"Ma" Hopkins

We Have No Field Representatives HOOFS HORNS

Wherever rodeos are held in 40 states, in Canada, Australia, England, France, and Mexico “Ma” Hopkins of Tucson is known and loved. From Madison Square Garden to San Francisco's Cow Palace she's the First Lady of Rodeo. Chuck Martin, famed Western writer, says, “Why, there ain't a cowboy in the whole wide world who wouldn't fight for her at the drop of a hatand drop the hat hisself.” For Ma Hopkins is “that grand old gal who edits the Cowboy's Bible, Hoofs and Horns,” according to the Nelson Nye dedication of one of his best-selling Westerns. He speaks with authority. “And to think Hoofs and Horns, the only publication in the whole world devoted exclusively to rodeos, is edited by a lady!” George Phillis exclaims. “Whether Ma Hopkins ever rode on both sides of a horse and raked him in the shoulders and fanned him with her hat, or waddled down the line to a high jumpin' snortin' calf in a brandin' pen-being ignorant of the matter we hesitate to articulate. But we do rise to remark that the lady shore knows her West. She somehow has a knack of of his best-selling Westerns. He speaks with authority. “And to think Hoofs and Horns, the only publication in the whole world devoted exclusively to rodeos, is edited by a lady!” George Phillis exclaims. “Whether Ma Hopkins ever rode on both sides of a horse and raked him in the shoulders and fanned him with her hat, or waddled down the line to a high jumpin' snortin' calf in a brandin' pen-being ignorant of the matter we hesitate to articulate. But we do rise to remark that the lady shore knows her West. She somehow has a knack of

Ma Hopkins Lady Wrangler of a Cow Country Almanac

gettin' old cow waddies to tell their experiences and to speak right out in meetin'."

Her unique cow country almanac proves that cowboys, among their own kind, "don't depend entirely on the sign language." Hoofs and Horns is a simple, straightforward monthly, edited in Ma's home and published in Tucson. It is written by and for rodeo cowboys. If a few bankers, movie stars, doctors, lawyers, and editors from one coast to the other happen to subscribe, too, that's their own business.

Ma Hopkins' husband Joe (everyone calls him "Hop") is a member of a Tucson printing firm. In 1933 he came home and greeted his wife with, "How'd you like to run a magazine?"

Mrs. Hopkins, Missouri-born and once a school teacher, edited official publications of the University of Arizona for several years. So she knew what the score was. "That depends upon the magazine," she re-plied.

"It's Hoofs and Horns," Hop said sheepishly. This was an ailing 2-year-old cattleman's journal and about to fold up. "I thought maybe you could make it into a cowboy magazine for real Western cowboys. They ought to have an honest-to-goodness magazine of their own. You could sort of center it about their own sport."

Ma Hopkins had seen exactly one rodeo in her life at that moment. She didn't know a surcingle from a piggin' She rolled up her well-tailored sleeves, adjusted her pince nez, and took over Hoofs and Horns. At first she wrote and sold all advertising, wrote and proofread all copy, handled all correspondence singlehanded. The first day she tried to sell an ad she nearly gave up the whole idea. She walked from one business firm to anotherwithout any luck. Finally, just before closing-time, she sold a store an ad for one dollar. She figured if she could sell one, she could sell more, so she kept at it.Today manufacturers of riding equipment or Western clothes would rather be caught pulling leather than let an issue of her magazine go to press without their advertisements. When Ben the Rodeo Tailor makes a trip to Hollywood (to outfit Western movie stars from his famed Philadelphia establishment) he stops off in Tucson -to visit Ma Hopkins. So do rodeo cowboys from all over the world. It's a mighty slow day when at least one cowboy or a doctor who subscribes to the magazine and lives in New York (or Dallas or Fresno or Boston) -doesn't drop off in Tucson to meet Ma Hopkins personally. She's a one-lady tourist attraction equal to the winter sunshine.

All rodeo cowboys figure she's their personal friend, whether they've ever laid eyes on her or not. One morning a crated fox-terrier arrived at her house. She'd never heard of the sender, but the morning's mail brought the explanation: "I'm heading for Arizona," a Texas cowboy wrote. "I don't know anyone there but you, so I'm sending my dog, Hell's Angel, Jr., for you to keep for me until I hit Tucson."

Ma published Hoofs and Horns for free for ten years -taking not a single solitary cent for her services. The magazine was still in the red in 1942 to the tune of $10,000. That was when Everett Bowman got up on his high horse and insisted she raise the subscription price from $1.50 to $2.00 a year. (Everett was the organizing genius and first president of the cowboy's "union," the Cowboys Turtle Association, now the Rodeo Cowboys Association and Ma was the first Honorary Turtleand the only woman honorary member.) By the end of 1944 Hoofs and Horns was breaking even for the first time. Contributors still receive no payment but they include top-drawer artists and writers, the biggest names in the Western field. Among them-Walt Coburn, L. Ernenwein, Chuck Martin, Bruce Clinton, George Phillips, Stan Adler, Foghorn Clancy, Willard Porter and the late Clem Yore. Nelson Nye writes the regular book review column, Western Corral. Covers, still black and white and not likely to change, come from Jack Van Ryder, Pete Martinez, Lone Wolf, and Olaf Wieghorst. Wieghorst designs the Madison Square Garden Rodeo covers but not for free. A recent Christmas cover was a card from J. R. (Skull Valley) Williams, showing Curley, Wes, Stuffy, Cookie, and other "Out Our Way" immortals, hazing a young steer to Ma Hopkins' home. Her magazine is where rodeo cowboys, often called the greatest all-around athletes of our time, keep up with their sport. It's about the only place except a rodeo program where an uninjured cowboy's name ever gets printed unless he's a world champion. Its tabulations of rodeo events-dates, entry fees, and purses are to contestants what the Daily Racing Form is to racing. Its listings of all-around averages of top hands are watched as closely by rodeo athletes as batting averages by the baseball world.

There's a lot of informal reporting on cowboy doings everywhere. There's always news of weddings, horses, outstanding performances, and buttons (rodeo slanguage for small fry). Injuries as certain in rodeo as weddings in June are not dramatized.

Jimmie Hazen suffered a broken neck at the Miles City Rodeo on July 29. He fulfilled his announcing contract at Belle Fourche July 3, 4, 5. Jimmie wired the Round-Up: Neck slightly broken will be on hand to announce your show. He arrived fixed up in a plaster cast that reached from the top of his head to his wallet but left his arms free for movement. He worked the show in a swivel chair.

Ma Hopkins looks as if she has just about as much business in the spectacular sport of rodeo as a cow has on a front porch. Not much bigger than a bar of soap, she stands about fifteen hands (five feet) in her polished low-heeled oxfords. She's "prettier'n a red heifer in a bluebonnet patch." Her gray hair is naturally curly, and she wears it very short. Her diction is that of any cultivated, well-educated lady. She has much of the cowboy's wit; his phrases fit her like a pair of freshly laundered levis. He'll say of her disregard for physical pain, "Well, she's got plenty of gravel in her gizzard." When a serious illness resulted in two major operations, Ma just tightened the surgical corset she now has to wear night and day. She acknowledges her high blood pressure by breaking a cigarette in half-smoking "just as often but half as much." And she has cut down on her coffee. She never admits she feels anything but fine. "Well," as a cowboy would put it, "kickin' never gets you nowhere 'less'n you're a mule."

Her friends get a big bang out of Ma. She loves rodeos. In spite of fretting about injuries and rodeo contestants are testimonials to the surgeon's skill-Ma always has herself a time when she's at a rodeo-which is every chance she gets. "She yippees like a leather-lunged waddy," according to Stan Adler, "coyotes around like a yearling colt, and applauds like the thunder of a stampede of longhorns."

One reason she gets so excited is that she really understands the sport. She knows the split-timing, dexterity, and coordination required. She knows every rule governing each event, the fine points of every performance, the world's and the arena's record and nearly every contestant. She's usually within half a second in guessing "time" in calf-roping or team-tying events, and is probably the nation's expert on the only sport ever sired by a great American industry, that of cattle ranching.

When she attends a rodeo, she's announced as the day's Guest of Honor. Nearly every cowboy, before he leaves the arena, rides over to doff his hat to her. He'll know where to find her. She'll be right above the chutes. When she and Hop attend national conventions of the International Rodeo Association they're treated like royalty. When Ma's name is announced as speaker the standing ovation of rodeo people nearly breaks up a meeting.

One day she was sitting above the chutes at a rodeo and the late Mickey McCrorey was chute policeman. Cowboy "policemen" are put on the job to be sure no tough characters show up to start something. Mickey was big enough to handle a Marine detachment alone but this didn't keep four tough guys who didn't know him from starting a ruckus. Mickey was right deliberate-he just moved in when the four hoodlums jumped him all at once when he told 'em to git. He stuck out his fist four times. Four hoodlums lay in the dust.

Ma was looking down on the whole affair from the chutes. She was really proud as punch, but she wiped the smile off her face and leaned over to give Mickey McCrorey a real what-for. The very idea of fighting! And at the Rodeo!!

Big Mickey-who'd "fight 'till hell freezes over, and then skate with you on the ice"-loved it and Ma.

Ma is very even-tempered, but when she gets riled up it's a sight for sore eyes, and the way to rouse her Scotch-Irish temperature is to abuse an animal. Any animal. "She couldn't say 'hell' with her hands tied," a cowboy once put it, "but get mean to an animal around her and she'll raise hell and put a floor under it."

Ma's Chairman of the Board of Tucson chapter of the Humane Society. There are never less than a dozen feline refugees enjoying the hospitality of her home. Hop is as bad as she is. He once built a little runway into a tree in their backyard so a cat with an injured back could make it up into the branches with the other cats. And she puts her money where her heart is. She disapproves of single steer tying, a rodeo event outlawed in many states. Team tying isn't so hard on a steer-so Ma contributes $250 to the prize for World Champion Team Tyer. She's the only woman donor in the event.. Maybe rodeo is a "cruel-to-animals-sport," as a lot of know-nothings sometimes claim. But there's no denying that Rodeo's First Lady is the "one-animal-lovingest person in the whole wide world," as Chuck Martin describes her. There's considerable "augering" by her friends as to whether animals or rodeo cowboys have first place in her heart. Ma just says, "Well, animals can't talk about themselves, and mostly cowboys won't."

And how do the cowboys feel about her? One of them, who knows her well, was asked this question. He swallowed a couple of times, obviously felt obliged to commit himself, and said formally, "It would be impossible for me to pronounce the words that would do her justice."

Another said it all. He turned and looked off into the distance, eyes narrowed, before he replied. And then he used words spoken very rarely, for they are the cowboy's highest praise.

"Ma Hopkins," he said quietly, "will do to take along."