Cattle Call Queen competition kicks o
BRAWLEY — This year’s Cattle Call Rodeo will be a royal affair once again.
girls ranging in age from 6 to 17 were on hand Thursday evening for an orientation meeting at the Stockmen’s Club for the 2018 Cattle Call Queen contest. Each contestant will be competing in only one of four categories: Cattle Call Queen, Teen Queen, Junior Queen and Junior Miss.
Dana Mendoza, president of the Brawley Cattle Call Queen Royalty Association, advised the contestants that before their weeks of intensive training were through, they would each be making 10 new friends.
The Cattle Call Queen contest had previously been the purview of the Brawley Chamber of Commerce, but it relinquished the contest last year into the hands of the newly formed Brawley Cattle Call Queen Royalty Association. That decision resulted in there being no contest in 2017, and thus no queen for the first time in the rodeo’s history.
Mendoza, herself a Cattle Call Queen in 1986, was determined that wasn’t going to happen again. “This year I just ponied up and I called my friends. The next thing you know we were having a meeting.”
Thursday’s orientation was the first of some 17 meetings the contestants are required to attend over the next two months. Each girl received a three-ring binder containing virtually anything they will need to know about becoming a Cattle Call Queen — from what clothes to wear to how to style their hair for riding vs. public appearances, as well as what they’d need to know about horses, rodeos, the event’s sponsors and more.
Each contestant is also is expected to sell rodeo tickets, as well as raise sponsorship money. The contestant who raises the most sponsorship money in excess of $4,000 will win four tickets and lodging to attend the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.