Columnist: Under the big hair, a drive to give back to her passion

There’s no swimsuit competition for this queen crown.

Amy Jo Fields has to talk livestock, ride horses, dance and look pretty in next week’s Las Vegas pageant for Miss Rodeo America.

In keeping with the ranching lifestyle, she has to wear long sleeves in all of her 22 wardrobe changes. Organizers not only want a savvy queen, but a fully clothed one.

No wonder nobody understands what a rodeo queen is.

“People kind of laugh, and are like, ‘What is that?’” says the 24-year-old cowgirl from Peyton and reigning Miss Rodeo Colorado.

Good question.

“People think it’s all frills and stupid girls and ditzy people and superficial,” she says. “For me it is believing in something and giving back. I have a degree in civil engineering, but rodeo is my passion.”

She chose it over engineering. She’s a special events coordinator and stock contractor at the Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association. The down-to-earth brunette likes wearing jeans and boots to the office.

As her alter-ego Miss Rodeo Colorado, though, “I’m in a hat, my hair’s big and I have makeup on and I’m usually wearing something with rhinestones.”

She followed in the bootstraps of her big sister, Nicole, the 2000 Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo Girl of the West.

It’s a bittersweet legacy.

Nicole died in a car crash in January 2001 at age 20. The two sisters were three years apart, the only children of Tammy and Dan Fields.

A month after Nicole died, Amy, then a Falcon High School senior, got a skull fracture and concussion when her head hit the floor during a tussle for a rebound in a basketball game.

School became a struggle.

“I had the learning capability of a third-grader in mental processing time and retention. It took me so long to memorize things,” Amy says.

“Emotionally I wasn’t there, and the rest of the time I couldn’t handle being there.”

She recovered, excelled in college and was a Girl of the West, like her sister. “It is kind of an ode to her. We share that sorority.”

Nicole had been her barn mentor.

“I didn’t start riding until I was 13. I was scared to death of horses. I’d freak out and run from the barn,” Amy says. “My parents got me a rabbit; that was my first livestock.”

Nicole helped Amy overcome her fear and got her into the saddle. Dalton’s saddle.

Dalton, an aging quarter horse, is her “kindred spirit,” she says. “My parents traded a refrigerator for him in Nebraska a year before I was born.”

Dalton can’t go to Vegas — Amy will have to saddle up with an equine stranger.

Backing comes from family and sponsors. “I don’t have a coach telling what to do or wear,” she says. “My mom sews a lot of my things.”

If named Miss Rodeo America, she’ll take a year’s leave from her desk job to promote horsemanship nationwide.

“It’s not about having some crown and everyone knowing my name and being important and special,” she says. “It’s about telling kids where I came from, what it means to me.”

Tell me your stories: 636-0253 or andrea.brown@gazette.com.