The Running Queen

BASILE – Rheagan Ortego has worn many crowns atop her head of black hair but the one the Basile High senior wants to claim more than anything has eluded her.
Nearly two years ago, the Bearcat standout runner, and festival pageant queen, was taking part in the LHSAA Track & Field state championship meet held at LSU’s Bernie Moore Track in Baton Rouge. Ortego was in attendance that day as an alternate.
Much like the hundreds of trips across Louisiana she has made over the years as a pageant queen, Ortego had packed her bags with all of the necessary wardrobe items required -- in this case her running outfit and a pair of cleats.
The three-time Evangeline Parish 100-meter dash champion was more than ready to step onto the stage of the state’s premier track and field event but unfortunately she didn’t get that chance that day. No other competitor in the Class 1A division pulled out of the race so Ortego remained off the big stage.
Ortego though made a pledge to herself and her teammates that afternoon.
“I just hung out and watched,” Rheagan remembered. “I just kept telling myself that ‘I am coming back next year. I am going to push myself and better myself so I can get back here and that we can all go to state.’”
“I still remember what she did when we left LSU that evening,” Rheagan’s mother Tonya Ortego recalled. “She went over and touched the track and then she turned to me and said ‘mama, I will run on this track at state next year.’”
Ortego did just that as she served as the lead runner on last year’s 4x200 relay team that reached state, as well as serving as the anchor on the 4x100 relay team that reached state.
Now Ortego is looking to finally get to compete as an individual at state, while also help the girls relay team place or win a title.
“This is my senior year,” Rheagan said. “It is all or nothing. There is no going back. I just have to push through and cross that finish line first.”

The starting line
Ortego grew up in Basile loving all types of sports but her first love was basketball. Ortego played all the time growing up but then in middle school she discovered her immense passion for running track.
“With basketball I realized that I absolutely loved running,” Rheagan said. “Most of my friends were like ‘Rheagan, you like running?’ Most kids hate the running part of practice but I just loved the adrenaline rush you get from running.”
As an eighth grader, Ortego joined the high school team and reached regionals in the 100-meter dash, her preferred event. She would win that event at the parish track meet her eighth through tenth grade years (the event was cancelled her junior season due to no track in the parish being able to host the event), and she has advanced to the regional rounds every season as well.
So what goes through Ortego’s mind when she steps onto the track and gets herself down in the blocks? Well as it turns out nothing.
“Whenever I am down there and they say ‘take your marks’ I just blank out,” said Rheagan, who says a prayer before every run. “I am not thinking of anything. And when they say ‘set’ the only thing I am thinking of is hearing that gun and when I hear that gun I just take off.
“People tell me that my mom is screaming from the stands but I don’t hear her or hear anything. I don’t even think I breathe. I am just focused on crossing the finish line.”
Ortego though is never satisfied and is constantly looking to shave seconds off her time or improve her starting form.
“Her mind set is a lot like mine,” Basile track and field coach Kevin Bertrand said. “She is an athlete that is never satisfied. I will tell her that she ran perfect and she will still ask me what she could have done better.”
Ortego’s quest for track perfection though was in jeopardy last year.

Running in pain
In addition to running track in high school, Ortego also played on the basketball team for years and it was during a mid-season game in that sport as a junior that the Bearcat star suffered an injury that proved to be a blessing in disguise.
“I went to our trainer and he felt my ankle and he said if I wanted to run again that I had to do something about it,” Rheagan said.
The injury though would reveal a much larger and possible career-ending setback. After x-rays were taken, doctors at the Opelousas Orthopedic Clinic believed that Ortego had torn her Achilles Tendon in her right foot, and possibly tore ligaments in her knee as well.
“We thought that she had torn her ACL also but they did MRIs and the knee was fine,” Tonya said. “The reason she was having so much pain in her knee was because there was no more support in her ankle.”
To keep her track career alive, Ortego opted to quit the basketball team but she didn’t opt for surgery right away. That pledge she made to return to state was so strong that she put off the surgery until this past summer, a few months after the state championships.
“I am very hard headed,” Rheagan laughed. “When I have my mind set on doing something I am going to do it.”
Even with a possible devastating ankle injury, Ortego still managed to win meets and made it back to state this time as a competitor.
“I just ignored it,” Rheagan said. “Before I ran I would get stretched out by the trainers and after I ran I would get stretched out again. I had to do it. I just couldn’t not do it.”
“When she sets her mind to something she gives it 100 percent,” Tonya said. “She knows what she can handle and what she can’t. I let her have free range. It was hard on me as her mom because I knew she was suffering pain but I knew she had set a goal her sophomore year and that she was going to do whatever it took to make that happen.”
Ortego though would receive some unexpected but uplifting news when she did have the procedure done this past July.
“We went in expecting the worse,” Tonya said. “We went in there knowing that her future track career was at stake. But the doctor came out about 20 minutes after they began and gave us the best news. He said it was just a calcium deposit that was so overgrown that it was obstructing the tendon. We got off lucky.”
After five days, Ortego was up and walking and after a few months of rehabilitation in Eunice she was able to run again. And she didn’t waste anytime doing that.
“Whenever he told me that day that I was good to run I went and ran and ran and ran,” Rheagan said. “It felt weird at first because I wasn’t used it but it felt good to get back out there and do what I love to do.”

More than a beauty queen
Ortego’s passion for running track is equaled by her love for pageants.
Ortego took part in her first contest, at her hometown’s Louisiana Swine Festival, when she was eight-months-old and proceed to take part in pageants for years to come. Then when she was 13-year-old she decided to take a break from it for about two years.
Then an old pageant friend asked her to compete in one in Washington, which Ortego won and then the next year she returned to Washington to be crowned Teen Washington Catfish. From there she was crowed Evangeline Parish Farm Bureau Queen and then finally Miss Cajun Music, with the latter title being one she holds near and dear to her heart.
Ortego though knows what the perception is of pageants and for that matter pageant queens, but she firmly states it is much more than just a ‘beauty contest.’
“When they hear about pageants a lot of people think that the contestants have to be beautiful like a model, that you have to be the skinniest girl, you have to speak well and that it is all about who you know but its not like that at all,” Rheagan said. “Being involved in all these pageants has taught me so much about my heritage, my state and how to talk to people.
“I was never a shy person but having to talk in front of judges during interviews or talking on stage helps you develop social skills. It is like a job interview in a lot of ways.”
Ortego, who is also active in FBLA, 4-H, BETA Club and is in her second semester of taking courses at LSU at Eunice, does admit that it is a challenge finding time balancing her track career with her responsibilities as a pageant queen but says she would “rather be on the roads traveling Louisiana that sitting at home watching TV.”
A mind set her parents are happy to support.
“I am not going to say that it is easy or that it is hard,” Tonya said. “As her mom I support her 100 percent. For me yes it is hectic but it is memories made. As a parent I fear that one day that my daughters won’t need me anymore. So for me, I don’t want them to ever look back and wish that there mom or dad were not there for that.”
That doesn’t mean that the younger Ortego’s life isn’t hectic, especially during festival-track season.
“A few weeks ago I wanted to go the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival but I had trouble finding a ride because I had a track meet that Friday night in Jennings,” Rheagan said. “Everyone was leaving early Friday afternoon. I was kind of bummed out about not going. After the track meet though I got a call from one of my pageant friends and asked if I wanted to ride with her. And so I jumped at the chance.
“So I had to drive from Jennings home to Basile. Then I had to pack all my stuff because I wasn’t planning on going, which includes a big suit case for my train and then a big bag for my crown, I had to pack my formal wear, two dresses, my boots and all hair stuff and makeup. And let me tell you -- you never seen makeup until you see all of my makeup. I got tons of it. I got maybe a few hours of sleep but it was worth it.”
After hopefully reaching state as a senior, Ortego is also hoping to continue her track career at the next level. Ortego received an academic scholarship from McNeese State and she is planning on walking on to the track team there, and possibly earn an athletic scholarship.
As for her pageant career, Ortego is planning on putting that aside while she gets a firm handle on college life, that is unless she has the chance to compete for the crown in her favorite festival pageant -- the Louisiana Cotton Festival.
“When I was young I was Little Miss Cotton Cloth,” Rheagan said. “That’s the one on my list that I would love to represent.”