Robert “Bob” Hooper grew up riding some of the finest horses on the Caprock in the Texas Panhandle. His natural country boy charm and experience as a car salesman were valuable assets to AQHA.
Hooper’s father, John C., settled in West Texas in 1896, and instilled a love of good horses in his son. After graduating from Texas A&M University, Hooper joined his father’s car business and began raising horses.
The quality of horses bred and raised on the Hooper place garnered the salesman an invitation to the 1940 AQHA organizational meeting in Fort Worth, Texas. A blizzard kept Hooper at home in Plainview, but it did not stop him from getting involved with the fledgling group.
His first steps were to buy AQHA stock. Hooper also volunteered to serve as a non-salaried AQHA inspector, work that often took him far from home.
In 1946, Hooper became an AQHA Director and assumed the office of second vice president. Three years later, he was elected president and kept the position for four years. His biggest accomplishment was the merger between AQHA and two other associations.
The American Quarter Racing and the National Quarter Horse Breeders associations had formed in 1945. By the time Albert K. Mitchell stepped down in 1949, the channels of communication had opened between the three organizations. Under Hooper’s rein, AQRA and NQHBA merged with AQHA.
Hooper stepped down from the presidency in 1953. He served as a member of the studbook and registration committee from 1954 through 1965.
Hooper died in 1972, and was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 1993.
Biography updated as of March 1993.