Photography by James Cathey
It was 1948. Thirty-year-old James Cathey, a recent veteran of World War II, returned home to Fort Worth. His post-graduation plans to be a career outdoorsman and wildlife expert were uprooted 4 years earlier, when he left his pregnant wife to enlist in the United States Air Force. He served the remainder of the war as a B-17 pilot, returning in 1945 and moving his family to Fort Worth in the hopes of starting anew
James picked up photography, and landed himself a job at the Fort Worth Press as a freelance contractor. He toiled away shooting on short news assignments and Christmas card gigs on the side to support his family. He was making it work, but nothing would stick until September.
He drove to Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, set to host the Fort Worth Rodeo that night.
Of course, it wasn’t his first rodeo. About a year prior, James shot a Rodeo Cowboys Association event for the newspaper and received praise for how close to the action he was willing to get for the photos. This night, he’d push the boundaries even further and take the photo that would change his life, and it wasn’t even of a cowboy.
Enter Tad Lucas, a famed female rodeo trick rider that entertained audiences between bouts of competition. Her signature move was the “back drag,” a death-defying stunt in which she let go of the horse’s reins and swing herself backward until her head was just inches off the ground as the horse continued to ride. She usually followed this up by dramatically climbing her way back onto the horse to a raucous cheer.
The physicality, emotion and fear brought about by 45-year-old Lucas’ performance was captured by James in an iconic photo that is now displayed at the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth.
Enamored by Lucas’ show, James followed her to the budding Girls Rodeo Association, the first all-girls rodeo competition founded by cowgirls Nancy Binford and Thena Mae Farr after traditional contests wouldn’t let women compete in the most dangerous events.
James became something of the resident photographer for the GRA, shooting photos of their barnstormed events across Texas. The photos he took, along with his famous shot of Lucas, are all held by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
They’re able to display it thanks to James’ son, Gordon, who’s been preserving his father’s negatives for most of his life.
“We had been hauling them around since 1960,” he says. “There’s about 68,000 of them.”
The 81-year-old made a career as a graphic designer, and held a reverence for his father’s work since he was a child. Throughout grade school, he and his friends were huge fans of the professional rodeo circuit, male and female. He recalls meeting famous cowboy and actor Casey Tibbs while accompanying his father to events.
“He was my personal hero,” Gordon says. “I got to know my personal heroes, personally.”
Photography by James Cathey
After James died of cancer in the ‘70s, Gordon drifted away from the day-to-day of professional rodeo. Decades later, he and his younger brother, Craig, decided to attend a local event for old time’s sake.
“Of course, everybody in the rodeo business knew all about him,” Gordon says. “Until we went to a rodeo and it seems like nobody knows anything about him. How quickly they forget, we’re the sons of a famous hero just fading away. So we wanted to start telling his story.”
Gordon and Craig began to pour through each of their father’s negatives, and research the life stories of the subjects that were labeled. It wasn’t an exact science, and many of the people, places and faces that James shot are now lost to history.
But for the ones that weren’t, the Catheys began to craft a comprehensive book that would serve as both a history of the era for women’s sports and a collection of their father’s portfolio.
The brothers traded writing duties when it came to the narrative chapters about the most significant characters of the period. Gordon says the writing volume was about 50/50 each.
In 2018, Powder Puff and Spurs: The Story of James Cathey and the Girls Rodeo Association was self-published and printed. It features hundreds of photos exclusive to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, as well as mini-biographies and stories set in a Texas sports landscape that was far ahead of its time.
“There are books about cowgirls and there are books about girls in rodeo,” Cathey says. “Nothing like this one. This tells the stories of these women.”
