Southeastern Pro Rodeo

March 22-23rd:

Ocala, Florida hosted the 20^th Annual Southeastern Pro Rodeo. This isn’t too far of a drive from Destin, but I couldn’t resist heading down towards Orlando prior to the rodeo. I just love driving! There was another pretty good reason for heading down that way, other than my love of getting behind the wheel, though. I had set up a meeting with the Sherriff at the Osceola County Sherriff’s Department to pitch an idea to him. I know they had repossessed cars & trucks, and as much driving as I do – I am in the market for a different vehicle! Mine has been having so much trouble lately and I hate to put around 1000 miles on it every weekend. So, my idea was for the Sheriff’s Office to sponsor a repossessed vehicle for me to drive for the year. The best part is that it wouldn’t cost them a thing and they would get great recognition out of it because their name would be on the side of the truck and as you already know I get a lot of highway time in. I’ve already driven over 6,000 miles traveling the state of Florida alone & it’s not even half way through the year yet! So, prior to the Ocala rodeo, I ventured down to St. Cloud to stay with Mark & Laura Kessler and get a meeting in with the Sherriff.

The Kesslers have been some of the nicest people I’ve met down in Florida. They truly feel like my ‘Florida’ parents. It was nice that Laura worked right at the Sherriff’s office, so I have to give her all the credit for setting up the meeting for me. Mark had a hand in the presentation that I gave to the Sherriff as well, because he attended the meeting with me and had some great additions to my speech. To my surprise, the Sherriff was completely on board with the idea! I guess it isn’t that surprising that he thought it was a good plan, because I sure did, but it just seemed so easy I couldn’t believe I didn’t ask sooner! The only thing between me and my beautiful new truck is legalities – so the lawyers are reviewing the idea to make sure it’s completely legal. For the entire next week I will anxiously be awaiting the final decision! 

After the meeting with the Sheriff, Mark took me out for a celebratory breakfast! Then we headed to a shop downtown where I was able to design my very own custom flip flops. They aren’t just ordinary flip flops, they’ve got Swarovski crystal studded conchos and I added pearls in mine. They’re so beautiful and I will anxiously await their completion and arrival in the mail! So many things to look forward to this next week!

Laura & I watched a movie while we drove from their house to Ocala. Or should I say Laura watched the movie, I slept! The rodeo was great – both nights had an enthusiastic crowd and great competitors. Ruben, the production manager, saw my presentation of the American flag in Lake City last weekend and requested that I bring my uniform to this rodeo and do that same thing. The crowd responded with a standing ovation both nights! It was, again, a great honor to get to do that:

Between rodeo performances, we were staying at the Providence ranch just a little ways from town. Daryl Carter was the owner, and it just so happened that on Saturday morning he was hosting a Tough Mudder event at his ranch, the 5k Cowboy Crawl. Of course, I just had to get in on that! It was such a blast. I hadn’t ever done a mud run before so I didn’t really know what to expect – but any expectations I did come up with were surpassed! The obstacles were huge and complex, and very challenging! I broke a nail trying to go across the monkey bars that stretched the length of an entire lake (#rodeoqueenproblems). I was on a team from MVP gym, a local group that worked together in Ocala. I kept right up with them and even ran in the front, but we always waited for the whole team before we finished any obstacle. Did I mention we had to crawl through the mud under hot electric wire! That’s a little incentive to keep your head down! By the end, I was very pleased with myself for doing so well at the course and wore my mud covered shirt & shorts across the finish line with pride, ending with a jump through a ring of fire! It was so cool, I loved it!  

Catch my blog about the Mud Run here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPj4bBbk-bs

Running Time in a Car: 110h 58m

Running Mileage: 7495

Florida Gateway Pro Rodeo

 

March 15-17th:

Finally, a rodeo that I didn’t have to drive over 5 hours to get to! This weekend I traveled to Lake City, FL for the Florida Gateway Pro Rodeo. I had so much fun at this rodeo it was probably one of the best I’ve been to yet in Florida – but then again I say that almost every rodeo I go to  :) I was provided a room at the Fairfield Inn which is always nice and after work on Friday I was able to stop there for a quick shower before heading to the performance – which beats the alternative that I was planning on - changing in my car & putting in my fake hair piece (I like to call it my ‘farrett’).

At the rodeo Sierra Coward, Miss Teen Rodeo Florida, and myself were able to carry flags the entire time. This is a rare occurrence down here because usually flag teams assume that responsibility. We had a great time and I made sure to let Sierra lead the group at times and switch with her. I think she really enjoyed that!

Rider Kiesner was the specialty act that was hired at this rodeo. He is a multitalented performer, a true Wild West showman. His performances include Whip Cracking, Gun Spinning, and his specialty, Trick Roping. I originally met him in Las Vegas where he was featured for one of the performances of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. He met the entire flag team, so I don’t know if he really remembered me or not at first – but we had a great time the entire weekend and now I’m sure there’s no way he’ll forget the flag girl who is also Miss Rodeo Florida :)   

 

 

Other than the rodeo, I was able to help out with kids activities at the fair. I was in charge of the bean bag toss and also the saw horse roping! Another event that I attended was the kids rodeo where I led kids around on horses who hadn’t ever gotten the chance to ride before. This is always a rewarding experience because the kids get so excited and some are scared to death! It’s fun to share my love of horses with those who have never been around them before.

One other neat thing that I got to do was drive a maroon, 50th Anniversary Corvette Coupe! Dion, an individual who hosted Miss Teen Rodeo Florida & Miss Rodeo Florida Sweetheart at his house for the rodeo, was the owner. I couldn’t believe he let me drive it! Apparently it is a tradition for Miss Rodeo Florida to take it for a spin during the rodeo, and I wasn’t about to break tradition! I had never driven such a powerful car before in my life. It had so much torque it was incredible! I tried to keep it under the speed limit, but that didn’t last very long. We had a great time driving it around and I was sad to hand the keys back over to Mr. Dion! 

Catch my video blog about the corvette here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Miss-Rodeo-Florida-Association-Inc/79862699396?ref=ts&fref=ts#!/photo.php?v=10200541072465104

Running Time in a Car: 98h 38m

Running Mileage: 6653

Arcadia All-Florida Championship Rodeo

March 10:

Frontier Rodeo Company was the stock contractor and they sure brought a good pen of bucking horses! Wow! The Arcadia rodeo itself was probably the best rodeo I had been to in the state of Florida as well. The bleachers were huge and they were packed! The rodeo set a single-day attendance record with an overflow crowd of about 8,000 on March 9 and also broke the overall record with more than 21,000 spectators for the three days

Cort Scheer, two-time NFR qualifier, rode Maple Leaf for 89 points to win the saddle bronc riding. Other bucking stock that was there included Full Baggage, Horse of the Year, and Delta Ship who holds the arena record at the NFR. Donny Gay was the announcer in the bull riding, where three rides scored 90 points and the win for 91. It was an impressive group.

I really had a head-ache for this performance, though, so I didn’t get to enjoy the great rodeo action as much as I should’ve. After the grand entry I just took a seat in the shade and watched, then left a little earlier than it got over with the people I was catching a ride with. I made sure to call ahead to the hotel where I had previously left my car. I asked if they had any cars towed from their parking lot over the past week, and the receptionist said she didn’t know! I then asked her where they might have the cars taken if they were towed – and she did know that information. So, I took the phone number down and called the towing company. Luckily, they didn’t have my car in their possession – so the chances of it being in Tampa at the same location I left it was looking pretty good!

Riding with a couple of bareback riders was far more entertaining than simply traveling alone. I thought I might want to sleep until Tallahassee, but there was no chance of that. Blade & Tanner kept me laughing almost the entire way. We talked about all kinds of things – but the most memorable topic of conversation came after the question was raised, “What’s the coolest thing that you’ve ever done?” My response was about flying in an F-16 and also being in the lead for the opening of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. I will never forget Tanner’s response, though. He talked about having the perfect bareback ride and how awesome it felt. He went into how much he loved the sport of rodeo and not just the bareback riding, but every aspect. Every event would be something fun to compete in, and even the job of a bullfighter or stock contractor would be an interesting job. I couldn’t help but agree with him, and have an overwhelming feeling of pride in the sport that I was lucky enough to represent.

When we finally arrived in Tallahassee, I crossed my fingers and prayed to have a car to put my things in. By this time it was about 11 at night, and I still had three hours to go and the guys I was riding with had about 7 more hours to get back up to Alabama – so we didn’t need any more delays. We pulled in and I was so relieved to see my little black Mazda sitting exactly where I had left it. What a relief! I threw my bags in, said my goodbyes and was ready to hit the road. I put the key in, turned it, and absolutely nothing happened. Not even a click. Not one single light. Great! My battery was dead.

By the time I realized what had happened the boys had already left, and since they had so far to go I just called AAA. About an hour later, I was back in commission. I guess I need a new battery, but I made it home just fine and was able to get at least a couple hours of sleep before going in to work the next day.

Running Time in a Car: 90h 36m
Running Mileage: 6121

Okeechobee Cattleman’s Spring Rodeo

March 9:

Eye surgery in San Antonio went great. I got it done on the 5^th, and normally it takes most people a full week to recover. But most people aren’t Miss Rodeo Florida ;)  I flew from TX to Tampa three days later so that I could attend the Okeechobee Rodeo. Regina, my National Director, drove to Tampa to pick me up. The weekend started out with a parade and then rodeo. I was glad to be there and be a part of it, but I did feel kind of dumb wearing sunglasses everywhere I went. Yes, even on horseback! The doctor said I was absolutely not allowed to expose my eyes to UV light and that it could do serious damage, so I did what I was told. If you see a picture of me riding around the arena doing a fly-by with shades on, now you know why! I wish I could’ve told everyone why I was wearing the glasses, I didn’t want them to think anything negative of me – but I just had to do it or I couldn’t be there at all! CarrieAnn & I tried on plenty of pairs at the western store in town before we headed to the rodeo - 

The rodeo was a great performance, and a record-breaking one at that! Biggin Gold was one of four horses that bucked in both the bareback riding and saddle bronc riding and he came through with wins in both. After the performance I was lucky to find a ride with some bareback riders, Blade Elliot & Tanner Phipps, who were headed to Arcadia and then back up to Alabama afterwards which meant they would drive through Tallahassee and would be able to drop me off at my car! I was excited to find some traveling partners. I was also a little nervous that my car wouldn’t really be in the spot where I left it, parked it at a hotel. The parking lot where I parked it said, ‘Guests only, violators will be towed.’ I figured that was just a scare tactic, because I looked at all the other cars in the parking lot to see if they had some sort of window sticker or tag somewhere and I couldn’t find one. Didn’t scare me - so I took my chances! This hotel had a shuttle to the airport where I was renting my car and I figured that would save me a lot of money if I didn’t have to park it in airport parking.

Running Time in a Car: 81h 49m
Running Mileage: 5541

RFDTV’s Best of America by Horseback

March 2-3rd:

After the rodeo in Ft. Pierce, about 9:00pm, I headed west to Tampa (which was about 3 hours out of the way). I had to get a rental car there. This is where logistics gets a bit confusing. You see, I planned to drive my rental car to Mayo and film for the TV show, and then take the rental to San Antonio, TX the next week where I was set to receive PRK Refractive Surgery. After the surgery, I wouldn’t be able to drive, so my plan was to fly from TX back down to Tampa where I would then have my actual car, go to the rodeo in Arcadia, and drive myself home. It made the most sense to me! So as I am on the road to Tampa, I’m on the phone trying to get ahold of rental companies. I’m happy to hear that almost every company at the airport was open late. I got ahold of Hertz, tried to use my reward points, and realized they were waaaaaay too expensive for a one way drop off. I called 3 or 4 other locations only to find out the same thing. When I say expensive, I mean about $800 expensive. Not worth the rental! I might as well just fly! By this time, I wished I would’ve starting making these phone calls a lot earlier, because it looks like I’m not going to be able to get a car. I just wasted 3 hours of valuable sleep because of failure to plan! At this point, I’m tired and quite upset, so I just push through and drive up to Mayo. I would figure out a new plan later. I drove until about 5:30am in the morning to find the R O Ranch where we would be staying for the filming of the show, and couldn’t have been happier to hit the pillow when I got there. What seemed like two seconds after my eyes closed, my alarm went off. 6:30 came much too early! Instead of getting up and taking a shower like I should’ve, I simply hit snooze until about 6:50. I finally got up, and was quite pleased when I looked in the mirror. I looked a lot like I did the night before at the rodeo – my makeup hadn’t moved and my hair was salvageable!  Good thing I didn’t roll around too much during the hour of sleep I got! I put on a little more makeup, put my fake hair piece in, added in some hair spray and was good to go. I couldn’t believe how easy that was!

Del Shields was the person who invited me to go on the ride. He is DJ Shields’ dad, and DJ dates my sister, Trisha. I hadn’t ever met him before, so it was nice to spend some time with him and I was so excited he thought of inviting me on the show! Tom Seay was the host of the show and I had seen him on TV before. He was very hospitable, cooked us breakfast every morning at his trailer! And he was a pretty good cook, too! He gave Del an awful lot of gruff. He didn’t let up all weekend! Friday night, before I got there, Del had gotten bucked off of a BLM mustang two separate times. Tom wasn’t about to let him forget about it!

The R.O. Ranch is a 2,500-acre equestrian park, located at the northern end of approximately 20,000 acres of public lands. The theme of the park is set in the Florida "cracker" style of the 1920s. All of the buildings and facilities are reminiscent of that era with white board siding and tin roofs. For the show, I gave an introduction to everyone. I welcomed the group to Florida before we started out on the ride. I also did some promo clips, commercial clips and did an interview of the winners of an art contest. I did really well in front of the camera. It made me nervous, but I figured it was good practice for Vegas.

One of the coolest things about the ride was meeting all different kinds of people. Everyone was so nice and a lot of them were quite interesting. There were tons of breeds I had never seen before that people were riding. I had the chance to ride a Tennessee Walking Horse, a Pasafino, and a Saddlebred. I saw a Morgan and a Kentucky Mountain Horse, too! One lady even invited me to go fox hunting with hounds like you would see in pictures! I was so excited. I had such a great weekend and I can’t wait to see it air on RFDTV, but I will have to wait until June for that to happen.

After the filming, I had to come up with a new logistics plan, I decided I’d drive to Tallahassee and rent a car there to drive to San Antonio. I found one for pretty cheap so we were in business! Now, I would just need to figure out a ride from the Tampa airport to the Okeechobee rodeo, and to the Arcadia rodeo, then back up to Tallahassee on Sunday and I’d be golden!

Running Time in a Car: 67h 30m

Running Mileage: 4552

St. Lucie County Fair & Rodeo

March 1st:

The “Teen Weekend” was held in conjunction with the St. Lucie County Fair & Rodeo, and I was lucky enough to get in on at least one day of it before I headed to start the filming of the TV Show Best of America by Horseback. This is the weekend where all of the other state’s Teen Queens are invited to attend the rodeo in Ft. Pierce, because they really don’t get the opportunity to travel out of state much or meet each other during the year. It’s a great idea and I wish I had that opportunity when I was Junior Miss Rodeo SD back in 2007! But as it turned out, the current Jr.MRSD was going to be able to make it – so I was very happy for her.

After work on Thursday, I drove 7 hours plus a time change - until about 2am to get to the condo in Orlando where the Teen Queens were staying. It was close enough to Disney World so that in the morning we could wake up bright and early and get to Universal Studios right when the gates opened. When I finally arrived at the condo, I had drank so much 5 hour energy I truly wasn’t tired at all, so Kelly Steinruck (Miss Rodeo Okeechobee) and I stayed up fairly late talking and watching TV! The next morning, I immediately regretted that decision. Initially I had planned to wake up earlier than all the other girls so I could use the shower & get ready before the rush… but that didn’t work out the way I had planned. The snooze button was much too tempting! And I ended up giving myself about a half hour to get ready. Luckily our 7am show time was more of a rough estimate for when we were going to start eating breakfast, rather than the time we were going to leave.

We went to Universal Studios, where we rodeo Space Mountain (my favorite ride) and a couple of others, had dinner with Pooh & a couple of other characters, and took about 1,000 pictures before leaving around noon for the rodeo. 4 or 5 hours at Disney isn’t near enough time to cover all of the fun things in one park – but a half day is better than no day! I had a great time at the rodeo; I carried my first sponsor flag in the state of Florida here. I also had the chance to throw out Frisbee from the back of a Dodge while they set up for barrel racing. After the performance, I started my journey up to Mayo, FL.      

Running Time in a Car: 63h 27m

Running Mileage: 4295

Pasco County Fair & Rodeo

February 22-23rd:

My dad was able to stay the entire week of Spurs, and the following week to attend my next rodeo with me down in Dade City. I was glad to finally have a traveling partner, because driving 7 or 8 hours one way EVERY weekend on my own has gotten old, real quick! In light of this, I made sure to sleep the entire way from Ft. Walton Beach down to Dade City. I woke up occasionally, to tell dad he had missed the turn about 10 miles back. Luckily, this only happened a couple of times. Once we arrived in Pasco County, we went to our hotel, which turned out to be a motel. The outward appearance was a little rough, but I figured it couldn’t be that bad. I figured wrong. The check in room was locked, so you had to ring a door bell for the attendant to come let you in. Once inside, you wished you weren’t because of the overwhelming smell of chili powder. Trying to get a room proved to be a bit challenging, but after overcoming the language barrier, I managed to get us a room. We got an ‘old-school’ kind of key, not the kind you scan but the actual key like you would need to get into a house. With my track record and losing keys, this couldn’t be good, so I gave our sole copy of the room key to dad. Once inside our fancy new digs, I realized the bathroom light didn’t work. There wasn’t a plug-in in the bathroom, either. No shower curtain. And you could only have one thing plugged in at a time, the fridge or the microwave – take your pick! Next time, I’ll let dad book the room – he’s less concerned about saving money anyways!

Finally, we made it to the rodeo. It was a good crowd and a nice set up to the arena. They took a dirt bike track, pushed the dirt level, and put up panels and bleachers. They had the coolest VIP room in the top level of a 2-story building where we got dinner before the rodeo. The view was amazing because it was up so high! However, I wouldn’t be enjoying it for the rodeo – I’d be on a horse! I found my trusty steed, the same palomino I used in Lakeland, and found the announcer to tell him a bit about myself. He wrote down my info and headed into the arena to announce on horseback. I waited all through the opening ceremonies and national anthem to be announced, but nothing. He had forgotten! It eventually got straightened out and I came in after a couple of events, oh well. He remembered the second night, so that’s good! I was also able to throw out my frisbees during this rodeo which was really fun, it was my first time getting to throw them out.

During the morning/afternoon on Saturday before the performance, Miss Rodeo Florida Princess, CarrieAnn Clements and her mother, Tracy took my dad and me up to Crystal River to swim with the manatees! It was near the Three Sisters Spring, so the water was actually pretty cold. We had a great time though looking for the sea cows, snorkeling and boating around on a pontoon boat. We were so busy having fun, on the way back to the rodeo arena we had to get ready in the car! Luckily both CarrieAnn and I brought our ‘farrets’ so we didn’t even need to step into a hotel room, we got out of the car looking like a million bucks (but we might have smelled a little bit like lake water, haha)!

After the rodeo my dad & I went and stayed in Kissimmee, so the next morning we could go on an Air Boat ride by Boggy Creek! We had a blast. I was sad to drop him off at the airport on my way home because I was going to miss him a lot, and that also meant I would have to be the lone ranger again, driving all by myself. I was a little out of it on the way home, talking to my mom on the phone, and actually drove into a truck weigh station because I thought I was getting off to get gas! That was awkward… woops!

Running Time in a Car: 57h 10m
Running Mileage: 3867

Silver Spurs Rodeo

February 11-18th:

Finally, time for everyone to head south to the largest sanctioned rodeo East of the Mississippi River! 23 visiting state queens flew into Orlando to attend the 130th Silver Spurs Rodeo in Kissimmee, FL. Even my parents were even able to come all the way from South Dakota. We all had so much fun and stayed so busy it seemed like the week just flew right by. I roomed at Regina's house with Miss Rodeo SD, ND, UT and KS. We also had Miss Teen Rodeo FL & her mother staying out there with us - so we had a full house. We also had a lonnnnng drive everyday back and forth to the house, about an hour each way. Our wheels of choice? A 2013 ecofriendly, extra-compact, red, Yaris that we liked to call the Red Rocket! How did we come by this sweet ride, you may find yourself asking? Well, that's a long story. It started when I left work Monday to head to my house, grab some things, and start my trip down to Kissimmee. I almost made it home when the ol' Mazda started acting up. I lost power steering, radio went out, and the lights on my dashboard were trying to give me a seizure they were flashing so much. I limped into the driveway of my house, shut it off and tried to restart it. Fail. It wouldn't roll over, but kept making a clicking noise. Great. About four hours, $400 and a tow truck later I found myself at the Hertz counter being handed the keys to my fancy new car for the week. When I went to the parking lot to find it, I was slightly disappointed. It was that moment when I decided to 'forget' my car magnets. I didn't want to be associated with this little car any more than I had to be! It did get good gas mileage though, and it got us where we needed to go! All 5 of us. We were stuffed in that car like sardines! There wasn't one time when we pulled into the rodeo grounds that someone didn't see us all falling out of it and make a comment about it! I guess everyone else was as amused about our ride as we were.

Other than our hilarious means of transportation, once we got where we needed to be we truly had a blast. We spent time visiting a handful of schools, going on a couple of airboat rides, holding live gators, tasting fried gator, turtle and frog legs. We also toured the Osceola Co. Sheriff's department and got to see the officers perform a working dog demonstration. They even invited us out to Lake X where they do training sometimes and put us to the challenge of making it through the ropes course. We went to Cocoa Beach one day as well, and even though the water was freezing cold everyone was so excited they jumped right in any way!

Running Time in a Car: 45h 10m
Running Mileage: 3059

Black Hills Stock Show & Rodeo

January 31-February 3rd:

This week I flew back to visit my old stomping grounds for the Black Hills Stock Show & Rodeo held in Rapid City, South Dakota. The weather came as a bit of a shock, going from 75 degrees to -3 degrees, but everything else was just as I remembered it. I had been coming to this rodeo since I was a little girl, and in fact - it is where I saw my very first rodeo queen. I always dreamed of getting to carry flags here one day, and what a great feeling to have that dream finally come true. This was also the first rodeo where I got to interact with other visiting state queens, which was really fun. 

The horse I was assigned to ride was called 22, or TomTom. He hadn't been used in a rodeo before and I was well warned before I got on him. Sutton Rodeo was the stock contractor, and I seemed to remember their horses being fairly rank for flag horses. Courtney Peterson, MRSD 2012, was in charge of the flags - and she suggested I wait until about half way through the first perf to go out on my trusty steed. We followed right behind somebody else, which seemed to help. For the second time out, I would be on my own, waiting until the girl in front of me was about half way around the arena before I started. This time didn't go quite as well, we started humping up about a quarter of the way around the arena. The crowd had a great reaction, and we came out of it and made it the rest of the way around. It was hard to get this horse moving; he just wanted to slow up and duck his head down and hump up on me. The second time out my strategy was to really spur him to get a little speed and keep his head up. Unfortunately, it didn't work out quite as planned. We didn't really get to going until about half way around, and he was spooked at every banner, despite my desperate spurring action (which caused my flag to pop out of my boot), and of course made a big deal about the photographer in the corner of the arena, spooking and jumping. What a handful, I thought. Of course, they'd give him to me! But when Courtney reassured me it's because of my riding ability, it made me feel a lot better - until the next perf anyway! For the next rodeo, ol' TomTom had to rear up as we were coming out of the arena. My flag popped out of my boot again, too. Wayne Brooks happened to be the announcer again so it was nice of him to cover while I was holding up the flags with a story about my service and deployments overseas. This time, I welcomed the attention because I finally figured out this horse wasn't going to do anything I couldn't handle. Each time around we got a little better and better, until the end of the 3rd rodeo - where I believe we have a 5 star flag horse added to the Sutton Rodeo string! 

Other than the rodeo, the queens got to do a lot of fun activities. We visited Mt. Rushmore one day and on the other days we went to autograph signings at Wal-Mart and even got to go to a banquet before the rodeo for some free grub! The best part about the BHSS though, was seeing everyone I knew. It was so much fun to come back as Miss Rodeo Florida! Everyone was very proud of me and very supportive. 

On my way to the BHSS, I was lucky to fly standby and get on all of the flights I had scheduled to be on. On the way back, however, was a whole different story. With two morning flights canceled, the standby list was hopeless. I ended up staying an extra night and buying a ticket back to work the following day, and missing one more day of work than planned (woops)! It was nice to get out of my hotel room in Rapid, though, and get to spend one night at home. It might be awhile before I see my own real bed again!

Running Time in a Car: 32h 28m
Running Mileage: 2201

Homestead Championship Rodeo

January 25-27th:

This weekend I traveled over 1300 miles on my journey to the southernmost Professional Rodeo in the United States: 64th Annual Homestead Championship Rodeo at Doc' DeMilly Rodeo Arena at Harris Field. It was truly a weekend I will never forget! Let's start from the beginning.

As work started wrapping up on Thursday afternoon at my squadron, the 745th SOS on Hurlburt Field, I turned in my leave paperwork and started to head out the door. Of course, I didn't make it very far without catching some grief from my coworkers about missing the following day. "Thanks for stopping in this week," the Chief Master Sergeant who also sits in my office room said, jokingly. I just laughed and shook my head. He didn't know the half of it, I thought - I'm just getting started, this is only weekend number two! I rushed out the door, jumped in my car and realized I might still take a while before I'm able to leave. I hadn't gotten everything packed just yet, so I knew I had to go back to my house to load the rest of my things. The gas light lit up as well, so add that to the list.

About an hour and a half later, I began my road trip. Getting a late start isn't fun, but I knew I could make it up by driving my Mazda 3 like a NASCAR driver. I still can't believe I've been in Florida for a whole year and a half and still haven't managed to get a speeding ticket, despite being pulled over multiple times (knock on wood). I arrived at Tracy Clement's house at about one in the morning where I would be staying for the night. Her daughter, CarrieAnn, is the Miss Rodeo Florida Princess and we had planned to be travel buddies for the weekend! I was grateful for the place to sleep for the night, it was much more hospitable than the backseat of my car - although I brought a pillow and blanket anyway, because you never know when you'll need it. I've spent the night in the 'ol Mazda before, but I won't mind if I never have to that again.

Upon arriving in Homestead the next day, a little behind schedule, I was nervous to find a horse to ride. I rushed around to find somebody who looked like they wouldn't mind letting me borrow their horse, and also for a  horse that looked like he wanted to carry a flag - a rather difficult combo, especially since I'm fairly new to Florida Pro Rodeo and don't know most of the contestants! Typically, a horse is provided for visiting state queens, but in this case it hadn't been set up yet so it was up to me. However, I was lucky to meet the Vice President of the Homestead Rodeo Committee, Ryan Krantz. He made my life a lot, lot easier. He was a younger, good looking guy that seemed to have all the 'in's'. He took me right over to the stock contractor's trailer where I got in touch with the pick-up men, and just like that my problem was solved. I was given another palomino, which must be my color because so far that's the only color of horse I've ridden as Miss Rodeo Florida this year.

The rodeo was about to get underway, when I saw a familiar face. Announcer Wayne Brooks rode up beside me on a beautiful, young bay horse. He is one of the friendliest and nicest people I've met down in the south so far. He always puts a smile on my face when I see him! Wayne said hello and we rodeo around a bit. He said he would be announcing the rodeo from horseback, and he showed me his holster for his microphone which I thought was pretty neat. We also hashed out when and how I would be introduced during the rodeo. I was a little disappointed I wouldn't be carrying the American flag for the opening ceremonies, but I was thankful to be on horseback, especially since none of the other queens were.

At the beginning of the rodeo I rode in the grand entry where I followed the flags carried by the Homestead Everglades Posse drill team. We rode in an interesting pattern, which seemed more like a mad horse race than follow the leader. We also only used half of the arena, which might sound strange - but if you've ever seen the Homestead arena you would know why: it's HUGE! It's one of the longest arena's I've ever seen. It had white sand and palm trees lining the back of the bucking chutes. Exactly how I would imagine a rodeo in Florida to look. I would absolutely love to run barrels on a pattern like this, but that's a story for another day. Back to the queen scene...

After the grand entry, I wouldn't come out again until right before the barrel racing. I had to get off my palomino horse and give him back to Spook, the pick-up man, until after Saddle Bronc and Bareback riding. I wandered around and said hi to people I recognized, and just generally tried to meet new people while staying out of the way at the same time - which can be a fine line. There wasn't a very good spot behind the chutes for the roughstock riders to get ready, so they filled up the fence by the warm up area as an alternative. I hung out in that area, it seemed like the place to be. That night was 'Tough Enough to Wear Pink' night, and I had on a brand new shirt made by Vivianna McDaniels which was just stunning, and I wanted to show it off, too.

Spook brought the palomino back to me sweaty and tired, poor ‘ol guy. I loosened him up and adjusted my stirrups, and decided to just stand beside him until it got closer for us to go on. When I finally made it to the arena for my introduction, the announcer Wayne Brooks did a really nice job of introducing me and telling the audience about my military background and service in both Iraq & Afghanistan.

Tate Pro Rodeo Classic

January 18-19th:

My first official rodeo appearance as Miss Rodeo Florida took place at the Tate Pro Rodeo Classic held in Lakeland, FL at the Lakeland Center. The rodeo was held Friday and Saturday night, but I drove up early to take part in a TV spot on the local FOX News station. I was interviewed with one of the members of the drill team. She was a trick rider. I also was able to take part in two radio spots. The first was with Jimmy Riffle of the Gator Boys TV Show, seen on Animal Planet. They would be wrestling a live gator at the rodeo. The second radio interview was right before the first performance while inside the Lakeland Center.

The Rodeo Committee, aka: Judy and LeRoy Mason, were nice enough to sponsor a hotel room for me for the weekend. I was so grateful, especially because Sammy's house was about an hour away and that is where I had originally planned on staying. From my home down to Lakeland was 853miles and took me 13 hours to travel both ways.

Running Time in a Car: 13h
Running Mileage: 853