Alyssa Elston of Ramona was selected as the California High School Rodeo Association District 8 queen. The selection of a rodeo queen was supposed to have taken place at the April 16 CHSRA District 8 rodeo in Hemet, but rain delayed the final portions and the pageant was completed at the May 6 rodeo at Camp Pendleton’s Ace Bowen Rodeo Grounds.



Alyssa, a lifelong Ramona resident, represented CHSRA District 8 as royalty for the first time at the Ramona Round-Up Rodeo May 18-20. The 2006-07 CHSRA District 8 season ended with the May 6 rodeo, but Alyssa and the other eight district queens were set to compete for state queen at the CHSRA state finals June 16-23 in Bishop (the rodeo competition began June 18, but the queen contest activity commenced two days earlier).
Alyssa planned to have some tutoring for the state contest from another Ramona cowgirl who once served as District 8 queen. “Markie Battaglia’s been helping me a lot, guiding me,” Alyssa says.
Battaglia served as District 8 queen for 2004-05. Alyssa’s immediate predecessor, Kerry Popko, lives in Fallbrook, so three of the past four District 8 queens are from San Diego County. “It helps because I’m good friends with them and they can kind of guide me through it until I get the hang of it,” Alyssa says.
District 8 of the California High School Rodeo Association covers San Diego, Imperial, Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties and part of San Bernardino County. Alyssa, a sophomore at Julian Charter High School, began competing in high school rodeo as a freshman. She also competes in the California Junior Rodeo Association and has been in CJRA for seven years.
Alyssa has been riding horses since she can remember. Her parents own Elston Hay and Grain, a feed and tack shop with stores in Ramona and Poway.
The horsemanship segment of the pageant took place April 16. Alyssa rode Clown during the horsemanship portion of the queen contest.  The rain had already commenced by the time of Alyssa’s performance, but she didn’t think that the mud detracted from the points she received for horsemanship. “I think it actually kind of went to my advantage,” she says.
Alyssa explains that she hadn’t been expecting to do well in the mud. “I couldn’t see anything. It was raining.”
The prepared speech and impromptu question occurred at Ace Bowen Rodeo Grounds. “I did fine, I think,” Alyssa says. The speech addressed rodeo from its beginnings to its current era. The question she drew asked what being a rodeo queen would mean to her and how she would promote rodeo. Alyssa answered that she would be excited to represent the district as queen and that she would appear at different rodeos and try to involve younger children in youth and high school rodeo competition.
The top five finishers in each event from each district qualify for the CHSRA state finals, so, in addition to competing in the state queen pageant, Alyssa will also be riding in the Barrel Racing, Breakaway Roping and Team Roping state finals.  “It’s going to be busy,” she says.
Alyssa had qualified for the 2005-06 state finals in Team Roping only.
In addition to those four competitions, Alyssa will be selling raffle tickets and dining with local business representatives at the state finals. She will also be attending a district representatives meeting at the state finals; during the District 8 business meeting May 6 Alyssa was re-elected as the district representative for 2007-08.