INDUCTED into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame at last week's grand opening of its new facility was Texas-born and Arizona ranch-raised Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, the first woman named to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice O’Conner Is The Newest
Member Of Cowgirl Hall Of Fame

FORT WORTH — The first female U.S. Supreme Court justice is a cowgirl, and that cowgirl, Sandra Day O’Conner, is the newest member to be inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. Justice O’Conner was on hand this past Friday to cut the ribbon marking the opening of the museum.

"I’m thrilled that they’ll have me as one of them," O’Conner told the crowd gathered outside the museum. "It’s an honor to be the first woman on the Supreme Court, but it will be even better when we get the second cowgirl on the Supreme Court."

Addressing Justice O’Conner with a special welcome, Governor Rick Perry said, "We’re proud to call you a native Texan, being born in El Paso. It’s a great pride to be able to have young women come here to this museum and point to you as the first woman to ever be appointed to the United States Supreme Court."

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison acknowledged those who dedicated the last several years of their lives to getting the new museum up and running.

"It was through grit and determination, the traits of the cowgirl, that made this a reality.
"That same cowgirl grit and determination," Hutchison continued, "is very much a part of Justice O’Conner. To be in such a lofty position, she’s one of the most down to earth people I’ve ever met.

"Sandra Day O’Conner’s new book, Lazy B, put cowgirls back in the limelight, proving that learning to rope and ride is good training for Washington DC."

Born in El Paso, O’Conner grew up on the Gila River on the border of Arizona and New Mexico. She learned to shoot and ride as a young girl. When she was six, she traveled alone by rail so she could live with her grandmother and attend school in El Paso.

At 16 she entered Stamford and then attended law school there. In 1952 she married John O’Conner. They have three sons.

O’Conner served as Arizona Assistant Attorney General. She was later appointed to a vacancy in the Arizona Senate, was elected Superior Court Judge and appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. In 1981, President Reagan nominated her as the first female member of the United States Supreme Court.

Prior to cutting the ribbon, O’Conner offered some brief remarks.

The gateway to the West, she reminded listeners, was opened by a woman – Sacajawea, a Shoshoni Indian, who with her baby on her back guided Lewis and Clark from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean in 1806.

Finding more opportunity out West than back East, women continued to come to the West through the 1800s, O’Conner said. Most worked in traditional occupations like teaching and cooking and housekeeping, but many became shopkeepers, lawyers, photographers, doctors and journalists.

The justice noted that the first state to give women the right to vote was in the West — Wyoming.

"My own home state of Arizona had some remarkable women," O’Conner said. "One early pioneer woman was a bull whacker, Arizona Mary. She came west with her team of oxen and hauled freight.

"Arizona even had its women outlaws. Pearl Hart was one. She held up the stage in Globe, Arizona in 1899 and netted $431 as the last stagecoach bandit in the West."

O’Conner’s own family had its share of strong and self-reliant women, she said. Her grandmother, Mamie Scott Wilkey, grew up in Chihuahua where her father ran a freight service from El Paso to the mines in the Sierra Madres. She spoke Spanish better than English, O’Conner said of her grandmother.

"When her family moved across the mountains to the Sonora side she rode ahead of the wagon train and was the first to reach the crest of those remarkable mountains and see the other side.

"She married when she was 16, and she and her husband later operated a small general store in Duncan, Arizona, and a couple of ranches, one east of El Paso. She kept the books, worked long hours at the store and tended her family and house nearby."

O’Conner’s own mother lived on the Lazy B with her husband before there was electricity and running water.

"We had a family of skunks living under the porch and a bobcat as the family pet.

"As a child, I grew up hoping to be a cattle rancher one day. I rode on roundups and helped do all the things that one does on a ranch. It was indeed my first experience with all-male colleagues," O’Conner said. "My career in time took a different turn, becoming the first cowgirl to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, and I now find myself riding herd on lower court judges.

"At heart I will always be a cowgirl, and I thank you from the bottom of that heart," she concluded.