{ TEN-G ALLON TIAR A}
would have scored her very high.” It was a successful ride, but Char-
li has yet to do her freestyle run — and that horse is no improvement. Still, when Charli charges out the gate, she is fast and loping and changing leads, rounding the arena with her hand held high, waving her final queen run. In asserting control, she gave up some flash, but “she rode flawlessly!” her pageant coach, Kathy, is saying. “I expected her to be solid, but she did great. She was so strong.” Kathy smiles megawatts and says, “If she continues in the vein she is now, she’ll definitely make top five.” Kathy interrupts herself. Down in
the arena, a rodeo queen’s cowboy hat — which they must wear at all times, with their Miss Rodeo crowns affixed to the front — has gone flying. “Oh, my goodness,” Kathy exhales.
“Did her hat just come off?” “Yeah,” Tara says. Kathy looks stricken. “You know what
they say about rodeo queen hats: ‘If the hat comes off, the head better be in it.’ ”
B
ack home, next to her bedroom door, Charli has hung up a collage with her rodeo queen goal: “TOP TEN.” As in, she doesn’t nec-
essarily expect to win. But she expects to make a good showing. Surrounding that hope are pasted further inspirations — a cowboy hat, a spirited “Cowgirls 2009” and some Madison Avenue encourage- ment, “Grab Life by the Horns.” This entire enterprise has floored
Charli’s family and friends. Twelve mem- bers of her extended family have come to Las Vegas to cheer Charli on, and one immediately brands the pageant “cult- ish” — for all of its subterranean rules, eager hangers-on, elaborate costumes and strict sequestering of the queens. Charli’s brother, an Army helicopter pilot who flew back from Korea for the event, calls the pageant “total culture shock.” But Charli’s mom says she couldn’t
have concocted a better year for her daughter. It was better than college. Bet- ter than grad school. “This is so much closer to any job experience she’s ever going to have,” she says one afternoon. Some of Charli’s co-queens in Las Vegas have lived girlhoods so steeped
Charla, at far left, is worn out as the contestants pause during a rehearsal. Only two queens from east of the Mississippi had ever won Miss Rodeo America.
in rodeo queen dreams that when they did not win the Miss Rodeo pageant in their home state, they moved elsewhere and nabbed another state’s title. Charli, meanwhile, was appointed Miss Rodeo Virginia. At the time, she did not own a cowboy hat. Her pageant coach discovered Charli
when Kathy and her husband came to Charli’s family’s Lovettsville farm to buy a horse. Kathy saw Charli’s sister, Autumn, riding and thought: She’d make a good state queen. But by the time of the Miss Rodeo America pageant, Autumn would have been 26. Too old. “I have a sister,” Autumn told Kathy. “Can she ride?” “She’s a better rider than I,” Autumn
answered. “Is she articulate? Does she play well
with others?” Autumn cited Charli’s years of trav-
el softball and college team experience. Then Kathy met Charli, who had re- cently graduated from college, landing smack in the Great Recession and look- ing for something to do. This would give her a chance to travel the country for a year, promoting rodeo in Virginia, up the Eastern seaboard and through-
14 The WAshingTOn POsT MAgAzine | november 14, 2010
out the West. At the end of the year, she would compete in a grueling, week-long cowgirl-meets-rhinestoned-prairie-girl version of the Miss America pageant. Making sure Charli understood that this wasn’t some silly, besequined romp, Kathy lay down the first imperative: no boyfriends. “If you can’t take a year of your life and dedicate it only to this,” Kathy con- tinued, “then it’s not worth doing, and tell me now.” Kathy, a former national director of
the Miss Rodeo Colorado program, also had this to consider: In the pageant’s 55- year history, only two queens from east of the Mississippi have ever won — Miss Rodeo Michigan, in 1958, and, 13 years ago, Miss Rodeo Louisiana. Undaunted, Charli signed on and
spent the year visiting 20 states and even more rodeos and handing out autographed 8-by-10 photos of her- self. By fall, she was speaking with a Southern drawl heavily laced with a Western twang and one-liners like a leather-browed rodeo hand, and she was just getting started: All day every day from October through Thanks- giving, Charli prepared for the Miss
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