Cattle Call Queen Locher has her belated coronation ceremony
BRAWLEY – The 2021 Brawley Cattle Call Queen, Rylee Locher, has formally been presented her royal tiara, sash and belt buckle.
Locher, 17, of Imperial, was in quarantine for COVID-19 at the time of the Oct. 9 Cattle Call Queen coronation ceremony, and was unable to attend.
A special coronation ceremony was held for her Wednesday.
Wearing a peach- colored pageant dress, Locher appeared before an audience Thursday evening at the Stockman’s Club for the presentation.
Locher shared she didn’t have any symptoms while in quarantine.
“I felt fine,” she said.
Locher was disappointed, however, by not being able to ride her horse for a few weeks as a precautionary measure.
Although she wasn’t around for the Cattle Call Queen horsemanship competition held the morning of Oct. 9, Locher will be performing her freestyle routine on a future date.
“We’re going to do AC/DC,” Locher said of the music she plans to use during her routine. “We’re going to come out with a bang.”
Cattle Call Queen contestants are required to perform a routine, as well as give a short, self-written speech about the Cattle Call Rodeo during the coronation ceremony.
The three judges for this year’s competition agreed to watch video of Locher’s routine as well as her speech, and provide their final score based on the videos.
Judges also took her previous riding scores into account during the Oct. 9 horsemanship competition.
“We feel she (Locher) is more than capable of earning more than 70 percent in this year’s horsemanship competition,” Brawley Cattle Call Queen Royalty Association member-at-large Shannon Johnston announced at the time.
Locher was the only competitor for the
queen title this year.
She previously held the title of junior queen in 2015 and teen queen in 2018.
While her cousin, Anne Locher, was the 2016 Cattle Call Queen, Rylee Locher explained that her personal passion of horseback riding is what has kept her engaged in the pageant.
“I’m hoping to maybe make my niece do it in the future,” she added.
As the new Cattle Call Queen, Locher received a $2,500 scholarship from the Brawley Cattle Call Queen Royalty Association, the non-profit that has run the competition since 2018.