Bazy Tankersley

Ruth Elizabeth "Bazy" Tankersley (, formerly Miller; March 7, 1921 – February 5, 2013) was an American breeder of Arabian horses and a newspaper publisher. She was a daughter of U.S. Senator Joseph Medill McCormick. Her mother was progressive Republican U.S. Representative Ruth Hanna McCormick, making Tankersley a granddaughter of Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio. Although Tankersley was involved with conservative Republican causes as a young woman, including a friendship with Senator Joseph McCarthy, her progressive roots reemerged in later years. By the 21st century, she had become a strong supporter of environmental causes and backed Barack Obama for president in 2008.

Tankersley's father died when she was a child. When her mother remarried, the family moved to the southwestern United States, where Tankersley spent considerable time riding horses. She became particularly enamored of the Arabian breed after she was given a part-Arabian to ride. At the age of 18, she began working as a reporter for a newspaper published by her mother. She later ran a newspaper in Illinois with her first husband, Peter Miller. In 1949, she became the publisher of the conservative Washington Times-Herald. That paper was owned by her uncle, the childless Robert McCormick, who viewed Tankersley as his heir until the two had a falling-out over editorial control of the newspaper and her relationship with Garvin Tankersley, who became her second husband. After The Washington Post absorbed the Times-Herald, she shifted to full-time horse breeding.

Tankersley purchased her first purebred Arabian when she was 19 and began her horse breeding operation, Al-Marah Arabians in Tucson, Arizona, in 1941. As she moved across the U.S. for her newspaper career, her horses and farm name went with her. She purchased her program's foundation sire, Indraff, in 1947, while living in Illinois. Upon her move to Washington, DC, her Al-Marah operation relocated to Montgomery County, Maryland, where by 1957 it was the largest Arabian farm in the United States. Tankersley returned to Tucson in the 1970s, where in addition to horse breeding, she created an apprenticeship program at Al-Marah to train young people for jobs in the horse industry. She set up a second horse operation, the Hat Ranch, near Flagstaff, Arizona. Over her career, she bred over 2,800 registered Arabians and was one of the largest importers of horses from the Crabbet Arabian Stud in England.

Tankersley was a patron of many charities. Upon her death from Parkinson's disease in 2013, she bequeathed her Tucson ranch to the University of Arizona and placed the Hat Ranch in a conservation trust. In her final years, she downsized her breeding operation to about 150 horses. Most remaining stock went to her son, Mark Miller, who moved the Al-Marah Arabian farm name and horse operation to his home base near Clermont, Florida.

Background and personal life

Tankersley was described as having "inherited a love of politics and horses, not necessarily in that order." She was born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 7, 1921. living initially at a ranch owned by Simms in Albuquerque, New Mexico, then moving in 1937 to the Trinchera Ranch, a property in Colorado that her mother had purchased.

The couple moved back to Illinois prior to relocating to Washington, DC. Garvin Tankersley had started his news career as a photographer, and he was the managing editor when he left the paper in 1952.

Bazy (then Miller) was publisher of the newspaper for only 19 months. By April 1951, McCormick and his niece developed differences of opinions over both the newspaper and her relationship with Garvin Tankersley. She later said, "I understood when I went to the Times-Herald I was to have full control. That control was not given me ... There is some difference in our political beliefs. I have broader Republican views than [McCormick] has. I am for the same people as the colonel, but I am for some more people." McCormick also told her to decide between Garvin Tankersley and the Tribune Company. As a result, she resigned from the Times-Herald. By the time she left Illinois in 1949, Tankersley owned 45 Arabians. The farm later moved to Barnesville, Maryland. Al-Marah was not only a horse breeding facility; the Tankersleys also hosted a number of political and social events. She later added another Rissalix son from Hanstead, *Ranix. She used her knowledge of genetics to institute a program of selectively inbreeding horses of bloodlines she considered of excellent quality. followed by a *Silver Vanity descendant, SDA Silver Legend, in 2001. Tankersley, though identified as a Republican, displayed a photo of FDR at the ranch. The ranch also hosted the Straw Bale Forums where politicians, conservation leaders and academics could meet and discuss major issues.

Apprenticeship program In 1973, Tankersley created an apprenticeship program to train people both for work as employees at her ranch and for positions elsewhere in the horse industry. It grew into an intensive two-year course that covered all aspects of the horse industry,