Cowgirl Up! (25 page)

“I've been very blessed my whole life. When things would get tough my mom would say, ‘Honey, have a little faith.'” The community poured out support for her. “I would not have survived without their love.” And she has learned what God wants her to do, with her Angel Horses program.

Kaila Mussell has broken her right wrist, her left collarbone once, and the right collarbone twice. She separated her right shoulder and had surgery, dislocated the left shoulder twice and had two surgeries on it, and has had ACL surgeries on both knees. In April 2014, Kaila was recovering from reconstructive surgery on two broken vertebrae in her neck, but she wrote to her Facebook friends, “I'm optimistic, but I'm taking the injury seriously. I would imagine I'll be back riding broncs again no later than the end of June or early July.”

Fitness is key to recovering from and preventing more injuries, she said. An avid fitness enthusiast, she is a certified personal trainer and has her own fitness advice website,
kaifit.com
. And she is always thinking positive: “If you think, ‘What if I do something and hurt that shoulder again?' you probably will. You have to be smarter about how you do things, listen to your body more. Stay active, do strength training (she's a big proponent of core training), and eat right.”

Maggie Parker experienced a setback in her career during a rodeo in Cody, Wyoming, in August 2013, when she was thrown off and broke her spine—for the second time—even though she was wearing a protective vest and helmet.

“I was making a good bull ride and I just lost my rope, and he threw me up in the air pretty high, and I landed on the back of my neck, and my body crumpled,” she said.

At St. Vincent Health Care in Billings, Dr. Richard Teff, a former military surgeon who served in Iraq, put a rod and multiple screws in Maggie's spine. With that hardware and an external brace, Teff said the broken vertebrae in Maggie's back would heal in about six months, and that she could be back competing in the arena six months after that.

“Now all we have to do is get her to comply,” he said.

Maggie told KULR-TV in Billings she had no intention of giving up bull riding. “I don't do it because I want to prove anything. I just do it because it's what I love to do.” Maggie said she's looking forward to getting back. “I couldn't change my lifestyle now even if I wanted to really. It's just what I do, and it's what I love to do. It's the best life. You get to travel, meet people, and you're all one big family.”

“She's tough, like me. She'll recover,” said Jonnie Jonckowski, who visited Maggie in the hospital. “She's got the same spunk I do. She's gonna get up and twist 'em again. I'm certain of that.”

Maggie's mother, Susan Parker, said she can't discourage her daughter from getting back in the arena and competing again.

“I think it's really important to let Maggie live her dreams,” Susan told the
Billings Gazette
. “I'm not going to stop her. I was a free spirit that hiked all over Africa and Europe when I was younger, got myself in some rough situations, and I know what Maggie's going through. I know that there are a lot of dangers, but I also know that there are a whole lot more rewards.”

“It's truly a tough row to hoe for any gal,” Jonnie added. “Maggie has a year to think about her bull riding career, and with these injuries, I feel it may be tough for her to come back mentally as well as physically. She is a small gal . . . but she has heart and that is the key ingredient to any sport.”

Although barrel racing appears to be less dangerous in terms of injuries, it's not without incident. Theresa Walter broke several fingers and had to have surgery early in 2010. The doctors told her she wouldn't be able to compete until midsummer, but she was back on the circuit as soon as she could be and won her first circuit championship.

The National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas, honors and documents the lives of women who have distinguished themselves while exemplifying the pioneer spirit of the American West. Thus far it has honored more than two hundred women.

Inductees from Montana include Evelyn Cameron (photographer, 2001), Marie Gibson (world champion bronc rider, 2011), Alice and Margie Greenough (world champion bronc riders, 1975 and 1978), Ann Secrest Hanson (pickup man, 2003), Jonnie Jonckowski (world champion bull rider, 1991), Shela Kirkpatrick (custom hat maker, 1992), Bobby Brooks Kramer (bronc rider and quarter horse breeder, 2000), Pamela Harr Rattey (sculptor), and Fannie Sperry Steele (world champion lady bronc rider, 1978).

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

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

1:30—Roping and bronc busting.

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

8:30—Roundup dance at Sunburst hall. Hammond's 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
, March–April, 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
, May–July 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 suffragettes—the fight to ride and vote” by CuChullaine O'Reilly 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 Couldn't 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
, November–December 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,”
Women's Sports and Fitness
, May/June 1992.

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

Synness, Curt. “Fannie Sperry Steele,”
Helena Independent Record
, Curt's Replays.

Wilson, Gary A. “Cowgirl's 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

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 grandmother's story.

Heidi's 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 Wendy's fame), Heidi is also the “human” for a finicky feline and describes herself primarily as a “cat herder.” Visit her at
heidimthomas.com
.