  | Volume XII, Issue 4 April 2003 |
A Message from the President
Guys and Gals:
Thanks in advance!
ASGRA Board of Directors 2003 & Committee Chairs
President: Gaither Pennington 133 Tull Place Alexandria, VA 22304
 The Membership Corner
Thanks in advance to all of you that came out to our annual Bylaws meeting and to those of you that voted by mail. Your participation in this important business is greatly appreciated by all in the association. In last month's issue, there was a pullout schedule for all the IGRA and ASGRA events for the remainder of the 2003 Rodeo year. There are a couple of corrections to that schedule at this point. Please make note of these:
Remember to keep me up to date on any personal information changes. This way, you will continue to be informed of meeting notices, special events, and receive your newsletter. And last, as your membership chair, I serve as your liaison to the board. If you have issues, concerns or questions, please don't hesitate to bring them to my attention. I can be reached by email or by phone at the number listed on our contacts page. Remember to keep check on the web page for all the upcoming events, Stampede information, announcements and updates. Mike Sanders, Membership Chair
Howdy Gang,
We are doing well on our way to a great Atlantic Stampede 2003. We have selected our rodeo poster design for not only this year, but the next 3 years! And with Rob's help we will have advertising fliers and other designs out shortly. I'm also delighted to welcome David H aboard as our Security Coordinator!! Volunteers are what makes a rodeo fun. The more the merrier and less work for everyone! Our fun-loving Volunteer Coordinator Diane Mejia is ready to take your name and find a place where you can help. Drop her a note at for more details.
The weather is getting warmer and many people are thinking about outside events. Our Rough Stock School is scheduled for May 17th and 18th up at our Stock Contractor's arena in York Springs, PA. Mark the date on your calendar and read more about it on page 3.
As always check out the Stampede web pages for all the latest on AS 2003!! Billy Collison, Atlantic Stampede 2003 Rodeo Director
News 'Round the Corral Happy Trails To You!
Remember, ASGRA trail rides are the first Sunday of the month at 11:00am!
2003 IGRA Rodeos
ASGRA Spring Rodeo School 2003
Pre-registration is required so that we can ensure the necessary amount of livestock for the weekend. Anyone interested in attending should contact ASGRA President Gaither Pennington.
ASGRA Royalty 2003 & Committee Chairs
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| IGRA Posse Roundup
The 2003 International Gay Rodeo Association Convention and Country/Western Dance Competition will be held in Phoenix, Arizona during the weekend of July 31 through August 3. The seminars, meetings and convention floor activities will take place at the host facility, the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa. Dance and social activities are being planned in other locations around the city. IGRA Convention serves as a forum for officials' training, committee meetings, and review and modification of operating procedures and rodeo rules. The delegation also selects IGRA officers and future convention and finals rodeo sites. The ASGRA delegation may include up to six delegates and five alternates, but there is no limit to the number of representatives who may attend. There are multiple committee seats that go unfilled each year because of the amount of work that needs to be completed and the extra members have full privileges in these meetings. It is essential that our members be present to represent the interests of our association and contribute to the work of IGRA.
A budget has been established to cover the cost of delegate and alternate registration and to provide a stipend to partially reimburse expenses for those attending and representing ASGRA. It is the Trustee's job to coordinate selection and participation of the ASGRA delegation. The ASGRA Board will be selecting delegation members in April. Any current ASGRA member who has an interest in serving in our convention delegation should contact IGRA Trustee, Mike Lentz, by e-mail or by phone before April 25th. See contacts page
IGRA Public Relations/Marketing Seminar Schedule for 2003 PUBLIC RELATIONS SPOKESPERSON: Tom Sheridan: Phone: (615) 497-7511 E-Mail:
Friday, Apr 25, 2003, 1:30 pm Rodeo in the Rock Little Rock, AR
Thursday, Jul 31, 2003, Time will be announced, Annual Convention Phoenix, AZ
Friday, Sep 26, 2003, 1:30 pm Greater San Diego Rodeo San Diego, CA
IGRA 2003 Certified Officials Seminar Schedule for 2003 ARENA DIRECTORS CHAIRPERSON: Jorge Ramirez Phone: (512) 260-0407 E-Mail: CHUTE COORDINATORS CHAIRPERSON: Jeanne McLeod Phone: (512) 346-8440 E-Mail:
Friday Mar 28, 2003 1:00 pm Cowtown Rodeo Fort Worth, TX
Friday Jun 20, 2003 1:00 pm Bay Area Regional Rodeo San Jose, CA
Friday Jul 4, 2003 1:00 pm North Star Regional Rodeo St Paul, MN
Thursday Jul 31, 2003 TBA Annual Convention Phoenix, AZ
Friday Aug 8, 2003 1:00 pm Zia Regional Rodeo Albuquerque, NM JUDGES CHAIRPERSON: Thom Sloan Phone: (619) 216-9468 E-Mail:
Friday Apr 11, 2003 1:00 pm LA Rodeo 2003 Long Beach, CA Friday Apr 25, 2003 8:00 am Rodeo in the Rock Little Rock, AR AmeriSuites 10920 Financial Center Pkwy. Little Rock AR 72211
Thursday Jul 31, 2003 TBA Annual Convention Phoenix, AZ
Friday Aug 22, 2003 1:00 pm Windy City Rodeo SCOREKEEPER/SECRETARY CHAIRPERSON: Larry Lindstrom Phone: (303) 280-1185 E-Mail:
Friday Apr 4, 2003 1:00 pm Bighorn Rodeo Las Vegas NV
Friday May 23, 2003 1:00 pm Great Plains Rodeo Oklahoma City, OK
Friday Jun 27, 2003 1:00 pm Canadian Rockies International Rodeo Calgary, AB CANADA
Thursday Jul 31, 2003 TBA Annual Convention Phoenix, AZ Friday Sep 5, 2003 1:00 pm Atlantic Stampede 2003 Alexandria, VA Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill 400 New Jersey Ave NW Washington DC 20001 Notes and News 
Coordinator Mary Lynn Logsdon would like to thank all the ASGRA members along with all the ASGRA and IGRA Royalty who participated in the fundraisers for members of the FDNY at Remingtons and Titan the weekend of February 21-23. Through the donation of your time, talent and tips we were able to raise $8258!
ASGRA and the CMAs…..
ASGRA Calendar of Events
April 2003
Board Meetings
Membership Meetings A Note from Our Stock Contractor for Atlantic Stampede 2003 Classic Rodeo Productions would like to thank all the members of ASGRA for helping to select us as your stock contractor for Atlantic Stampede 2003. It gives us great satisfaction to have your trust placed with Classic Rodeo to produce a great rodeo. If anyone has any sugestions for this year's rodeo please don't hesitate to bring them to our attention via your Rodeo Director. Classic will bring a show that is going to be even bigger and better than in 2002. May 2003 issue: Submissions due: 4/21/03 Mail out date: 4/28/03 |
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Upcoming ASGRA Events!!!!
PRIDE
Hoedown on the Harbor 2003
Saturday June 14th, 2003
After a day of celebration at the Baltimore's Gay Pride Festival, join us as we kick-off the area's best country-western dance event of the summer with the ASGRA Couples Dance and Line Dance Competition. Whether you would like to join in the competition or just enjoy watching the show, it's an exciting way to start an evening of dancing. An IGRA-sanctioned dance competition, the overall winners for this competition will be invited to represent ASGRA at the IGRA international dance competition finals in July, 2003. You may register for competition online (www.asgra.org) or via mail. In addition, on-the-spot registration will be available for the Line Dance competition for anyone with an urge to kick up their heels and show their stuff for the crowd. And coming in July… ASGRA heads to the Beach - Rehoboth Beach that is! With the help of some local volunteers, ASGRA will host an afternoon tea dance at Rehoboth Beach on Sunday, July 13. Stay tuned for more details to be announced as plans for a Rehoboth Beach Hoedown come together.
Want to be the first to know about ASGRA Social Events?  Web World
Howdy friends,
Ever since the very first web page went over the Internet back in 1991, (yes, the World Wide Web is only 12 years old) the computers that serve the web have been generating usage logs. The logs contain information about what files were requested by the web visitor, when they were requested and whether or not the page was successfully retrieved. Usually these files are processed by some analytical tool to produce statistical reports. In most cases, the log files are deleted after a time. From these reports we can keep track of which pages are the most popular, what search engines people used to find our site and some general idea of where our visitors come from. Let's take a look at a single line out of a raw log file from the ASGRA site. This line logged a retrieval of the photo shown here, which happened to be the most popular photo during 2002 with 631 accesses. ip68-100-43-97.nv.nv.cox.net - - [17/Mar/2003:08:31:40 -0700] ""GET /galleries/Stampede01/L53M8901.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 "http://asgra.org/galleries/Stampede01/L53M8901.htm" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)" The first part of the line is the most critical to the server. It records the address of the computer that is requesting the file. (ip68-100-43-97.nv.nv.cox.net) Without this information, the server wouldn't know where to send the page. This is also where the first level of privacy control comes into play. In this case the computer is connected through Cox Internet somewhere in Northern Virginia. While we can tell the visitor is coming from Northern Virginia, we can't tell who it was. Now if some issue were to come up, such as hacking or illegal activity, then Cox, with proper court orders, might release their customer user log to the courts, to prosecute the bad guy. At that point our log and Cox's logs could be compared to trace the illegal activity. However, this is rare and we would otherwise never know exactly who it was that visited our site. The second part of the line indicates the exact date and time the file was requested, and the offset from Greenwich Mean Time (-0700). Our server is actually located in Utah. Next comes the request (GET) and the location/name of the requested file, (/galleries/Stampede01/L53M8901.jpg) followed by the transfer protocol (HTTP) and the protocol version (1.1), then a code to indicate if the transfer went correctly (200) or if the requested file was missing (404). Then the web page that made the request, (http://asgra.org/galleries/Stampede01/L53M8901.htm). In this case it was the popup window containing the photo. Next in line comes the browser standard and version (Mozilla/4.0) and finally the actual browser, version and the operating system running on the requesting computer. (Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6.0 and Windows NT 5.1 which is actually Windows XP) In some cases, the entry will show the search words the visitor used to find our site. Every file retrieved from every web server creates a line like this in the log. During any day the log can become thousands or hundreds of thousands of lines long. The log files on our ASGRA site are kept for 7 days, which gives our report system time to analyze the data, and then the logs are deleted. As we can see, there is a lot of data saved in the server log, but you can also rest assured that unless you are one of the bad guys trying to mess up the Internet for the rest of us, the places you go on the Internet, will remain pretty much your own business.
Competing with Cancer
As Newsletter Editor I am sometimes asked why we don't print more articles about rodeos or competitors in the newsletter. (It even came up recently in the online survey responses…) While I personally try to write various articles, like everyone else in ASGRA, I am a volunteer and my time is limited with regard to what I can personally create for the newsletter. I welcome articles and items of interest from our readers for inclusion in Thirteen Spurs. This is YOUR ASGRA Newsletter - it can be whatever you want it to be - but you have to be willing to contribute. The due date for newsletter submissions for the upcoming issue is listed in every Thirteen Spurs. Please consider sharing your experiences and insights into rodeo, C&W activities or other issues of interest to our community.
This month we bring you the first in what I hope will be many more contributions from our members. Jennifer Vrana is one of the first folks I met in ASGRA/IGRA several years ago. She has a passionate love of rodeo and is a fierce competitor on the IGRA rodeo circuit. Recently she has also had to be a fierce competitor off the circuit as well. I want to thank her for having the courage to share her story with all of us here. On November 4, 2001 I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Disease stage IVb. It was pretty bad and I knew I had one heck of a fight in front of me. The doctors basically told me my career as a street cop was done and competing in the rodeos was out of the question. I survived 16 chemo treatments over 8 months only to find out it didn't work. Next step was salvage chemo leading up to a stem-cell transplant. Thru all of this time I continued working as a full duty police officer but for my own safety I was put on deskwork. 
I had my first round of salvage chemo and for the first time in a year I was actually sick. I went in for my second round and due to bloodwork it had to be delayed for a week. I jumped up and down with excitement in the doctor's office, because Atlantic Stampede 2002 was that upcoming weekend and I just knew I could "Cowgirl Up" my best and compete. Arrangements were literally made overnight for hotel and transport of my horse to the rodeo grounds. I entered seven events for the rodeo. Even healthy, seven events is a lot to handle but I just knew I could do it. My #1 goal was to prove to the world that having cancer does not mean you have to stop living. One by one, I was able to make it thru each event. I was tired as all heck, but my goal was to finish, no matter where I placed. I was like a demon, possessed with the will to finish. That will paid off - I walked away with 3 buckles including the All-Around Cowgirl title for the weekend. I returned home with a second wind for the upcoming transplant. I was hospitalized for 18 grueling days in October, being given the high dose chemo then being re-infused with my own stem cells that had been collected and cleaned several weeks earlier. I brought 2 personal items to the hospital with me, one a picture of me with my horse, the other being the All-Around Cowgirl buckle. The doctors told me I'd need at least 6 months to recover. 10 weeks later I was back in uniform working the streets that I love so much.
Jen Vrana, Atlantic Stampede All-Around Cowgirl 2002 |
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As your President, I do not speak on the merits of the proposals; that has been eloquently done by the By-Laws Committee-the majority of whom come from the general membership. I do though, as your President, personally ask you to take the time to cast your vote. The Committee has made voting as easy as possible-just mark your position on each proposal and, after signing the back flap of the prepaid envelope, drop your ballot in the mail. If you've mislaid your mailing, forms and instructions can be downloaded from the ASGRA website www.asgra.org. Whether through the pleasure of your company of March 30th, or through voting by mail, please let your voice be heard.
Secretary/Web Master: Frank Harrell 12905 Clifton Creek Dr. Clifton, VA 20124
This year's school will include beginning and intermediate instruction and practice in calf roping on foot, chute dogging, and steer riding. There will also be opportunities for breakaway roping practice if there is sufficient interest. There will be a charge of $50 per student for chute dogging or steer riding, $75 for both. The charge for one or two days of calf roping is $20. Events will start at 9:30 a.m. and run until about 4 pm on both days, with a cook-out/picnic around noon for the participants. All events will be run each day. Group accommodations in nearby Gettysburg or York Springs are being considered for those who wish to stay overnight nearby, as well as the possibility of overnight camping at the ranch.
CAB Representative 2002: TBD
ASGRA bylaws provide that the board of directors select the members of our delegation ninety days prior to the annual convention in accordance with specified guidelines, including: (a) members' ability and willingness to attend the meetings; (b) knowledge of IGRA and ASGRA by-laws and standing rules and procedures; and (c) IGRA committee assignments. According to the ASGRA standing rules, no more than fifty percent (50%) of the delegates and alternates may be members of the ASGRA board of directors unless there is an insufficient number of non-board members available or willing to attend. We need general members with an interest in attending and representing ASGRA at the IGRA convention. This is a great opportunity to learn more about the business of IGRA and how ASGRA's work and activities fit into the overall mission of IGRA.
May 8
Triple Play Pride Events for ASGRA in June! Start with DC Pride on June 8 when ASGRA joins the DC Pride parade again this year, followed by lots of dancing and fun at the ASGRA dance tent - always one of the most popular attractions of the DC Pride Festival. Then it's another weekend of fun when ASGRA takes our pride on the road to the Baltimore Pride celebration on June 14, Come join us for the parade and block party before heading over to Hoedown at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Then wrap up the month with the annual Pride Posse trip to the NYC Pride Parade and Festival on June 28-29.
Baltimore Museum of Industry
I am not yet in remission but have a couple month's reprieve until my next scans in April. In the meantime I am living life to the fullest. I will be proudly wearing my ASGRA red shirt at the LA Rodeo right before my scans. I have also been giving local inspirational speeches for cancer groups. I talk about our rodeo and all the support I received. I proudly pass around the All-Around buckle for all to see. It is now 6 months post rodeo and past time for me to thank everyone that supported me and those that kept me standing when I was ready to fall. I have a long road ahead of me still, but not even cancer will stop me from competing again, even if my friends have to tie me to my horse! It's not about just living, it's about how we choose to live. I choose Life.