Oklahoma Rodeo Women

Oklahoma's central location and ranching tradition gave it a unique connection to the rodeo industry as it grew from a local pastime to an internationally popular sport. From the very beginning, Oklahoma cowgirls played a significant role in developing the institution and the businesses that grew up in its shadow. Lucille Mulhall's pioneering roping carved out a place for women in the actual competition, while Mildred Chrisman's promotional efforts kept rodeo chutes open during the Great Depression. Modern ranchers like Terry Stuart produced the quarter horses sought by professional athletes around the world. From Guymon to Pawhuska and from stock contractors to rodeo clowns, Tracey Hanshew follows the trail that Oklahoma women blazed across this rough-and-tumble sport.

Oklahoma's central location and ranching tradition gave it a unique connection to the rodeo industry as it grew from a local pastime to an internationally popular sport. From the very beginning, Oklahoma cowgirls played a significant role in developing the institution and the businesses that grew up in its shadow. Lucille Mulhall's pioneering roping carved out a place for women in the actual competition, while Mildred Chrisman's promotional efforts kept rodeo chutes open during the Great Depression. Modern ranchers like Terry Stuart produced the quarter horses sought by professional athletes around the world. From Guymon to Pawhuska and from stock contractors to rodeo clowns, Tracey Hanshew follows the trail that Oklahoma women blazed across this rough-and-tumble sport.

In this first substantial study of rodeo women, Mary Lou Lecompte surveys the early rodeo cowgirls' achievements as professional athletes, the near demise of women's rodeo events during World War II, and the phenomenal success of the Women's Professional Rodeo Association in regaining lost ground for rodeo cowgirls. Recalling an extraordinary chapter in women's history as well as the history of American sport, Cowgirls of the Rodeo contributes to a deeper understanding of the challenges facing women in the American West and in American sport.

For many people who have never spent time in the state, Oklahoma conjures up a series of stereotypes: rugged cowboys, tipi-dwelling American Indians, uneducated farmers. When women are pictured at all, they seem frozen in time: as the bonneted pioneer woman stoically enduring hardship or the bedraggled, gaunt-faced mother familiar from Dust Bowl photographs. In Red Dirt Women, Susan Kates challenges these one-dimensional characterizations by exploring—and celebrating—the lives of contemporary Oklahoma women whose experiences are anything but predictable. In essays both intensely personal and universal, Red Dirt Women reveals the author’s own heartaches and joys in becoming a parent through adoption, her love of regional treasures found in “junk” stores, and her deep appreciation of Miss Dorrie, her son’s unconventional preschool teacher. Through lively profiles, interviews, and sketches, we come to know pioneer queens from the Panhandle, rodeo riders, casino gamblers, roller-derby skaters, and the “Lady of Jade”—a former “boat person” from Vietnam who now owns a successful business in Oklahoma City. As she illuminates the lives of these memorable Oklahoma women, Kates traces her own journey to Oklahoma with clarity and insight. Born and raised in Ohio, she confesses an initial apprehension about her adopted home, admitting that she felt “vulnerable on the open lands.” Yet her original unease develops into a deep affection for the landscape, history, culture, and people of Oklahoma. The women we meet in Red Dirt Women are not politicians, governors’ wives, or celebrities—they are women of all ages and backgrounds who surround us every day and who are as diverse as Oklahoma itself.

For many people who have never spent time in the state, Oklahoma conjures up a series of stereotypes: rugged cowboys, tipi-dwelling American Indians, uneducated farmers. When women are pictured at all, they seem frozen in time: as the bonneted pioneer woman stoically enduring hardship or the bedraggled, gaunt-faced mother familiar from Dust Bowl photographs. In Red Dirt Women, Susan Kates challenges these one-dimensional characterizations by exploring—and celebrating—the lives of contemporary Oklahoma women whose experiences are anything but predictable. In essays both intensely personal and universal, Red Dirt Women reveals the author’s own heartaches and joys in becoming a parent through adoption, her love of regional treasures found in “junk” stores, and her deep appreciation of Miss Dorrie, her son’s unconventional preschool teacher. Through lively profiles, interviews, and sketches, we come to know pioneer queens from the Panhandle, rodeo riders, casino gamblers, roller-derby skaters, and the “Lady of Jade”—a former “boat person” from Vietnam who now owns a successful business in Oklahoma City. As she illuminates the lives of these memorable Oklahoma women, Kates traces her own journey to Oklahoma with clarity and insight. Born and raised in Ohio, she confesses an initial apprehension about her adopted home, admitting that she felt “vulnerable on the open lands.” Yet her original unease develops into a deep affection for the landscape, history, culture, and people of Oklahoma. The women we meet in Red Dirt Women are not politicians, governors’ wives, or celebrities—they are women of all ages and backgrounds who surround us every day and who are as diverse as Oklahoma itself.

Cowboy sweetheart Gladiola Montana has put together another fine gift book in our western mini-series. "Of all the good things in this world, a good cowgirl saddle pal is the goodest" and "Neither miles nor days come between cowgirl saddle pals"--these are just a couple of the pearls of wisdom we have come to expect from this author.

Women's bronc riding is a part of rodeo history which many people are unfamiliar with, but it was at one time a well respected and significant part of professional rodeo. As rodeos became more prevalent in American culture, women from across the country stepped into the saddles of early day pro-rodeo roughstock. The creak of leather, the smell of horses, the sounds of the arena and the anticipation that accompanied every ride; for the women who lived the rodeo life it was all of this and more, it was the hopes for a good ride, a fair judge, and a safe trip to the next stop on the rodeo circuit. In the early years major rodeos such as the Pendleton Round-Up in northeast Oregon and Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming welcomed women bronc riders and often featured them in their top billings to draw in crowds, for the cowgirls, often wearing elegant outfits of their own design, were consummate crowd-pleasers, and every fan had their favorites. In the late 1930's however, a deliberate effort removed many women's competitions from professional rodeo. There have been few injustices in the world of rodeo comparable to the biased campaign that ultimately led to the near total demise of women's participation in professional roughstock events. This book shares some of the stories of the women who skillfully stepped into the stirrups of bucking broncs. Women like the legendary Fannie Sperry Steele of Montana; she would be proclaimed the "Ladies' Bucking Horse Champion of the World." In a career that spanned two decades, Fannie Sperry-Steele was the first woman to be inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. There was Mabel Strickland, who won the all-around cowgirl title at Cheyenne one year, and then, to prove herself, returned the following year and conquered every event she entered. For 25 years her name was respected on every major rodeo circuit. Tad Lucas, "Rodeo's First Lady," made her professional debut in 1917 and became a full-time professional in 1922. She was one of the founding members of the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA) in 1948, now the Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA), the oldest women's professional sports association and the only one governed entirely by women. Dorothy Morrell was the World Champion Cowgirl Bronc Rider at the 1914 Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo in Wyoming. She rode in the First International Rodeo in London, England in 1924, later appeared in Hollywood movies as a stunt double. Stepping into the saddle of a bucking bronc is not a move to be taken lightly, it can reasonably be considered a somewhat dangerous proposition, as it does not always end well for the rider. Yet professional bronc riding has been woven into our heritage for well over a century. Women's bronc riding may have been quieter for a time, but lately that is changing, as more people are discovering this historic sport. The women who choose to ride broncs are maintaining a tradition among some of the most iconic athletes in history, and they are helping to redefine the sport of rodeo and women's place as professionals within it. To be involved with rodeo is to be a part of preserving the traditions of our heritage through the values that are inherent to our integrity, as individuals and with respect to our positions as representatives of those values and beliefs.

This edited collection is positioned at the nexus of sports, society and creative writing. In its explorations of the intersections of sports writing, analysis of literary contributions and examinations of craft, it offers rare consideration of a rich diversity of form in narratives that occur in, and as creative practice. Included in the collection are dynamic academic investigations into football writing and poetry focused on community sporting activities in Afghanistan, to those addressing the intersections of writing and boxing in the reflexive reclamation of the post-trauma self, the absence of women in the rodeo and who and what is represented in our sports shelves. This book breaks new ground in approaches to sport’s role in creative writing and what creative writing can provide in furthering our understanding of sport in society. The works in this edited book draw on a diverse range of methods to interrogate the processes, concepts and liminal spaces through an intersectional array of voices, offering analysis and insight into the application of creative writing knowledge and practice in relation to sport and its impact on wider discipline discussion and research. It is relevant to students and scholars studying and researching creative writing, sports writing, sports studies, cultural studies and sports media studies.