(1901-2003)

Year Inducted: 1997

Home State: TX

The Depression ruined Connie's plans to practice law. Instead, in 1936, she joined the staff at Waldemar as head riding instructor and continued in that capacity for over sixty years. She touched the lives of thousands of young women as a role model and a mentor. Connie married in 1942 and with her husband managed a 10,000+ acre ranch for more than forty years. She celebrated her 100th birthday in September 2001.

Connie Douglas Reeves (September 26, 1901- August 16, 2003) was the oldest member of the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, a legendary cowgirl, and the first woman to graduate from a law school in Texas.

Although she earned a law degree, Reeves was unable to find work as a female lawyer during the Great Depression. Instead, she opened a riding stable for girls near San Antonio, Texas in the 1930s. She had always been around horses, and was quoted as saying that she sat on a horse before she could sit up by herself. It is estimated that she taught 30,000 girls how to ride through her work as a riding instructor at Camp Waldemar.

She was elected to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1997, and rode in the parade to honor the Hall when it moved to new headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas in 2002. She was over 100 years old at the time.

Reeves died from injuries suffered when she fell from her horse. She had always said that she preferred to die in just that manner. She had been injured several times in the last few years of her life, including having been kicked by the same horse, resulting in a fractured thigh, in 1987.

Her motto was, "Always saddle your own horse."