Ups and downs: It’s been a wild and crazy couple of years for rodeo queens

MOSES LAKE — Both Mykiah Hollenbeck and Brianna Kin Kade were looking forward to summer 2020. Hollenbeck had been selected as Moses Lake Roundup queen, and Kin Kade was the new Othello Rodeo queen. Their schedules were full, and they expected to be busy.

“I thought I was going to hit the ground running,” Hollenbeck said.

She was ready for a full schedule of events, ready to juggle rodeo with a full load of classes in her junior year at Washington State University.

“All of a sudden, it just stopped for the rest of the year,” she said. “Not very much to do.”

It was early March and the COVID-19 pandemic had arrived.

Kin Kade, too, was ready to get out there and attend the rodeos, banquets, coronations, parades and other events. But as the spring and summer continued those events were canceled one by one.

“It was really heartbreaking. Because I do have a passion for rodeo and the Western way of life,” she said.

Kin Kade was selected from among three candidates as Moses Lake Roundup Queen 2022. Hollenbeck will turn over her crown to Kin Kade Saturday.

Both women stayed on as queen of their respective rodeos for 2021.

“It was hard to see all the cancellations,” Kin Kade said. “So when I was asked to carry on for another year, I was more than happy to accept.”

The 2021 rodeo season was a big improvement over 2020, Kin Kade and Hollenbeck said. Rodeos, parades, county fairs, town celebrations went on statewide.

“It was really refreshing to be able to look at a packed calendar,” Kin Kade said.

Hollenbeck attended the Colorama PRCA Rodeo in Grand Coulee in early May.

“The stands were packed,” she said.

She also went to the Coulee City PRCA Last Stand Rodeo in late May.

“The stands were packed, and it was that way all year long,” Hollenbeck said.

Kin Kade spent one weekend attending two different rodeos in two different states.

“I was definitely going to take advantage of being able to go to events,” she said. “I definitely made the best of it.”

Being a rodeo queen means being on the road almost every weekend, traveling between events. It also means civic events and fundraisers, meeting sponsors, rodeo banquets and coronations in other communities. The queen is working the arena during the rodeo she represents, helping separate cowboys and cowgirls from ornery animals, among other duties.

It means riding in a downpour during the Othello Fair parade, and on consecutive December nights at the Agricultural Parade in Moses Lake and the Christmas Miracle on Main Street parade in Othello.

“There’s definitely more than the glitz and glam,” Kin Kade said.

A rodeo queen has to know the rodeo she’s representing, Kin Kade said, a lot about rodeo in general, and what Kin Kade called the Western way of life.

“It is a lot of work,” Kin Kade said.

But it’s also a lot of fun, especially after 2020.

“I learned never to take a rodeo event, or anything, for granted,” Hollenbeck said.

It was fun to see rodeo friends again, she said, see the crowds, get out and about and go someplace every weekend. It was very satisfying to work the Moses Lake Roundup.

“I waited a whole two years to be able to do that,” Hollenbeck said.

Even the shutdowns had a little bit of an upside. Hollenbeck said she rode in the 2019 and 2021 Ag Appreciation Parades, and was part of the 2020 Light Up Moses Lake event. She got a chance to know a lot of people in ways that would’ve been difficult in a shorter time frame.

“All the little kids (along the 2021 parade route) were saying, ‘Hi, Mikayla,’” she said.

Kin Kade said she also got to know queens from other rodeos that were shut down for the pandemic year, and they got to be good friends, better friends than they might have been otherwise.

“We all did it together,” Kin Kade said. “We were there for each other.”

Hollenbeck is a WSU senior, and will graduate in May with a degree in animal science and agricultural business and economics. She already has a job lined up, with Northwest Farm Credit in Sunnyside. One way or another she wants to stay involved in rodeo, she said.

Kin Kade is working for a horse trainer, with the goal of making that her career.

“I’m going down that route of learning on the job,” she said.

She’s looking forward to representing the Moses Lake Roundup at events statewide, she said, especially events like the Gem State Stampede in Coeur d’Alene and the Omak Stampede.

“Not to be biased or anything, but what I’m looking forward to most is the Moses Lake Roundup,” she said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.