1931 - 2015
By Roy Pettit
Special To Ropers Sports News
NEWMAN, CALIF. – The world of barrel racing has lost another of its legacy members. Carol Jane Pettit passed away the morning of July 17, 2015, at home surrounded by family members.
Carol was born Aug. 29, 1931, in Hollywood, Calif. Her adoptive parents operated a Gilmore gas station. She met her husband Wesley Olin Pettit while he was calf roping at the Los Angeles Coliseum. About 1960 they moved to central California.
Carol competed as a member of the California Open Barrel Racing Association (COBRA) throughout the 60’s and 70’s. She and Wes briefly raced a Rocket Bar stallion named Luna Rocket. Luna was soon retired from the racetrack and pressed into service as a barrel horse. Carol thought of Luna as more of a family pet than livestock. One stormy winter evening when lightning struck nearby, she half-jokingly said she was going to bring Luna into the house.
At a barrel race, Carol was sitting on Luna talking strategies with other barrel racers who were standing nearby, one of whom was eating a cob of corn on a stick. Luna like corn on the cob, and Carol could tell Luna was testing the distance between the ear of savory corn and his mouth. Carol allowed the inevitable to happen and through everyone’s laughter offered to buy the surprised barrel racer another cob of corn.
Being somewhat adventurous and pioneering, she team roped with Wes for awhile, but barrel racing was her passion. In the 80’s she quit her job and spent a summer driving around Alaska. Carol most recently competed in the 4D barrel races.
Carol’s other talents included sewing and knitting. She made their jockeys colorful silks, as well as many of the flashy lamé outfits the other barrel racers wore during the 60’s and 70’s. She manufactured lacy straw hats in the 70’s, again outfitting many of the other barrel racers – all of this while raising four sons. Two sons, Alan and Mike, and two grandchildren, Carson and Hailee, are carrying on the Pettit rodeo tradition.
Carol was a self-sacrificing mother, always putting her family before herself. Christmas and Easter were epic events at the Pettit house. She was a great cook and we always looked forward to her rolling out a pie crust or making enchiladas. Carol was part pioneer woman and part queen. She could jump-start a pickup truck and taught her children good manners and how to color coordinate their clothes and helped them with their homework.
Ecclesiastes 3:2 says there is a time to be born and a time to die. I used to hate that verse because it is not very comforting. But it is true. We had our mother well into our adult lives. We were blessed with more time than many people get with their loves ones. She was the most loving and the toughest person I know, and she proved the doctors wrong more than once. I speak for our entire family when I say while we will miss her every day, we will always be grateful and appreciate all she did for us.
Carol was preceded in death by her husband, Wesley Olin Pettit.