Cowgirl Hall of Fame inducts Maui pioneer

Rodeo competitor Rose Cambra Freitas is the first Hawaii woman so honored

Maui rodeo competitor Rose Cambra Freitas today became the first Hawaii woman inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Texas, where other honorees include Annie Oakley, Dale Evans, and Sacagawea.

"I'm deeply grateful and honored," Freitas said. "It's been a dream come true."

About 800 people attended the event at Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Hall of Fame is the only museum in the world dedicated to honoring women of the American West who have displayed extraordinary courage and pioneering spirit.

Besides Freitas, four other women were added to the hall of fame during the 31st annual induction luncheon.

Freitas, 74, who still participates in rodeos, worked with her daughter Sharon to start the "Maui All-Girls and Junior Boys and Girls Rodeo" in 1974.

One of the young competitors was Myron Duarte, who became a professional bull rider and is ranked among the elite in the Professional Bull Riders Inc. circuit.

Freitas said she enjoys working with young people and participating in the rodeo because it teaches them discipline and sportsmanship.

Museum spokesman Danny Latham Jr. said Freitas personifies the Western spirit.

"She's such a prominent icon there on the island of Maui," Latham said. "We're thrilled to have someone inducted from Hawaii."

Freitas and her 81-year-old husband, Raymond, operated a ranch for more than 40 years. She's received rodeo honors, becoming a six-time world qualifier on Maui for the Hawaii National Barrel Horse Association.

Freitas' family members have been equestrians on Maui for generations, including her Portuguese immigrant great-grandfather, Jose Francisco De Cambra, who worked at a sugar plantation in East Maui.

Her other grandfather, Joseph De Cambra, worked for a ranch, and her father, Louis, rode a horse as a plantation supervisor for Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co.

While growing up with 11 brothers and sisters on a sugar plantation, she would cut grass in the fields and pick kiawe beans to sell for cattle feed and help her mother make clothing from empty bags of cotton. She still sews her own costumes for the annual Fourth of July parade in Makawao Town.

Freitas is heading to Augusta, Ga., to compete in the National Barrel Horse Association world championships starting Monday.

The four others honored by the museum are the late Esther Hobart Morris, who successfully fought for women's right to vote in the Wyoming Territory in 1869; Minnie Lou Bradley, who helped pave the way for girls to work in the field of livestock breeding; Sharon Camarillo, a national finals rodeo competitor, teacher and author on horsemanship; and the late Bonnie McCarroll, a champion bronc rider.

"All five of these women set themselves apart from the crowd and distinguished themselves as true pioneers," said Patricia Riley, executive director of the museum and hall of fame.