorses while car- rying a weaving, heavy flag.
“I
t’s tiiii-iiiime!” The rodeo announcer’s voice rasps and echoes inside this Las Vegas indoor horse arena.
The queens are down in the dirt at
the South Point Hotel, beaming bright- er than casino lights, their sequins and rhinestones blazing pink and coral and aquamarine. Each wears festive sun- glasses — red stars, green hearts — and they’re blowing up oversize balloons to use while romping around the horse
running through dust and shaking their balloons, singing with the sound system: “It’s a party in the U! S! A! Yeaa-eeaaaaa- eeaa-eeaah! It’s a party in the U! S! A!” About 300 people have come to watch, and Charli is all dancing hips and cha- risma, one of the gang and happy for the chance just to zoom and bounce. Minutes later, her face is drawn
tight, and she’s taking notes while a judge — a large man in ostrich boots, white collared shirt and pumpkin-col- ored sweater — describes a permutation on the pattern they are about to ride. Charli looks serious and scared. And then she is headed down to the
horses, and the announcer is booming, “Miss! Rodeo! Virginia!” Charli rush- es through the gates, cruising across the arena, keeping her back ballerina- straight and kicking up dirt and — “Oh,” Tara is saying, upstairs, watching her horse. “She drew bad.” “She drew really bad,” says the man
next to her. Charli’s is a surly horse, one that gave the previous queen a rough time. “But look at that!” Tara crows. “She’s
doing really good with him.” Across the arena, next to Charli’s
mother, sits former Miss Rodeo Arizona Janice Wilson, who is in her 46th year of teaching horseback riding and often serves as a rodeo queen judge. She is purring about Charli’s performance and says later: “What an elegant girl! I mean, elegant, schooled, skilled. … I have a very, very, very high standard for how hors- es should be ridden. If I were a judge, I
november 14, 2010 | The WAshingTon PosT MAgAzine 13
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