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 A GIRL SHOULD BE TWO THINGS: WHO AND WHAT SHE WANTS. ABOUT | MISCELLANEOUS | OTHER | VERSE |
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| MAGGIE TATE They were never meant to fit — not by town standards, not by their friends, not by their families, and sure as hell not by the barbed wire stretched between lives like theirs. But from the moment Maggie Tate stepped off that summer flight, seventeen and sunburned from her last days in California, she found herself orbiting someone unexpected: Lottie Matthews, all dust-caked denim, sun-bleached hair, and boots scuffed by a harder life than Maggie could imagine. Her life had always been split by geography and expectation — winters and school years in Los Angeles with her mother, Veronica, a high-profile attorney who worked late and loved harder in theory than in practice, and summers in Texas with Miller Tate, the father she barely understood but whose name opened every door in Rawhide County. Every June, like clockwork, she was shipped off from salt air and private school to dry heat, red dirt, and a ranch house that smelled like leather and money. And then came Betty-Jo Loudermilk. Anything but maternal. A self-absorbed former beauty queen and world-class debutante from Tennessee, who met Miller on a business trip and never left his side — or his credit line. All champagne laughter, pageant polish, and backhanded compliments served with a smile. Betty-Jo loved attention and hated responsibility, treating Maggie more like a social accessory than a stepdaughter. By seventeen, the biannual custody shuffle felt less like family tradition and more like a blur. But that summer was different. Maggie, the Tate heiress with her manicured nails and soft coastal accent, had been sent to Marrowbone like always — but at seventeen, something shifted. Lottie, the girl no one warned her about but everyone whispered about, appeared on Maggie’s radar like a sun flare. Trailer park dirt on her jeans. A rodeo star for a dead father. A mother buried inside a bottle. A brother on every local cop’s watchlist. It started with a fence. Lottie was mending the broken wire between Tom McGraw’s ranch and Miller Tate’s property line when Maggie wandered over, holding two lemonades and wearing a sundress that didn’t belong anywhere near cattle. From there it turned into turkey sandwiches under oak trees, riding lessons by day, movie marathons by night. That summer stretched long and golden. Lake swims. Dancing at dive bars with sticky floors and laughing their way through Footloose on VHS while Lottie taught her how to two-step. There were picnics and fireflies, dusty rodeo weekends, Polaroids taped to bedroom walls, and lazy dirt road drives. It was sunburned and sweet — a slow burn. First, a stolen kiss atop the Ferris wheel, hidden beneath the brim of Lottie’s cowboy hat at the county fair. Then under constellations. In the backs of Maggie’s endless supply of cars. On the couch in Lottie’s trailer. The floor of Maggie’s bedroom when her parents weren’t around. Behind old, creaking trees. In the lofts of barns. Tangled up in Lottie’s truck bed. Even during a summer storm that trapped them inside a half-collapsed ghost house on the edge of town. Every corner of Marrowbone became a map of where they’d pressed themselves together — hearts racing, breath caught. They were opposites in every way — the cheerleader and the cowgirl, the rich girl and the poor girl, the city girl and the country girl — but somehow, they worked. And then, just as quickly as it began, summer ended. But life had other plans. That fall, everything changed. Veronica Tate took on a federal case — high-stakes, headline-making, the kind of job that meant she’d barely be home for months. With no one able to be Maggie’s full-time guardian in California, the arrangement shifted. Maggie wouldn’t just be in Marrowbone for holidays and summers anymore. She was staying for good for her entire senior year. Full transfer papers. New school. New reality. Suddenly, Marrowbone wasn’t just her father’s town, it was hers. Maggie Tate, permanent resident. Her arrival at Marrowbone High turned heads for all the wrong reasons. The California transplant with cheerleader energy and a designer bag slung over her shoulder — now taking up a locker next to girls who’d known each other since kindergarten. By mid-September she was already voted onto homecoming court and crowned captain of the cheer squad, all smiles and practiced charm. Perfect hair. Perfect grades. Perfectly impossible to touch. Except for Lottie. They continued to collide in secret. Quiet phone calls late at night. Drives out past county lines where no one would see. Sleepovers at the trailer park. Kisses stolen under bleachers after cheer practice and football games. Maggie would climb out her bedroom window in the dead of night just to sit beside Lottie on the tailgate, talking about nothing and everything. But the tighter Maggie held the secret, the more it pulled them apart. Maggie was too scared to stop playing the role everyone expected of her — the Tate daughter, the homecoming queen, the social darling with one foot in L.A. and the other in Lucchese Baron boots playing country girl in Texas. Lottie hated that part. Hated being hidden like something shameful. What Lottie never fully understood — what Maggie could barely admit to herself — was that fear of coming out wasn’t just about being the centerpiece of a small-town scandal or her father’s disapproval. Years of compulsory heterosexuality had trained her to mold herself into whatever shape the world demanded. To want what she was supposed to want. To love the way she was expected to love. Every closet door felt bolted shut from the inside by duty, image, and family legacy. By graduation, things were frayed and bruised. The weight of what they couldn’t be in public settled heavy on both of them. When Maggie’s acceptance letter to Stanford University arrived, Lottie didn’t say congratulations. When it came time for goodbye, Lottie ended it first. A single, cutting text. No warning. No softness. Just the words Maggie had dreaded but half-expected. The fight that followed over the phone was legendary. Lottie shouting. Maggie crying. Lottie accusing her of living a fake life. Maggie accusing Lottie of being impossible. Both of them hurting. Both of them terrified. Both of them too proud to say the one thing that might have saved it: I love you. But nothing in Marrowbone ever ends clean. That fall, just before Maggie was meant to start her first semester at Stanford University, Lottie showed up on her doorstep with a battered shoebox full of their past — ticket stubs, faded Polaroids, a guitar pick, a pressed flower, a pair of Maggie’s earrings, and a mix CD she’d made but never given her. They saw each other one last time at a canyon party a few nights later. The whole graduation class drunk and dancing. One look. One drink. And suddenly they were in Lottie’s truck again, kissing like nothing had changed. But it had. When someone almost caught them — too close, too risky, too much — Maggie panicked. Pulled away. Stammered excuses. Said she couldn’t — not here, not like this, fearful of what her father would say if he found out. Lottie drove off into the night without looking back, knuckles white on the steering wheel. And Maggie got on her plane the next morning, heart aching, eyes dry, telling herself she could forget. After that, they became something undefined. By twenty-five, Magnolia Tate was back in Marrowbone once more. The official story sounded good. Great, even. A hometown success come full circle. The headline practically wrote itself: A decorated college cheerleader with a finance degree and years of big-city experience, returning to take over as captain and choreographer for the Marrowbone Mustangs, heading the cheer program. There were ribbon cuttings and press releases, sideline interviews and glossy photos of her in full Mustangs uniform, smiling with corporate polish as Miller stood off to the side, hands on hips, looking like the proud father everyone expected him to be. The real story? That was messier. Maggie had done everything she was supposed to. She went to college, stayed on the Dean’s list, kept her GPA clean, spent four years of pushing herself harder than anyone asked, and graduated with a degree her father approved of — finance, something practical, something marketable, something he could name-drop at board meetings. All while never letting her cheer career falter. She stayed on the field, at the top of her game, competing at the highest level. The Mustangs weren’t just a small-town team anymore — not since Miller helped bankroll their entry into the Texas Football League, a semi-pro circuit with enough sponsorship muscle to blur the line between local tradition and statewide prestige. The Texas Football League had once been a blip in sports history — a short-lived, low-level minor league that fizzled out in the early 1970s, remembered more for its scrappy bar fights and broken bleachers than any real legacy. But in 2009, the TFL was quietly revived by a coalition of oilmen, ranch heirs, retired NFL hopefuls, and ex-college athletes who still had something to prove. With no national TV deals but plenty of local pride, the new league focused on Texas and Texas alone — its counties, rivalries, and Friday night lights that never really dimmed. It was football by Texans, for Texans. Raw, relentless, and damn near mythic. And Marrowbone? Marrowbone became its crown jewel. The Mustangs entered the league in 2015 after Miller Tate — part oil baron, part legacy landowner, part kingmaker — threw his weight behind them. He poured money into the team like it was a campaign: stadium renovations, training facilities, sponsored gear, strength programs, even a televised docuseries pitched to local news networks. What started as a regional curiosity turned into a state obsession. Within five years, the Marrowbone Mustangs were undefeated TFL champions, with record-breaking attendance, a merchandise line sold in Buc-ee’s, and an elite caliber cheer squad. The TFL itself had grown, too. Twenty-four teams stretching across the Lone Star State. Some played in repurposed high school stadiums, others in college leftovers or privately built fields bankrolled by old family money. Rosters were made up of former college stars, ex-pros from the NFL and CFL, and small-town legends who never stopped running drills. It wasn’t officially affiliated with any national league — not yet — but scouts were watching. Sponsors were growing. And in the eyes of most locals, it was just as good. Maybe better. Because it was theirs. Miller always said the league reminded him what football used to be: no politics, no billion-dollar egos, just grit, pride, and homegrown glory. But everyone else knew the truth — he’d turned it into something bigger. Flashier. He wasn’t just preserving tradition. He was rewriting it, with the Mustangs as the centerpiece. And through it all, Miller Tate’s fingerprints were impossible to miss — not just on the team, but on Maggie’s life: on her resume, on her opportunities, on everything she was. He didn’t own the Mustangs, but his money ran deep in their stadium expansions having been a financial backer for years — donating to stadium expansions, facility upgrades, leveraging his land deals to influence sponsorships and media deals. The Mustangs cheer program had grown with that money too. And when the previous captain and choreographer retired due to an injury, it was inevitable — Maggie’s name was always going to rise to the top of the list. Her qualifications stood on their own. Years of performance, choreography awards, a national reputation for pushing athleticism in cheer to its limit. But in Marrowbone, none of that mattered as much as her last name. That half the town would always think she got the job because her father helped sign the checks. Because in Marrowbone, the Tates weren’t just another wealthy family — they were a legacy. Generations deep. Intertwined with the town’s history, its economy, its folklore. To run from the family name wasn’t just career suicide. It meant jeopardizing the lives and livelihoods of people whose mortgages, cattle contracts, and oil checks were all tied up in the Tate brand. Walking away from that legacy could unravel more than just Maggie’s future — it could hurt everyone connected to them. Some days, she told herself she didn’t care. Other days, the doubt chewed her alive. The field became her sanctuary. The routines became her religion. Standing at the fifty-yard line, the roar of the crowd under her feet, Maggie was unstoppable. Invincible. Every time she stepped onto the field in her Mustangs uniform, performing alongside the squad she now coached, she felt like she could breathe. Because that’s what cheer had always been for her: not just the pageantry, not just the appearance — control. Precision. Dominance over her own body and mind when every other part of her life felt like it belonged to someone else. But then she’d leave the stadium, still her father’s daughter. Her whole adulthood feeling like one long slow-motion slide into exactly what she swore she’d never become: Him. After her senior year in Marrowbone — after her relationship with Lottie that wrecked her heart in ways she still couldn’t name — Maggie had gone off to Stanford like her mother always wanted. A finance major, because that was the deal Miller cut with her: Study something that matters, and he would pay for the rest. Tuition, housing, travel, clothes, internships, cheerleading — all of it Tate-funded, through a trust she couldn’t touch without his approval. In return, she’d promised to come back someday and learn the ropes of Tate Enterprises and running Marrowbone ranch. The agreement between her and her father had been in place for years: He funded the world she lived in. She stayed camera-ready, competent, and loyal to the family brand. And beneath all of it was the simple, unshakeable truth: Maggie Tate didn’t know who she was when she wasn’t performing for someone else’s approval. People-pleasing wasn’t just a habit. An inheritance of its own. And now, back in Marrowbone, she found herself pulled deeper into the larger Tate machinery than ever before. She wasn’t just coaching or cheering or choreographing. She was shadowing Miller at business meetings, learning about zoning ordinances and land deals, sitting through presentations on oil projections, cattle futures, and real estate expansions. Attending board meetings, community fundraisers, and PR luncheons. She was being prepped for succession, whether she wanted it or not. But the longer she stayed, the harder it got to untangle what she wanted from what was expected. But mostly — more than anything — she was tired of feeling like a performance piece in her own life. Every walk into her father’s office felt like a negotiation with her own identity. Every time she pulled on her Mustangs uniform, she felt both powerful and complicit. Every glance from Miller was both approval and ownership. And under all of it — beneath the corporate polish, the controlled smiles, the game-day adrenaline — there was the ache she never talked about. The one she buried under work schedules and choreography notes and business memos. Because Marrowbone wasn’t just her father’s town. It wasn’t just the stadiums and the boardrooms and the sideline routines. It was also the ghost of the girl she could have been. Maggie hadn’t seen Lottie Matthews since coming back. Because Lottie was here too. Still in Marrowbone. Only now she was a two-time PIRR Bronc Riding Champion. The hometown girl who made it big and came back bigger. A rodeo legend just like her father before her. They hadn’t spoken in years — not since that night they broke up. Hadn't seen each other either. Not really. Not up close. Not yet. Not in a way that counted. But she knew it was coming. Marrowbone was small. Their history was too big. And some collisions were just inevitable. Coming home wasn’t some grand return. It was inertia. Obligation. And maybe — somewhere deep down — that pathetic, secret hope that being here again, standing under these same sky-colored lights, she could finally figure out how to want the life she’s been handed, or grow a spine, spit on it, and finally stand up to her father. MARROWBONE The Tate family estate, Marrowbone, is a sprawling Southern property that blends old-money aesthetics with corporate muscle. It includes: 🌵 — A grand, white-columned mansion perched on a hill, with wraparound porches, antique furnishings, oil portraits of ancestors, and rooms more for show than for use. 🌵 — A formal garden, designed less for flowers and more for fundraisers. 🌵 — Fully-outfitted guest houses reserved for visiting politicians, investors, and elite donors. 🌵 — Expansive mixed-use acreage: oil derricks, cattle leases, modern barns, and a workers’ bunkhouse — all kept well out of sight from the main house. 🌵 — A private lake and stables, maintained for appearances rather than practicality, including socialite weddings and press spreads about “Texas heritage.” 🌵 — Though no longer a working ranch in the traditional sense, Marrowbone serves multiple purposes: 1. Corporate headquarters for Tate Land & Mineral Holdings.🌵 — And more recently: Luxury Accommodations for PIRR Rodeo Riders. When the PIRR grew big enough to start drawing national attention — and sponsorship dollars — Miller Tate saw an opportunity. On the farthest end of the property, well beyond the lake and the hunting grounds, he developed a series of upscale lodgings marketed as a “Rodeo Retreat Experience.” The accommodations are part training camp, part PR move: 1. Modern cabins with rustic-chic interiors — exposed beams, stone fireplaces, reclaimed wood accents, and Instagram-friendly views of the West Texas landscape.It’s not cheap to stay there — unless you’re one of the sponsored top riders who get comped as part of their media obligations. For the rest, it’s a calculated expense for better facilities and a chance to get close to the people who control the purse strings of the Texas rodeo scene. To the locals, it’s just another example of Miller Tate turning Marrowbone into his own private kingdom. But for the riders? It’s one of the best places to be if you want a shot at winning — and getting noticed. |
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| LIKES 🌵 — Horses and riding. Being around them lets her run wild and free. 🌵 — Line dancing, dive bars, and jukeboxes. The kind of places where no one cares who you are, just if you know the steps or the song. 🌵 — Her pick-up truck: cherry red, beat-up, noisy, but it’s hers. 🌵 — Sunsets and Fireflies: Not in a dreamy way. More like she watches the sky burn and thinks, That’s how I feel. Bright, then gone. 🌵 — Rodeos. DISLIKES 🌵 — Being treated like a charity case. 🌵 — Authority figures, especially the cops, who treat girls like her as trouble before they’ve even done a thing. She’s used to the looks, the tone, the unspoken assumption: trailer park means trash. 🌵 — Being pitied or condescended to. 🌵 — Silence when it feels like abandonment. 🌵 — Pretentious people or fake politeness. OTHER 🌵 — Keeps a sketchbook in her truck filled with rough pencil portraits and inky horses. 🌵 — Footloose is her favorite movie. 🌵 — She collects belt buckles, each one a little artifact of grit and glory. Most came from her father, who brought one back from every rodeo he ever rode at. The rest are hers, hard-one trophies from her own time in the rodeo world. 🌵 — Her biggest fear is being left behind by those she loves. 🌵 — Lottie likes to party and drink, but she’s never let herself get drunk. She knows her limits. She has to. Watching her mother fall apart taught her exactly what happens when you don’t. 🌵 — She’s been working since she was fifteen — waitressing, babysitting, ranching — anything to keep the lights on. |
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| VERSE Welcome to Marrowbone, where bloodlines run deep, cattle kick up red dirt, oil rigs tick like slow bombs on the horizon, and secrets burn hotter than the Texas sun. It’s a town that clings tight to its own mythology: Sunday sermons, Friday night lights, rodeoing till your bones give out, Fourth of July parades, and a hundred ways to ruin your name if you don’t walk the line. SETTING Tucked deep in the sunburnt folds of West Texas in Rawhide County, Marrowbone is the kind of town where dust clings to your boots and reputation sticks even tighter. Established back in the days when cattle drives ran long and tempers ran hot, Rawhide County earned its name from the industry that built it — hard men, harder land, and the endless scrape of leather and horn. Marrowbone grew up in that same tough soil. It’s a small town with folks who can trace their lines back to vaqueros, outlaws, and the first settlers who carved fence lines into the open prairie. There’s a trailer park at the south end of town where gossip travels faster than cell service, and a stretch of preserved Old West ghost town out near the highway where tourists come to pose in front of false-front saloons and sun-bleached gallows. Every spring, the ghost town becomes the centerpiece for the annual Founders Day Parade — a dusty spectacle of floats, horseback riders, Queen of the Miss Marrowbone pageant, fourth-grade history projects brought to life on flatbed trucks, and more. But Marrowbone isn’t just wide open spaces, double-wides, RVs, and mobile homes. Over the past five decades, the town has seen the rise of a few middle-class neighborhoods — streets lined with modest brick homes and manicured, sun bleached lawns where young families settle in search of Friday night lights and small-town charm. These newer developments sit at the edge of old pastureland, where cul-de-sacs dead-end into barbed wire fences and kids grow up learning the difference between soccer practice and calf roping. It’s a strange blend of rural tradition and creeping suburban sprawl. Surrounding Marrowbone are miles of open pasture, farms and homesteads, and three sprawling ranches, each with its own brand of history and legacy. The biggest and wealthiest belongs to the Tate family — a dynasty that’s had their hands in Rawhide County soil for generations. The Tates were once cattlemen like everybody else, but over time, they evolved into something sharper, harder, and far more calculating. Miller Tate, the current patriarch, left Marrowbone in his twenties for a career in finance in the city, and came back with a head full of numbers and a Rolodex fat with investors. When his father passed, Miller inherited the ranch and expanded the family empire beyond livestock, sinking money into oil leases, land development projects, real estate holdings, and construction contracts that reshaped half the county. The Tates now own everything from local subdivisions to the luxury PIRR competitor accommodations — full-service lodgings for visiting rodeo competitors with more amenities than most Marrowbone locals will see in their lifetime. Miller keeps his boots polished and his shirts starched, and while the town officials love him for lining their pockets and keeping Marrowbone on the map, the locals hate him for going soft, for trading dirt under the fingernails for dollar signs and politics. Still, nobody says no to the Tates. Not if they want to keep their job, their land, their life. The second wealthiest family in Marrowbone, didn’t make their money in cattle or oil, but football. After a decorated career as a professional quarterback and then a top-tier NFL head coach, the family patriarch returned to his hometown with a mission: to turn the Marrowbone Mustangs into a statewide — football powerhouse. Under his leadership and financial backing, the Mustangs became more than just a local team. The stadium was rebuilt from the ground up, now a state-of-the-art sports facility that could put some small colleges to shame. With professional-level locker rooms, hydrotherapy pools, strength and conditioning centers, and film rooms with NFL-grade analysis equipment, the Mustangs became a magnet for recruiters and scouts. Their Friday night games draw spectators from neighboring counties and sports journalists from across the state. The Marrowbone Mustang Cheerleaders perform with NFL-level precision and choreography, their routines more akin to halftime shows at pro games than small-town pep rallies. Friday night lights in Marrowbone aren’t just an event — they’re an institution. A spectacle. A point of pride and pressure that leaves its mark on every player who pulls on that jersey. The third powerhouse family comes from south of the border — a Mexican family of vaqueros and generational bull riders who carved out their own empire on Rawhide County land. After years spent working rodeos across Mexico and the American Southwest, they crossed the state line with enough winnings to buy land, livestock, and a future. They founded Professional Ironhide Rodeo Riders, Inc. — PIRR for short. What started as a small operation supplying bulls and broncs to the PCRA and PBR circuits eventually grew into something bigger. Over time, the family pulled away from the national circuits and launched their own summer-long event: the Ironhide Circuit. Now, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, riders and spectators from across the country and as far south as Brazil make the pilgrimage to Marrowbone. The circuit runs on a brutal schedule — bull riding one weekend, bronc riding the next, with timed events like barrel racing and steer wrestling filling the gaps. Every weekend offers a new chance for glory — or injury. It’s high risk, high reward, and more than one cowboy has left Marrowbone with scars to prove they tried. The Tates, ever business-savvy, have their fingers in both pies — partnering with the PIRR family to provide arena expansions, practice facilities, and housing for riders during the season. Likewise, they’ve invested in the football program, their name stamped on scoreboards and locker room plaques in exchange for land rights and development deals. On paper, it’s a symbiotic relationship — power feeding power — but underneath it all, the town knows that every handshake with a Tate comes with fine print. Marrowbone is a town where you can feel the tension in the dirt — where old grudges live in the bones of the land and new ones grow like weeds. The Pasadena, a honky tonk and bar sitting on a sprawling parcel of land near the highway, is open Monday to Sunday, from dusk till dawn, with a dance floor that always stays packed on Saturday nights. It’s the kind of place where someone’s always getting thrown off the mechanical bull, someone is starting fights at the bar, and someone else is slipping out the back door with someone they shouldn’t be seen with. Thirty-five miles east sits Lariat, the closest city worth the gas money. Lariat is where you go when you need a real hospital, a mall, or a fast-food fix that didn’t come out of a deep fryer built in the 1970s. It’s where the recruiters, sponsors, and rodeo scouts fly into, and where the bar scene stretches long enough for nights you don’t want to remember. Out here, legends don’t retire — they break, heal, and climb back in the chute. Rivals become bunkmates. Sweethearts become strangers. Friends become enemies by the time the gate swings open. Rodeo and football — the twin gods of Rawhide County — leave little room for anything soft. You either hold on tight, or you get bucked off. This is Marrowbone, Rawhide County, Texas. Where the dirt is red, the lights are bright, and nobody’s story ends clean. PROFESSIONAL IRONHIDE RODEO RIDERS, INC The Professional Ironhide Rodeo Riders, Inc. (PIRR) is a summer-long rodeo championship drawing the top riders from across the country. Though modeled after the PBR, it’s its own spectacle — more intimate, more brutal, and more personal. CHAMPIONSHIP TITLES Circuit Bronc Riding Champion: Determined by cumulative scores across all their rides (standard 8-second PRCA-style format). The winner of the event will earn a coveted gold buckle, $1 million dollar bonus, and the title of PIRR All-Americas Champion. Circuit Bull Riding Champion: Determined by cumulative scores across all their rides (standard 8-second PBR-style format). The winner of the event will earn a coveted gold buckle, $1 million dollar bonus, and the title of PIRR All-Americas Champion. The Longest Ride Champion: For those daring and skilled enough to ride their bull past 10 seconds. Each second beyond earns 10 bonus points, and only rides over 10 count toward this title. It's high risk, high reward — and often invites the boldest riders or those with nothing left to lose. The winner of the event will earn a coveted gold buckle, $10 million dollar bonus, and the title of PIRR Longest Ride Champion. All-Around Champion: For riders who compete in bull or bronc events, plus one timed event (tie-down, barrels, etc.). A mark of true grit and versatility. The winner of the event will earn a coveted gold buckle, $1 million dollar bonus, and the title of PIRR All-Around Champion. Circuit Barrel Racing Champion: Determined by fastest cumulative times around the cloverleaf pattern. It’s the speed, agility, and bond between rider and horse that separate contenders from champions. The winner of the event will earn a coveted gold buckle, $1 million dollar bonus, and the title of PIRR All-Americas Barrel Racing Champion. Rookie of the Year: In PIRR, "Rookie of the Year" refers to the bull and bronc rider who achieves the highest number of points on the premier series (Unleash The Beast - UTB) during their first year competing at that level. To be eligible, a rider must either achieve a Top 30 position in the UTB standings or qualify for and compete at Finals for the first time in their PIRR career. COMPETITION FORMAT Week 1: Bull Riding Week 2: Bronc Riding (Bareback) Week 3: Mixed Rodeo Events (Barrels, Steer Wrestling, Tie-Down, etc.) Week 4: Showcase Weekend (Special challenges, open-call slots, or Junior Rider Day) Then the rotation repeats through the summer until Finals. KING AND QUEEN OF THE RODEO Miss Rodeo America: Elegance meets grit in this time-honored tradition. The Miss Rodeo America pageant is where horsemanship, charisma, and deep-rooted rodeo spirit collide. Held each September during the end of the rodeo championship, contenders from across the country compete for the crown based on appearance, horsemanship, and personality. The winner receives over $10 thousand dollars in prizes, including a sparkling crown that fits her cowboy hat, custom Montana Silversmiths buckles and jewelry, Justin Boots, and Wrangler apparel. But it’s not just about beauty and charm — she rides hard, speaks for the sport, and covers over 120,000 miles across the country during her reign, appearing at schools, rodeos, and public events. Mr Rodeo America: A brand-new honor in the PIRR legacy, the King of the Rodeo recognizes the cowboy who embodies the full spirit of the Western way of life — champion-level competition, sportsmanship, public service, and leadership within the rodeo community. Finalists are chosen from top PIRR competitors who compete in multiple events, inspire crowds, and serve as role models in and out of the arena. Judged on athletic excellence, ambassador presence, and commitment to rodeo values, the King of the Rodeo will receive a custom crown-inlaid Resistol, a Montana Silversmiths buckle, $10 thousand dollars in ambassador bonuses, and will join the Queen as the official face of the PIRR at public events, national promotions, and outreach efforts throughout the season. Together, the King and Queen of the Rodeo ride at the front of the PIRR Parade of Champions, standing as symbols of tradition, grit, and the future of rodeo. MISCELLANEOUS Seeing Red: An unsanctioned, illegal, one-night-only event whispered about but rarely witnessed — only the most vengeful riders with a score to settle take part, facing dangerous bulls in a makeshift arena, dressed in red, with no bullfighters to save their hide when the horns come for them. Livestock Legend: A bull or bronc gets crowned, too. The “Beast of the Circuit” title goes to the animal no one could ride. INSPIRATION Broke by Carlyle Eubank Fearless by Andrew Fried Friday Night Lights by Peter Berg Not Her First Rodeo by Jorden Halvorsen Ransom Canyon by by Jodi Thomas The Longest Ride by George Tillman Jr. Yellowstone by by Taylor Sheridan |
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| INFORMATION Full Name: Charlotte “Lottie” Matthews Hometown: Marrowbone, Texas MBTI: ESFP Sexuality: Lesbian Height: 5′6″ Hair: Blonde Eyes: Hazel BACKGROUND Lottie’s from what people call the wrong side of the tracks. And they’re not entirely wrong. Her father, William “Buckaroo Bill” Matthews, was a bronc riding legend on the Southern rodeo circuit — a local hero whose name still echoes in Rawhide County bars and arena bleachers. But legends die like anybody else. Buckaroo Bill was thrown and trampled during a competition when Lottie was just a little girl. After that, the money dried up, the sponsors disappeared, and their lives fell apart. They lost their home, and her mother spiraled into grief and addiction. They ended up in the trailer park on the edge of town, scraping by on what little was left. Her mother, Wendy, tried to hold it together. But grief like that doesn’t fade, it ferments. She started drinking to dull the pain, and over time the bottle took over. By the time Lottie was thirteen, it was like she’d already lost both parents. A few years later, Wendy was gone for good. Her older brother, Cole, stepped up as best he could. Legal guardian by default, screw-up by nature. A small-time criminal with a knack for trouble, he’d gotten into the life trying to make ends meet when he was barely out of high school — quick cash, fast fixes — but it stuck longer than it should have. Now, all the cops in Marrowbone know the name “Matthews,” and not kindly. Her brother always one bad decision away from a jail cell. Still, dumbass or not, he did what he could to care for his little sister. For all his mistakes, he wanted better for Lottie — even if he had no idea how to give it to her. Lottie is a cowboy’s daughter through and through, raised on grit, gumption, and the smell of saddle leather. She wears denim and cowboy boots like armor, rides like she was born in the saddle, and works harder than most grown men. She’s good with her hands, better with horses, and well-liked by the ranch boys she works alongside after school. Confident. Tough. Unbothered. Lottie walks into a room like she dares you to underestimate her — crooked smile, dry wit, and a mean left hook tucked in her back pocket. Most people think she doesn’t care what they think. That’s exactly the point. At school, Lottie was the girl everyone loved to hate. Trailer park trash. Scrappy. Loud-mouthed. Hot-tempered. Her grades suffered — trigonometry never held her attention the way the feel of a horse’s reins did — but she held her own in every other way. Her classmates didn’t get her. She was the girl who didn’t quite fit, who was too raw, too unapologetic, too real for the polished world they tried to build around her. And it was easier for them to push her out, label her, than to understand that behind the tough exterior is someone who’s got a tender streak. A soft spot she kept hidden like a bruise: secretly sentimental, deeply romantic, fiercely loyal, and always aching for something more than Marrowbone had ever offered her. Simply put, Lottie lived in two worlds: the one she came from, and the one she wanted. She knew who she was — queer, poor, angry — but worried it was too much for anyone else to handle. She wanted to be loved without having to be saved. But she didn’t quite believe she deserved either. After graduation, with no money for college, no scholarship offers, and no desire to sit still long enough to find out what she’d do if she stayed, Lottie packed up her beat-up truck and left town. She started chasing rodeos across the Southwest. Small-town shows at first, the kind where you pay your entry fee in crumpled bills and pray you don’t break your damn neck. She picked up work wherever she could find it — mending fences, shoveling shit, breaking colts, hauling hay — drifting from ranch to ranch just long enough to earn gas money and entry fees. Her life became cheap motel rooms, sleeping on the blacktop in her truck bed, busted knuckles, and long drives with nothing but the horizon for company. For three years, Lottie drifted from state to state, town to town, arena to arena. Never long enough in one place to grow roots, but just long enough to leave a dent in the floorboards. By the time she returned to Marrowbone, the PIRR had blown up into something big, something with sponsors and life-changing prize money that made her think, for the first time, that maybe sticking around wouldn’t kill her. She’d spent her whole life trying to live up to her father, but now she carved out her own legacy. Two-time PIRR All-Americas Bronc Riding Champion, with the buckles and hospital bills to prove it. With her winnings, Lottie did something no one expected: she bought the trailer park she’d grown up in. Fixed up the worst of the units, rewired the electrical grids, made the place livable for the families still stuck there. Because for all her complicated history with Marrowbone, she hadn’t forgotten where she came from — or how easy it was to end up with nowhere to go. After her second championship title, she bought herself a little fixer-upper homestead just outside of town. Nothing fancy. A crooked porch, sagging fence line, a couple of acres and enough space for her horse. The first place she could call her own since the night her family lost their house. Personality-wise, the edges are still there — still sharp, still unapologetic — but there’s a new weight in how she carries herself now. Experience, heartbreak, hard-won independence. She’s still a cowboy’s daughter through and through — still rides like she was born in the saddle, still works hard from dawn till dusk, still picks fights with anyone who tries to paint her as something she’s not. But now there’s something else, too: pride. Ownership. A future she’s building with her own two hands. She’s local legend now, too. The girl from the trailer park who came back wearing a champion’s buckle. The one who broke bones and still showed up with dust on her boots and dirt under her fingernails. People still gossip. Wonder if she’s too wild to stay. Still call her trouble with a capital T. But that’s fine. Lottie Matthews has never been scared of a little trouble. |