Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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On August 1st, 2009, my fellow queens and I had our first opportunity to attend the Small Miracles Rodeo in Glennville, Ca. I had a blast driving up (three hours in all), not only because the drive is beautiful, but because I was pulling my new trailer!
For those who don’t know, the Small Miracles foundation was created nearly three years ago by the Hardy/Small families. It was founded to help families who have a child stricken with cancer. For example, they help take care of household bills because the family may be unable to pay due to costs of treatments for their child or they may possibly pay for their stay in a city where there is a hospital for their child to stay during treatment/recovery.
The name “Small” comes from Lauren Small, a young girl who lost her lost her battle with Osteosarcoma on Dec. 1, 2005 at the age of eleven. This young lady had a huge impact on many people during her short life here and has left many priceless memories. The rodeo was put on to help raise money for this foundation, and what a truly incredible foundation it is!
Our first job was to help with Grand Entry. I was to carry the American Flag in, while Mary carried the California flag and Sierra carried the GMVA flag.
How can you have a rodeo without anything exciting happen? You can’t, it’s physics! My lovely Jr. Queen, Mary, decided to bring a big, pretty roan horse who had NEVER carried a flag before. And being the typical cowgirl she is, she was fully determined to carry that flag into the arena. She spent an hour before the grand entry just carrying it around, staying in control of her horse, and having us ride around her to get the horse more accustomed. Fortunately, the horse came around just in time for the grand entry. Sierra’s horse ended up bucking once or twice and giving Sierra that hilarious look on her face!
After grand- entry, we decided the GMVA members could certainly use some help serving lunch to all the starving cowboys and cowgirls, so we headed on to the food booth. Cooking hamburgers and hotdogs (Well, watching them be cooked anyways!) was a blast, and taking orders seemed to lighten the mood around! We worked with some great members, including Brett, Erin, and Lora Rogers, and Dawn and Gary Watts as well.
As this truly was our first event together, we had an incredible time getting to know each other and sharing some needed laughs!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
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Small Miracles Roping August 1-2, 2009
Tehachapi Mountain Festival and Rodeo August 15th, 2009
Bakersfield Rodeo at KC Fair October 2-3, 2009
Leona Valley Gymkhana Pageant October 17th, 2009
Bakersfield Veterans Day Parade November 7th
GMVA Reverse Drawing November 14th
Circuit Finals Rodeo in Norco, CA November 20-21st, 2009
Bakersfield Christmas Parade December 10th, 2009
Whiskey Flats Days Parade February 13th, 2010
Springville Rodeo April 23-25th, 2010
Stampede Days Rodeo April 30-May 1st, 2010
Midnight Pewitt Memorial Ranch Rodeo May 15-16th, 2010
GMVA Glenville Rodeo June 10-13th, 2010
I’m sure this schedule will change and there will be other things added to it! If you would like me to attend your rodeo/parade/ other function, please feel free to e-mail me at 2009GlennvilleRodeoQueen@gmail.com – Thanks!
Attending the Glennville Rodeo as the Bakersfield Jr Queen, I was easily able to witness firsthand how fun and exciting this rodeo was. I decided to e-mail Paula, the (awesome!!) queen coordinator for Glennville and ask some questions. She informed me that they would be giving away a beautiful two horse trailer, and I was sold! How could I pass up a chance like that?
As many people probably don’t realize, there is a TON of work that goes into a single pageant. Since I had sold the majority of my clothes and didn’t have any that actually fit me, we got on the wardrobe right away. My mother created a stunning dress for me and we had trouble finding out how to decorate it. Fortunately, I got a great idea from a good friend, Savanna Karcher. She showed me her dress she competed in that she painted (what an incredible outfit it was too) so she showed me and gave me the courage to do it myself! I am terrible at art, but with some patience and retries, I got it right (Thanks Savanna!!).
While working on the dress, we remembered that my old horsemanship outfit didn’t fit, and therefore needed a new one! We found some beautiful blue material, and my mother again created a great shirt and I painted it. Dying the pants was tricky, as we didn’t have them finished till the day before the pageant! Fortunately I already had my wardrobe for interviews, walking around, etc, so we were set.
We do have a written test at Glennville, so studying was a daily chore as well. I googled all sorts of things and read the PRCA rule book front to back, preparing myself as well as I could. I would recite my speech to anyone who was near me, and pretty soon my friends and family knew my speech better than I did!
The pageant started on a Thursday with horsemanship on the first day. I met the girls and immediately found that I was going to have a wonderful time getting to know everyone!! I competed against two incredible girls, Megan Jaske and Michelle Wiley. I have never had such nice girls to compete with. It’s always nice when you’re able to help each other out and ignore those irritating feelings of competition.
Friday we had our interviews and speeches! The judges were so great and really made us feel calm and relaxed. I was so surprised during speeches, as I found myself so relaxed I started daydreaming and actually repeated a line in my speech, how wild haha
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Saturday was the last day of competition, with the written test at 9am. I was so glad I studied as hard as I did! Sunday was the parade, rodeo , and coronation. Glennville is a tough enough to wear pink rodeo, so we were all matching in various shades of pink! Coronation was held in the middle of the rodeo, and I got to watch my new Princess, Sierra Zimmerman, and my new Jr Queen, Mary Ward, get crowned. My nerves are always the worst at this part, and I always feel like my heart is going to jump out of my chest!
I was very surprised to hear my name as I won the Speech, Horsemanship, Poise and Personality, and the Written Test categories- What an experience! I had a hard time leaping off my horse to get my new crown, and the smile was permanently stuck the entire day! The coordinators and people behind the Glennville Rodeo Queen pageant really do so much to make this a great experience. I was so impressed with the organizational level and competition level, we had such great girls! I would highly recommend this pageant to any girls looking for a fair and fun filled pageant!
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Tyana Hawker and I have been in the “queen world” for quite some time now. I competed in my first rodeo queen pageant at the age of 11 and have been on a roll ever since. I have won five pageants to date, and am looking forward to competing more! I got into this type of competition through word of mouth and found myself really enjoying it. Representing a rodeo and the western way of life really brings about a sense of satisfaction!
Currently, I am 19 years old and reside in Palmdale, California. I’m what you could call a “busy body.” I seem to get myself involved in EVERYTHING! I love to dance, swim competitively, sing, play piano, volunteer, and spend my time as usefully as possible! I want to do everything I can but time always seems to be against me! I attend Antelope Valley College where I am pursuing a Biology degree. I haven’t fully decided what I want to do after that, seeing as how my line of career doesn’t ask for a formal education. I would like to at least get a Bachelors to lean back on in case something happens to me. I want to continue a career involving horses, hopefully training Paso Fino horses. I currently ride for a few people in Acton, ca, actively exercising and training Paso Fino’s. I have been fascinated by them as I’ve grown up, but most recently the cowhorse world has swept me off my feet.
Over the 2009 summer, I had an incredible opportunity to work for Sandy Collier, a legendary cowhorse trainer in Buellton, Ca. Not only did I learn oodles of equine information, but it really helped me mature and allowed me to see what life is like on my own. Boy was it a shock when I realized I had to buy cleaning supplies and laundry detergent! I really understood how much my parents have done for me and how much work it can be to be on your own.
I really do consider myself one of the luckiest girls in the world. My family and friends have supported me thoroughly my entire life and have pushed me to experience the world. Life is good!