The Riata Ranch Cowboy Girls

Being less than five feet tall, weighing not more than 100 pounds, being aged 10, or at least not looking much older and being able to ride a horse is paying off for three young women with local connections.

And if you pholks keep an eye out you'll see these young lasses quite often in the next month or so. The three, Sarah Tharp,12, of Visalia, Leann Jones, 10, of Woodlake, and Laila Joseph, 10, of Carmel Valley, are members of the Riata Ranch Cowboy Girls, the famed troupe which for several decades has been world renowned.

Unless you are one of those pholks who pay no attention to television commercials, you will see the trio among several dozen young girls on all the major networks in ads for the"Limited Too" brand of girl jeans in a promotion entitled "A Girls World."

According to Jennifer Welch, the head honcho for the Riata outfit, the commercials depict girls in various activities such as surfing, skateboarding, hula hooping, swimming, dancing and whatever young girls do in the summertime.

The three Riata girls are seen riding white horses with white saddles They are wearing white––of course they are "Limited Too" outfits.

"It's sort of a dream sequence" says Jennifer who took eight Riata gals to a Southern California audition last month.. Three of the eight were selected for the ads which were filmed in the back lot of Universal Studios in Burbank.

"It was one of the most involved shoots I've ever seen," Jennifer said, adding that the about 30 "takes" were needed to get just the right one for the horse riding scene which, of course, will last only a few seconds in the final aired commercials.

Welch said the girls were pretty well paid for their talents and probably will receive residuals depending on how many times the footage or the commercials are aired.. Jennifer said the exposure very likely could lead to more work not only for the Leann, Laila and Sarah, but for other Riata Cowboy girls.

Miss Welch's entertainment world connections garnered from her years in touring the nation and the globe riding and leading the famed equestrian group, has helped open lots of doors for quite a number of young women. And not just barn doors.

So keep your eyes peeled, even if you aren't in the market for small sized jeans and other young women's fashions.

FASHIONS OF ANOTHER SORT certainly with no local connections I've been able to find, were featured in a newspaper feature entitled "News Of The Weird."

I quote: "Two designers from India's a national Institute of Fashion Technology in Calcutta have begun to offer a cotton jacket for women which contains a mild electrical charge to help protect them from molesters and muggers. A 9-volt battery in the waistband connects to a switch and wires running through the cloth. The domestic price, according to a May Indo-Asian News Service story, is 855 rupees, or about $20."

MOVING TO THE OTHER END of the fashion spectrum, another "weird" story notes that a man from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has introduced charcoal-lined diapers at $20 to $50, designed to reduce the odor of dogs' flatulence, According to the story, an area veterinarian said he didn't think the diapers would sell because so many owners revel in their dog's flatulence as a way of distracting attention from their own.

I don't blame him for saying that.

ALSO RAISING A STINK, OF SORTS, were medical officials in York, England, who convinced a court to ban Ken James, 64, from all National Health Service hospitals and doctors offices. The court's decision was based on more than 40 complaints since January of the man's attempts to grab surgical gowns and masks for his collection. His lawyer appears to have made a good diagnosis when he described his client as "not a well man."

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