E Bay Women's Club learns about bullfighting
Special to the Banner

Emerald Bay Women"s Club speaker Patricia McCormick tells the group about her days as a professional Matadora.

On Jan. 9, Bonny Edmonds treated The Emerald Bay Women's Club to a jewelry show before the gathering.

During the meeting she presented the program "The Red Cape" the story of the United States' first female bullfighter.

Born in 1930, in Arkansas City, Kan., Patricia McCormick saw her first bullfight as a child of seven in Mexico City and knew it was what she wanted to do when she grew up.

Her family moved to Big Spring, where she attended school and graduated from high school, then went on to college at the University of Texas at Austin.

The art student convinced her parents to let her transfer to El Paso Western College where she also could pursue her passion for the sport.

After years of professional training, McCormick made her debut in 1951 and in 1952 became a professional Matadora.

During her decade-long career of 300 fights, the slim blond girl from Texas was gored six times, once serious enough for her to be given the last rites.

"Life is as sweet to the bull fighter as to anyone else . perhaps even sweeter," program presenter Edmonds quoted her as saying.

Edmonds added the retired 77-year-old Matadora now lives in Del Rio, where she devotes much of her time to her artwork and occasionally lectures on the art of bullfighting.