story by Ruth Nicolaus
Aaryn Attales has a job that she knows makes an impact on people.
The 17 year old cowgirl is the 2015-2016 Miss Louisiana High School Rodeo Queen, and she knows she makes a difference.
After having held several district high school queen crowns, she was selected as this year’s state queen, and she learned much from her trip to the National High School Finals in July. “I learned how respected rodeo queens are,” she said, “the impact they have on everybody, and how big of a job they have.”
In addition to her duties as queen, she is also a contestant in the barrel racing, pole bending, and will heel this fall with her header Tyler Williams.
The DeRidder, La. resident rides two horses. Latigo, her roping horse, is a ten year old quarter horse paint who is training her, she jokes. “He’s like a big babysitter.” Her barrel and pole horse, Beaux, is a seven year old who she bought with money earned from training a barrel and a goat tying horse. She got Beaux two years ago and has trained him herself. “He’s turned out really nice for me,” she says. Buying a horse herself has made her appreciate Beaux and Latigo a lot more, and Beaux is easy to appreciate. “He’s kind of shy, and a one-person horse. He only likes me.” But when it’s rodeo time, it’s different. “When he goes into the arena, he’s upbeat and knows what he wants to do.”
Aaryn has lived a lot of the summer out of a suitcase. She spent nine days at Nationals in Rock Springs, Wyo., then spent eight days in Houston at the National Youth Leadership Forum in Medicine. High school students from across the nation and the world learned about the medical field by visiting surgeries and hospitals and meeting well-known doctors. The medical field interests her, and she’d like to go into radiology. “It’s always interested me because of all the technology it takes to see the inside of a human body. You can tell so much by looking at a picture. I’m not a big surgery person. I’d rather be the one who examines and looks and determines what’s wrong and what’s going on with the person.”
She will be a senior at DeRidder High School this fall, and among all the teachers she’s ever had, Miss Liles is her favorite. Liles was her English teacher last year who taught her students not only classroom facts, but things pertinent to real life. English was not Aaryn’s top subject, but she grew to love it. “She really made me interested in English and reading. She gave us a lot of her mini life lessons.” Some of Miss Lile’s lessons related to school and some did not. “She’d take a story and give us a reality of it, and help us see how we could solve the problem if it was given to us later in life. It was a tie-in of reality and school at the same time.”
After Aaryn graduates from high school, she plans on attending Louisiana State University in Alexandria and joining their newly-formed rodeo team. She hopes to get her associates degree in radiology, then possibly stay at LSU-A for the rest of her schooling.
As for being a rodeo queen, she loves it. She considers rodeo queens as “a walking billboard for rodeos.” People are attracted to the crown and the banner, and they ask questions, giving her the opportunity to tell them about rodeo. “To talk to people, have the joy of meeting them, and explaining why I love rodeo and why it should be important to them also.”
Aaryn is the daughter of Gemee Attales and Christopher Attales.