Bonnie McCarroll

Bonnie McCarroll, born Mary Ellen Dot Treadwell , was a champion rodeo performer and bronc rider most remembered for her death at the Pendleton Roundup in Pendleton, Oregon. She also excelled in steer riding, bulldogging, and automobile jumping. In her riding career, McCarroll competed with such other female performers as Tad Lucas, Mabel Strickland, Fox Hastings, Dorothy Morrell and Florence Hughes.

McCarroll was born on a cattle ranch at High Valley, near Boise, Idaho. In 1897 she won two cowgirl bronc riding championships at both Cheyenne Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and the first rodeo hosted at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In 1915, her first year of rodeo competition, McCarroll attracted national attention from a photograph taken of her being thrown from the horse named Silver at the Pendleton RoundUp. In her career, she performed before kings, queens, such dignitaries as U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, while he was vacationing in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1927, and before countless rodeo fans worldwide. After her death, rodeo officials instituted safety regulations and eliminated bronc riding as a womens sport.

Source: Wikipedia