Rounding up readers: Book shares rodeo queen tips
You can’t be a rodeo queen just because you ride a horse.
So much more goes into being a rodeo queen, as one rodeo judge will tell you in Rodeo Queen 101, a book written by his wife Anne T. Reason. Longtime Yumans will remember her as Anne Legge. Now living in Tucson, she will be signing her book that details preparations for becoming a rodeo queen today at Boot Barn, 242 W 32nd St. in the Big Curve Shopping Center, today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Since she contracted polio while she was in the fourth grade here, Reason has never been a rodeo queen contestant. With her husband, Dick Reason — a judge of rodeo queens among other things — she has followed the Turquoise Rodeo Circuit (Arizona and New Mexico). Dick also works with Honeycutt Rodeo, Inc., the company that provides the stock for the Yuma Jaycees Silver Spur Rodeo.
Having served on the State Board for Arizona for Rodeo Queens, Anne is well equipped to advise prospective rodeo queen candidates and their moms.
“That’s where I learned so much about them,” she said. “The girls would ask me questions — Could I help them with this? Could I help them with that? Mothers would ask questions. And I figured I’d better start learning and knowing what I’m talking about. So I relied heavily on him (Dick) in the beginning,” she said, to learn what books and magazines to read.
“It (her book) came to fruition because of rodeo queens’ mothers who wanted a guidebook, and they asked me to write the book,” Anne explained. “I told them no, and they asked me again and again. I finally said yes.”
Prior to her book, no such information for these hopeful contestants had been available. She said that her publisher had found nothing like her subject matter in its industry either.
“They didn’t know what category to put me in,” Anne said with a chuckle.
Lifelong friend Betsy Gottsponer shared how she and Anne grew up together here.
“You have to tell (young women who want to become rodeo queens) how to sit down,” Gottsponer said in a phone interview. She also reviewed the book prior to its publication.
The book covers many more details vital to preparing candidates to earn the title of rodeo queens, too. Its chapters include information not only from Anne’s husband, but also another judge. Other contributors include former rodeo queens, a veterinarian and rodeo queen directors. A helpful reference source, the book contains an extensive glossary as well.
Excerpts from her book emphasize the importance of first impressions and the need for more than just beauty and horsemanship.
“It’s nice if you’re good looking, but it doesn’t matter,” she states in the book. “In a rodeo queen competition, knowledge and personality are the traits you should focus on.”
“Horsemanship is much more than just learning how to ride a horse,” she writes in another section. “A horse is a living, breathing animal. When my husband started judging, friends and their young daughters would come to us and say, ‘Would you help us buy a horse? This looks like so much fun.’ His answer to the daughter would always be the same. ‘Tell you what; do you have a relative or a neighbor or a friend who has a child that is about 2 or 3 years old. Go to them and say, “I want to be the nanny for a whole week. I will play with your child. I will feed her, I will change the diapers, I will bathe her, I will get up with her in the middle of the night, and I will read her stories, everything a parent does. I would like to care for her for a week and give you a break.” Then he would say, ‘When you are finished, this is my phone number, call me and we will go look for a horse.’ Not surprisingly, no one has ever called.”
“Please don’t borrow a horse at the last minute. You’re not allowed to fall off your horse,” Gottsponer added.
The book also advises appropriate dress when queen candidates seek sponsorships to help finance their wardrobes and accessories.
“I stress with the girls to dress Western that’s appropriate for your area,” said Anne. “Out here we’ve got saguaros and so on, and back East they don’t. They wear plaids and button-down shirts. That’s appropriate because you’re representing your area when you go in for sponsorship.”
Those vying for the crown also need to stay abreast of current events, for the judges will question them.
“They have to be able to speak publicly and be knowledgeable about what’s happening,” Anne said. “Good grammar is stressed.”
For Anne, the most difficult part of the book publishing effort was getting contributors to find time to provide her with information for the book.
“Everybody is so busy within the community of rodeo, wanting to do it and not having the time to do it,” she said. “That was the hardest part.”
Because of her limited mobility resulting from polio, her effort to write the chapter on modeling especially challenged her, too. In fact, after numerous rewrites, she says she still is not too happy with that chapter; but she had to send it in for publication anyway.
“To get all your stage directions,” Anne said, “it’s a lot easier to just get up and do it.” What she faced, however was “not being able to get out of a chair and physically show the girls; trying to put it into words. And I found it frustrating.”
Anne’s talents are not limited to writing either. Having majored in voice in college, she said that she didn’t think she could do anything else. Consequently, she sang the National Anthem at all the Honeycutt rodeos for almost 30 years.
“Due to the polio bothering me, I no longer sing,” she said. “It was a lot of fun, and I had a following of some of the cowboys. They would see me at a rodeo and say, ‘Are you singing with this rodeo?’ Now, they don’t know me here. After my polio, my plans had changed dramatically.” Then she laughingly added, “I had my whole life planned out before I was nine years old.”
Anne dedicated her book to her husband Dick.
“…He has been a farmer, rancher, rodeo contestant in saddle bronc and bareback bronc riding,” she wrote. “He has also been a trauma nurse, a farrier, a wrangler, and a western movie extra. Now retired, he does whatever needs to be done at a rodeo. He also judges rodeo queen competitions, local, home town competitions, rodeo circuit competitions, and as a member of Miss Rodeo America, Inc., he judges state competitions. He is my teacher, mentor, and my best friend.”
Keeping all aspects of the book in the family, Chuck Legge, Anne’s brother and Alaska resident, who is also an awarded professional cartoonist, illustrated her book’s cover.
“It was my idea, and he put it into fruition,” Anne said.