The Whoopee Girl - Symbol of Ogden Pioneer Days

Ogden Pioneer Days was inaugurated by Mayor Harmon W. Peery and a dedicated committee over 60 years ago. By 1936, someone decided to have a contest to choose a "Pioneer Sweetheart" who would reign over the week-long festivities. The contest was launched and 14-year-old Lorene Donaldson was the first winner.

Lorene became the first "poster girl" and posed for paintings and photographs in her Pioneer Days attire. In fact, three different times, her photograph was sent by the Associated Press throughout the world, and she became a real celebrity as she received mail from all over.

How the name "whoopee girl" originated has been lost to an earlier era, but the word whoopee was used as a catchall to describe light-hearted merrymaking of all sorts.

The tradition of the "Pioneer Sweetheart" has evolved today into a formalized pagent and competition where Miss Rodeo Ogden and her two attendants are crowned. Each year, the Ogden Rodeo Queens Association presents the new Miss Rodeo Ogden with a whoopee girl belt buckle and a letter of invitation into the association. Sixty-one young women have been honored with the title of either Pioneer Sweetheart or Miss Rodeo Ogden as they have reigned over Ogden Pioneer Days as ambassadors of Ogden, its July 24th Celebration and its people.

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Comstock Heritage - America's Oldest Western Silversmiths - has hand-crafted "Miss Rodeo" items since the early 1900's. Click on any picture below to view our current product line.