story by Siri Stevens
Arlene Kensinger came to Cheyenne, Wyo., in the early 1950s to go to beauty school. “I wanted to be in the circus, but my dad said I needed to go to school,” she said. She made the trip to Cheyenne from her home in Hawk Springs, where she grew up. Her father, S Paul Brown, was a school superintendent in Hawk Springs for 11 years. She learned to trick ride and rodeo through babysitting. “She was a trick rider and he was a roper,” she said of the parents.
She met her husband, Don, who owned the only trailer park in Cheyenne, where Arlene lived when she came to town. “He found out I was a trick rider and liked to do rodeo, and he had started the Cheyenne Riding Club. He talked me into joining the PRCA and getting a secretary card and so I was the secretary out there at the riding club.” She obtained her cosmetology license and worked in the industry 30 years. She started buying and selling wigs in the 1950s and still does. “I started wearing them when I was in my 30s –it’s so much easier,” she said, of her collection of more than 30. “I like change, and with wigs I can have different colors and different length.”
She split her time between working at the Plains Beauty Shop and secretarying rodeos for Don. “I wore a uniform and the Greyhound bus depot was there so I’d change and go work a rodeo – either secretary or carry a flag.” She and Don married in 1960. “I told him, ‘you’ve been my boss for ten years and it’s time I changed that.’”
Arlene is credited for starting the Cheyenne Frontier Day Dandies in 1970. “I started the first barrel racing club in Wyoming,” said Arlene. “Don was working for Vern Elliot at the Wild West Show in Brussels, Belgian and he hired me to work that and that’s where I learned how to quadrille. I started the Quadrillette with my barrel racing club.” Arlene taught her barrel racing club how to do it. “The Frontier committee asked us if we would set the pivots for the Serpentine and we did that for ten years. That’s when it would rain and snow and the arena would be so deep. My station was down by the roping chutes and the cowboys loved to splash me with the water.” Don came up with the idea to put sand in the arena, something they did in Brussels.
After ten years, the Frontier committee wanted to do something different and asked if Arlene could come up with something. “That’s when I started the Dandies.” The Dandies of the Daddy of “em All began in 1970, and Arlene was the director until 1998. “We had a competition and I picked 12.” She came up with the idea of carrying all the American flags that had ever flown over Frontier Days, along with the Canadian flag. “After that first year, we got invited a lot of places and had an auction to raise money to buy different flags.” Her position as director of the Dandies was a perfect blend with her husband’s role with Cheyenne Frontier Days. Don was the livestock superintendent and chute boss at Cheyenne for 65 years. “He was here longer than anybody,” she said. Don had come to Cheyenne as a jockey from Nebraska, where his dad raised race horses. He rode horses for CB Irwin when he came to town. “He still thought he was a jockey,” Arlene laughed. “Vern convinced him he was a cowboy.”
Arlene and Don provided trailers, food, and drinks to all of the bands and performers that crossed the stage of Cheyenne for at least 30 years. “Don would pull trailers in to be their dressing room,” she said. Arlene also added coordinating Miss Frontier for 14 years. “Queens didn’t used to travel much and I was their coordinator for 14 years, so I traveled with them,” she said. That connection led her to be involved in Miss Rodeo America. She often hosted the various state queens at her home, something she has done every year since 1984. She was the first woman elected on the board for Miss Rodeo America and implemented the scholarship program into the contest. “I convinced the PRCA to use the Miss Rodeo America as the spokesperson.” She was the schedule coordinator and chaperon for Miss Rodeo America at the pageant for 25 years. She was also the president of Miss Rodeo Wyoming for ten years.
Arlene and Don spent their winters in Acapulco where they performed as trick water skiers. An accident in 1994 altered that, but not for long. They had bought a place in Lake Havasu, and were heading out to do a little trick ski practicing and as the boat circled around to pick her up, the rope became tangled in the propeller. The result was a mangled arm, and as she was getting ready to maneuver her way into the boat, she looked down and her leg was gone. “I said one prayer, keep me calm – I’m in Your arms. It was 110 that day and my leg was gone from the knee down is all I thought.” Due to the rope tangled in the propeller, the boat had to be towed back to shore, which took more than an hour. “I remember feeling like there was a scratchy blanket on my leg, so I found enough strength to rare up and take it off. My leg filleted open – what I thought was the blanket was actually little bone chips. I never looked again.”
Arlene remained calm and awake during the entire trip from the accident to the hospital. “When they loaded me up on the ramp, I heard somebody say ‘Sis keep your eyes shut.’ I heard someone say, ‘Your skin stretches a mile.’ My foot was in the boat, and they got it out and laid it on my stomach. I almost fainted then. But I remember when we got to the hospital the doctor asking me my mother’s maiden name.” That was the last she remembers until eight days later. “They kept me unconscious for eight days as I fought for my life. I was given 24 pints of blood in the first 24 hours.” Two months to the day after her accident, Arlene got on an airplane, rented a car, and resumed her duties chauffeuring Miss Rodeo America around. “I wear prosthesis and still dance,” she said.
Last year, Arlene stepped down from her duties as the chauffeur for Miss Rodeo America. She still invites people into her home in Cheyenne, a museum of photos, cowboy hats, and mementos from a lifetime of service to Cheyenne Frontier Days and the western industry.
“My dad’s motto was discipline, love what you’re doing, and have fun,” she said, adding the most important part. “In that order or none of that works.”
