Mrs. Rodeo provides queens with guidance
Jamie Rauch, right, gives an award to Katelynn Lamb during the 2004 Pee Wee Stampede.
Jamie Rauch loves the hobby she has carved out
MOSES LAKE — In Jamie Rauch’s opinion, any little girl who rides a horse dreams of being a barrel racing champion or a rodeo queen.
“I’ve spent my whole life in rodeo,” Rauch said. Both Rauch’s father and grandfather competed in rodeos as did Rauch and her cousins.
“We had an arena at home and held bullridings and ropings there,” Rauch said.
In a rodeo family, Rauch carved out a niche as a rodeo queen and was particularly inspired by a parade experience.
“When I was 3 years old, I saw Miss Rodeo America in the New Mexico State Fair parade,” Rauch said. “I told my grandpa, ‘I want to do that.’”
Despite the seeming excitement of riding into an arena and waving to the crowd, Rauch thinks of such things as being peaceful.
“Riding is where my time with God was spent. That was my serenity. That was my peace,” Rauch said.
After competing for crowns of her own for a number of years, Rauch was asked to judge rodeo queen contests and was invited to join the Miss Rodeo Washington board.
In more recent years, Rauch and her husband, Stan, have taken on the roles of coach, support system, and mentor for girls hoping to become rodeo queens.
“Everything I do, I want to do it with excellence,” Rauch said. And she includes taking care of her “queening” competitors as something she wants to do with excellence.
Among the other things Rauch tries to do with excellence is run the business she and her husband own. She said many of the people their courier service employs are single parents who would otherwise be without employment.
“Stan and I are very proud to help put people back to work in this tough economy,” Rauch said. “We were both single parents once that struggled with financial challenges and were blessed to have been helped out during those difficult times by people who loved and believed in us. It’s a great feeling to give back, in a way, to all of those people who made it possible for us to be in the position we are today.”
Rauch began the business after a friend suggested it in 2005 and has been slowly building it since with the help of her husband.
“Stan was, and always will be, the key to my success,” Rauch said. “He has been my rock and has been amazing through all of my struggles.”
Rauch admits with a sheepish pride that queening is her hobby and, while she and her husband bought a camping trailer with the hope of spending some time with their children, it has turned into an opportunity for her family to travel with their queening competitors to provide support at rodeos all over the west.
“We decided this is something we can bless our girls with,” Rauch said. “Traveling with them and just loving on them.”
Rauch said the relationship between she and her husband and the queening competitors they coach is akin to the relationship they have with their children.
“We fall in love with our girls,” Rauch said. “We take ownership of their lives from here to eternity and try to set an example for our girls.”
Rauch thinks of queening as a way for the girls to grow as people and as a microcosm for life.
“Queening is about life experiences,” Rauch said. “We always tell the girls that the year you reign is a year in which you’ll learn a lot about yourself. Being a rodeo queen is to serve, not to be served.”
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