"My Very Own"

For Barbara Ann Scott, Calgary, an overgrown (pop. 100,000) cow town at heart, had put on its best pearl-grey Stetson and its best Stampede air. Calgarians cheered her when she skated away with the Canadian Women's Figure Skating Championship, packed her four exhibitions at the Glencoe Skating Club Carnival. They gave her a civic luncheon attended by 400 fans and fitted her out with a complete cowgirl outfit.

From the city there were white gauntlets and a white doeskin jacket; from the Glencoe Club a leather belt with solid gold buckle, and elkskin riding boots. The Calgary Exhibition and Stampede tossed in a Hudson's Bay blanket coat, a pair of Point blankets, a white felt hat and a pair of white whipcord riding breeches. Barbara Ann dressed up in her cowgirl clothes (see cut), posed happily for Calgarians. Said she: "I have always wanted a cowgirl outfit for my very own and I have always wanted to see a real live Indian."

Her Calgary hosts promptly whisked her ten miles out to the Sarcee Indian reserve. There, during the Indians' annual Easter dance, Chief David Crowchild decreed that she should be known to all Sarcees as Sootz-ah-tsa (Shining Star). As Barbara Ann headed back to her Palliser Hotel suite, Calgary Albertan Reporter Art Evans took over for the final ecstatic burble: "Obviously tired but wearing the thrill of her Indian adoption like a happy mantle, Shining Star quietly slipped away to her tepee, there to dream of cool waters, soft winds, and the Great Manitou who guards the sleep of all sweet maidens who believe in him."

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