Longtime Rodeo Contributor Brenda Binion Michael Passes Away
A well-known figure in the rodeo community, Brenda Binion Michael of Amarillo Texas, died July 27. She was 81.
In 2015, she was recognized with rodeo’s Ken Stemler Pioneer Award “for her commitment to the ProRodeo Hall of Fame with her continued support of the Benny Binion World Famous Bucking Horse and Bull Sale, which benefits the Hall of Fame and youth educational scholarships.”
Rosary/vigil will be said at 6 p.m. (CT), Monday, Aug. 1, at Schooler Funeral Home in Amarillo. Funeral mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m., Aug. 2, at St. Ann’s Catholic Church, 605 38th St., Canyon. Interment will follow in Dreamland Cemetery in Canyon.
Brenda was the third of five children born to Benny and Teddy Jane Binion. Benny is considered the driving force behind moving the Wrangler National Finals to Las Vegas in 1985.
Horses and rodeo were her lifelong passions, a trait she shared with her father. She befriended a whole cross-section of the rodeo, cutting and ranching community, as well as many in her adopted hometown of Amarillo. She generously shared her time, connections, and resources with innumerable rodeo hands, past and present. And her barn in Amarillo was always available to contestants traveling through with horses.
Born in Dallas and raised in Las Vegas, she spent many summers at the Binion ranch in Jordan, Mont., where she eventually lived full-time. Michael attended Texas Christian University in Fort Worth to be near the heart of the cutting horse industry. She helped her family full-time in Montana before buying a ranch near Santa Rosa, N.M. She moved to Amarillo in 1969 and continued her ranching interests.
When she was 17, her father assigned her the job of registering all the eligible horses on his Montana Ranch with the American Quarter Horse Association. The job was more challenging than it might sound. “Daddy always ran at least 200 mares, so we had 10 to 15 stallions all the time,” she told John L. Moore for an article in America’s Horse magazine.
The Binion ranch stretched over 95,000 deeded acres in the badlands of eastern Montana, plus hundreds of thousands of lease land at different times. The mare bands ran in pastures bigger than most people’s entire ranch. They were untouched until they came in with their foals each year to be sorted while Brenda tried to read mares’ ID brands and draw markings. It remained her responsibility until after Benny’s death in 1989, well after she’d established a respected breeding program of her own in Texas.
At the 2020 American Quarter Horse Association convention, she received an 80-year Breeders Certificate for her father’s and her affiliation since the association began.
Brenda was selected Tri-State Fair Cowgirl of the Year in 1998. Also in 1998, she acquired the Lighthouse Ranch on the rim of the Palo Duro Canyon State Park.
A long-time member of the fair board, she was on the fundraising committee for the Amarillo National Center which opened in 2000. A boon to the local economy, it’s been the site of the fair’s PRCA rodeo and many horse competitions and other events.
Brenda was preceded in death by her husband Bert France; her parents; her sister Barbara and Barbara’s son Key Fechser, and her brother Ted Binion.
Brenda is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Mindy, and Clint Johnson; grandson Ben Johnson, his wife, Kaitlin, and their children Porter, Emery, Hudson, and Henley, all of Canyon; granddaughter Janie Johnson and fiancé Jake Finlay of Weatherford, Texas; her sister Becky Behnen and brother Jack Binion, both of Las Vegas.
The family suggests memorials be made to the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame or the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund. Shared memories and messages submitted to the Schooler Funeral Home website are appreciated (www.schoolerfuneralhome.com).
Courtesy of PRCA