The Oregon Queen — News from February 2024

March 4, 2024 Off By Lois Forester

2024 Miss Rodeo Oregon Abby Torgerson!

There wasn’t any slowing down the month of February!

My month of February began in South Dakota with a visit to Landstrom’s Jewelry, ice cream in downtown Rapid City, a wind cave tour, and four Rodeo Rapid City performances. It was such a neat experience being able to see the behind the scenes of the Sutton Rodeo’s production!

My next adventure took me to sunny Florida! My host parents, the Ketchums, made me feel at home all week long. During this trip, we had nine school visits, four sponsor visits, a special rodeo, and four rodeo performances! But, we did make sure to fit in a beach day, some shopping downtown, a hog hunt, and an airboat ride! The warm weather had me looking forward to summer rodeo evenings here in Oregon.

To finish off the month of February, I headed up north to celebrate our Miss Teen Rodeo Oregon, Hallie, at her coronation. It was an incredible evening celebrating MTRO ‘23 Morgan’s year and Hallie’s upcoming year. This was my first event here in Oregon, so it was exciting to meet my fellow sash sisters!

February took me all the way across the country! Where will the month of March take me? Stay tuned, and don’t forget to purchase tickets to my coronation on March 16th! I would love to see you there.

Gratefully,

Abby Torgerson

2024 Miss Rodeo Oregon

2024 Miss Teen Rodeo Oregon Hallie Haslebacher!

Second month under crown did not disappoint!

February was packed full of beautiful coronations. I had so much fun supporting your 2024 Jr Miss Rodeo Oregon Kayla Hunt, 2024 Benton County Fair and Rodeo Queen Naomi Bailey and Philomath Frolic and Rodeo Queen Katie Kilcullen at their conjoined coronation. It was followed by the coronation of your 2024 St. Paul court Queen Emilia Coleman, Princess Morgan Cuff, and Princess Erin Anderson. Last but not least my own coronation. I am so grateful I got to join these amazing girls on their big days! I can’t wait to travel with them this 2024 season! I have already made so many memories in just a short amount of time with the crown and I can’t wait for more to come!

First event of February was Jr Miss Rodeo Oregon Kayla Hunt's coronation! I would first like to congratulate Reegan on a fabulous year! It was so amazing to get to know you and I can’t wait to see where this life takes you! I would also like to congratulate Kayla on her title! I'm looking forward to sharing the 2024 season with you! Kayla's coronation was a blast! I got to hang out with new and old friends and make tons of memories dancing with my fellow sash sisters to Cupid Shuffle!

Second event in February was the conjoined coronation of Naomi Bailey, your 2024 Benton County Fair and Rodeo Queen and Katie Kilcullen the 2024 Philomath Frolic and Rodeo Queen! With this coronation came great food, new faces, and fun line dancing!

Third event in February was the St. Paul coronation! It is always such a blessing to see the community band together to support and celebrate these ladies! Excited what the season has to offer these four girls!

Last weekend in February came up fast as I celebrated at my own coronation. It’s an honor to wear the same crown as the strong young ladies that came before me. Morgan did a fantastic job with this title and left me with some big shoes to fill! She is an amazing woman and I am going to miss seeing her face every weekend! I would like to thank everyone who helped support me through my coronation, before and after. You all mean so much to me! Before the coronation Abby, Kayla and I got to sneak in a quick photo shoot with Gabe Foster Photo (who also was the photographer at my coronation) and none of the pictures disappointed! I would also like to thank all the visiting royalty who came which made my night just that much sweeter!

With love your,
2024 Miss Teen Rodeo Oregon
Hallie Haslebacher

April 12 to 14 in Madras, Oregon!

We're the Oregon rodeo queen clinic affiliated with Miss Rodeo America!

Our first clinic was held in 2003 and we have grown bigger and better every year. We offer a Miss Rodeo Oregon Sweetheart Clinic because we look to the littles for our future. We offer specialized instruction for state queens preparing to compete at Miss Rodeo America. We offer both a clinic manual for registrants and a manual for parents/advisors. New last year was Horsemanship for state queens and individual sessions with the head clinician. This year, we added Tips and Tricks for parents, scheduled for Saturday afternoon. If we can dream it up, we will make it happen!

2024 Junior Miss Rodeo Oregon Kayla Hunt!

Wow what a month February has been.

On February 3rd was my coronation. It was the greatest day of my life so far. We had a good turn-out of friends and family and community members show up but boy howdy the visiting royalty definitely came in full force. We had some games and dancing. I received my now favorite saddle that night that made me cry seeing it for the first time. It's a special piece I will treasure forever.

On to my next event. 10th of February was the Philomath Frolic coronation and that was lots of fun. We got taught a new line dance at the end of the night then had a long drive home. I think my favorite part of this event was the Mr. Rodeo game they had. I ran into Hallie there and it was great getting to be with her and her mom making memories of our journeys together.

My next event was Hallie's coronation in Mt Angel. It was a beautiful event and the first time we got all of us Oregon title holders in the same place so it was a must to do pictures and show off our chaps to each other. I found that each of our chaps have our own favorite parts of Oregon on them and some of our favorite animals. Speaking of favorite animals, Abby got me a travel buddy that just so happens to be one of my favorite animals that I named Dwayne.

I have some great things and places to go planned for next month so stay tuned for some pictures.

Sincerely,

Kayla Hunt

Meet Vixen Radford-Wecks, Junior/Teen Advisor!

Vixen Radford-Wecks calls Joseph Oregon home on her ranch with her husband where they raised their 2 beautiful children who are now young adults. She's raised and trained Foundation Quarter horses for over 30 years and is extremely excited to be moving into the next chapters of the ranch with her daughter stepping up to join in training, giving lessons and doing clinics along with helping raise foals from their senior sire Sonny's Bar Chex daughters and their new stallion Dun with Chrome, a ranch raised AQHA buckskin stallion.

Vixen grew up in rodeo as competitor and a representative serving as a queen of her local PRCA rodeo. She now serves as a director of Mountain High Broncs and Bulls and coaches the Mountain High Broncs and Bulls drill team.

When Vixen isn't busy with those commitments, she enjoys spending time with her family riding horses, camping, hunting and 4 wheeling or she is traveling with her daughter Destiny Wecks down the rodeo paths as she has held several rodeo titles in the past from Jr. Miss Rodeo Oregon, Miss Teen Rodeo Oregon, Chief Joseph Days queen and currently Sisters Rodeo queen.