BAKER, ARMEL KEERAN KOONTZ (1901-1967). Armel Baker, cattle raiser and breeder, the daughter of Texas cattleman Claude A. Keeran, was born in San Antonio on November 15, 1901. As a child she developed an interest in Brahman cattle on her father's ranch, and after graduating from college she moved back to the ranch and spent her life raising Brahmans. She was widely known as a Brahman breeder and was an outspoken advocate of the hump-backed cattle. She was the first woman in the United States to raise Brahmans and the second woman to sit on a board of a major cattle association. She developed the largest herd of Brahman cattle in the United States at that time and followed her ranch's tradition of never selling females. She was married to Henry Clay Koontz II of the Koontz Ranch ^qv on January 21, 1928. The couple had four children and were divorced after eleven years of marriage. She later married Hugh Baker. She died of a stroke and complications of diabetes on November 19, 1967, in Victoria.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Thomas S. Chamblin, ed., The Historical Encyclopedia of Texas (2 vols., Dallas: Texas Historical Institute, 1982).

Thomas W. Cutrer