Jimmie Gibbs-Munroe knows her way around a horse, a rope, a barrel and even a goat.
An SHSU graduate with a bachelor’s degree in education, the multi-champion cowgirl conducts horsemanship and barrel racing clinics worldwide, including Australia, Brazil and Canada, as well as the United States.
A champion in junior and high school rodeo before coming to SHSU, Munroe was a member of the university’s 1974 national championship rodeo team, participating in barrel racing, goat tying and breakaway roping and earning three individual national titles for barrel racing and “all-around” in two years.
After college, her career carried over into professional rodeos, where she earned additional accolades.
She competed in 11 different National Finals Rodeos with three different horses and in 1984, won the most money for the year out of all of the contestants. Munroe also holds five world titles within the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association, in barrel racing and as tie-down roper and all-around champion.
As president of the WPRA, from 1978-1993, she led the association in acquiring equal prize money to the men and worked to obtain national sponsors, the mandatory use of electric timers and better arena conditions.
In 1990, she was named the Coca-Cola “Woman of the Year in Professional Rodeo,” was awarded the Tad Lucas Award by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1996 and was inducted into two halls of fame: the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1997.
More recently, Munroe was inducted into the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame (in 2003) and this year was awarded the Lane Frost Award.
She has served on the executive board of the National Cowgirl Museum since 1974.
She and her husband, Dan “Bud” Munroe, have one daughter, Tassie Oline Munroe.