2024 Recipient: Reba McEntire

The Pam Minick Lifetime Achievement Award was formed in 2023 recognizing female leaders who, during their lifetimes, have made outstanding contributions to Western sports, supported and elevated cowgirls, and made a significant and lasting impact on the industry. After the award’s namesake, Minick, was the inaugural recipient in 2023, McEntire is now the second woman to receive the honor.

“Growing up as the daughter of a World Champion steer wrestler, loving the rodeo industry, Reba McEntire became an entertainment icon from the work ethic and traditions she learned from her western heritage,” said Linsay Rosser Sumpter, Commissioner of the Women’s Rodeo World Championship. “We are honored to celebrate Reba and her passion for the Western industry. She’s the perfect representative for cowgirls and encourages them to strive to compete on a larger scale.  With the popularity of the Western lifestyle, Reba has shown our industry what it means to have the heart of a champion cowgirl and gives all cowgirls permission to have the same try in any aspect of life.”

McEntire grew up immersed in the Western lifestyle, traveling alongside her father Clark McEntire, a three-time PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) world champion steer wrestler, who has since been inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1988.

McEntire was a barrel racer during her youth, earning two buckles, rodeo helped launch her now legendary performing career. In 1974, McEntire was selected to sing the National Anthem during the National Finals Rodeo. During that performance she was discovered by recording artist Red Steagall who was so moved by her performance that he helped McEntire land her first recording contract. Five decades later, McEntire has now brought the Western lifestyle and country music to some of the world’s biggest stages, mounting a career that spans music, television, film, theater, retail and hospitality.

In January 2024, nearly 50 years after she was discovered, McEntire again performed the National Anthem, this time at Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas. McEntire prominently wore her father’s 1957 steer wrestling championship belt buckle, which helped spur renewed interest in the sport of rodeo.

McEntire accepted the 2024 Pam Minick Lifetime Achievement Award in April in Oklahoma City at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and was again recognized during the Women’s Rodeo World Championship Gala on May 12 in Fort Worth, Texas.