Mother’s Day YOUREE LEGACY LIVES ON IN FUTURE GENERATIONS By Ted Harbin F lorence and Dale Youree had a unique setup sixtysomething years ago. They drove a pickup that pulled an eight-foot camper with a two-horse trailer behind that. It was how they traveled around ProRodeo, and it’s how they raised their two children, Johnny and Renee, during the summer run that took them across the country together.
“We thought we were really in style,” said Youree, who just turned 90 in April. “It had two beds and had a bathroom; of course, that bathroom wasn’t very big. It was just an eight-foot camper, after all. You could go to the bathroom and take a shower at the same time.” She laughed at the memory and the thoughts of how times have changed. Ladies on the WPRA circuit ride in big dually pickups pulling a living-quarter trailer designed for on-the-road comfort and typically four horses. “Boy, we thought we were in tall cotton then,” she said. What she and her husband did more than a half-century ago is noteworthy. Florence Youree served as a Girls Rodeo Association/ WPRA officer for 20 years, first as a director then as president. She resigned from that post to take the paid secretary’s job. That $150 month meant something to the Yourees, who lived on a ranch outside the tiny community of Addington in southern Oklahoma. Florence Youree still lives on that piece of property, about 2,000 acres. In addition to the pasturelands are four other homes that dot the acreage for her daughter, Renee Youree Ward, with her husband, James, and three granddaughters and their families: Janae Ward Massey, Cassie Ward Ambrose and Kylie Ward Weast. All are part of the family business, and all will likely spend their Mother’s Day together, honoring their heritage while also enjoying their own broods. They are barrel racing bluebloods, and Nan has forged the legend that guided her to an induction into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame and Museum, National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum’s Cowboy Hall of Fame and the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. She was one of the guiding forces for rodeo women of her generation, qualifying for the first barrel racing National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Clayton, New Mexico, in 1959, and following that with trips the next three years. When the National Finals Rodeo moved to Oklahoma City in the mid-1960s, Youree made a move that changed the face of barrel racing today, meeting with Stanley Draper, then the manager of the Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce, and Clem McSpadden, who was the general manager of the NFR. In 1967, barrel racing made its NFR debut with all the other PRCA events, and it’s been a major attraction at the finale each year since. “I loved what I did,” Youree said. “It was a challenge to me to get bigger and better barrel races, and I thoroughly enjoyed my job with the WPRA. I loved meeting people, and I think that was one of my greatest experiences, the people and the associations I made with people all over the country.” She was influential … across the country, across rodeo and across her family. She’s a big reason why three generations of Yourees have
Part of the Youree clan was on hand when the matriarch Florence Youree (second from left) was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame as a WPRA Notable. Her daughter, Renee Ward (left) along with Renee’s twin daughters (Cassie and Kylie) were there to celebrate her induction. Photo by Kenneth Springer
played on the biggest stages of rodeo with her leading the way with six NFR qualifications. Renee Ward competed in 1985, the first year the championship played in Las Vegas, and two of her three daughters followed suit: Janae Ward Massey did it in 2001-03, winning the gold Janae Ward Massey (left) qualified for her first NFR in 2001 following in her grandmother, Florence Youree and mother, Renee Ward’s footsteps. She would qualify again in 2002 and took home the family’s first gold buckle in the barrel racing in 2003. Her sister Kylie Ward Weast (right) qualified for her first NFR in 2018. Photo courtesy Ward family
14 WPRA NEWS MAY 2023
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