LORETTA MANUEL WPRA Barrel Racer Inducted 2026 Loretta Manuel, born in Indiana but now calls Texas home, is well known for her accomplishments both aboard barrel horses and all equestrian event horses. Joining the WPRA in 1961, she won her first world championship in 1963 aboard a black horse registered Full of Pep,...
WPRA Barrel Racer Inducted 2026 Mary Burger was born in Indiana, where horses were commonly used on the family farm and viewed as a tool in her early years. One of six children, Burger, was diagnosed at a young age with Perthes disease in both hips, a condition that...
Barrel Racing • Class of 2022 Ardith Bruce joined the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA) now the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) in 1960 reaching the pinnacle of the sport in 1964 when she won the world title aboard a horse known as Red, registered as Shaws Kingwood Snip. That same year,...
Barrel Racing • Class of 2020 Martha Josey qualified for the National Finals Rodeo 11 times on six different horses across four consecutive decades. She won the WPRA barrel racing world title in 1980 on Sonny Bit O’ Both, the same year the duo also won the AQHA World Championship, a...
Barrel Racing • Inducted 2019 From chasing mustangs on the deserts of Arizona and Nevada, to a WPRA Barrel Racing World Championship, to roping and falling off horses in the movies Sammy Thurman Brackenbury did it all. Brackenbury qualified for the National Finals Rodeo 11 consecutive times, winning the world title in...
Barrel Racing • Inducted 2019 While Jimmie (Gibbs) Munroe initially made a name for herself in the rodeo arena by winning a WPRA world title in 1975, her commitment to the advancement of women in professional rodeo has cemented her legacy in the sport. Munroe, a Texas native and granddaughter of...
Barrel Racing • Inducted 2018 Kristie Peterson’s rise to stardom in the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association started in 1989, when she was working as a captain at her local sheriff’s department overseeing the jail and dispatchers but decided to try her hand at professional rodeo after earning titles in youth and...
Barrel Racing • Inducted 2018 Billie Hinson McBride first saw barrel racing at an open rodeo event in 1937 and decided at 10 years old that it was the path she wanted to travel. McBride was a charter member of the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA), formed in her hometown of San...
Barrel Racing • Inducted 2017 Charmayne James grew up in Clayton, N.M., the home of the very first barrel racing National Finals Rodeo. Her historic career was set in motion in 1982 when a bay gelding, Gills Bay Boy "Scamper," found a home in James’ barn after paying just $1,200. Together...
Barrel Racing • Inducted 2017 Wanda Harper Bush was multitalented, becoming the most decorated cowgirl in the history of the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (formerly the Girls Rodeo Association). When the GRA first formed in 1948, Bush was one of the first to sign-up. In fact, she carried card number 14...
