Thomas - Cowgirl up! : a history of rodeoing women

Heidi M. Thomas grew up on a working ranch in eastern Montana. She had parents who taught her a love of books and a grandmother who rode bucking stock in rodeos. Describing herself as born with ink in her veins, Heidi followed her dream of writing by obtaining a journalism degree from the University of Montana and later turned to her first love, fiction, to write her grandmothers story.

Heidis first novel, Cowgirl Dreams, has won an EPIC Award and the USA Book News Best Book Finalist award. Follow the Dream, a WILLA Award winner, is her second book, and Dare to Dream is the third in the series about strong, independent Montana women.

Heidi, a member of Women Writing the West and Professional Writers of Prescott, is also a manuscript editor and an avid reader of all kinds of books and enjoys the sunshine and hiking in north-central Arizona, where she writes, edits, and teaches memoir and fiction writing classes.

Married to Dave Thomas (not of Wendys fame), Heidi is also the human for a finicky feline and describes herself primarily as a cat herder. Visit her at heidimthomas.com.

THANK YOU TO MY BETA READERS, SHARON ANDERSON AND SALLY Harper Bates, and to all of my writer friends for encouraging me through the yearsyou know who you are! Thank you to my husband and my family for your support. And thank you to Erin Turner, Staci Zacharski, and Katie Sharp at Globe Pequot/TwoDot Press for your confidence in publishing my work and working with me to make it better.

I grew up on a ranch in eastern Montana, riding with my grandmother, Olive May Tootsie Bailey Gasser. I knew she was an avid horse-woman who preferred the back of a horse to a dust mop any day. I was twelve when she died, and my dad told me she had ridden the big wild bucking steers in rodeos when she was in her teens.

I have the following newspaper clipping from the Sunburst Sun advertising rodeo festivities for August 28, 1922:

Program

1:00Parade of cowboys and cowgirls, headed by Cut Bank brass band.

1:30Roping and bronc busting.

2:30Tootsie Bailey will enter competition with entire field, riding wild steers with only one hand on surcingle.

8:30Roundup dance at Sunburst hall. Hammonds famous Glacier Park orchestra. Dance continues until it stops.

And a later recap of the rodeo relates that Tootsie Bailey had won over Marie Gibson in the steer-riding competition.

My grandmother did not continue competing and did not achieve the kind of fame that the cowgirls in this book did. But she gave me that spark of history that led me to write a novel series based on her, and to become well acquainted with the women who conquered the West (even before they could vote) through the golden age of rodeo.

They were the first professional women athletes, who turned their prairie survival skills into a career and held their own against the cowboys.

1976 Hill County, Montana, Bicentennial Committee. Grit, Guts and Gusto.

Arctic Circle Productions: arcticproductions.com/From_Cheyenne_to_Pendleton/The_Origins_of_Barrel_Racing.html.

Arizona Daily Star, September 16, 1994.

Arizona Republic, August 23, 1995.

Baumler, Ellen. The Ladies Busted Broncs, Distinctly Montana, Summer 2007.

Bechman, Alexis. Family Traces Rodeo History Back to the 1920s, Payson Roundup, August 24, 2010.

Bragg, Addison. Her Trick Is Riding, Billings Gazette, June 25, 1972.

Brown, J. P. S., Rodeo Royalty, American Cowboy, May/June 2003.

Bryant, Tom. Trixi McCormick: A Montana Cowgirl, Western Horseman, January 1990.

Carbon County News, January 8, 1937.

Clark, Butch, and Helen Clark. One of the Greats: Trixie McCormick, Hoofs & Horns, MarchApril, 1972.

Clark, Helen McDonald. She Rode em Straight Up.

Clark, Helen. Trixie Brought Glamour to Rodeo, Great Falls Tribune, January 17, 1971.

Disend, Michael. The Ballad of Jonnie and Big T, Special Report on Sports, MayJuly 1990.

Flood, Elizabeth Clair. Cowgirls: Women of the Wild West, January 3, 2000.

Greenough, Alice. Cowgirls of Yesterday, Persimmon Hill.

Gregg, Eddie. The Heart to Overcome: Professional bull rider recovering from broken back at St. Vincent Healthcare, Billings Gazette, August 25, 2013.

Heath, Bryan. Rodeo ropes family in, Tucson Citizen, February 22, 1996.

Helena Independent Record, October 3, 4, 5, 1904.

Hirschfeld, Cindy. Ride Like a Girl, American Cowboy blog, americancowboy.com/culture/ride-girl, November 2012.

Horsetalk: horsetalk.co.nz/features/sidesaddle-159.shtml Sidesaddles and suffragettesthe fight to ride and vote by CuChullaine OReilly FRGS, of the Long Riders Guild Academic Foundation, lrgaf.org.

Interviews with Linda Brander, Leigh Anne Billingsley, Gary Crowder, Jonnie Jonckowski, Kaila Mussell, Ann Secrest, Jane Burnett Smith, Theresa Walter.

Jacobs, Charity. U Spur Radio interview, June 21, 2011.

Jonckowski, Jonnie. I Just Couldnt Quit, Living Positive, premiere issue, 1998.

Jordan, Teresa. Alice Greenough, 1982.

. Cowgirls: Women of the American West, April 1, 1992.

Kalland, B. Girls Rodeo Association, Florence (Alabama) Times Daily, May 10, 1956.

Koerber, Julie. Jonnie Jonckowski: On the Ride of Her Life, Yellowstone Valley Woman, NovemberDecember 2006.

Larson, Helen Kay Brander. Brander Sisters: Let er Buck.

LeCompte, Mary Lou. Cowgirls of the Rodeo: Pioneer Professional Athletes (Sport and Society).

Mally, Barbara Greenough. Alice Greenough, Founder of the Carbon County Museum, Red Lodge Weekly, July 21, 1983.

Marvine, Dee. The Lady Rode Bucking Horses.

McKelvey Puhek, Lenore. Fanny Sperry Made the Ride of Her Life, Historynet.com.

Merriam, Ginny. Celebrating Trixi, The Missoulian, May 13, 2001.

Moulton, Candy. Author of Hobbled Stirrups Dies, Roundup, April 2012.

Moulton, Candy. Hired Out for a Tough Hand, True West, June 2006.

Raftery, Heather. The Bronc Busters Wore Lipstick, Range, www.rangemagazine.com/features/winter-10/wi10-bronc_busters.pdf.

Red Lodge Weekly, July 21, 1983.

Roach, Joyce Gibson. The Cowgirls.

Rosseland, Wanda (ed.). The Montana Cowboy: An Anthology of Western Life.

Savage, Candace. Cowgirls.

Smith, Catherine, and Cynthia Greig. Women in Pants: Manly Maidens, Cowgirls and Other Renegades.

Smith, Jane Burnett. Hobbled Stirrups.

Stephens, Melanie. Even Cowgirls Get the Bulls, Womens Sports and Fitness, May/June 1992.

Stiffler, Liz, and Tona Blake. Fannie Sperry Steele, Montanas Champion Bronc Rider, Montana, the Magazine of Western History, Spring 1982.

Synness, Curt. Fannie Sperry Steele, Helena Independent Record, Curts Replays.

Wilson, Gary A. Cowgirls rodeo riding career began in Havre, Havre Daily News, November 5, 1982.

Wright, P. J. Avon cowgirls a legend in rodeo history, Silver State Post, February 1, 2012.

Wyoming Tales and Trails, wyomingtalesandtrails.com

Ruins the events for us men

D ust filled the air, giving the clear blue sky a brownish haze. Steers bawled in their pens, broncs kicked their stalls, and the rodeo announcer bellowed out the name of the next rider.