Big hair, bigger hats

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2006 | 6:59 a.m.

There she was backstage, every hair in place, makeup touched up, outfit on and ready to go. Almost, except for a complaint unheard of in any Las Vegas show featuring 28 young women.

She was worried she was showing too much leg. She was worried she was showing any leg.

Specifically, Trena Loftesness, Miss Rodeo Oregon, was upset that when she took a step forward, the fringes on the back of her leather ball gown would ride up, part and expose maybe four square inches of stockinged calf.

"Don't worry about it, honey," one of the other rodeo queens advised. So Loftesness smiled and worried her lower lip instead.

The Miss Rodeo America Pageant is a mixture of, as the name implies, rodeo and beauty pageant. It's like having a Bassmaster Symphony Orchestra. The two skills may not be mutually exclusive, but who says they're mutually inclusive?

The atmosphere is, for something that involves ogling young women, determinedly wholesome. Clothes are tight, maybe, but very little skin is on display. The contestants are judged by their photogenic qualities, their poise while speaking, their riding skills and their general knowledge of equine science.

Rodeo and beauty bump against each other a bit, with some contestants falling into the traditional beauty pageant type (broadcast communications major hoping for a career in public relations) and others more in the realm of the agricultural sciences (kid wrangler at a goat ranch).

Tuesday night was the chance for the beauty types to shine: the fashion show. The show was sponsored by Wrangler and Dodge. So how to make these two sponsors theme-compatible? A made-up NASCAR race, the Wrangler 500, the denim-ist darned race around, with every lovely lady a driver wearing nonflame-retardant jeans.

Drivers until, that is, they appeared in a musical number honoring the brave men in the pit crew (sample lyrics: "Go pit crew/ Go pit crew/ We believe in what you do"). Or when they were in a skit about "Redneck Divorce Court" that ended when the couple reunited rather than divide their race tickets. ("I love you, mother of three," he says. "I love you, father of one," she says.)

And then, for the grand finale, the ladies penguin-waddled out in full-length leather gowns in colors that would make Tammy Faye Bakker's couch blush and that was tied into the theme by ... what, the Enya music? Maybe the Irish-flute version of the "Superman" theme?

Oh, what do you expect? This was a beauty pageant fashion show. There are rules. There must be a gown walk to elevator music and then everybody has to do a big wave-and-smile thing while confetti falls and "Gimme Some Lovin' " plays.

And so that's what happened.