Carrying on the Cowboy Code: Ogden Event Celebrates Pioneering Legacy, Spotlight on Moab Bars | news

When Grand County’s Cricket Green learned that she had been made an Honorary Citizen of the county at the Ogden Pioneer Days Rodeo earlier this month on American Cowboy Day, she didn’t believe it.

“When I first got the letter, I thought it was a fake!” She said.

Green grew up on White’s Ranch, now the location of the Red Cliffs Lodge on Highway 128. She lived the legend of the American West as a fifth generation rancher, tending cattle on horseback as a young child and later taking part in rodeos. In 1978 she was rodeo queen, and years later, in 2002, her daughter was also rodeo queen. Cricket and her husband Kent Green were active members of the Canyonlands Rodeo Committee for ten years. Cricket’s background certainly qualifies her as the embodiment of the cowboy lifestyle, but she was surprised nonetheless – she said she hadn’t been involved in the ranch or rodeo in years.

She showed Kent the letter she used to run the local Moab Cowboy Adventure Tour Company. She also called her friend Wendie Flitton who runs Canyonlands Rodeo with her husband. Wendie told Cricket that she certainly deserved the honor – she lived the cowboy life for decades and kept the image alive in the name of her tour guide business.

“I had tears in my eyes and thought, ‘This is real and it’s me!” Grille said.

First proposed in the US Senate in 2005, National Day of the American Cowboy was sponsored by both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate and recognized by several states as a day to celebrate and preserve American cowboy culture for nonprofit National Cowboy Day website. Ogden Pioneer Days is an annual festival commemorating the settlement of Ogden and includes a rodeo, parades, fireworks, art walks, concerts, and more. The festival annually honors one or two representatives from each Utah district for “their contributions to promoting and sustaining the cowboy way of life.”

Cricket was nominated by 2019 Grand County Prize winner, Kortney Backus, who also served as rodeo queen and hails from a Grand County ranch.

Green attended the Ogden Pioneer Days festival where she was recognized in front of applauding crowds and given an engraved stone plaque saying she “must weigh about 25 pounds!” She was especially happy that her husband and two grown children were there.

“It was a pretty big honor,” said Cricket.