A sunshine, slush, and snow filled weekend at the Iowa Horse Fair and Bulls and Barrels at the Iowa State Fairgrounds was quickly followed up by an early Tuesday morning flight to Salt Lake City, Utah. A three hour shuttle ride later and I stepped out into the beautiful city of Pocatello, Idaho, home of the Dodge National Circuit Finals Rodeo. Before I knew it I was at the DNCFR kick-off party, mingling with cowboys, queens, and committee members and even experiencing for the first time "duck roping" in the pool! After a long day of traveling, I crashed early at the hotel room I shared with Miss Rodeo Florida, Mississippi, and Illinois.
The next couple of days, all 14 of us state queens, Miss Rodeo America Maegan Ridley, and the DNCRF queens were driven by our wonderful van drivers to many different local schools and care centers and got a chance to meet and talk with community members. I even got the opportunity to visit the pediatric floor of the hospital where I met a couple of wonderful kids! While there, we also got to meet the pilots and have our pictures taken in front of the Life Flight helicopter. It was really neat to talk to the pilots about what they do!
Each evening, we headed up to Holt Arena on the Idaho State University (not my ISU!) campus for some wonderful cast-iron cooked food and cobbler made by the master chef, Randy. After we had our fill, we headed to the opposite end of the arena to get on our Sutton Rodeo sorrel horses and prepare for the night's peformance. I was lucky enough to have picked probably the best horse of the string, Junior. Each girl received her own personalized, hand-made flag boot, which came in handy since it was the queens' duties to carry all of the sponsor and circuit flags for the rodeo. When I wasn't busy carrying a flag, I made sure to watch and cheer for all of the contestants that made it in my circuit, the Great Lake's Circuit!
Saturday was a jam-packed day. We were at the arena bright and early for the Exceptional Rodeo, where a wonderful time was had by all! As soon as the little boy that I paired up with stepped in the arena, I never even had a chance to think about taking a break! He was really a go-getter and he roped anything that he saw! He was also quite disappointed that there was not a real bull there for him to ride, and I'm sure he was up to conquer anything that day!
After the Exceptional Rodeo, we attended a cowboy church service, grabbed a bite to eat, then it was time for the afternoon performance. For this performance, I gave up Junior so the other girls could ride and ended up hopping a different horse for my flag runs. As I went out to carry the Wrangler flag for the sponsor runs, my new horse made it to the first corner of the arena, ducked his head and went to bucking! Luckily I rode him through it, as I heard announcer Hadley Barrett say "That cowgirl's got her Wranglers on!" Once he finished bucking, we turned around and made our flag run without a flaw and he was wonderful on my second run as well.
After the afternoon performance, we ran back to our hotel quick to change, and it was back for the finals performance to determine the DNCFR champs! It was an exciting, fast-paced finals with two separate rounds, the first with the top 8 and the final with just the top 4 competitors. It was thrilling to watch Great Lakes Circuit cowboy and fellow Iowan Wade Sundell take home the Dodge truck in the Saddle bronc riding! All of my circuit's cowboys did a wonderful job and I'd like to say congratulations to all qualifiers. Also, I'd like to send out a big "Thank You" to Carma and our four van drivers for being wonderful hosts while in Pocatello, we would have been lost without them!
Until next time, Happy Trails!
Lindsey
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