A weekend in Lewistown and Billings

Greetings! I think the realization is finally hitting me that I am Miss Rodeo Montana! I’ll be honest, it seemed like just a dream even a week after everything happened so fast in Great Falls! But I can easily say this week I “got my feet wet” with a couple different events and I am off and running!
My week started out with trying to find some sponsors during any free moment I had. The search for sponsors is going….slow but it has plenty of potential!
On Thursday night I headed to Billings for my first photo shoot on Friday morning with Kara and On the Move Photography. I was driving from Bozeman and by the time I got to Columbus (for those of you who don’t know the area it is only about 25 miles from Billings) I realized I forgot my buckle. Needless to say, I need the Miss Rodeo Montana buckle for my photo shoot! I had no choice but turn around and back track an hour and a half to meet a friend who was nice enough to meet me in Livingston with my buckle. Don’t ask me how I managed to forget such a thing; I even have a checklist I go over! On the positive side, I don’t think I will forget my buckle again the rest of the year. The photo shoot went great though. I wore several different outfits and Kara was a riot. We shot the pictures in the brand new Best Western in Billings. They were generous enough to donate their facilities for a day because they have a beautiful lobby with very nice western décor.
Saturday was a busy day. Miss Teen Rodeo Montana, Lorissa Harris, qualified for state speech so she was not able to travel this weekend; therefore, I drove to Lewistown for the morning and part of the afternoon. It was their winter fair and every year they put on the best kiddie rodeo in the state by many standards. The winter fair was impressive in itself. The small community of Lewistown really reaches out to put this on. The kiddie rodeo had about 85 entries and had everything from a grand entry to cow milking. The kids loved it and each time they finished an event they got a prize. I wasn’t able to stay for very long unfortunately because meanwhile in Billings, I was being inducted into the Montana Pro Rodeo Hall and Wall of Fame! Among the Montana cowboys, past Miss Rodeo Montana’s came for the honor as well and I even got to meet some of them I didn’t already know. The banquet was a scholarship fundraiser and a quite successful one at that. There were so many people there; I felt like Cinderella at the ball! We ate an incredible dinner and mingled with people from every area of business and rodeo. I helped with the live auction which was able to raise a great amount of money for scholarships and got my picture taken with Dan Mortenson. I was star struck! That pretty much summed up my week on the Miss Rodeo Montana trail! Thank you to all of you that are keeping up with my blog. Feel free to leave me a message if you are wondering what I am doing this week! Best wishes until next time!

Miss Rodeo Montana 2007 Megan Hardy

Hello everyone! Coming to you from Bozeman, Montana as your newly crowned Miss Rodeo Montana 2007 I would like to welcome you all to my blog! First and foremost thank you for all the kind calls, emails, and cards many of you have sent over this past week. They have all meant a great deal to me and I am so glad I can share my dream of being Miss Rodeo Montana with as many people as possible by keeping up with the Miss Rodeo Montana travel blog. As one of my goals for this year is to try and keep everyone updated on my travels throughout the year. I have my Mom to thank for coming up with this great idea and putting everything together for me.

Well, my first week as the newly crowned Miss Rodeo Montana was hectic and somewhat overwhelming but I survived! My year kicked off with the last performance of the Montana Pro Rodeo Circuit Finals where I carried flags, chased cattle, and handed out awards. I got through the rodeo without any major road blocks. The next morning was an early one; I was interviewed on about five different radio stations and had one TV interview in Great Falls. I am that girl that continues to have problems with driving directions thus I found that one thing I can see myself struggling with this year is getting directions to the different functions because I proceeded to get myself lost in Great Falls at 6:30 in the morning trying to find the radio station. It turns out that the radio stations were “hidden” in the upstairs of a retirement home. Who would have thought! All in all, the many interviews I had in the days after I was crowned ran very smoothly. After I returned to Bozeman I had a very long list of things to be done in just a few days before I was back on the road again headed to Great Falls for the M.A.G.I.E. I have gotten off to a great start and thanks to XL Country here in Bozeman I have already gotten some calls from businesses wanting to sponsor me. I was the co-host on Friday morning on the country morning show and I can now include playing the tambourine to my list of “talents.” It will be just one of the many impromptu things that will happen to me throughout my year as Miss Rodeo Montana I am sure. I spent the weekend in Great Falls for the industrial expo where I met some more potential sponsors. Meeting even more people that day, Cassidy and I then went to “A Night at the Mint” at the Charlie Russell Museum. Continuing to try and find sponsors, plan my coronation, and get some rest when time allows I am now back in Bozeman for a few days before I am off to Billings and Lewistown next weekend. I have already been blessed by so many people offering to help me in however they can and I truly am excited about representing our beautiful state of Montana in the coming year. I will look forward to reading everyone’s responses and emails! See you down the road!