In 2011, the Texas House passed a resolution in celebration of Isora DeRacy Young’s 106th birthday, as well as her accomplishments in and out of the rodeo arena.
Born on her family’s ranch near Pecos, the rodeo there was blessed to host the only two women calf ropers in history at the time in her and fellow female roper Jewel Frost Duncan.
In her motherhood years, Young worked for “the Reeves County sheriff’s department, collecting taxes with a pearl-handled revolver at her side,” the state resolution reads. But, with her daughter grown, she again returned to rodeo and traveled the country with her husband, I. W. “Dub” Young, roping and running barrels.
IN 1979, Young was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.
In 2023, the WPRA celebrated the 75th anniversary of its first Girls Rodeo Association meeting, held Feb. 28, 1948, where Young was among the 38 ranch women who arrived in San Angelo to give rodeo’s better half an official place in the arena.
Women in Rodeo Month coverage is brought to you all September long with support from Mane n’ Tail, R. Watson Boots and Resistol.
