By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Your son has a better chance of being an NFL player than your daughter being Miss Rodeo America.

Hays resident and recent FHSU graduate Tiffany McCaffrey, 23, will be one of 30 young women to vie for that title next year, after being elected Miss Rodeo Kansas 2020 on Aug. 3.

The Miss Rodeo Kansas is held in conjunction with the Dodge City Roundup Days. McCaffrey will be a lady in waiting until Jan. 1 when she will assume her full duties as rodeo queen. She will serve a year and will compete for Miss Rodeo America in December 2020.

“I am so excited,” she said. “I have spent so many years watching rodeo queens and following their journeys on Facebook, and now that I get to go do that, I am so awestruck. I have spent so many years imagining, but now I get to go live it.”

McCaffrey grew up on a small farm near Burlington, Colo., participating in 4-H and FFA.

She fell in love with rodeo while attending the local county fair, which hosted an annual PRCA rodeo. However, she didn’t learn to ride until she was a senior in high school.

“I always loved horses. From the time I can remember, my favorite animal was a horse,” she said. “Learning how to ride when I was a senior in high school, I was coming late to the game, but one thing I like to say is no matter how old you are or what you want to do, if you have a dream, if you have a passion, you should go ahead and do it no matter how old you are.

“It started at a really young age that I loved horses, so I knew someday my life was going to be involved in rodeo. The fact that I am here now is kind of God’s plan.”

On her road to her current title, she won a local rodeo title and then was named Miss Rodeo Fort Hays State for 2018.

McCaffrey’s degree is in tourism and hospitality management. She just finished an internship with the Hays Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. She said her studies at FHSU and internship were good foundations for the role as Miss Rodeo Kansas.

“My job is to spread awareness of rodeo and teach people what it’s about and keep our Western heritage alive,” she said.

“One great thing I like about rodeo is its rich history. Rodeo is based on agriculture, farming and our ranching background. I grew up on a ranch raising cows and bucket calves, so that really resonated with me. As cowboys, that is where it all really started was with ranching and the competitive side to see who could tie the calf the fastest and stuff like that.”

As Miss Rodeo Kansas, McCaffrey also will fundraise for the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund, which helps injured professional cowboys financially when they are unable to perform.

McCaffrey said she hopes her year as Miss Rodeo Kansas will help jump-start her career. Her dream job is to be a hospitality director for the PRCA.

She said she thinks the rodeo queen system is a good place for girls and young women to develop leadership skills.

“Having a passion for leadership and helping others is right along with what I believe as a rodeo queen,” she said. “Rodeo queens are servant leaders. You are there to serve your purpose of helping the rodeo committee and teaching others. With that leadership comes responsibility. It teaches you to be the best leader possible.”

By CRISTINA JANNEY

Hays Post

The walls of Willie Pfeifer’s workshop are covered with squiggles of wood contorted into all sorts of freeform shapes.

Willie says he gets inspiration from all kinds of places — a leaf, a penguin, a strange knot in the wood. He said he has no style.

“Whatever you see, whatever you imagine,” he said of his inspiration.

He says the sculptures are not based on people, but he often refers to them as “he” or “she” as he rotates them in the light and describes how the curves and bends emerged from rectangular blocks of walnut, pine or mahogany.

“Remember the walk of the penguins to the ocean …” he said holding up a sculpture. “This particular penguin here. They usually just lay one egg, but this one has two. You add an egg and then some ice to support the thing. You don’t even see the penguin, but the ‘March of the Penguins’ is what brought this on. Just the way they walk. Dalk, dalk, dalk.”

Pfeifer, 91, will have an exhibit, “Fascinating Forms: Six Decades of Sculpture in Wood & Metal,” from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Friday at the C.A.T.S. Gallery at Fort Hays State University as part of Hays Arts Council Fall Art Walk. The main art walk will be from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Friday (See full schedule below), but the C.A.T.S. gallery is opening early for Pfeifer’s show.

Some of Pfeifer’s pieces just start as doodles. As we were talking, he sat down with a piece of paper and drew an infinity symbol. From there he started subtly changing the curves with a few scratches here and a rub of the eraser there. He talked as he molded the form into shape. Within a few minutes, something akin to one of his sculptures emerged from the page.

“You just run with it,” he said.

His has a file containing several hundred drawing, He has some labeled “pursue when in a good mood” or “pursue when in a bad mood.”

Everyone sees something different in his art. Pfeifer’s wife told him once one of his sculptures was immoral.

“I said, ‘What? It is a duck that fell over.’ She said, ‘What I see is my dad bending over the tub without any shorts on,” he said chuckling as he tuned the sculpture in his work-worn hands.

Pfeifer attributes his longevity to woodworking, which he considers a hobby.

He began working with wood when he was only 4. He picked up the trade from his grandpa Dreiling, who was a carpenter and lived across the street. He said he hated memorizing when he was in school, preferring to work with his hands. He got kicked out of Latin at St. Joseph Military Academy and banished to the industrial arts department. He loved it.

The country was embroiled in World War II and all the abled-bodied young men where off fighting. This left Ed Davis, the head of the Fort Hays Industrial Arts Department with no students, so he started teaching the students at St. Joe. Pfeifer spent his high school years learning from Davis at St. Joe and then another three and half years studying with him at FHSU. However, he never earned his degree.

At that time, Fort Hays was a teacher’s college, and the industrial arts degree required a semester of student teaching. Pfeifer had a good job offer and he wanted to get married, so opted not to complete the program.

“I tell people I am working on a doctorate,” he said. “They say, ‘Oh you are? What kind of doctorate is it?’ Well it’s getting time on a doctorate of hard knocks.”

Pfeifer went to work as a woodworker and eventually bought the Hays Planing Mill in 1957. The mill specialized in handcrafted furniture for churches — pews, pulpits, etc. Pfeifer expanded the mill’s work into architectural mill work, and he often worked as a general contractor. This required Pfeifer to spend hours reviewing architectural plans.

“I would sit so long. I would get up and walk around the shop, grab a piece of would and go cut something,” he said.

The diversion slowly grew into a hobby of making sculptures and 3-D puzzles using a band saw. He sold the pieces on the side. He thought at one point he might make a living out of his hobby. He could make about $500 on a large batch of puzzles, but he needed to earn about 10 times that to pay the bills. His accountant urged him to keep his day job.

“I’ve know too many starving artists,” Pfeifer said.

In 1970 he was asked to do a show along side another artist, but he hasn’t done a major art show since.

Pfeifer sold the Planing Mill in 1993. Although Pfeifer stayed active in his retirement, he said he got bored easily.

He didn’t really like to watch TV. He taught himself to speed read to digest all the architectural specs when he was working, so he reads two newspapers daily plus downs the eight magazines he subscribes to. He is a self-described golf nut, but age ultimately ended that as a regular pastime. He volunteers, managing maintenance at Castillian Gardens where he lives and served as the president of the Ellis County Historical Society multiple times.

He also used to play poker with some buddies, but at 91, he has outlived several of those friends.

“Sitting around the house was driving me and my wife crazy,” he said.

He kept woodworking through everything, about four hours a day, seven days a week. He cleaned out a garage at Castillian Gardens, which he transformed into a small shop.

Pfeifer had never spent any time in the hospital and never taken any regular prescription medication until several years ago when he was diagnosed with cancer. He underwent major surgery. His doctor sent him to Ascension Via Christi in Hays for rehab after the surgery. He had done volunteer work at the nursing center and knew how to get in and out of all the doors, so he wandered the halls at night when he couldn’t sleep.

He was told on a Friday he would be starting physical therapy on the following Monday. Over the weekend, he read up on PT and then practiced going up and down stairs. By Monday, he could go up and down the stairs backward. He was supposed to be in rehab for a month, but they sent him him home after 17 days. He said it was because he was such a trouble maker.

After the surgery, Pfeifer said he threw himself even more into his woodworking. He has also organized and cataloged all his work and patterns. None of his children are woodworkers, so he plans to donate the bulk of his pieces to the Industrial Arts Department at FHSU.

Even at 91, every day is a new day for Pfeifer, a new opportunity to create, to conjure something beautiful from wood that most people see as formless. He said he is inspired by all of his senses — sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.

“A lot of people go through life not stimulated by anything,” he said. “Other people are very aware of their surroundings and they feed on them.”

Pfeifer told the story of a nun he had as a teacher when he was in Catholic school. When she would walk the students to St. Joseph’s church from the school, she would often stop to point out things she saw along the way.

“She would say, ‘Look at that tree. See how it is leafing out. This is what it does in the summer …’ or ‘Stop look at the such and such bird.’ … She would just open up a whole new world for me. … She made me aware of the surroundings.”

Below is a complete schedule for the Fall Art Walk.