Notable • Inducted 2023 Fay Ann Horton Leach led the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA-now WPRA) as a founding member, competitor, and board member. One of the 38 women who met in San Angelo, Texas, on February 28, 1948, to form the very first professional sports association created solely for women by...
Notable • Inducted 2023 As a young boy, Brian D. (Butch) Knowles spent his summers at his family’s remote Eastern Oregon Drewsey ranch. It was there that the fire was lit and the dream of being a Cowboy began while listening to a live radio broadcast of the Snake River Stampede....
Notable • Inducted 2023 Tom Feller started his rodeo career later in life than most. Growing up in an urban lifestyle, the likelihood of his spending a lifetime in rodeo seemed extremely remote. But, fresh out of high school he tried riding a bull, while that fed the rodeo fever, he...
Notable • Class of 2022 Cindy Rosser joined the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA) now the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) in 1969 and served 20-plus years on the Board of Directors. The daughter of ProRodeo Hall of Fame stock contractor Cotton Rosser, she grew up horseback and rodeo has remained her life’s...
Notable • Class of 2022 It is a long way from the cranberry bogs of Wisconsin to the roping arenas of Arizona, but Mel Potter has found a way to make it work. Potter’s grandfather established his Wisconsin cranberry bog in 1880 and it is now one of the largest Ocean...
Notable • Class of 2020 Randy Witte always had an affinity for rodeo but didn’t get a chance to participate in the sport till he went to Colorado State University, where he majored in technical journalism and found the CSU rodeo club. He was befriended by Jerome Robinson, a sophomore who...
Notable • Inducted 2019 Florence (Price) Youree joined the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA) now the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) in 1951 and she hit the ground running both inside and outside the arena. On the competitive side, Youree was among the top 15 a total of six times and won the...
Notable • Inducted 2019 A three-year-old Jerome Robinson announced that he intended to become a bull rider while attending the National Western Stock Show with his grandmother. At age fifteen, after years of family discouragement, the trophy for winning a horse race with his father was permission to pursue a rodeo...
Notable • Inducted 2018 Walt Garrison was two types of cowboy, a fullback with the Dallas Cowboys and a ProRodeo competitor. Garrison grew up in Lewisville, Texas, where he spent his youth riding horses and steers. He competed in high school rodeo in bareback riding, bull riding, calf roping and steer...
Notable • Inducted 2017 Bob Ragsdale was an all-around Montana cowboy, competing in steer wrestling, as well as calf roping and team roping. Qualifying for the National Finals Rodeo on 22 separate occasions, Ragsdale never won a world title, though his impact on rodeo has been profound. Ragsdale, the Montana High School All-Around...
