September is a busy time for Rodeo in Texas. The contestants are working hard to make it into the top 15 to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo by September 30th. My schedule isn’t much different from those rodeo cowboys and cowgirls as I have traveled many miles across Texas.
My Labor Day weekend was filled with pageantry, rodeo, a parade, and of course fair food. I kicked off the long weekend judging the Miss Kendal County Fair Queen contest. The pageant started with the contestants one on one interviews. The girls gave a speech on why they wanted to be the Kendal County Fair Queen at the beginning of the interview. I was very impressed with how well these girls handled a one on one speech with the judges right off the bat! These eight young ladies made my job really hard, and I was already nervous about being a judge for the first time. As if being a judge wasn’t hard enough they also had the Little Miss division with six contestants who all could have been a great Little Miss.
At the conclusion of the interviews the on stage portion of the pageant began with modeling and current event questions. All the girls handled themselves very well with some tough questions. After all the on stage fun we were taken back to finalize our scores and have the accountants tabulate them to determine the 2015-2016 queens court! 
Yes they have a court with three girls in the Miss division who are crowned Duchess, Princess, and Queen, along with the Little Miss. The winners were Abigail Smith Little Miss, Kortni Langlinais Duchess, Becca Bernhard Princess, and Kylie McIntosh Queen. It was a blast and quite nerve racking judging but I am so happy I had this opportunity and experience being in the opposite position at a pageant!
The girls on the queen’s court were nice enough to let me be a part of their court for the weekend. They showed me around the fair grounds and even treated me to one of the best gordita’s I have ever ate! The next morning was the parade where I was lucky enough to be the Grand Marshall. I even got to ride in a brand new Ford Mustang provided by 
Jennings Anderson Ford in Boerne. At the rodeo the pickup men from Bad Company Rodeo were nice enough to let me help them push cattle. It’s always nice as a rodeo queen to get to work along side the pickup men and show off our skills. The people and the rodeo were great at the Kendall County Fair and Rodeo, thanks for letting me be a part of all the fun!
My next stop was the West Texas Fair and Rodeo in Abilene. Where I was giving up the title of Miss West Texas Fair and Rodeo. The pageant had four contestants Katelynn Brownlee, Kendall Pearse, Emily Woodard, and Brighlon Kilpatrick. 
The pageant started with horsemanship. 
I rode Strawberry who was provided by one of the Girls on the Harden-Simmons Six White Horses team. Setting the pattern here was great practice for horsemanship at Miss Rodeo America. After horsemanship the girls and I walked the midway and watched the loud but very entertaining tracker pulls!
The next day was our busiest day with the majority of the pageant taking place. We started the day in style at the parade downtown. This was especially fun riding our horses with the marching band right behind us! 
After the exhilarating parade it was time for the speech portion of the competition, where I was the M.C. The girls did a great job with their speeches and certainly made the judges job harder. After speeches the girls proceeded to interviews to finish off the mornings rush of pageantry, but they weren’t done yet. That night was the style show and on stage questions. 
I was the M.C. of this event as well. After each girl modeled their fabulous outfits I did an impromptu interview with them to help show their personalities and to let the audience get to know a little bit more about them. After each girl modeled it was time for me to ask their on stage questions.
Each girl was asked a current event question, a rodeo knowledge question, and a personality question. Finally the rush of the day was done and the pageant festivities were all over except for coronation. We all had to wait until Tuesday to find out the results at the first performance of the rodeo!
Tuesday finally made its appearance and all the girls were ready to find out who the new Miss West Texas Fair and Rodeo will be. After the first event of bareback riding it was time and the winner is…. Kendall Pearse! As soon as she was crowned and made her first queen run, we rushed off to handout all the awards. The girls had a quick photo shoot and then it was back to the arena for Kendall and I as we helped with the mutton busting and the calf scramble. From Wednesday through Friday Kendall and I were introduced at the rodeo and helped give extra insight to those little mutton busters, and sign over a hundred autographs a night!
Saturday rolled around and was an early start as I handed out ribbons to the exhibitors in the Steer show! The show was so big and so competitive that it actually ran all the way up to the start of the rodeo. Saturday night at the rodeo was the biggest night yet! The stands were packed and the crowd was ready for some rodeo action. In the mutton busting that night the cutest little girl with a pink cowboy hat with a crown on it won! The queens committee was raffling off a Yeti cooler to benefit the queen’s scholarship. I bought three tickets with the thought of just supporting the program. Right before the barrel racing Kendall drew for the winner of the Yeti and out of over a thousand tickets she drew my name! I couldn’t believe it, how could that have happened? The rodeo ended with some spectacular runs and rides and I left Abilene one Yeti richer!
“Vaya con Dios”
Nikki Woodward – Miss Rodeo Texas 2015