In the rodeo world, a Hall of Fame is an industry and donor-funded institution that celebrates members of the rodeo community who are nominated as representative of the best, the most, or the longest participants in the sport. Generally, Halls of Fame in the US and Canada (there are a bunch) induct especially pathbreaking or successful rodeo competitors, horses or bulls whose performances allowed rodeo competitors to be especially successful, or “builders,” namely, people who did the behind-the-scenes work of founding and overseeing important rodeos or founding important rough stock and rodeo production companies.
Deciding who gets “inducted into the Hall of Fame,” as the saying goes, can be a little bit of a subjective process. A nomination requires a person or group to get organized around one individual, making a case for them on the basis of rodeo statistics of wins or buck-offs, or years in the business, or particularly influential or important work to some aspect of the sport. Nominators use their own judgement and experience plus common knowledge of the nominee among rodeo people. Certainly there can be some politics afoot in choosing nominees. A successful nomination means that members of the Hall of Fame board agree – yes, this one is exceptional and we want to celebrate him or her in order to promote and perpetuate our vision of the sport. Of course, there is only so much time and energy, so many crucial people will never be inducted.
Occasionally, the work of women in rodeo is commended by Halls of Fame. In 2015, the Canadian Professional Rodeo Hall of Fame inducted Pearl Mandeville (pictured above), saying of her career in the sport: “Pearl Mandeville helped improve rodeo’s image by arranging visits to the Alberta Children’s Hospital with champion cowboys, and acting as the promotional director for the inaugural year of High School Rodeo in Alberta. Her ongoing contribution to rodeo was the creation of the Canadian Rodeo News in 1964.” Pearl was a talented journalist and publicist – always important to the sport at the elite levels, to be sure.
Pearl’s legacy is representative of the kinds of behind-the-scenes administrative work so many women have done to support rodeo’s competitors and business owners. At the amateur levels as well, although not as famous as Pearl Mandeville, there are countless women who did the work necessary to put the show on the road, whether for publicity, imagining ways to innovate how the sport worked, registering competitors, training and transporting livestock, and supporting family members in the sport. The Rodeo Women: Behind the Scenes crew is gathering interviews and other materials to document their labours, knowledge, and experiences.
Photo of Pearl Mandeville courtesy of the CPRA Hall of Fame on Facebook. Learn more about Pearl at the CPRA Hall of Fame and the Calgary Herald.
