Cherrie Osborn: World's Champion Cowgirl

Reared on an Arizona ranch, the daughter of a pioneer Arizona ranch family, Cherrie Osborne, the world's champion cowgirl, typifies the finest quality of young western womanhood. Since her early teens she has taken part in all the chores of the ranch. Here she is getting the mail at her home, the Diamond Two ranch near Kirkland, Arizona.

The girl had ridden out to bow before a New York audience. The voice of the announcer, amplified to fill every corner of the great auditorium, rolled out the announcement: "Cherrie Osborne of Kirkland, Arizona-world's champion cowgirl." A wave of sound rolled back. A New York audience, rich and poor, people from Long Island and people from the Bronx, people who own skyscrapers and people who work in them, people richly and smartly dressed and just plain people in plain clothes, by stamping and applauding, with the wave of sound paid proper homage to another champion.

As a horsewoman, Cherrie is the admiration of all the cowboys on her father's ranch. She knows the cattle business from A to Z and can put in a day's work on the roundup along with the best of hands. On the Diamond Two, spread over the hills of Yavapai county, Cherrie has her own cattle. Her brand is the Wineglass.

Cherrie Osborne World's Champion Cowgirl

In Madison Square Garden, New York, the lights were ablaze one night last fall. Thirty thousand people were cheering the champions in the closing ceremonies of the annual Madison Square Garden Rodeo, the biggest cowshow on earth. They say that New Yorkers are the choosiest audience in the world, but they will go all the way for a champion, and since they have taken the rodeo sport to their hearts, the rodeo champions, champs of the toughest sport of all, get thundering ovations. That's the way it should be in the biggest and most important city on earth. A girl rode into the arena. She rode like a person long accustomed to riding, with easy grace but proud bearing, a black, battered cowboy hat holding blonde curls in place, strong shapely hands holding the reins firmly, as reins should be held. Anyone could tell that there was a girl who knew how to ride. And one thing no rider can ever fool, the horse, knew it too and the horse stepped along proud and important, into the bright lights in the center of the arena of Madison Square Garden.

And no New York audience ever paid homage to a nicer, finer person than Cherrie Osborne of Kirkland, Arizona, an Arizona ranch girl, daughter of a pioneer Arizona ranch family, all of whose nineteen years have been spent for the most part on Arizona ranches. Cherrie was born in Globe, Arizona, the county seat of Gila county, nineteen years ago, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Osborne of the "Cherry Cow" outfit. Her father was foreman and a stockholder in that outfit, the Chiricahua Cattle Company, of the "CCC" brand, one of the biggest ranches in the history of the state, which ran thousands of cattle over the San Carlos Indian Reservation, before the Apaches withdrew their range from white lessees. "Cherry Cow" has always been and will always be the range reference to the Chiricahua Cattle Company. The Osbornes named their daughter "Cherrie," a derivative of the ranch name. She was formally christened "Cherrie Lee Osborne" but Cherrie doesn't use the middle name.

When Cherrie was fourteen days old she and her mother were taken to the ranch located at Ash Flat in Graham county, about fifty miles from San Carlos, and there began her life as an Arizona ranch girl. "The Cherry Cows" would be a story in itself. Everett Bowman, twice later to become world's champion cowboy, was a hand there years ago, and some of the other greats of the rodeo world punched cattle there. Shorty Caraway, Les Jenkins, Otho and Lendal Cox, and Ike Rude worked for John Osborne when Cherrie was a little girl at the "Cherry Cows" and later at the "Cross S." As befits a cattleman's daughter, Cherrie took to horses as girls not raised on ranches take to dolls. Her grandfather, Mrs. Osborne's father, a pioneer cattleman of Gila county, was, along with her father, her guide and companion. "Dad" Woods came into Arizona sixty years ago driving an ox team from Texas, and his heritage and Cherrie's prize possession is her colt, Concho. Cherrie breaks her own colts and personally watches over them and personally trains them.

In roundups, Cherrie does most of the roping and cutting out of calves during branding. A perfect rider, Cherrie is an expert roper and all-round good hand.

The Diamond Two ranch of the Osborne family is a comfortable, modern ranch, well equipped and well managed, in a beautiful setting and blessed with good range land.

background was ranches and the cattle business. "Dad" Woods saw to it that his granddaughter learned about horses about the time she learned to walk. When Cherrie was old enough to go to school, Mrs. Osborne spent the winters in Globe where Cherrie went to school. Even during those winters, weekends were spent on the ranch, where of all places Cherrie was the happiest. Mr. Osborne bought the "Cross S" ranch in Gila county, now a part of the San Carlos Indian reservation, before the Apaches took over their own range lands instead of leasing them. When Cherrie was eight years old Mr. Osborne bought the "Diamond Two" ranch about fifteen miles from Kirkland Junction on During the winters, Cherrie attends Arizona State Teachers College at Flagstaff, where she is a senior. She intends to return for her Master's Degree next year and plans to be a teacher. Her best friend at college is her roommate, Mary Ann Berg. U. S. 89, where today he has a successful cattle business. With the family living continuously on ranches, Cherrie had to be sent to school each winter. She went to the public school in Globe, Phoenix and Wagoner, and then to St. Joseph's Academy in Prescott, where she completed her high school education. She was always an attentive and industrious student and when she was graduated from the Academy in Prescott she had the highest academic honors in her class.

Her life, though, has always been close to the ranch and range. She and her sister, Billie Burke, now sixteen, found everything on the ranch that they needed to keep them busy and occupied. There was ranch work which Cherrie excelled in. Then the girls had to help Mrs. Osborne with the cooking and keeping house, for the mother insisted that her daughters not neglect the woman's side of a ranch home.

Then, too, Mrs. Osborne saw to it that the girls study music, which they did, reluctantAt college, Cherrie gets better than average grades, takes part in college activities and participates in the social life of the college. She is pleasant and quiet and despite the fact that she is a famous young lady, neither fame nor adulation bothers her in the least.

PAGE EIGHT Likely at first, then with zeal. Cherrie plays the piano and the violin and plays them well. Her education has been as broad and as complete as that of any American girl of her age. The belief of many people that children brought upon a ranch miss what they chose to call "the finer things of life" is, of course, a fallacy and an idea that elicits from Mrs. Osborne only a patient smile. The Osborne girls, with all their ranch background, have missed nothing that interested, thoughtful American parents can give to their children. Seldom, however, do ranch girls show the proficiency around a ranch that Cherrie showed. When she was three years of age, her father lifted her on a horse and she rode in the Prescott Frontier Days Parade, acclaimed then, a clipping from the Prescott Courier tells, as "the youngest cowgirl in Arizona." She has never been afraid of a horse and has never been badly hurt in a fall. She has worked all through roundups with her father and during branding has done all the "cutting out" of calves for the Di-amond Two" for several reasons. That is hard, tedious work that demands a perfect knowledge of cattle and brands and further necessitates perfection with the lasso.

As any person would who has spent so much time on a ranch Cherrie has taken bad spills on a horse, but she always gets up, dusts herself off, and rides harder than before.

The cowboys say she throws a rope better than most working cowboys in an outfit. Today she is a cattle owner in her own right, her brand being the "Wineglass" brand. Her cattle are part of the herd at the "Diamond Two."

She has her own horses and raises and breaks her own ponies. Breaking a pony properly is an art in itself and one that she has mastered. She has a great pride in her horses and a deep attachment for them. You get that way if you stay around a ranch a long time. If you tried to help her put a saddle on her horse she'd probably give you a cold stare. She prides herself on being Cherrie and Mary Ann stop to talk to a fraternity initiate on the campus of the college at Flagstaff. At college, Cherrie is majoring in physical education. She is a good student, an accomplished musician, and popular with students and professors.

able to hold up her end of the work on the ranch rather well.

Cherrie is this year completing her fourth year at Arizona State Teachers College at Flagstaff. She will return to the college next year for her Master's Degree and then teach school. Her major is physical education.

Cherrie says that although she intends (Turn to Page 40) Cherrie's favorite horse is her beautiful palomino, fast and strong and sure-footed. Cherrie was acclaimed world's champion cowgirl after winning in open competition last fall at the big show at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Cherrie is here shown roping a brahma calf at the World's Championship rodeo at Phoenix last year. The brahma is the toughest and fastest calf used in rodeo competition. Girls along the rodeo circuit only go in for roping and cowpony racing competition. Some ride broncs for exhibition.

Girls out west ride for keeps. Cherrie, on the palomino, left, is nosing out a contender for victory in the cowpony race at the University of Arizona student rodeo, March 3 of last year. Cherrie doesn't go in for fancy riding clothes. She wears whip cords and cowboy shirts. Her femininity bows to color in her boots and bandana.