Western Party -50yr- Roping Contest

My sister was celebrating her 50th Birthday and wanted to do something with a WESTERN theme.  The invitation's went out shaped like a boot and we put metal studs on them.  Western attire a must.  We ordered cowboy hats and bandana's for those who did not dress.  We had sheriffs badges with each guest's name printed on them. 

Centerpieces were cowboy boots (purchased from a second-hand store) with flowers in them.  Then on the side of those were small cowboy boot candles. Also on the table was a galvanised bucket (1 Gallon size filled with peanuts in the shell (an appitizer).Small bales of hay were scattered through out the hall.

Each guest was given a small gift of a bucket with candy corn wrapped in celephane and a ribbon with a chuck waggon, skull, waggon wheel or chili pepper in the center (was from garland for a western themed Christmas tree) written on the bucket was Shirley is "50".  We made "Wanted Posters" with  pictures of guests, and each had wacky sayings like "Maggie May  impersanating a Lady" and it was a picture of her eating corn on the cob. Another, was of "Alexa wanted for swiggn' moon shine", it was a picture of a 1-year old drinking a bottle. We had over 30 posters in the room.  They were a hit!   

I hired a local square dance caller/instructor and she spent about 30 minutes showing us how to line dance/square dance. Everyone of our 130 guests participated in this. 

Games: We had panning for gold.  I got an old galvanized tub from a hardware store and filled it with sand and water and put in gold $1.00 coins.  I had also mixed in some pennys.  With a pie pan, they would dip it in and had three chances to get a coin.  One lady was there for over 2 hours, she wanted a coin!

We had a hog calling contest, we also had a roping contest. We had farm animal cutouts and we used rope to catch one. Some prizes we awarded were wine bottles wrapped in burlap, with chili ribbon, Texas sized jelly-beans, Texas sized peanuts in a can, cactus suckers and BIG bottles of Hot sauce. It wouldn't be Texan without a Queen. 

We made the Birthday Girl a special cowboy hat and put a plastic crown on it and went on the internet and located a place which did sashes and she was crowned "Rodeo Queen - 50 Years"   Her cake was a square "Lower forty acres which consisted of a farm with the animals.

The food was Tex-Mex. Last, but not least, was the costume contest.  Everyone dressed in costumes.  We had Indians, Cowboys, Cowgirls, Saloon Girls, Bandits, Maddams, Civil War Generals, heck even Pancho Villa showed up. We are still getting great commets on this party!