Rodeo queen sentenced over starved horses

ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) — A former Sutherlin Stampede rodeo queen must perform 160 hours of community service at an animal shelter after pleading no contest to animal neglect for starving her horses.

The Roseburg News-Review reported that 20-year-old Jessica Attaway of Roseburg began crying as she addressed a Douglas County judge during sentencing Friday.

But the woman who took Attaway's horses into her care last April said there is no excuse for the condition of the animals — near death, infested with lice and parasites, and locked in a barn overlooking a mowed field of grass.

Darla Clark is the director of Strawberry Mountain Mustangs, a horse rescue organization in Dixonville. She told the judge that Attaway should have asked for help months earlier.

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Information from: The News-Review, http://www.oregonnews.com