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First a rodeo queen in Tetonia, Miss Rodeo Wyoming has shown she’s more than a pretty face
Photos by Price Chambers
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Erin Heffron was the only rodeo queen out of a dozen willing to ride Fargo.
Wanting to practice her riding skills with as many different horses as possible during her reign as Miss Rodeo Wyoming, she took on the “crazy one” for the twelfth and final night of rodeoing at January’s National Western Stock Show in Denver.
Erin attempted to ride a barrel series before a sold-out crowd of seven thousand; at the third barrel, however, Fargo had other plans. Digging in his heels, he came to an abrupt stop. The five-foot-six, twenty-two-year-old rider somersaulted over the front of the horse, a streak of blonde locks, rhinestones, and denim. She landed on her back.
“Luckily, my hat didn’t fall off,” Erin says. “But I lost the crown.” Her first thought: Don’t cry.
She was on the ground for a few seconds before standing up and dusting off her jeans, picking up her jade crown, and waving to the crowd. By that time, Fargo had run away, and Erin walked out of the arena alone.
Some would say she handled the fall with grace. To her, it was just part of the way of life she calls “cowboy ethics.”
“Cowboy ethics is about living each day with courage,” Erin says. “It’s kind of what our country was founded upon and what Wyoming really stands for.”
It may sound strange at first, a young woman who grew up in one of the wealthiest counties in the country—not far from Grand Targhee Resort—talking about cowboy ethics and what Wyoming is all about. Even her family members don’t fully understand what has motivated Erin to become a rodeo queen. Her titles come with few perks, and she spends thousands of dollars to travel and buy clothes. She’s given up dating, stopped going out to bars, and left college for a year.
Erin has set her sights on Miss Rodeo America, a title she’ll compete for in Las Vegas this November.
“It’s a great opportunity to spread my love for the sport of rodeo,” she says. “There are a lot of sacrifices involved, but the privileges we have outweigh all of those things. [Almost] nobody gets this opportunity. There are very few people who can say, ‘When I was Miss Rodeo Wyoming, I flipped off my horse in Denver.’ I just love the sport.”
The Miss Rodeo program began fifty-five years ago; the first Miss Rodeo Wyoming was Marilyn Scott Friemark of Cheyenne (one of five Miss Rodeo Wyomings subsequently crowned Miss Rodeo America). The organization and pageant competition exist solely to find young women to represent and promote the sport of rodeo.
Some young ladies start their quest to become rodeo royalty as early as age six, competing for such titles as “peewee princess” in their hometowns. By the time they enter their early twenties, they’re ready to compete for the title of queen in their county. County queens advance to their state competition, and state winners move on to the annual national competition.
