By ROBIN TIBBETS
Standard-Examiner Staff

It seems appropriate, with professional rodeo cowboys coming to town for the 44th Annual Ogden Pioneer Days Celebration, to tell about the people credited with the foudning of rodeo.

A couple of years back, the Rodeo Hall of Fame and Rodeo Historical Society inducted nine persons into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame as the founders of rodeo.

Three of those founders were women, one of whom is deceased. All except one of the men have gone to pick up their prize money at that big pay window in the sky.

ONE OF FIRST
We're going to write about the women first - Bertha Blancett, Fannie Sperry Steel and the late Lucille Mulhall.

Bertha was one of the first cowgirl bronc riders in contest rodeo history, riding a bucker at the Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1904.

In 1906 she went to work for the Pawnee Bill Wild West Show, and from there to the famous 101 Ranch Rodeo, staying three years and marryi8ng a top 101 hand, Dell Blancett, at Detroit in 1909.

Bertha and Dell worked in movies in California for a couple of years and in the fall of 1911 made the Pendelton, Ore., Roundup.

After seeing Oregon country, they decided to stay. Dell was a top cowboy and a pioneer bulldogger. Bertha rode hazer for him. He was killed in World War I while with the Canadian Cavalry in France.

Bertha could ride a tough horse and was one of the best all around cowgirls of all time.

Fannie Sperry Steel, a 110-pound Montana gal with long pigtails and a 22-inch waistline, entered the ladies bucking horse event at the first Calghary Stampede in 1912, winning first money - $1,000.

WENT AGAIN
The following year, she went to the Stampede again, this time staged by producer Guy Weadick in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Then Fannie married Bill Steele, veteran contestant famous clown who died in 1940.

Fannie also was a top bronc rider using a Spanish rigged saddle. She and the other girls competed against - and often defeated - the men in barrel racing.

She retired in 1925, but made an exhibition ride on a bronc in 1937 at the age of 50.

Lucille Mulhall was probably the most famous rodeo cowgirl of all time and perhaps the best steer roper ever.

Known as the "girl ranger" she is often referred to as "the original."

Oddly enough, she was schooled in a convent, coming from a close-knit, warm and cultured family.

WORKING STEERS
Convents and culture weren't for Lucy who began riding broncs and working steers on the family's Cherokee Strip ranch near Mulhall, Oklahoma Territory.

She came by it naturally. Her dad was Col. Zack Mulhall, pioneer wild west showman.

Meeting Will Rogers at the St. Louis Fair in 1899, Lucy persuaded him to teach her trick roping and fancy horse catches.

She was an early day rodeo producer, too, putting together the Kansas City Convention Center Rodeo in 1916, believed to have been the first indoor rodeo.

Although she apparently went by her maiden name most of the time, Lucille was married to Tom Burnett, a wealthy heir and proponent of rodeo.

Next week we'll tell about the men who pioneered rodeo.