By LISA SNELL, The CUJ
PENDLETON – A self-professed “typical horse crazy girl,” Kayla Fossek was born and raised in Pendleton, and she always knew she wanted to be a princess. The kind of princess that rides horses.
But this year’s Pendleton Round-Up Queen didn’t grow up with horses. She didn’t even know how to ride a horse until she was 15.
Then she started working for long-time professional horsewoman and ranch owner Toni Minthorn.
“I started working for Toni when I was 16 on her horse ranch,” said Fossek, who has served as both a Happy Canyon and Round-Up Princess. “She does a ton with the [Round-Up] Court. She’s our coach, actually, so that gave me a ton of hands-on experience.”
Under Minthorn’s tutelage, Fossek worked behind the scenes with the Round-Up Court, exercising horses, tightening saddles and giving girls on the Court a leg up in the saddle when needed.
“Working for Toni truly was the pivotal moment of really expanding my riding experience,” she said. “Not only did I get the experience hands-on of riding a bunch of different types of horses, I had the opportunity to go and practice what the [Round-Up Court] girls actually do. And it was definitely hard, very hard, and very scary because I didn’t know what I was doing.”
She credits Minthorn for pushing her to be the best rider she could possibly be as quick as possible.
“I’m very grateful for that. We were riding for hours every single day. I couldn’t even put a number on it, but more than I drive my car,” Fossek said.
She was a high school senior when she tried out and was named one of the two 2019 Happy Canyon princesses after having spent the year before on the horse crew of her cousin Tayler Craig, one of the two 2018 princesses.
“It was pretty cool. I had the opportunity to kind of help her and see her through her year serving as princess,” Fossek said. “It was just really cool, because at that point, I knew ground up what I was gunning for.”
She didn’t exactly have a trifecta in mind at the time, but she was on her way to it. Like her mentor Minthorn, Fossek followed up her stint as Happy Canyon princess with a spot on the Round-Up Court – becoming the fifth young woman to serve in both roles. She was named to the Court for 2020 but ended up with two years under her belt due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Since we do a lot of stuff in the community, a lot of that ended up getting cancelled. The whole of 2020 there was like, nothing. Pretty much that whole year was wiped off the table, especially once the rodeo was cancelled,” she said.
A new Court wasn’t named for 2021, so Fossek and the rest of the 2020 Court served throughout the year and finally got to jump the rail in Pendleton Round-Up’s famous grass arena that September.
“That grand entry is like the tip of the iceberg for all the girls. It’s the moment you prepare for – it seems like years and years – all summer, and you’ll always remember it,” she said of the rodeo’s opening tradition.
Each day, the Court races into the arena, jumping their horses over the low rail dividing the grass center from the outer oval dirt track. They shoot across the grass, jumping the rail on the other side to pause and wave to the crowd before racing pull speed around the track, waving and high-fiving spectators as they go.
Fossek took a break from the saddle in 2022 for work and school – she had plans to study biology and eventually become a veterinarian – but a debilitating pain in her abdomen sent her to the emergency room that summer. She was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, a chronic condition that causes inflammation in the digestive tract. She had a golf ball-sized abscess in her small intestine that quickly grew into a softball and had to be removed. She spent a few weeks in the hospital on a liquid diet to recover.
“I was kind of laid up for the rest of the summer. Doctor appointments. Doctor appointments. Doctor appointments. Endoscopy. Yeah. Spending so much time in the hospital, I had never really been exposed to the medical field at all, and then spending so much time in it, time in the hospital, being cared for, gave me a sense of peace and calm actually,” she said. “I used to have this idea, like, my dad was a police officer, so I wanted to be a police officer and I wanted to do all this badass stuff, and then, being laid up in the hospital for a week unable to do anything – like, I literally couldn’t even roll over on my own – it was humbling and it makes you reflect on your entire life and what do you actually want.”
The experience made Fossek realize what she really wanted was to be a nurse.
“I’ve had a lot of jobs where you work closely with the community and it’s one of my favorite things, being able to get to know people. So being in the hospital and being cared for kind of pushed me to want to be able to be that comfort for someone else. I just can’t think of anything more honorable than taking care of someone else,” she said.
And she feels a large part of her role as Round-Up Queen is taking care of her court. Having been a princess herself, she said she knows firsthand all the new things the girls are experiencing and her role as queen is to help them prepare and be confident going into every situation.
“I just want to make sure they are as ready as possible, and that they have a smooth and happy year, and not be scared of any of the things we are asked to do… The most fulfilling part of my role is watching my girls succeed and watching them blossom because a lot of them have never had this kind of limelight put on them, and they come out of it like grown, graceful, mature, professional women. I just love it,” Fossek said.
And when she hangs up the signature leather vest with the bucking horse on the back?
“I’m going to go back to BMCC (Blue Mountain Community College) this fall to finish up my nursing pre-reqs and [then] apply for their nursing program. I’m not sure exactly what kind of specialty I want to go in, but I’ve researched a lot on hospice care and I can’t think of anyone that I’d want to take more care of than someone who’s going through that. And the elderly. They’re my favorite to talk to. They always have the best stories,” she said.
Fossek is a descendant of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the 23-year-old daughter of Bob and Jennifer Fossek.
