1 of 9
Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collect
AR406-6-25
Amon G. Carter, left, and Tad Lucas, center, holding the Gordon Selfridge Trophy for All Around Champion Cowgirl that Lucas won in 1929, with Jno Davis looking on at right; 03/10/1930.
2 of 9
Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collect
AR406-6 01/27/1938 #958
Rodeo performer Mitzi Lucas standing on horse, 01/27/1938
3 of 9
Tad Lucas, on horseback, with Elliott Roosevelt and J. R. (Red) Wright.
4 of 9
5 of 9
AR4066-27
6 of 9
7 of 9
8 of 9
9 of 9
Tad Lucas, born Barbara Ines Barnes, was the youngest of 24 children. She crawled around quickly as a baby, almost more of a slither, earning her the nickname Tadpole (later shortened to Tad) from her father. Small in stature but large in spirit, Tad ignited a spark of rodeo royalty that’s spanned three generations, earning fame and notoriety for her family, who call Fort Worth home.
In 1902, Tad was born on a pioneer ranch in Cody, Nebraska. She grew up training horses, but rodeo was not yet a family business. Not far from Cody was the Rosebud Reservation. Tad and her Sioux friends would ride steers together. For her first performance, she rode bulls on the main street of Cody to raise money for the Red Cross during WWI.
She entered her first rodeo at the Gordon, Nebraska fair when she was 14 and won first place in the steer riding event. This was just the beginning of her passion for performing and competing.
From a young age, Tad embodied the cowgirl spirit. Her exuberant moxie and appetite for competition led to her becoming a professional cowgirl by age 20. She moved to Texas in 1921 and joined “California” Frank Hafley’s Wild West Show. She traveled the U.S. and Mexico performing as a bronc rider, entertaining audiences during what was the original golden age of rodeo.
While performing with the Wild West Show, she met a group of Cossack trick riders who taught her how to perform daring acrobatic feats on a horse. Her petite frame and fearless nature made her a natural, and before long, she was vaulting onto her horse’s saddle, performing a variety of stunts.
“She was a small woman, but she was really athletic,” her grandson, Kelly Riley, recalls.
Tad would hang from her saddle, upside down, off the back of her horse (a Back Drag). Then, she’d flip herself under her horse’s belly, coming up on the other side of the saddle (an Under the Belly Crawl). And as her horse galloped out of the stadium, she’d stand upright in her stirrups with her arms stretched to the sky (a Hippodrome Stand). Audiences were amazed by the small but mighty cowgirl.
Tad met fellow rodeo cowboy James Edward "Buck" Lucas while competing in Fort Worth. Buck was a WWI veteran, ranch homesteader, Hollywood stuntman, champion bulldogger, and saddle bronc rider from Nebraska.
“My mother was riding a bronc,” Tad’s daughter, Mitzi Lucas Riley, says in an interview for the Rodeo Historical Society Oral History Project. “When she handed her reins to the pickup man, he dropped them. She was going to bail off, but my dad jumped off the wall and caught her.”
Mitzi went on to say the story of how Tad and Buck met admittedly sounds hokey, but nonetheless, it’s true.
Both Tad and Buck were rodeo stars selected to compete at Wembley Stadium, an international competition in London. The couple married in Madison Square Garden in 1924 while waiting for their steamboat. The rodeo was their honeymoon—and Tad’s debut as a competitive trick rider.
Once they returned stateside, they settled in River Oaks and built their family home, complete with a practice pen in the back.
“It had, had a high fence around it because she didn't want anyone to see her working on new tricks,” Kelly Riley says of Tad’s competitive nature.
Tad continued her rodeo career as a trick rider, bronc rider, and relay racer. She won just about every award in women’s rodeo.
She retired the prestigious Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer $10,000 silver trophy by winning it three times in a row and won the Cheyenne Frontier Days trick riding competition for eight consecutive years. Her many accolades earned her the title “Rodeo’s First Lady.”
When it became apparent that Tad could win more prize money than any other cowboy, Buck decided to retire from rodeo to manage his wife.
“He figured out very early on that Tad was a partier,” Kelly says. “She liked to have fun, and Buck was just the opposite. He was a family guy and took care of stuff. He drove; he took care of the horses. He had to back off of his competition and manage Tad.”
Even while competing, Tad and Buck started a family. Their first-born daughter, Dorothy Lynn, showed no interest in the rodeo. Instead, their second daughter, Mitzi Ann, got a taste of cowgirl fame and became Tad’s trick-riding partner.
Mitzi was born prematurely, weighing only 2 pounds and 12 ounces. Her first bed was a small shoe box lined with cotton and a warm water bottle. Tad would stick baby Mitzi in the crown of her cowgirl hat and ride around the arena to show her off. Horses were Mitzi’s babysitters, and saddles were her playpen.
Mitzi grew up riding with Tad and practicing tricks together. After an accident at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair (where Tad won the champion all-around cowgirl title), Mitzi quite literally took the reins when her mother shattered her arm.
“She was performing the [Under the Belly Crawl] in Chicago, and there was a little rain shower that morning,” Kelly says. “She was riding her favorite horse. Just as she started to move, he stumbled because of the slick ground. She got caught up in his legs, and he just drove her around the track. It was a compound fracture; the bone was sticking out.”
So, 6-year-old Mitzi took over. There were contracts to fulfill, and money was on the line. Doctors told Tad she’d never ride again and could possibly lose her arm. She wore a cast for the next three years and, in true cowgirl fashion, defied the doctor’s prognosis — getting back in the saddle to continue riding as a mother-daughter duo.
Tad and Mitzi traveled the country for 20 years performing as celebrity trick-riding cowgirls, rubbing elbows with the Hollywood elite and other famous riders.
AR430-43-503-13
The two tiny cowgirls made their own ornate costumes, inspired heavily by charro fashions that Tad admired while touring Mexico with the Wild West Show. Tad always rode in her iconic, red leather lace-up boots and a large silver cuff bracelet on her arm to cover the scar from her injury.
“The Navajos made that for her,” Kelly says of the bracelet on display in the National Cowgirl Museum, along with Tad’s boots.
Mitzi and her mother were inseparable. Mitzi once said she couldn’t see herself marrying because she could never love a man more than her horse. But at age 19, she proved herself wrong and married calf-roper Lanham Riley.
“Dad had to be real careful because Buck was very protective of Mitzi and didn’t let just any guy come around,” Kelly says. “My dad was a really good horseman from West, Texas. I think he figured out pretty quickly that he had to get Buck on his side if he was going to court his daughter.”
Mitzi and Lanham rodeoed together for the first few years of their marriage. They started their own family in 1948, welcoming their first son, James Kelly. They went on to have four more children — Harold “Buzz,” Lana Sue, Lisa Ann “Sano,” and Lanham Tad “Beaver.”
Lanham continued to work the rodeo circuit, but Mitzi eventually hung up her spurs to stay home in Aledo and raise their family around the time Kelly started school.
“I think early on, it was really tough for her,” Kelly remembers of his mother’s transition from celebrity cowgirl to stay-at-home mom.” There was an adjustment period there. But she did it. I don't ever remember her complaining about it.”
Kelly was the only child to carry on the Lucas Riley rodeo lineage. He grew up traveling with his father during the summers from rodeo to rodeo. In high school, he started competing as a calf roper and bull rider and rodeoed all through college.
Kelly says he wasn’t built for bull riding but was still infatuated with it. He eventually became a suit-and-tie man, working for R.J. Reynolds, managing their rodeo (and later NASCAR) sponsorships.
Tad didn’t retire until 1958 (and only because her horse was getting old, and she didn’t want to train a new one). But, even though she was no longer riding, she was still involved in rodeo. She served as a charter member of the Girls Rodeo Association, a board director of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, and a founding member of the Rodeo Historical Society.
Buck, Tad, Mitzi, and Lanham are all honored in the National Rodeo Hall of Fame for their contributions to rodeo. In addition, Mitzi and Tad are also honored in the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, while Tad was additionally inducted into the Pro-Rodeo Hall of Fame — making her the first person awarded all three honors.
After Tad died in 1990, Mitzi established the Tad Lucas Memorial Award, given to women who exhibit Tad’s same grit and talent while upholding and promoting Western heritage.
Mitzi has her own namesake award. The National Cowgirl Museum awards the Mitzi Lucas Riley Award to young adults who promote Western heritage in the community through education and volunteerism.
Lanham, who passed away in 2006, and Mitzi have one grandchild, Bonnie Lucas — a stark difference from the 24 children Mitzi’s grandparents raised.
“If Bonnie has children, that’s our last shot,” Kelly says of their rodeo royalty lineage. “If I live to be old enough to teach them how to [rodeo], I’ll do it.”
