Florence LaDue

Florence "Flores" LaDue (June 27, 1883 - August 9, 1951) was a vaudeville performer and champion trick roper. Together with her husband, cowboy Guy Weadick, she organized and produced the first Calgary Stampede. LaDue is credited as the inventor of the rope trick known as the "Texas Skip."

Biography Born Grace Maud Bensel in Montevideo, Minnesota, her mother died while she was an infant and her father, C.D. Bensel, was a criminal lawyer and later a judge. She spent most of her young life on a Sioux reservation where her grandfather was the government agent.

Bensel left home, by some accounts running away to join a wild west show. They had a stint on Broadway in ‘Wyoming Days’ In September of the same year, LaDue defeated Muhall in competition, becoming the women's champion in fancy and trickroping, a title she maintained until her retirement in 1927.

LaDue is profiled in a children's book called Howdy, I'm Flores LaDue by Ayesha Clough, with illustrations by Hugh Rookwood and Keegan Starlight, published in 2022 by Red Barn Books.

With the Completion of the BMO Centre expansion on June 5, 2024. The Calgary Stampede announced plans to name the 17th Avenue extension into the park as "Flores LaDue Parade". This was done in recognition of her efforts during the early days of the Calgary Stampede alongside her husband Guy Weadick.