AT HOME IN THE HALL Venerated horsewoman Bruce takes rightful place in ProRodeo Hall of Fame By Neal Reid A rdith Bruce couldn’t hold back the shriek. According to her granddaughter, Amber Bruce West, the venerated horsewoman who won the 1964 Girls Rodeo Association (GRA) barrel racing world championship
yelled with elation on the morning she got the call that she had been selected as a member of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame Class of 2022. Bruce — a Fountain, Colorado, resident for more than 60 years — was thrilled to finally know, at age 90, that her legacy would forever live on just up the road in the hallowed halls of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colorado. West accepted on Bruce’s behalf, relaying to the crowd the emotions that emerged upon getting the news she was a Hall of Famer. “She was a very stoic, old-school gal, but the morning she got the call that she was going in with this class, she actually and it’s kind of like being immortalized for her.” Bruce was one of 11 legends selected for enshrinement, and she relished that knowledge for more than two months before she passed away on June 27. Her ashes were carried in a cloverleaf pattern one last time on July 15 at the horse arena at Metcalfe Park in Fountain, one day before she officially became part of the Hall with this year’s class. “It means the world to our family,” said Bruce’s daughter, Deb Thompson. “It’s an accomplishment we feel is very deserved and one that she will always have.” West also shared part of the acceptance speech that Bruce wrote, but never finished prior to her passing. let out a blood-curdling shriek,” said West, a former Women’s Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) Board member. “It was quite a big deal for her. It’s something she looked forward to for a long time,
Ardith Bruce was quite the horsewoman competing in barrel racing into her 80s. That talent and dedication to the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association earned her induction into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2022.
“As a backwoods hillbilly child of a poor farm family, dreams were not dreamed of an honor such as I have arrived at today,” Bruce wrote in the speech. Accomplished horsewoman Born in Clay Center, Kansas, on July 22, 1931, Bruce grew up enamored with the Western way of life thanks to the films of movie cowboys like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. “When I possessed a nickel and an afternoon in town, it was spent worshipping Gene Autry and Champion, his horse, at the picture show,” Bruce wrote. “They were the first love of my life, and they were probably the stimulus that directed my future career toward a diversifying horse world.” She honed her skills in the saddle riding horses on her father’s farm. “Little did I realize until 50 years later, the horses I spent riding and directing as a tiny girl, my father’s work horses, up and down row after row in his potato and corn fields while he maneuvered the planters and cultivators that these experiences would provide the expertise needed to maneuver gated show horses, racehorses, cow ponies and barrel horses in their competitions,” Bruce wrote. “Thank you, Daddy for these opportunities, even though you never believed horses would be a career opportunity and that I should become a schoolteacher. I am privileged that my horsemanship and barrel racing skills have allowed me to do both of these things.” Bruce joined the GRA in 1960 after being encouraged to try running barrels by her husband, World War II Navy veteran Jim Bruce. She married Jim on March 19, 1949, and they enjoyed wedded bliss for nearly 60 years until his death in 2008.
Ardith Bruce was born in Kansas and then lived in Texas, but found her true home in Fountain, Colorado, where she resided for more than 60 years before her passing in June of 2022. Bruce was honored with a sign denoting her accomplishments as a world champion barrel racer.
24 WPRA NEWS AUGUST 2022
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