Dr. Jim Heird

If walks of life can be gauged by what one leaves behind, broadening the world of others ranks high. In the academic realm, the measure is what’s built for students and what they carry with them on their walks.

Dr. Jim Heird’s measurement spanned half of a century.

“Dr. Heird was a demanding professor and coach, but that’s because he’s that way with himself,” says Julie Johnson Bryant, a former American Quarter Horse Journal staffer who was one of Dr. Heird’s students and now owns boutique marketing firm Latigo Associates. “If we weren’t going to do it right, then there was really no point in doing it. At the time, Texas Tech University was consistently among the top three horse judging teams in the nation, and it had an incredible impact on my life.”

Dr. Heird earned his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees at the University of Tennessee while coaching the university’s horse judging team. He also showed his own horses, including the all-around horse in Tennessee one year.

In 1972, Dr. Heird was appointed the North Carolina State University horse extension specialist, building the state’s 4-H program to include horse shows, horse judging, speech contests and demonstration competitions.

Dr. Heird left the Tarheel State in 1976 to become an instructor at Texas Tech University while completing his doctorate at the campus in Lubbock. At the time, Tech did not have any horse-related classes, so Dr. Heird raised the money to build an equine breeding facility and instituted colt-starting and training classes, leasing horses for the program from the nearby Waggoner and Pitchfork ranches. He also started and coached Tech’s horse judging program, which annually fielded top teams at shows such as the AQHA World Championship Show.

An AQHA judge since 1977 and later chairman of the AQHA Judges Committee, Dr. Heird and Tech played host to the Association’s first judge applicant schools, while he went on to assist with the first such schools in South America and Europe.

In 1986, Dr. Heird moved to Colorado State University, where he expanded the collegiate horse program at Fort Collins. That included building new facilities, adding colt-starting and training classes, and coaching judging teams. Dr. Heird served as the associate dean of agriculture, then interim dean, and later interim dean of business at CSU, while also being elected as an AQHA director representing Colorado.

Known for raising money for collegiate facilities, Dr. Heird was in Denver representing AQHA at a 2009 conference on unwanted horses when he met Dr. Eleanor Green, dean of Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Herself successful in the show ring, Dr. Green wanted to create a joint office between A&M’s animal science and veterinary programs.

In October 2009, Dr. Heird moved to Texas A&M to not only build cooperation between the two, but to build the university’s horse program as a whole–and, eventually, to marry Dr. Green.

Dr. Heird has two children from his previous marriage to Debbie Jones (who has an extensive background in AQHA and two parents in the Hall of Fame): Bev Flores, a manager in the U. S. and Canada Ag and Turf Division of John Deere, with sons Jack, Josh and Alex; and Josh, the athletic director at the University of Louisville, who with wife Abbey has children Hadley and Gus.

As the Dr. Glenn Blodgett Equine Chair at A&M, Dr. Heird served as executive professor and coordinator of the university’s equine initiative to improve the curriculum for the equine program and develop outreach activities throughout the state, nation and world.

Dr. Heird also served as director on the advisory board for the National Collegiate Equestrian Association, which governs collegiate equestrian teams. For AQHA, he wrote a horse judging manual for 4-H and college judging teams and helped write the case book on judging working hunter and jumping classes. He was a member of the task forces that rewrote the rules for judging halter classes and established rules for Versatility Ranch Horse classes.

Dr. Heird has served AQHA as chairman on the judges, international and show committees, show council and AQHA Animal Welfare Commission. Elected to the AQHA Executive Committee in 2015, Dr. Heird became AQHA president in 2018.

“No. 1, Dr. Heird has dedicated a lifetime to promoting good horses and good horsemanship around the world,” says Wanda Waters, who with husband Louis owns L. A. Waters Quarter Horses at Utopia, Texas. “He has taught at universities and spoken to people and groups in seminars and clinics all over the world on how to improve their horses and horsemanship. No. 2, Jim has an incredible eye. He can look at horses and assess them instantly. He’d come to our ranch, and we’d drive through five or six pastures, looking at all the mares and foals, evaluating horses, and he’d tell me right then which one was the best. It’s incredible.”

It's why Dr. Heird excelled in academia.

“His coaching taught me how to align my thoughts, make logical decisions and defend my position,” Julie says. “I am fortunate to have been able to continue working with Dr. Heird on a variety of projects over the past nearly 40 years and witness the impact he has had on the horse industry.”

Going into the Hall of Fame is something you earn, says D. Wayne Lukas, American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred racehorse trainer.

“When we are considering someone for the Hall, it should be a person who has made a difference top to bottom,” D. Wayne says. “That’s Jim Heird: Has gone from showing horses to judging, from teaching horsemanship in college to the AQHA presidency. Jim has earned it, and I am proud to stand by him in the Hall of Fame.”

That's the impact of a lifetime spent broadening the world of others.

Dr. Jim Heird was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2024. 

Biography updated as of July 2024.