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Shayla Conner is using her platform as a rodeo queen to bring attention to missing and murdered Indigenous people

Nate Perez Sep 25, 2021 Updated 12 hrs ago



Shayla Conner poses for a portrait at the Sheridan County Fairgrounds on Sept. 7. Conner was named Miss Sheridan WYO Rodeo Queen in 2019. She's used the role to raise awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous people.
Cayla Nimmo, Star-Tribune

Shayla Conner was only a teenager when her cousin Hanna Harris went missing. Nine days later, authorities found Harris’ body on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation rodeo grounds in Montana.

Conner, an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, her family and the community mobilized. They marched, visited the Capital and strategized at family dinners.

After six years of lobbying, former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock signed Hanna’s Act into law in 2019, speeding up investigations and searches on the reservation with funding from the state’s justice department.

Conner, who now lives in Greybull, learned firsthand that raising awareness can lead to change. So when she decided to compete for Miss Sheridan WYO Rodeo Queen, she knew she wanted to advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous people.

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But Conner has taken a different path than other rodeo queens. She chose to use her platform to bring attention to a difficult subject laced with uncomfortable truths: that Indigenous people go missing, and are murdered, at higher rates than the rest of the population, but often with considerably less attention.

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