This week I went to the Sooner State for a rodeo I have always wanted to go to, but never had the chance. Oklahoma City’s Jim Norick State Fair Arena is host to the Ram National Circuit Finals Rodeo. There were about 20 other state queens who joined in the fun, so it was really great to see all of the girls again! The RNCFR features 24 contestants/teams in each event who earned the right to compete by doing well in their home circuit (there are 12 geographic regions in ProRodeo’s circuit system). The top 8 qualify for the final performance. The total purse is nearly $480,000, so there’s a lot of money up for grabs, but the top prize in each event is a $20,000 voucher for a new Ram truck.
For whatever reason, I didn’t get the official queen schedule until Tuesday, the day I ended up leaving. I just assumed our first day was Thursday since that’s when the first performance was, and I had planned on flying standby into OKC sometime Wednesday afternoon/night. When I learned that the first appearance was Wednesday at 11:00am things changed! I wasn’t going to be able to get on a flight with that late of planning, so I made the last minute decision to drive. I didn’t want to miss anything! After work on Tuesday I went to my house and frantically started packing, knowing I had a 14 hour drive ahead of me. Since I was driving I basically took my entire closet and figured I could decide what I wanted to wear later! I headed out of Ft. Walton Beach at about 5:30pm… which meant my expected arrival was 8 or 9am the next day.
I don’t really mind driving, until I get tired. That usually happens when I hit about 7 or 8 hours behind the wheel. With this trip, I started out tired because I had already been up at 6am and at work all day! I don’t know how I made it the entire way to Oklahoma City, but I did. My original plan was to stop at my sister’s house which is in Wynnewood, an hour South of OKC to take a power nap - but the GPS in my phone took me on an incorrect route and I ended up passing it by 20 miles and wasting at least a half hour. By the time I figured that out I was so mad I lost valuable sleeping time that I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I found it anyway. I drove the rest of the way into OKC and took about a two hour nap at the hotel before meeting the rest of the queens at our appearance at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
The rest of the day went great, I was so excited to be there that I didn’t really feel too tired. It’s amazing how much sleep you don’t really need to function! All of the state queens had a blast riding around on the huge bus that was provided for us. We were rocking out to music and standing up on the seats dancing, of course! A ‘Harlem Shake’ video was of course made… Justin even posted it to their facebook page!! You can check it out on YouTube here:
There were two performances on Thursday, one Friday, and two Saturday. We had so many visiting queens that they split us up. I rode for three rounds, and had a different pony each time! After the rodeo Thursday, we all went to the Thompson Square concert which was really fun! Friday morning we went to the OKC Gun Club to skeet shoot and got on teams with a few of the cowboys who were competing to see who could bust the most clay pigeons. My team had Jake Wright & his wife on it, myself, and Miss Teen Rodeo Oklahoma. We didn’t place in the competition, but we had a great time. I’d never shot clay pigeons with a shotgun before, so I was a little nervous for how I was going to do – but as it turns out I’m a pretty good shot. MRArizona, MRArkansas and myself were all pretty good and we decided we could be considered the “dream team,” that’s why we had to do a video-blog on the spot, check it out here:
One of the highlights of my week was having the honor of walking Bareback rider, Bobby Mote into the arena for the opening ceremonies of the final round. We walked through flames & smoke and were the first ones to be introduced. I was lucky to grab a picture with Bobby before it took place and I got to visit with him for a bit about the horse he drew that night. He was such a nice guy and I really enjoyed getting to visit with him.
Running Time in a Car: 140h 58m
Running Mileage: 9301
Running TV Interviews: 5
Running Mileage: 9301
Running TV Interviews: 5
Running Radio Spots: 2
Running School Visits: 4
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