EVENTS
All-Around Champion Cowgirl, 1949
Still in the saddle on the day of her death, Fern Sawyer was a champion to the end. Born near Yeso, New Mexico, in 1917, she learned the cowboy trade on the family ranch and entered her first professional contests in roping and cutting at age 15.
When the major rodeos ended women’s competition in the 1940s, Fern Sawyer joined with her friends in the first all-girl rodeo held in Amarillo, Texas, in 1947. The next year, the ladies formed their own professional organization, the Girls Rodeo Association (later called the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association). Fern Sawyer was its all-around champion in 1949.
Fern Sawyer was the first woman to achieve international renown as a champion in cutting horse competition against male opponents. In 1945 she was the only female contestant in the National Cutting Horse Show in Fort Worth, Texas, where she won her event. In 1985 she became the first woman inducted into the American Cutting Horse Association Hall of Fame. In 1995, while filming the PBS documentary “Just for the Ride”, Fern Sawyer died of a heart attack as she rode out of the arena.
