Second Runner-Up
When I tell about being second runner up to the Wells Rodeo queen the summer of 1958, I make sure the listener knows the population of Wells, Nevada—about a thousand—and that there were only eighty-four kids in the high school. I frame the story to make fun of myself—wearing my mother’s hand-me-downs, and she was no cowgirl. I remember her felt cowboy hat, a telescope crown with a wide, rolled brim and chin straps; her red suede jacket with its matronly cut, my own five button levis, her brown cowboy boots.
“I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy,” the old song goes. It holds true for cowgirls, too. I’m sure the girl who won wore a cowboy hat with a tall crown, a white cowboy shirt with pearl snap buttons, tight levis that emphasized her big butt and well-developed quads, a leather belt with her name tooled on the back, probably from Capriola’s in Elko; and her own boots.
My loyal boyfriend was angry with the outcome, me being second runner up. He said I should have won. “I was the best looking,” he asserted and then muttered some comparison between the queen and a mud fence. High school love is blind. The first runner-up was a lovely, dark-haired girl who was raised on a small ranch in Starr Valley but looked uncomfortable on a horse. “You sure as heck had the best horse,” my boyfriend said.
Although I appreciated his indignation, I knew the judges were right. The girl who won should have won. She was the real deal. I was part town girl, part ranch girl. She came from a family that had ranched in the area for at least fifty years. I had been in the area since September. . The previous fall, after my sophomore year in Elko, our family had moved to the Marble Ranch headquarters at Deeth, halfway between Elko and Wells. This was to make life easier for my dad, who was managing the whole operation: seven ranches with about sixty-five thousand deeded acres and about sixty-five hundred mother cows. Dad was the real deal, no doubt about that.
I did have the best horse, a thorobred cross lent to me by the cow boss, Jim Dorrance. I remember practicing in the corral at the ranch, loping in graceful figure eights on this beautifully trained sorrel gelding at least fourteen hands high; galloping to the far end of the corral, reining to a dramatic halt, then backing up. I’m not sure I practiced getting on and off. I should have.
The night before the contest it rained hard and the rodeo grounds were thick with a sticky mud. Part of the procedure after showing my horse, was to dismount, go to the announcer’s stand, say a few words, remount, and gallop out of the arena. The cinch was a little loose after working the horse and I can still feel the tight grip of my left hand on reins and mane and my fear that the saddle would slip. I still wince, thinking of me in that frumpy getup with mud-caked boots hoisting myself back on that tall horse and getting the hell out of there.
What was I thinking? What was sixteen year old Nancy Harris thinking when she agreed to run for Wells Rodeo queen? I was flattered to be asked. I can’t remember who sponsored me. For all I know, it was some local business that wanted to ingratiate themselves with the Marble Ranches.
At the time, I thought, “Me? Someone sees me as a rodeo queen?” No way I would say no. And it was fun. I remember that we girls were driven to Twin Falls and interviewed on television. Television!
If Jim Dorrance lent me a horse for the competition, Jack Walther, gave me a joke for my tv debut. A shy bachelor with a gentle sense of humor, Jack also worked for the Marble outfit. Now well in his eighties, Jack is much loved at Cowboy Poetry in Elko for his comic verse. With a twinkle in his eye, young Jack prompted me to have the interviewer ask me the name of my horse. I was to answer, “Mignon. Because she’s a little fee lay.” Yep. I really said that on tv in Twin Falls, Idaho in 1958. Which was pretty darn sophisticated, since I didn’t know a filet from a rib eye. A steak was a steak. It was cooked well done. However, I felt no qualms about changing the sex of Jim Dorrance’s gelding to “fee-lay” for the sake of a joke.
Besides being on tv in Twin Falls, we rode our horses in the parade right down the main street of Wells, which also happened to be Highway 40. I did know how to sit tall in a saddle. I was riding a fine horse. The band played. We waved to our friends on the sidewalk. Of course, it was fun.
I do remember who sponsored me to run for Miss Elko County the summer after my freshman year in college. The Standard station on Idaho Street. The best gas station in Elko, mind you. Again, it was a matter of being asked. If the guys at the Standard station saw me as Miss Elko County material, I wasn’t going to argue.
“Wince” goes to “ cringe” of thinking of that experience. I didn’t come close to fitting the beauty queen image and I did not win, place, or show. Furthermore, it was not fun. A couple of weeks before the contest, we did a photo shoot crammed in a boat in some duck pond east of Elko. The girl next to me in the aluminum rowboat seemed a sure bet to win. Going into her a senior year at Elko High, the beautiful Italian girl was in a sullen mood that morning, and the photographer from the Elko Daily Free Press standing on the bank kept yelling at her to smile. A week later she dropped out of the contest, dropped out of high school, and married the acne-faced boy who had knocked her up.
I don’t remember much of the contest except how much I hated walking across the stage in a bathing suit and high heels. My loyal college boyfriend, who had driven to Elko to show his support, left the high school auditorium halfway through the event and waited in his Nash Rambler, probably reading Kierkegard. He later explained that he couldn’t understand why I was putting myself through such a meaningless ritual. He was minoring in anthropology.
The girl who won should have won. Her name was Nanci spelled with an ‘i.” She had a bosom and a narrow waist. I remember how cute she looked in a circle skirt with a cinch belt, let alone a bathing suit.
What was I thinking? Why did Nancy with a “y” Harris run for Miss Elko County? Because I was asked. Remember? In those days, we waited to be asked. Maybe I thought that competing would make a woman out of me, or I would be recognized as a woman. Beauty pageant as boot camp.
I understand that the beauty pageant industry has been exposed many times over since those days, and right now many young mothers are concerned with this whole princess madness marketed by the Disney corporation. But I have to confess that Miss Congeniality is one of my favorite movies, where Sandra Bullock goes from klutz to gorgeous plus action heroine, deposing the mean ex-queen, saving all the other girls—and getting a second look from Benjamin Bratt, a prince of a guy. We yearn for transformation and recognition.
A number of years ago, I was visiting my folks at their small ranch on Thorpe Creek in Lamoille. I was probably in my early thirties, married with two kids. I had saddled up one of their horses and gone for a long ride on a beautiful summer day. Afterward, my dad came out to the barn to help me unsaddle and put the horse away and he said with an admiration that was a little unusual, given his reserved manner, “You could be a cover girl.” I beamed. He continued, “for one of those catalogs like L.L. Bean.” I laughed. LL Bean was not Silver Screen but we take what we can get. Even if it’s second runner up.
