SURFACING

For These Black Women in Texas, Rodeo Is a Way of Life
Raising children, keeping a job and riding horses for a cheering crowd — life on the all-black professional rodeo circuit.

By Walter Thompson-Hernández

Azja Bryant is a pharmacy technician. Jazmine Bennett works for UPS. Krishaun Adair works for state of Texas as an agriculture inspector. But they also call themselves cowgirls.

They first met competing against one another in a rodeo in Houston more than a decade ago. The friends have competed throughout the South and traveled as far west as Oakland and Los Angeles to ride.

Last month, the three prepared for the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo in Atlanta, the largest black professional rodeo in the United States. Competitors win cash prizes and, of course, the bragging rights.

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