On Saturday, 24-year-old Jenna Smeenk will trade in her military fatigues for a cowboy hat and crown.
At a stable in Santa Rosa Beach, the Hurlburt Field airman will be crowned Florida’s rodeo queen, a title she’s been working toward almost all her life on the rodeo pageant circuit.
The dream of becoming a rodeo queen is one the small-town South Dakota native has never let go, even after joining the Air National Guard, accepting a job at Hurlburt and traveling to Iraq and Afghanistan in intelligence operations with the Air Force.
See photos of Miss Rodeo Florida.
The glitz and glamour of the pageant world and the grit and guts required for military service may seem incongruent, but they have worked well for Smeenk.
“I don’t know any other rodeo queens who are in the military,” she said earlier this week. “I’m the first from Florida to win the title, but it’s great I can make them both tie in to each other.”
Smeenk grew up on a 10,000-acre cattle ranch in tiny Belle Fourche, S.D., near Rapid City. Her family always had horses.
“Growing up, my sister and I spent more time on our horses’ backs than we did inside,” she said.
She and her sister Trisha, two years her senior, rode their horses bareback and without bridles through the wooded terrain until dark. They played cowboys and Indians, and put war paint on their horses.
“We would get into all kinds of stuff,” she said. “My mother would always say, ‘I can’t believe you two are out doing that.’ ”
When Smeenk was about 5 years old, she attended a stock show in the Black Hills. Across the arena, she spotted a beautiful woman wearing a crown — her first rodeo queen.
She ran over to her.
The woman stooped down to pose for a picture with the young Smeenk and gave her an autograph. It was love at first sight.
“I thought, ‘Man, I want to do that. I want to be that girl,’ ” Smeenk said
The rest, as she says, is history.
Shortly after, she and her sister started competing on the pageant circuit and performing well in both horsemanship and the beauty and public persona categories. Her sister was crowned Miss Rodeo USA in 2012, a title Smeenk intends to pursue the next few years.
One thing Smeenk had not imagined at that young age was that she would join the military. She made the decision in 2007 shortly before she graduated from high school.
“I needed to either go to college or find something else to do with my life,” she said.
Her parents weren’t in the military, but her sister had joined the South Dakota Air National Guard on the recommendation of a cousin in the Army.
She encouraged Smeenk to join. Not only would it be a good experience, but the military would help pay for her college education, something her family could not afford.
A few months after high school graduation, Smeenk signed a six-year contract.
Basic training was an eye-opener, unlike anything she had imagined, she said.
“I think everybody in basic goes through this feeling of ‘what did I get myself into?’, but you have already made a commitment to it,” she said.
She made the best of it, and when she got out she felt an enormous sense of accomplishment and closeness with the other members of her flight.
She’s had a great experience in the military since then.
“I really couldn’t imagine my life any other way,” Smeenk said.
Now a staff sergeant, she joined up with the 745th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt to provide intelligence information and mission support to pilots. She has volunteered for two deployments.
On Saturday, Smeenk’s sister, the rest of her family and her entire squadron will see her crowned Miss Rodeo Florida at noon at Gulfside Stables in Santa Rosa Beach.
The event begins at noon and is open to the public.
Smeenk said she chose the stables for her coronation because the staff there helped her greatly while she was training for the pageant. She also wanted to show her friends and fellow airmen who aren’t familiar with the rodeo world what it’s all about.
Horses will be available for trail rides after the ceremony.
After she gets her crown, Smeenk’s duties as queen will begin.
“I’ll basically hit the ground running,” she said.
She’s booked at rodeos and events every weekend until the end of March. Most are in Florida, but she will travel out of state when money and time allow.
She said it’s going to be a challenge to balance that with her work in the Air Force, but she’ll be able to make it happen.
“The squadron I work at is very supportive because they understand what a huge deal this is to me, and I really appreciate them for that,” she said.
On weekends and any leave time she gets, Smeenk will don her crown at rodeos and stock shows, where she’s apt to stoop down for a photo and sign an autograph for a little girl who will want to grow up to be just like her one day.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Lauren Sage Reinlie at 850-315-4443 or lreinlie@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @LaurenRnwfdn.