Originally posted on “American Cowboy”: http://www.americancowboy.com/as08/NDAC/index.php 

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When she was a teenager, Pam Minick “thought rodeo queens were just fluff.” She was determined to be a cowgirl. “I thought I had to choose—being a cowgirl or being a rodeo queen,” she says. Then, while still in junior high school, she attended a barrel- racing seminar taught by Sammy Thurman.

“She showed me that you can be a respected horsewoman, and look like a lady,” Minick says of the woman who pioneered the barrel racing school. A respected horsewoman she certainly is. Sammy Thurman won the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association barrel racing championship in 1965, and on occasion worked as a pickup woman in the rodeo arena. Now Sammy Thurman Brackenbury, she was honored with induction into the Indian Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2002.

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“The National Day of the American Cowboy is becoming a worldwide celebration of Western ideals, bringing attention to the cowboy and providing opportunities to spread the word about people like Sammy and what they stand for,” Minick says. “It’s all about education. Sammy is always willing to share her knowledge.”  
Looking like a lady also served her well. Thurman modeled for magazine advertisements for Tony Lama boots, and she has appeared in a number of films, including a role as the mother of Robert Blake’s character in the 1967 movie In Cold Blood. Her equestrian skills have also played a role in movies—she has been a stunt rider or performed other stunts in some twenty films. “Even today, at age sixty-plus, she is one of the most respected stuntwomen in Hollywood,” Minick says of her hero.

“Sammy Thurman proved to me that women could be both beautiful and tough. She represents the way women of historical significance were—they could cook breakfast, give birth, then cook dinner,” Minick says. “She was obviously not of that generation, but she does it all. She speaks well, looks beautiful, trains her own horses, and can hook up her own horse trailer and drive a thousand miles.”

Minick credits Thurman for much of her own success in life. “I think she let me believe that I could become Miss Rodeo America [which Minick did, in 1973]. Becoming Miss Rodeo America opened doors for me in everything I have done in broadcasting, from CBS to ESPN to TNN to my own series, now on RFD-TV.” Minick’s other accomplishments include World Champion Breakaway Roper, qualifier for the Women’s National Finals Rodeo in team roping, Lane Frost Award winner, recipient of the Tad Lucas Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, membership in the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, and recognition as one of the Great Women of Texas.

“I don’t know that Sammy Thurman has been given enough credit for the positive influence she was for my generation,” Minick says. “And she is still a force in the movie industry and for women and horses.”