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