Work of Michael Bales
Here you’ll find samples of my longer-form writing, most of it for clients. Some are among 45 stories I wrote for a book, Pendleton Round-Up at 100: Oregon’s Legendary Rodeo, published in July 2009 by Graphic Arts Press. Others represent work done for The Oregonian, Portland’s daily newspaper. The book project required extensive research of historical records. In some cases, the research enabled me to create compelling narratives of events for which there are no living witnesses.
Most of the newspaper stories I found on my own and then pitched successfully to The Oregonian. Freelanced stories usually don’t get prominent display in the newspaper. But on three successive days in 2008, my work was on the front page, the front of the Metro section, and the cover of the inPortland section. I’m told this had never happened, at least in recent memory.
I’ve also included prize-winning work I produced in the graduate writing program at Portland State University. You can learn more about my skills and background here. Please contact me for more information.
From Pendleton Round-Up at 100: Oregon’s Legendary Rodeo
It was a battle of the sexes that never came to pass. Not that Mabel Strickland and other cowgirls didn’t try in 1924. Emboldened by their skills and growing popularity among rodeo fans from Pendleton to New York to London, they wanted to compete directly with the cowboys.
Who could blame them? The prize money was richer and the trophies larger. Riding bucking broncos and wrestling steers to the ground, the women faced the same dangers as men. The prowess and daring of Strickland, Fox Hastings, Lorena Trickey, Prairie Rose Henderson, and others were evident. A month before the Round-Up that year, Strickland had the second best time in steer roping among cowboys and cowgirls at the Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Two years earlier at the Round-Up, she had roped and tied down a steer in eighteen seconds, close to the men’s world record.
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