Girls Rodeo Association

Photo courtesy of Ruidoso News

(Wikipedia) … Formed as the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA) in 1948, several of the original members were female ranchers who had been forced to take over family operations as husbands and fathers were called to service in World War II.
Though women had played an important role in rodeo's formative years in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, competing and winning against their male counterparts, by the time of the GRA's formation women's role in rodeo had been reduced to beauty pageants, with prizes (instead of prize money) such as cigarette cases.
These women were exceptionally competent riders and ropers, whose skills had been honed working the open ranges of the American west, and they found it demeaning to be pushed to the extreme edges of rodeo.
On February 28, 1948, determined to stake their own special place in rodeo, 38 women met in San Angelo, Texas, to form the GRA, with the primary purpose of advancing the position of women in rodeo everywhere. Continued

"Trick Riders and Bronco Busters"

Tucumcari Roundup, circa 1920 (University of North Texas)

Tucumcari Rawhide Days: First Weekend of May

3rd Annual Celebration of our frontier heritage and the Rawhide TV series filmed in our area and town......Special Guests with names of Eastwood, Wooley & Brinegar

 Famous Longhorn Cattle Drive & Horse Parade on Historic 66

Gunfights, Blacksmith Competition, Fine Metal Art Auction 

Chuck wagons, Lil Miss Rawhide & Lil Wrangler, Miss Rawhide  Contests,  Longhorn Photo Op, Trick Roper, Food, Kid Games, Vendors, & more​

New This Year: Ranch Rodeo, Country Music Jamboree Talent Show, Benefit Dinner & Dance, Native American Dances, Cowboy Church Services, Horseshoe Pitching Contest & Contest Categories!!​

Benefit dinner & dance, for Horses For Heroes, in conjunction with the Most Versatile Blacksmith Art Auction.

Link

Sonny Davis

Kenna Cemetery

(ProRodeo Hall of Fame) With his unconventional technique, Sonny Davis was credited with putting some “zip” into the single steer roping, which until that time was something of a perfectionist event.
Davis, born Jan. 2, 1935, in Kenna, N.M., handled himself with catlike quickness and superb coordination, despite his 6-foot-3 inch, 220-pound frame. He won three world championships in five years. Continued

Russell Lee

Rodeo at the Pie Town, New Mexico Fair 

(Wikipedia) Russell Lee (July 21, 1903, Ottawa, Illinois – August 28, 1986, Austin, Texas) was an American photographer and photojournalist, best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA).
... In the fall of 1936, during the Great Depression, Lee was hired for the federally sponsored Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographic documentation project of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. He joined a team assembled under Roy Stryker, along with Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein and Walker Evans. Stryker provided direction and bureaucratic protection to the group, leaving the photographers free to compile what in 1973 was described as "the greatest documentary collection which has ever been assembled." Lee created some of the iconic images produced by the FSA, including photographic studies of San Augustine, Texas in 1939, and Pie Town, New Mexico in 1940.  Continued