Rodeo gal

link Staff photo: Tony Bullocks

Deanne Guthrie, 16, of Clovis, preps Frosty for today’s 6 p.m. steer show.

Not all girls are made of sugar, spice and everything nice — some got a little itch for rodeos, rhinestones and ranching thrown in the mix.

Deanne Guthrie, 16, the reigning Pioneer Rodeo Days princess, spent Wednesday afternoon in the beef barn at the Curry County Fairgrounds preparing two steers for the Junior Market Steer Show this evening.

When she was 4, she started competing in pageants, but has been around horses and livestock her whole life.

Her mother, Renee Guthrie, said her daughter had been riding horses since she was 2 or 3. When she was 4, Deanne Guthrie got her first pony.

“We were lucky enough to find her an old crippled-up roping horse,” she said. “He could walk and he had a good enough handle on him that he wasn’t scary, but yet he made her turn him and stop him, so he taught her.”

Her mother said the horse was so good that she could put Deanne Guthrie on him and go to town.

“I didn’t, but I literally could’ve stuck her on him and gone to town,” she said.

Deanne Guthrie continued riding, she said, and rode in the Fort Worth Stock Show Parade — when she was 4, and did so by herself — and later in the last Cotton Bowl parade in Dallas.

She got into the livestock business a little later in life around the time she was 7 or 8.

This year at the Curry County Fair, she’s switching between two modes — steer showing and pageant princess.

“During the rodeos I don’t have to change so much, but at the fair I do,” Deanne Guthrie said. “I have these steers and pigs to take care of, so of course I can’t have my queen stuff on. But doing the ribbons and working with the special needs and the Lil’ Buckaroo Rodeo with little kids out here, I have to be in my queen stuff.”

It takes her only five minutes to transition from livestock mode to princess gear, she said — if her makeup is already done.

“When it’s hot and I’m in jeans, the sweat sticks to me, so I’m sitting here peeling it off and on,” Deanne Guthrie said.

And, perhaps not-so-shockingly, even princesses and queens get kicked down or bucked off, she said.

“I’ve been kicked a good several times by my steer,” Deanne Guthrie said. “He’s a kicker, especially with loud noises. I actually got kicked (Tuesday) by the white steer. He didn’t like what I was doing so he skinned my elbow. I still have a bruise on the back of my leg from three weeks ago. (My steer) caused a knot to come up, and he hardly got me that time, too.”

A few kicks and bruises didn’t slow her down — she also knows how to ride a buckin’ horse, and learned at an early stage thanks to a mare with a temper, her mother said.

“She bucked her off one time, and that was the last time,” Renee Guthrie said. “She can ride a buckin’ horse — I can’t but she can — and that last time she said, ‘I’m done.’”

The Guthrie gals are both made strong and tough, because that’s what it takes to get through pageants and showing livestock every day, her mother said.

“I push and I’m hard on her and I’m mean, I really am,” her mother said. “But it helps her push herself harder. … She cries, she gets mad and I can’t blame her. But it’s made her one dang good kid. There’s nothing she can’t do. She’s awesome.”

Renee Guthrie said her daughter plans to “bring her A-game” to pageants all the way through Miss Rodeo New Mexico, and will compete next year for Miss Teen Rodeo New Mexico and Miss Rodeo Days Queen.