When Lois McIntyre was crowned queen of the Pendleton Round-Up 83 years ago, she couldn't have guessed her costume would trigger a cowboy country family feud that would land in the Oregon Supreme Court. McIntyre was an Oregon State University student before becoming queen of the Northwest's premier Wild West extravaganza in 1930. She died in 1964. The contested ownership of her divided, fringed leather skirt and vest, worn with a long-sleeved satin blouse, has already prompted two court battles and will be Exhibit A in an Oregon high court case scheduled to begin Sept. 16, said attorney Cody Hoesly of Portland. Hoesly represents 75-year-old Joan Rice of Athena, who claims ownership of the so-called Jazz Age costume currently in possession of Mary Rabb of Pendleton. This is a case steeped in rodeo history and Round-Up aristocracy. Rice was married to Jim Rice, son of Queen Lois McIntyre. Rabb was the 1968 Pendleton Round-Up queen and the daughter of 2008 Round-Up Westward Ho! Parade Grand Marshal Harold Thompson. The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled last summer that Rabb could keep the costume and dismissed Rice's claim because her original lawsuit was not brought within the time prescribed under state law. Court of Appeals records released last summer said the costume was inherited in 1964 by Jim Rice, and Jim and Joan Rice agreed to display it in the Pendleton Round-Up Hall of Fame. They asked Rabb's grandmother, Edna Pinkerton Lieuallen, to take it there, court records said. The costume remained in the Hall of Fame after the death of Jim Rice in 1972. In 2000, Rabb retrieved the costume from the Hall of Fame, said the documents. Rice, by that time legally blind, discovered the outfit was missing when the Round-Up/Happy Canyon exhibits were being relocated to another building seven years later, court documents said...more
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