Kim Williamson from Queen Creek is dismounting even before the rope pulls tight, accounting for her 12.3-second winning time in the tie-down roping event
at last night’s Professional Women’s Rodeo Association performance. The Gary Hardt Memorial Spring Rodeo continues today and Saturday at the Payson Event Center, with most of the money raised going to local charities. Andy Towle/Roundup – atowlepayson.com Penny Conway’s been roping calves on the run for 40 years now — and she allows some things have changed and other things haven’t. Today, not so many women are just sitting on the top bar looking pretty and opening gates — they’ve got their own rodeo circuit now. And there are not so many ranch women on the circuit — now that most of the gals grew up in suburbs and small towns practicing at the community arena. But then again — Penny’s still finishing in the money a decade after winning the world champion title. And sixth-generation ranch families still turn out fine horsewomen and Payson’s still a rodeo town come spring. The Pro Rodeo Committee’s Spring Rodeo opened Thursday night with a whoop, a twirl of stiff rope and a dazzling show of horsemanship as 55 superb riders roped calves and ran the barrels in one of the roughly 200 national events that now constitute the circuit for the Professional Women’s Rodeo Association. “That’s what’s really changed — the cowgirls,†said Conway, who started roping at the age of 6 on the family ranch, married a handsome cowboy from a sixth-generation Rim Country ranch family, taught school, rode the circuit and now runs an outfit that does anti-drug programs for 70,000 kids a year based on cowboy culture. “We got tired of opening chutes for our husbands and sitting in the stands.â€
Roughly, 150 women ride the rodeo circuit nationally and the best of them bring in about $20,000 annually. That’s a fraction of what the men lasso on the national circuit. And only about 100 people climbed up into the aluminum stands at the Payson Event Center Thursday to watch some of the best riders in the country throw a rope at a dead run while controlling a 1,000-pound horse with their knees.