Becci Maloney has led quite a life! From being Miss Helldorado (1978) and Miss Rodeo Nevada (1979) to designing and creating rodeo queen pageant outfits for contestants as far and wide as Canada and Australia. Her talent is evident in her creations, but her path to being a distinguished and sought after member of the pageant community was not a linear one.
Born in Henderson, she participated in pageants as a young woman, helping her mother create and sew her outfits for competition, and winning her crowns along the way. Her dad gave her an important bit of advice: “Have the time of your life! You’re going to tell your grandchildren about this.” He was right! Her parents supported her desire to compete in pageants, and assisted her in her endeavors as a rodeo queen.
After competition, she married and started a family in Las Vegas. Professionally, she managed medical offices until she had some medical issues that prevented her from continuing. It was at this point in her life, she asked herself what she could do to generate income for her family, but still allow her time to spend with her family and manage her health. That’s when she turned to the talent she’d developed while competing in pageants: rodeo queen design and construction. She had sewn most of her life, thanks to her mother, Sue, and she took those skills and started her own business, aptly named Bridle to Bridal Design.
Pageant design creation is very specialized work, involving specialty fabrics like lambskin leather, sequins, fringe, and unusual and intricate details. She purchases much of her fabric from Heddy’s Fabrics on West Charleston, which has been in business over 50 years. When it came to leather, an important component in rodeo queen design, she bought a lot of her lambskin leather from D’anton Leather in Iowa, using swatches to find just the particular leather needed to make her queens stand out. Her custom work stands out in a world where standing out is the ultimate compliment.
Rodeo queen designing is a bit different from regular beauty pageant design. The horsemanship attire required by many pageants is just one example. It has to be practical, in form and function, but still beautiful and unique. Usually, when a customer contacted her, the majority of the work is completed online, to develop ideas for the costumes, take measurements, and get to know one another. She would build a dress form and complete the design, without ever meeting her clients face-fo-face. Becci was able to capture her client’s vision and deliver the designs that would help the young women feel their best while competing. One year she had 17 clients, all requiring custom pieces for the Miss Rodeo America competition. One memorable creation she made was a spectacular costume that incorporated fiber optics. That dress required 350 strands of fiber optics to be hand stitched into the dress! The allowed the dress to change colors and create motion within the design.
Some of the rodeo queen pageants have evolved since Becci’s competition days. Now there is a “fashion forward element” that was introduced in around 2010 to allow the young women to display more of their personality through their fashion choices. These outfits retain some Western elements, and combine them with more traditional pageant wear. One custom vest for Miss Rodeo America, Paige Nicholson, features elements from her crown embroidered into the leather. Becci has also created red carpet looks for events like the dress she created for Miss Rodeo America 2017 Lisa Lageschaar for the Academy of Country Music awards. Some of her creations have even ended up on the pages of Vogue Magazine!
In addition to her amazing pageant wear, Becci became well-known for her bridal gowns as well. Several of her former pageant clients tapped Becci to create the most important dresses in their lives, their bridal gowns. Becci’s attention to detail and flair for the gorgeous was evident here as well. Her wedding dresses are stunning and representative of her incredible attention to detail.
Becci is married to Pat, retired manager of Johnnie Walker RV. They’ve been married 38 years and together, they raised three daughters. Cherri Maloney is the office manager at Johnnie Walker RV and mother of 5 daughters. Christy Zalensy is a married to Adam, sales manager for Bunker Brothers Mortuary, and is mother of 6, and also has 2 grandchildren, with another on the way. Youngest daughter, Megan Maloney is a special education autism teacher at Basic High School. She has a daughter, Chloe, who has followed in her great-grandmother’s and grandmother’s footsteps and is a freshman enrolled in the fashion program at Basic High School. She has designed with Becci since she was a small girl. Becci and Pat have a cute mini Dachshund named Sparkle. Sparkle can often be found in the sewing room, in her little snuggly bed, overseeing the creations.
Becci and Pat have relocated to Boulder City from Utah, buying a beautiful home in the Boulder Hills Estates subdivision, where Becci maintains a dedicated sewing room with three sewing/embroidery machines, two sergers, fabrics galore, and binders filled with memories of dresses, costumes, and other custom work created throughout the years. While she’s semi-retired from the rigors of rodeo design making, she still sews recreationally and for family. The memories of her amazing career remain in the many young women she’s dressed over the years.
