Although she was only the second woman to graduate from the University of Texas School of Law, Reeves instead went into teaching. In 1936, she joined the staff of Camp Waldemar, a summer camp near San Antonio, where she taught horseback riding and a lot more to more than 30,000 girls.
Her lessons were summarized in her often-repeated phrase, “Always saddle your own horse,” by which she meant girls need to be self-sufficient and take responsibility for themselves. “All of her life lessons were so subtle,” said Camp Waldemar’s director, Meg Clark. “She knew to say the right thing to get you to see the bigger picture.”
Reeves, the oldest living member of the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, was about to go riding on her favorite horse, Dr. Pepper, when she fell off and broke her neck. She and her friends expected her to survive — “Connie’s been bucked off every year of her life and always got back on,” Clark says — but after 12 days in the hospital Reeves had a heart attack. She died August 17 at age 101.