As the Ponoka Stampede celebrates it’s 90th anniversary, it’s a perfect time to give a cowboy salute to the COWGIRL. Ladies of the West have always had an important place at the Ponoka Stampede, but this year you’ll find them center stage.
Leading the way will be one of the most recognizable genuine cowgirls you’ll find today, who has her own heartfelt connection to the Ponoka Stampede.
Serving as parade marshal is special guest Katy Lucas. It’s not her first Ponoka parade, because she was the 2014 Miss Ponoka Stampede, who went on to become the 2015 Miss Rodeo Canada.
Since then, she’s worked hard at pursuing her ambition of being a professional rodeo broadcaster, and is now living her dream as a host and on-air personality at Cowboy Channel, based in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s the perfect place for her to showcase the sport she was born into, and dearly loves; with the journalistic curiosity she’s honed, to help bring rodeo to loyal and new audiences alike.
Oh, and by the way, she’s a happy Mom and wife, and still competes at team roping too. Now that’s cowgirl!
Longtime rodeo fans will know well that Canadian Pro Rodeo Hall of Famer Smokin’ Joe Lucas, a four-time Canadian Tie-Down Champion, is the father of both Katy and her brother, current Canadian Tie-Down Roping Champion Kyle Lucas.
So it’s not surprising she got an early introduction to the sport, at just eleven days old!
“I headed to my first rodeo with Mom and Dad, and we haven’t really stopped since!” says Lucas. “Dad retired in 2006. But by then, Kyle and I were competing a lot ourselves, so it didn’t really slow down a whole lot from there.”
While Katy competed in basically all the events she could in high school rodeo, her favorites were where she got to swing a rope, and team roping is the one that really stuck.
However, there was another aspect of rodeo that also caught her attention at a very early age.
“I met then Jennifer Douglas, now Smith, when she was Miss Rodeo America 1995,” recalls Lucas. “I was looking at the sequin outfits and the beautiful hair, and that inspired my toddler self to want to be a rodeo queen. Of course, I eventually came to know how much more there was to being a rodeo queen and representative for the sport of rodeo. I fell in love with all of that too, and it was a big driving force for me to be a rodeo queen, and help the sport of rodeo in any way I could.”
“But then Jennifer also started doing the interviews at the National Finals Rodeo, and she was still such an idol of mine that it really inspired me to continue to follow in her footsteps in her career as well. So whether she knew it or not, she’s definitely been a guiding force for me throughout my career.”
Young Katy added rodeo queen competitions to her list of pursuits.
“I was Miss Rodeo Carstairs when I was a teenager, my hometown rodeo! Then Alberta High School rodeo queen, and I ran in the national high school rodeo queen contest. But Ponoka was on my radar for a long time. I loved Ponoka Stampede. It always felt like a second home to me.”
Even a hiatus when Ponoka didn’t have a Stampede Queen competition didn’t deter Lucas, as she kept telling people she was going to be Miss Ponoka Stampede. Lo and behold, the competition did return, and her determination was rewarded when she claimed the crown.
Lucas had also put legs to her dreams by taking the communication arts program at Lethbridge College. While she specialized in broadcast journalism, the program also included basic training in print and marketing, giving her a wide base of experience, all of which she’s put to good use on her journey.
“If I have a gal that calls me and wants advice, I just tell them, do not turn down any kind of education or any kind of job you can get at first, because you might use those skills later.”
In 2017, the Cowboy Channel was launched – a specialty channel featuring non-stop coverage of rodeos all over north America. Lucas knew that’s where she needed to be, and the meantime, gained related work experience at Flo Rodeo, the CPRA, as well as with her own marketing company. Just three years later, Lucas landed a position as a Cowboy Channel producer.
“It was behind the scenes, producing Western Sports Round-up, and pre-shows for rodeos, whatever task was asked of me, whatever show was put in front of me that day. I like some parts of producing. I’m pretty type A so I like being able to control how the story is shaped and put together, but my heart is definitely in the on-air side of things.”
“I was very clear when I started that was my end goal. But I had to battle, and I had to really continue to let it be known that I was not going to stay a producer,” shares Lucas.
Her big break finally came at Caldwell, Idaho.
“That was my first one doing sideline reporting for the whole rodeo, so that was a definitely a high-pressure situation for me.”
Lucas, named the 2025 Best of Western Media Winner by Western Horseman magazine, credits colleagues with helping her build confidence in her on-camera presence. She laughs about her now legendary studio debut on the hour-long Western Sports Round-Up show.
“I had to host it solo, because nobody else was available to do it with me. So I can tell you, I probably had 25 pages of notes, and might have read a little bit too much off of those notes, instead of just talking. But I was not going to mess up that first opportunity, and we still joke about that.”
Lucas has seen lots of arenas and had plenty of career highlights since, including interviewing her brother Kyle after several big wins! She’s also covered the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas twice, doing World Champion interviews.
“It’s fun and a cool challenge to figure out what is going to get the best out of these rodeo contestants, and to see how far they’ve come with this (media) exposure they’ve gotten recently,” Lucas adds.
These days, Cowboy Channel has become an entire western sports and lifestyle platform now owned by Teton Ridge, and when she’s not covering a rodeo on location, Lucas works out of the new studio headquarters at the historic Fort Worth Stockyards.
Along the way, Lucas received an intriguing message from a Wyoming cowboy by the name of Jens Berg in her social media. They shared an interest in western art, and got to talking. They soon found out they had a lot more in common, and a true western romance resulted in her marrying Berg, a talented Bit and Spur Maker, in 2022. Only later did Lucas learn Berg had actually seen her Ponoka Stampede photo six years before and declared ‘he was going to marry that girl’! The happy couple welcomed son Hadley just a year and a half ago, and make their home in Lipan, TX.
Now that’s she’s been to almost every major rodeo in North America, none of the shine has come off her Ponoka pride – a place where she also worked as part of the announcing crew and did some of her early rodeo reporting.
“I think it’s so authentically cowboy at Ponoka – from the running of the horses around the track to just the sheer size of the arena and the long score. Working with the board members too, it is sincerely a ‘Cowboys rodeo’. And I think that’s just what makes it stand out.”
Lucas is looking forward to sharing the Ponoka experience with her family, returning to the Stampede for the first time since 2019. She’s excited about her marshal duties – looking up a parade horse and refreshing her queen wave – as she serves as the ambassador for this year’s Cowgirl Salute.
“The cool thing about the Ponoka Stampede is they have always cherished and honored their cowgirls. Yes, it’s a very special year where they’ve decided to make it official, and name this the year of the cowgirl at the Ponoka Stampede. But I’ve never felt more equal and appreciated for my unique traits and abilities than when I started working with the Ponoka Stampede.”
A favorite memory from Ponoka Stampede was the time she and then Miss Rodeo Canada Nicole Briggs were able to showcase their team roping skills during one performance, and, to the delight of the crowd, they caught their steer!
“The cowgirl faces life head-on, lives by her own lights, and makes no excuses.”
“Cowgirl is an attitude, really, a pioneer spirit, a special American brand of courage.” — Dale Evans, American actress, singer, and songwriter
“A cowgirl is a rare blend of grit and grace, toughness and tenderness, power and femininity.” – Unknown