Hard work, Dedication, and doing rodeo queen contests since she was six years old, Harlee Stokes, a Junior this year at Fremont High School proudly earned the title of being National High School Rodeo Queen.
She was raised here in Utah and is currently seventeen years old.
“A Rodeo Queen is an educator and a spokesperson for the western way of life. We do our best to educate the public on the sport we get to call our own and the lifestyle we get to live.” Harlee Stokes comments.
Harlee has been doing pageants for eleven years. Her pageants are similar to regular beauty pageants, except rodeo pageants have eight different categories the participants get judged in. The categories are appearance, horsemanship, modeling, speech, interview, test, and personality.
It has a lot of factors and you need to put a lot of dedication into it.
Harlee claims, “Being a rodeo queen is a lot like any sport.”
This title means a lot to her because she gets the honor of being introduced as the National High School Rodeo Queen.
“This title reminds me of what a dream and a little dedication can do and why it’s so important to chase your dreams.”
Harlee often looks back and recognizes all the hard work she has put into earning this title like having early mornings and late nights working on her skills.
Once Harlee Stokes made it into Nationals she had the opportunity to compete with 41 different young ladies. The competition takes a whole week where the girls are judged on the seven categories, finally after all the hard work the competition crowns the winner.
Harlee Stokes is honored to have this title; she is able to keep the title for a year from when she was crowned.
Now that she has been crowned she represents the Utah High School Rodeo Association and the National High School Rodeo Association. Harlee is seen as a spokesman for both associations. Because of her title, she gets the honor to carry the American flag at rodeos or sign autographs. She does the best she can to educate the general public on what a rodeo queen is as well as their western way of life.
Harlee Stokes has overcome many obstacles in becoming the National High School Rodeo Queen, but the main one she has had to overcome is asking herself, why?
She states, “There’s ups and downs to anything in life but one thing I had to overcome was finding my why. Finding why I loved to be a Rodeo Queen, why I love competing at the queen contest and so forth.”
She suggests other women in society to also put themselves out there saying that it fills you with experiences that are priceless and it prepares you for any job you can come across in your life.
She is able to now apply for scholarships and be part of the community of western life. Multiple colleges like Tarleton State University, Trinity Valley Community College, Colorado State University, and many more colleges open the opportunity for the western scholarships. Harlee can apply for such scholarships and that can continue her hard work in the western way of life.
“With this title I look back and see my team that has helped me and everything that went into this. My heart definitely is so full.”
Harlee is grateful for the support she has from her family and friends; she claims she couldn’t have gotten to where she is today without them.
