My Daddy was a homebuilder by day and a wanna be cowboy on the weekends. As an amateur roper who roped with his buddies every Sunday afternoon, he dearly wanted me to be a barrel racer. That was not an option as far as I was concerned. I enjoyed riding my chestnut horse, Star, but racing around barrels at breakneck speed was more danger than I wanted to participate in!
The local Round-Up Club sponsored a contest every summer for Rodeo Queen and Daddy encouraged me to enter. The qualifications were simple…sell the most raffle tickets for a saddle and you’d be crowned Rodeo Queen for the year. Beauty and brains were not the issue in this contest. However, a smile and careful thought helped sell more tickets than a scowl!
As the contest deadline neared I was tired of traveling to nearby cattle sales and other venues to peddle tickets. I did learn to be more outgoing as I approached total strangers in the richly scented sale barns, asking them to help me become queen by purchasing one of my tickets.
After what seemed like endless weeks of selling tickets the end was finally in sight. The night before the contest winner would be announced Daddy came home and said, “Well, I know what we need to do if we want to.” An official in the Round-Up Club had tipped Daddy off to the dollar amount needed to pass my main competitor in sales. If Daddy would shell out the money (and at that time he had it to shell) I could be the queen. The conversation was short-lived. Of course we wouldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be fair, it would just be us finagling our way, as if it was our right. And that wasn’t the way my family did things.
The following evening I was proud to be introduced as the runner up, as the Rodeo Princess, and have my grand ride around the arena. I was even prouder of my parents and how they kept their standard true.
Lesson Learned: As you ride around the arena of life make sure you can be proud of what you’ve earned.
