>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Jumping through a loop while atop her horse is just one the difficult and hazardous rope tricks Pat Kilts performed.

She would also do a shoulder stand, balancing upside down between two running horses with her feet pointed in the air.

Pat Kilts of rural Joseph was a trick roper and trick rider for 26 years. She appeared in shows from Mexico to Canada and California to New York.

In 1991 Pat was named a “Pewter Member of the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame Society.’’

In 1995 she was nominated to the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

There wasn’t always a Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. First there was the “Turtles” — so named “because it took so long to get the association going. It was several years,” Pat said.

Pat joined at age 18.

The Turtles then became the Professional Cowboys Association and then later the PRCA, she said.

Pat was born 80 years ago in Reading, Kan., “raised in Colorado when a tiny kid.” She started doing trick roping and riding at age 6, she said.

Pat grew up on a farm outside Pueblo, Colo., where her family trained horses and sold them. Her father trained horses for the cavalry, said Pat’s daughter, Debbie Bobbitt of rural Joseph.

By the time Pat was 8, her father was taking her all over performing, she said.

In 1938, she and her sister Bertha, six years her junior, started rodeoing.

Bertha didn’t like her name and somewhere along the line became “Bug.” Bug passed away more than 20 years ago.

Bug and Pat’s first appearance as a trick riding and roping team was in a contest in La Junta, Colo. The two little girls won the contest.

At ages 10 and 4 they went professional, making heir debut at Evanston, Wyo.

After that they performed in such places as the Boston Garden, and eventually in 36 states.

By the time Pat was 24 they performed in Madison Square Garden with Gene Autry.

Pat and Bug appeared in many of the nation’s most celebrated rodeos, among them the Houston Fat Stock Show, and rodeos at San Antonio, Fort Worth and San Angelo, Texas; Burwell, Neb.; Salinas and San Francisco, Calif.; Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah; Butte and Bozeman, Mont.; Ely, Nev.; and Puyallup, Wash.

Pat has appeared in Life magazine and was featured in Western Horseman magazine twice.

She appeared on television in its early color days. She has a 1953 CBS-TV contract where she was paid $250 to appear on “Eye Opener.’’

Pat’s fame was the result of her difficult and hazardous tricks.

Probably the most spectacular trick was the Stroud Layout. No other woman had performed it before her.

She learned after simply seeing a drawing of it on Leonard Stroud’s letterhead.

It was Stroud who invented the stunt. He was a famous old-time trick rider who won many national championships.

On the Sept 5, 1940, letterhead of Leonard Stroud Rodeo and Specialty Acts is a letter offering Mr. Torrance $50 to bring “the kids” to perform at Hugo. Colo.

The trick shown on the letterhead consisted of the rider hanging over the side of a running horse.

The rider catches one foot in a strap at the saddle horn, pushes against the horse’s side with the other and stands erect, head perpendicular to the horse and body parallel to the ground, and simultaneously spinning a loop over the rider’s head.

Most of Pat’s tricks were learned by such observation of pictures in periodicals and watching tricks at rodeos.

She also invented her own tricks. In one she and Bug would throw the rope back and forth to one another.

Some of the other tricks Pat performed included double vaulting over the saddle of a running horse, touching both feet on the ground on each side.

In the tail drag, she fell backward off the horse with her feet in straps, she said.

In the split-neck trick she left the saddle while the horse is running, bounced off the ground, reversed the body with her legs splitting the horse’s neck. Then that was reversed to return to the saddle in the normal riding position, she said.

Another tough trick was to go under the neck of a running horse, she said. If the rider gets too low, it can trip a horse.

After 26 years of trick riding, Pat quit to get married and raise a family. She taught all three of her children trick roping and riding, and they performed as a group.

She started each child trick roping at age 3, she said. She taught them two basic flat spins. The first was the flat loop, which is a loop spun parallel to the ground in front of the body.

Then they learned the wedding ring, spun around the body. The more difficult tricks came after these basics.

The secret of twirling a rope is the wrist action, she said. Also, the rope must rotate freely in the fingers. Holding the rope too firmly causes it to twist.

Her children are Debbie, 49, whom with husband Carl operates Bobbitt Machine shop in Enterprise; Jimmy, 50, an Alaskan Airline pilot in Seattle; and Cookie Fessler, 52, of Anchorage, a heavy machinery equipment operator.

 As a single mother of three Pat went on to graduate from Colorado State University with a double major in physical education and science.

“She never complains. She’s a dynamic human being in her current circumstances,” Kate Ladinig, a neighbor, said.

It just goes to show that you can’t keep a good woman down.